Tag: karlstad university

135 – Glochidiosis and behaviour

Freshwater mussels of the order Unionida are endangered but play a vital role in aquatic ecosystems. Their larvae (glochidia) temporarily parasitize fish, attaching to gills before maturing into free-living adults. Conservation efforts to reintroduce these mussels are generally supported as Unionids are well-known ecosystem engineers. However, public concern arises due to their parasitic nature. Sebastian Rock’s doctoral thesis investigates how two rare European mussel species affect the behaviour of their fish hosts. The results suggest that mussels can influence host movement and habitat choice, possibly expressing an “extended phenotype”—traits of the parasite affecting the host. In our interview, Sebastian let us know more of how his findings can deepen our understanding of mussel-host interactions and inform future conservation strategies.

Sebastian Rock’s doctoral thesis can be downloaded from DiVA: Glochidiosis and behaviour

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134 – Digital health technology for supporting diabetes self-care

Type 1 diabetes is a chronic illness, and diabetes self-care measures play a crucial role in disease management. Well-designed digital health technologies (DHTs) can support diabetes self-care, however, their use can be challenging. In Divya Anna Stephen’s research in nursing science, she explores perspectives on DHT support for diabetes self-care among adults with type 1 diabetes. 

Divya’s research show that these technologies often feel empowering—providing control and independence. At the same time, they can be frustrating and difficult to use, which may lead users to feel exasperated. Furthermore, the results show that people with strong confidence in managing their condition (psychosocial self-efficacy) tend to feel better and have better blood sugar control. Those who are more digitally literate (eHealth literacy) are often younger and also have better blood sugar control.

In our conversation, Divya tells us more about the results of her studies, and provide arguments for why more research is needed on this topic, so that patients’ self-care can be further promoted and successful.

Divya Anna Stephen’s doctoral thesis can be downloaded from DiVA: Digital health technology for supporting diabetes self-care: Perspectives among adults with type 1 diabetes

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131 Auditing in Transition

In this episode of Forskningspodden, we sit down with Lazarus Fotoh, researcher at Karlstad University, to talk about how technology is starting to change the way audits are done. Drawing on his doctoral research, he shares how tools like AI can make audits more efficient, more effective and help close the gap between what people expect from audits and what they actually deliver. But if the tech is so promising, why isn’t it used more? Lazarus walks us through the challenges, from outdated rules to resistance to change. We also touch on simpler tools that help auditors in uncertain times, even if they can’t handle everything. Join us for an interesting conversation about where the field is going, and what needs to happen for it to get there.

You can read the whole thesis here Technologies in External Audits: Current Impacts and Future Implications

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130 – Business model innovation for sustainability

Many businesses worldwide are facing big sustainability challenges. In Andrey Abadzhiev’s research in business administration, he investigates how businesses can innovate their models to be more sustainable. While past research has recognized that companies need different management methods to make these changes, it hasn’t always provided a clear or structured approach.

To help with this, Andrey has developed a typology that organizes the current knowledge on sustainable business model innovation (BMIfS). This framework identifies three key areas of management: values, knowledge, and agency. In his research, Andrey has conducted four case studies in Sweden’s wood construction industry, to show how the typology can be applied in real-world situations. In our conversation, Andrey explains the typology in more detail, and we learn more about how the results of his research can be of use to businesses that need and want to transition to sustainable business models.

Andrey Abadzhiev’s doctoral thesis can be downloaded from DiVA: Managing business model innovation for sustainability transitions: Towards a theory-based typology

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129 Protecting Patient Privacy in the Digital Health Era: Uncovering Risks and Ways Forward

In this episode of Forskningspodden, we explore the hidden privacy risks for users of digital health technologies—like mobile health apps and health information systems—that are transforming healthcare. While these tools offer huge benefits, they also open the door to serious privacy and security risks that could result in sensitive information misuse, unauthorized access to data breaches

In this episode, our guest, Phd Samuel Wairimu, breaks down the privacy challenges posed by applications like the COVID-19 contact tracing apps, the impact of cyberwar on patient privacy, and how privacy risks can be better assessed. Samuel’s research highlights real-world privacy harms and offers new ways for healthcare professionals to protect patient data. If you care about the future of digital healthcare and your privacy, you won’t want to miss this episode!

You can read the full version of the thesis here: https://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kau:diva-101713

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128 – Programming as a tool for helping students with mathematics

Programming has been presented as a way for students to learn mathematics. In his licentiate thesis, David Taub challenges this idea by investigating if and how it works. In his study, groups of Swedish secondary school students, most of them novice programmers, were observed and interviewed as they conducted programming tasks in the classroom.
The findings indicate that although it seems possible for the act of programming itself to help students construct new mathematical concepts, it is unlikely to be an effective classroom strategy. In our conversation, David explains that the cognitive difficulties novice programmers encountered when writing programs became an obstacle to learning new mathematics as well as dramatically increasing the time needed to complete apparently simple tasks.

You can read the whole licentitate thesis here Programming as a Tool for
Helping Students Understand and Solve Quadratic Equations

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124 – Do Disaster Management Efforts Always Support Sustainable Development?

In this episode of Forskningspodden, we explore the often-overlooked connections between disaster risk management and sustainable development. Mathilde de Goër de Herve gives insights into how incorporating justice-related and temporal considerations can enhance disaster risk management, ensuring long-term resilience and fairness.

We dive into flood risk management, examining how social, ecological, and temporal justice should guide decision-making—not only to address immediate threats but also to protect future generations. Mathilde also introduces a practical framework for practitioners and researchers that integrates these justice dimensions across different time horizons.

Tune in to learn how a focus on justice—especially temporal justice—can shape fairer, more sustainable disaster management strategies. You can read the whole thesis here: https://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kau:diva-100999

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119 The Secrets of Riparian Zones: Water, Seeds, and Biodiversity

Riparian zones—the narrow but biodiverse interfaces of land and water—play a crucial role in both the environment and human society. But what shapes these rich ecotones? In this episode, Jacqueline Hoppenreijs takes us into the fascinating world of riparian vegetation and explores with us how water’s flow—both destructive and constructive—forms plant communities and sustains biodiversity. Jacqueline also highlights the critical role of seed dispersal and the impact of human activities like flow regulation that shape these vital interfaces. What happens when natural water regimes are altered, and how can we help conserve these biodiversity hotspots for future generations? Tune in as we explore the ecology of boreal riparian zones and how landscape features, water flow, and human intervention intersect to influence these habitats. If you want to dive deeper into the Jacqueline’s research you can her thesis, “Rooting for Riparian Vegetation: Processes Underlying Community Composition in Boreal Ecosystems” here: https://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kau:diva-101237

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113 – Early life environmental exposures and children’s growth

Early life is an important period for growth and development and therefore, sensitive to environmental exposures, such as chemicals and nutrition. Endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs), ubiquitous in daily exposure, can lead to adverse health effects. Katherine Svensson’s doctoral thesis in Public Health Science investigates 26 EDCs in pregnant women and measured children’s growth up to 7 years, finding higher EDC levels linked to lower birthweight, slower weight gain, and sex-specific impacts on body fat. In our conversation, Katherine explains the significance of her results. Adherence to nutritional guidelines together with better regulation of EDCs can help to promote healthy environments for children’s growth.

Katherine Svensson’s doctoral thesis can be downloaded from DiVA: Early life environmental exposures and children’s growth: A longitudinal study evaluating prenatal exposure for endocrine disrupting chemicals and nutrition in relation to children’s growth up to seven years of age

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112 – Unchaining microservice chains

In modern software development, microservices are crucial. Instead of a monolithic application, where everything is tightly coupled, microservice architecture offers a way to develop, deploy and maintain services independently. This enhances agility, resilience, and scalability, but it also introduces challenges concerning for example resource allocation and performance optimization.

In his doctoral thesis in Computer Science, Michel Gokan Khan addresses such challenges in large scale microservice chains, specifically in cloud native computing. In our conversation, he explains some of the key contributions of his research. Two of them being the PerfSim, a tool designed by Michel that is a performance simulator for cloud native system, and NFV-Inspector, another tool designed by him to be able to profile and analyse microservices specifically in network functions virtualization (NFV) environments. Michel’s research is also able to show how machine learning can be used for optimizing microservice chains in cloud environments. By contributions such as these and more, Michel’s research helps to reveal the true potential of artificial intelligence in profiling, modelling, simulating, and most importantly optimizing the performance and cost of running microservice chains.

Michel Gokan Khan’s doctoral thesis can be downloaded from DiVA: Unchaining Microservice Chains: Machine Learning Driven Optimization in Cloud Native Systems

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