This thesis explores the anti-media populist discourse of the current Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, with which he harshly targets Slovak mainstream media to delegitimize them and their critical reporting. This practice, which Fico has been engaging in for many years, was originally considered problematic mainly due to its potentially detrimental consequences for trust in the media among many

Uppsatsens syfte är att förklara varför frågan om hormonella preventivmedel på senare tid har blivit alltmer kontroversiell. Detta uppnås genom att analysera oron för biverkningar av hormonella preventivmedel genom innehållsanalys av videoklipp och podcasts av influencers på plattformen Youtube. Studien tar hänsyn till huvudsakligen två perspektiv som förklarar det hormonfria preventivmedelsideale

Biomass residues are often considered key in a reorientation towards circular bioeconomies, both by returning organic matter and nutrients to soils and by expanding the feedstock base for fossil-free products. Different indicators are available to assess progress towards circularity, but many available indicators and assessments seem to focus on product or material circularity, and lack in coverag

The complement system, a crucial part of the innate immune system, protects the human body during bacterial infections. Complement comprises three pathways, classical, lectin, and alternative, which activate as a protein cascade. Activation of these pathways leads to the opsonization of pathogens with C3 fragments for phagocytosis, chemotaxis of phagocytes to the infection site, and deposition of

Many scholars are struggling to find their way in a reality characterised by a growing sense of urgency to solve pressing social problems and a diminishing faith in traditional institutions, such as universities, spreading through society. Some scholars respond by turning towards activism, which manifests in overtly ideological teaching, increasingly radical critical research agendas, and even pub

The global plastics industry is undergoing significant expansion, driven by record-scale infrastructure investments that are increasing fossil fuel demand. However, this growth has largely bypassed Europe, where mature markets, limited feedstock availability, and stringent environmental regulations prevail. Despite these constraints, in 2019 the petrochemical conglomerate INEOS announced plans for

The prohibition against excessive pricing dates back to the years of Babylonian King Hammurabi. Nevertheless, the prohibition is described by many as being “controversial” and against “mainstream economics”, which is why it should be applied rather sparsely. It has also rather routinely been claimed that the actual number of excessive pricing cases is “scarce”, “limited” and so on. Despite the his

This article addresses the obstacle avoidance problem for setpoint stabilization and path-following tasks in complex dynamic 2D environments that go beyond conventional scenes with isolated convex obstacles. A combined motion planner and controller is proposed for setpoint stabilization that integrates the favorable convergence characteristics of closed-form motion planning techniques with the int

Normalizing flows (NFs) have been shown to be advantageous in modeling complex distributions and improving sampling efficiency for unbiased sampling. In this work, we propose a new class of continuous NFs, ascent continuous normalizing flows (ACNFs), that makes a base distribution converge faster to a target distribution. As solving such a flow is non-trivial and barely possible, we propose a prac

The anesthetic drug propofol is commonly used to control hypnotic depth (suppression of awareness) in patients undergoing surgery or intensive care. In addition to manual titration, a model-based open-loop feed-forward strategy called target-controlled infusion (TCI) has attained some clinical popularity. Research on closed-loop control, with awareness estimates derived from an electroencephalogra

Accurate temperature control in Printed Circuit Board (PCB) manufacturing is essential for maintaining high-quality etching results. Automated monitoring us-ing machine vision and deep learning offers an effective approach for this task. This study investigated a feature-based transfer learning technique for classifying temperature readiness in infrared images of the etching process. The captured

Compulsory licensing refers to a situation in which a non-exclusive license of an intellectual property right (‘IPR’) can be granted by a competent authority to a third party to make, use or sell an invention, where remuneration is paid to the right-holder and the right-holder maintains its legal intellectual property rights. Thus, Compulsory Licensing represents an exception to the normal exclusiCompulsory licensing refers to a situation in which a non-exclusive license of an intellectual property right (‘IPR’) can be granted by a competent authority to a third party to make, use or sell an invention, where remuneration is paid to the right-holder and the right-holder maintains its legal intellectual property rights. Thus, Compulsory Licensing represents an exception to the normal exclusi

Cultural values and beliefs within the jazz community have intrigued social scientists for a long time. Being one of the oldest recognised subcultures, jazz has been celebrated for its socio-political ambitions as well as the complexity and aesthetics of the music itself. Being recognised as an outlet for fighting social injustices throughout history, the notable exclusion of female jazz musicians

Denna kvalitativa studie lyfter fram hur unga kvinnor som läser en eftergymnasial utbildning tänker och resonerar inför sitt framtida yrkesliv, samt hur sociala medier formar tankar kring karriär, med utgångspunkt utifrån trender som förespråkar att inte jobba. I dagens samhälle exponeras unga kvinnor för förväntningar och normer kring arbetsliv, kön och karriär som ibland ter sig motsägelsefulla.Young women are exposed to expectations and norms surrounding work, gender, and career that can often seem contradictory. This qualitative study explores how women navigate these expectations and how their thoughts on future careers as well as gender norms are influenced by social media, using semi-structured interviews. The study focuses on their perceptions of success and how societal norms shap

Comparative analyses of gene birth–death dynamics have the potential to reveal gene families that played an important role in the evolution of morphological, behavioral, or physiological variation. Here, we used whole genomes of 30 species of butterflies and moths to identify gene birth–death dynamics among the Lepidoptera that are associated with specialist or generalist feeding strategies. Our w