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Background and aim: Home rehabilitation is an increasing service in many countries due to the aging population. The body of knowledge in home rehabilitation is growing but results are inconsistent, and there is still lack of knowledge from user perspectives to guide practice and home rehabilitation programs. The purpose of this study was to explore valuable aspects of home rehabilitation experienc

The northern hemisphere has experienced regional cooling, especially during the global warming hiatus (1998-2012) due to ocean energy redistribution. However, the lack of studies about the natural cooling effects hampers our understanding of vegetation responses to climate change. Using 15,125 ground phenological time series at 3,620 sites since the 1950s and 31-year satellite greenness observatio

Aim: Earth observation-based estimates of land–atmosphere exchange of carbon are essential for understanding the response of the terrestrial biosphere to climatic change and other anthropogenic forcing. Temperature, soil water content and gross primary production are the main drivers of ecosystem respiration (Reco), and the main aims of this study are to develop an Reco model driven by long-term g

This thesis unfolds a journey into the realm of cloud integrated systems. More specifically, it explores the transformational role of diverse cloud infrastructure, be it public or private, centralized or edge-based, when integrated into traditional systems. In this transformation, the cloud assumes the vital role of controllers. Inevitably, this shift towards cloud integration also brings into pla

Municipal solid waste is one of the major environmental problems in Jordan. The World Bank visibility study (2004) showed that the rate of production of solid waste in Jordan was estimated annually of about 1.46 million ton, and is expected to reach 2.5 million ton by the year 2015 with a generation of 0.9/kg/capita/day. This solid waste volume is still increasing at high rates due to the rapid in

Background and aims: Plant diversity – ecosystem processes relationships are essential to our understanding of ecosystem functioning. We aimed at disentangling the nature of such relationships in a mesotrophic grassland that was highly heterogeneous with regards to nutrient availability. Methods: Rather than targeting primary productivity, like most existing reports do, we focused our study on bel

Speciation is the process that generates biodiversity, but recent empirical findings show that it can also fail, leading to the collapse of two incipient species into one. Here, we elucidate the mechanisms behind speciation collapse using a stochastic individual-based model with explicit genetics. We investigate the impact of two types of environmental disturbance: deteriorated visual conditions,

Background: Long waiting times have been a significant problem in theSwedish health care system. A lack of matching of pathways of care has ledto long waiting times for patients, increasing medical risk and contributingtowards less effective capacity utilisation. There are different pathways into theelective healthcare system in Sweden, some via referral from a physician andothers via referral wri

The energy justice framework serves as an important decision-making tool in order to understand how different principles of justice can inform energy systems and policies. The realization of the urgency of providing modern energy technology and services particularly to rural areas has prompted both the Nepalese government and development institutions to focus on community-run renewable energy faci

Tropical savannas and grasslands are estimated to contribute significantly to the total primary production of all terrestrial vegetation. Large parts of African savannas and grasslands are used for agriculture and cattle grazing, but the carbon flux data available from these areas are limited. This study explores carbon dioxide fluxes measured with the eddy covariance method for 3 years at a graze

Soils harbour some of the most diverse microbiomes on Earth and are essential for both nutrient cycling and carbon storage. To understand soil functioning, it is necessary to model the global distribution patterns and functional gene repertoires of soil microorganisms, as well as the biotic and environmental associations between the diversity and structure of both bacterial and fungal soil communi

Web-based public participatory GIS (PPGIS) has been used by governmental organizations to facilitate people's contribution to decision-making processes. However, these applications do not provide an open and transparent environment for public participation. This study suggests that PPGISs should be developed as decentralized applications (DApp) based on Ethereum blockchain technology to have a ful

We determine the annual timing of spring recovery from spaceborne microwave radiometer observations across northern hemisphere boreal evergreen forests for 1979–2014. We find a trend of advanced spring recovery of carbon uptake for this period, with a total average shift of 8.1 d (2.3 d/decade). We use this trend to estimate the corresponding changes in gross primary production (GPP) by applying i

Svensk sammanfattningKraftiga förluster av pollinerare är oroande och det har talats om risken för att en pollineringskris ska uppstå, med konsekvenser för både människor och miljö. De flesta blommande växter och tre av fyra odlade grödor är nämligen insektspollinerade (Box 1). Minskningarna hänger ihop med det moderna jordbrukets utveckling. Många gamla hagmarker och ängsmarker där bin och fjärilAgricultural intensification and associated loss of semi-natural grasslands, has resulted in reduced landscape heterogeneity. A concomitant loss of forage and nest sites for pollinating insects has driven declines across several pollinator taxa. Because 75% of the cultivated crops and more than 85% of the flowering plant species are insectpollinated, concerns have been raised that the pollinator d

The integrated dynamic ecosystem models SAFE and ForSAFEVEG were used to estimate critical loads for nitrogen using different chemical and biological criteria, and attempting to account for possible effects of climate change. The study is based on a model application on a set of 640 sites earlier used for critical loads assessments in Sweden, focusing on the ecological effect of nitrogen pollution

Traditionally, when optimizing base-stock levels in spare parts inventory systems, it is common to base the decisions either on a linear shortage cost or on a certain target fill rate. However, in many practical settings the shortage cost is a non-linear function of the customer waiting time. In particular, there may exist contracts between the spare parts provider and the customer, where the prov

With the increased occurrence of climate extremes, there is an urgent need to better understand how management strategies affect the capacity of the soil microbial community to maintain its ecosystem functions (e.g. nutrient cycling). To address this issue, intact monoliths were extracted from conventional and ecological managed grasslands in three countries across Europe and exposed under common

Euglossine bees are an ecologically important group, which due to their diverse resource needs act as pollinators of many neotropical plants. Male euglossines collect fragrant compounds used in mating displays from diverse sources, including the flowers of orchids and other plants. This aspect of euglossine biology has proven exceptionally useful for studies of euglossine bee populations, because

Objective: The de-institutionalizing process came to an end before the millennium shift by closing mental hospitals. After that some of the most ill patients are cared for in sheltered housing (SH). There is no in-house psychiatric competence and the staff on the floor usually lacks such knowledge and training. Observation instruments may improve this by making it possible to assess and monitor pa

Diverse and complex interactions as well as multi-actor systems characterise resource use and re- source policy. This makes system analysis a relevant tool to orient resource policy towards the long term. Analysing such complex systems requires systemic thinking, consideration of causal loops as well as time-lags and delays in system responses.In the SimRess project, system analysis encompassed pa