Plant re-establishment after the forest fire in the Swedish province of Västmanland

Fire has been a natural disturbance in boreal forests for a very long time. Species in the forest have evolved and adapted themselves to this disturbance. During the 1900th century big natural forest fires started to decrease because of human suppression and environments created by wildfire in the forest have now become rare. During the summer of 2014 a fire started in the forest of Västmanland, in Sweden. The fire spread and ravaged an area of 14 000 hectares of which an area of 1 500 hectares is owned by the state forest company, Sveaskog. Their intent is to create a park with natural forest dynamics in this area. This report is a study of the plant re-establishment in the park after the fire. The results showed that the plant re-establishment is dominated by deciduous plants. The most frequent species is birch followed by aspen and willow. Earlier studies of forest fire areas shows that the germination is effected by the remaining humus layer. A thin layer, after the fire, gives a better environment for the seedlings to grow. While this study did not show any statistic relationship between these factors, it showed a relation between the soil moisture class and the variety of plants. The amount of pine seedlings was higher on dry soil than on moist soil, while the opposite was true for birch. The study also shows an effect on plant re-establishment due to the intensity of the fire. Aspen, pine and willow were more abundant in areas which were exposed to intensive fire. The conclusion of the study is that there is a rich plant re-establishment in the park and it would be interesting to follow the natural development further on. Wildfires of this size are scarce and we should take care of this opportunity to study the effects and development within the area

Is procedural memory enhanced in Tourette syndrome? evidence from a sequence learning task

Procedural memory, which is rooted in the basal ganglia, underlies the learning and processing of numerous automatized motor and cognitive skills, including in language. Not surprisingly, disorders with basal ganglia abnormalities have been found to show impairments of procedural memory. However, brain abnormalities could also lead to atypically enhanced function. Tourette syndrome (TS) is a candidate for enhanced procedural memory, given previous findings of enhanced TS processing of grammar, which likely depends on procedural memory. We comprehensively examined procedural learning, from memory formation to retention, in children with TS and typically developing (TD) children, who performed an implicit sequence learning task over two days. The children with TS showed sequence learning advantages on both days, despite a regression of sequence knowledge overnight to the level of the TD children. This is the first demonstration of procedural learning advantages in any disorder. The findings may further our understanding of procedural memory and its enhancement. The evidence presented here, together with previous findings suggesting enhanced grammar processing in TS, underscore the dependence of language on a system that also subserves visuomotor sequencing

Grey Matter Volume in the Cerebellum is Related to the Processing of Grammatical Rules in a Second Language: A Structural Voxel-based Morphometry Study

The experience of learning and using a second language (L2) has been shown to affect the grey matter (GM) structure of the brain. Importantly, GM density in several cortical and subcortical areas has been shown to be related to performance in L2 tasks. Here, we show that bilingualism can lead to increasedGMvolume in the cerebellum, a structure that has been related to the processing of grammatical rules. Additionally, the cerebellar GM volume of highly proficient L2 speakers is correlated to their performance in a task tapping on grammatical processing in an L2, demonstrating the importance of the cerebellum for the establishment and use of grammatical rules in an L2

INTEGRATIONSTÄNKANDE – En avgörande förutsättning i jakten på synergieffekter

I Doktrin för Gemensamma operationer från 2020 introduceras svensk operationskonst som består av byggstenarna manövertänkande, uppdragstaktik, flexibilitet och integrationstänkande. Införandet och accentueringen av integrationstänkande som en grundläggande princip för militära operationer signalerar tydligt betydelsen av Försvarsmaktens integrering med andra aktörer, nationellt som internationellt.  Tankarna om integration i denna nya allomfattande bemärkelse är ur svenskt perspektiv nya, där både teoretiska kunskaper och praktiska erfarenheter kring begreppet uppfattas vara mycket begränsade vilket kan leda till att begreppet missförstås alternativt inte kommer till sin rätt med följd att de eftersökta synergieffekterna inte uppnås. Syftet med denna uppsats är att med utgångspunkt i Codners interoperabilitetsteori undersöka i vilken omfattning svenska officiella politiska och militära styrdokument stödjer eller skapar förutsättningar för integration och integrationstänkande. Denna kunskap skapar förståelse för olika dimensioner av integration och dess roll i en praktiknära kontext då det belyser relevanta aspekter som behöver omhändertas för att främja integrering av förmågor, aktiviteter och metoder.  Uppsatsens resultat har påvisat att begrepp och sammanhang som indikerar former av integration och integrationstänkande i inriktande och styrande publikationer förekommer i hög grad. Huvudsakligen uttrycks detta genom olika beskrivningar av samarbeten, samverkan och samordning där strävan till integration ska förstås som en avsikt att skapa och finna gynnsamma synergier tillsammans med andra relevanta aktörer