Coming dissertations at Uppsala university
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The European Union’s market power : Techniques, constraints and implications for external action
Link: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-528236
The European Union (EU) is known to have considerable market power, which flows from the size of the single market and its sophisticated regulatory capacity. However, relatively little is known about how, when and why the EU uses its market power and what its power projection signifies for our understanding of EU external action. This thesis explores the EU’s techniques for leveraging market power, as well as the factors that drive or constrain its active use of such power. It finds that the EU’s projection of market power is highly regulatory in nature, and often shaped by factors associated with the EU’s internal integration in specific policy areas such as environmental sustainability and digital markets. The thesis proposes that in these areas, competing networks of EU policy entrepreneurs can leverage a variety of structural and contextual factors, such as stringent EU laws, sophisticated EU regulatory capacity, societal fear of negative externalities and highly developed international regimes, to promote their preferred uses of market power. Based on these findings, the thesis argues that EU market power has limited transferability across sectors and is unlikely to be leveraged in geopolitical games or to propel the EU to become a true geopolitical player. Nonetheless, in a context where geopoliticization enhances the friction between the EU’s internal market and external market regimes, the EU can be expected to step up the use of market power to externalize European regulatory regimes in specific sectors in order to protect the integrity of the internal market and achieve international market integration on its own terms.
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Innate Immunity in Type 1 Diabetes
Link: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-537440
Type 1 diabetes is characterized by impaired glycemic control due to an absence of insulin production. It is traditionally attributed to an autoimmune-mediated destruction of pancreatic β-cells. Research has shifted focus towards elucidating the role of genetic predispositions, viral exposures, and other possible triggers in type 1 diabetes pathogenesis.
This doctoral thesis aimed to investigate the influence of innate immune responses on the development of type 1 diabetes. The study utilized a novel animal model for type 1 diabetes and human pancreatic tissue obtained from the Nordic network for islet transplantation and the DiViD study.
Paper I sought to investigate a potential link between insulitis and the innate immune system using a novel animal model and compare the outcome with type 1 diabetes in humans. Macrophages and neutrophils were seen in the acute phase. A few islets were observed with peri insulitis three weeks later. Similar inflammation patterns in both human and rat subjects were observed. Upregulation of genes associated with bacterial response in both human and rat tissues was observed. Observed findings indicate a bridge between innate immunity and adaptive immunity in the development upon onset of type 1 diabetes.
Paper II aimed to characterize the differential expression profiles of the defensin system within human pancreas from individuals diagnosed with type 1 diabetes of different ages compared to normoglycemic-matched controls. Individuals with type 1 diabetes have reduced expression of several defensins in both the pancreatic islets and the exocrine parenchyma. This suggests a compromised innate immune system, tentatively predisposing them to heightened susceptibility to microbial threats and increased pro-inflammatory stress on the pancreas.
Paper III focused on quantifying the prevalence and spatial distribution of δ-cells in human pancreas from individuals diagnosed with type 1 diabetes compared to normoglycemic controls. The δ-to-α-cell connections and single δ-cell density in the exocrine area of the pancreas were increased. Additionally, isolated islets from an individual with type 1 diabetes showed impaired glucagon secretion at low glucose levels, but elevated secretion with a somatostatin receptor inhibitor. These findings suggest a disruption in paracrine control which affects glucagon secretion in individuals with type 1 diabetes.
In conclusion, several aspects of innate immunity and islet architecture were studied regarding human type 1 diabetes. Obtained findings suggest a dysregulation of innate immunity, however, further research is warranted to fully clarify the bridge between innate and adaptive immunity in the etiology of type 1 diabetes.
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Tales of Lonely Young Men : Analysing Portrayals of Misogynistic Incel Violence
Link: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-536825
This thesis examines portrayals of misogynistic incel violence and its implications for understandings of misogyny, violence and security. To do so it asks the question of what meaning is ascribed to misogynistic incel violence, and how? Rather than investigating misogynistic incels’ own stories of their violence, this thesis turns to public portrayals of misogynistic incel violence, i.e. within news media and at policy-making levels, to explore how these portrayals affect understandings of wider gendered violence and what the potential implications may be to understandings of security, threat and national identity. This thesis thus investigates the manner in which misogynistic incel violence is politicised and securitised, or not. With that it examines how understandings of this gendered violence are both reliant on and reproductive of certain power dynamics in broader society. The papers that form this thesis identify particular narratives (such as isolated loners, boys being left behind and a backlash against feminism) and show how these work to obscure the misogyny at the heart of misogynistic incel violence. Two of the papers address portrayals of misogynistic violence in the US, the third turns to Sweden to investigate how an assumed gender-equal context may impact the portrayal of explicitly gendered violence. These qualitative studies draw on data from interviews and document analysis in order to provide an in-depth analysis of the portrayals of misogynistic incel violence.
Ultimately, the papers argue that such portrayals perpetuate the conditions that make misogyny possible. Rather than recognising the structural nature of misogyny, the portrayal of misogynistic incel violence focuses on the stories of the individual perpetrators. Misogynistic incel violence is thus contained and exceptionalised. This thesis shows what is at stake when misogynistic violence is not recognised for what it is.