In recent years the microelectronics industry as found itself at an impasse. The tradition pathway towards smaller transistors at lower costs has hit a roadblock with the failure of 157 nm lithography and the continued delays in 13.5 nm extreme ultra violet light sources. While photolithography has been able to keep pace with Moore’s law over the past four decades, alternative patterning technologies are now required to keep up with market demand. The first section of this dissertation discusses the new resolution enhancement technique develop in the Willson lab termed pitchdivision. Through the incorporation of specifically tailored photobase generators (PBGs) into commercially available resists, the resolution of current 193 tools may be doubled. Special two-stage PBGs were designed and synthesized to increase the image fidelity of pitchdivision patterns. The next project deals with the design, synthesis, and evaluation of resists that find amplification through unzipping polymers. An aromatizing polyester polymer that acts as dissolution inhibitor in novolac and is inherently sensitive to 13.5 nm exposure is discussed. Initial results show excellent sensitivity and promise towards a new class of EUV resists. / text

<p><strong>Syfte:</strong> Syftet är att försöka urskilja samband mellan hushålls socioekonomiska faktorer och efterfrågan på specifika bostadsattribut. Vår frågeställning är: Finns det samband mellan vilka specifika attribut som efterfrågas hos bostadsrätter och hushålls socioekonomiska faktorer? Vår förhoppning är att åtminstone få en indikation på vad olika typer av hushåll efterfrågar.<strong>Metod: </strong>Denna studie baseras på en databas bestående av bostadsrättsförsäljningar som skett i Gävle under år 2008 samt socioekonomisk information om de hushåll som förvärvat dessa bostadsrätter. För att estimera hushålls efterfrågan på ett specifikt bostadsrättsattribut har en tvåstegsmetod använts. I ett första steg avslöjas de underförstådda marginalpriserna av bostadsrätters egenskaper med hjälp av den hedoniska metoden. Dessa marginalpriser används i ett andra steg där efterfrågeekvationer för enskilda bostadsrättsattribut estimeras. Beräkningarna utförs i statistikprogrammet EViews.<strong>Resultat & slutsats: </strong>Resultatet visar att vissa bostadsrättsattribut kan sammankopplas med hushålls socioekonomiska faktorer. Vidare visar resultatet tydliga men mycket svaga mönster vad gäller efterfrågan på marknaden, trots att prisstrukturen på samma marknad är oerhört utmärkande. Vi kan konstatera att prissättningen på bostadsrätters attribut är väldigt tydlig medan konsumtionen av samma attribut är otydlig.<strong>Förslag till fortsatt forskning:</strong> Intressant vore att jämföra studier av denna typ med hyresmarknadens hyressättningsmodell och se om den utgår från samma värdering av bostadens attribut som det visat sig att hushåll efterfrågar. Ytterligare ett förslag är att skatta en faktisk boendekostnad för samtliga hushåll i datamaterialet och använda disponibel inkomst istället för taxerad förvärvsinkomst i efterfrågefunktionen.<strong>Uppsatsens bidrag: </strong>Studien har visat hur man kan estimera och finna samband mellan bostadsattribut och hushålls socioekonomiska faktorer. Därutöver har problemet med endogenitet behandlats genom instrumentvariabler och en uppdelning av datamaterialet i fyra delområden.</p> / <p><strong>Aim:</strong> The purpose of this study is to try to distinguish a relationship between household socio-economic factors and the demand for specific housing attributes. Our question is: Is there a connection between the specific attributes requested by households and its socio-economic factors? Our hope is to at least get an indication of what different types of households demand.<strong>Method:</strong> This study is based on information of tenant-owner flats sales made in Gävle in 2008 as well as socio-economic information of those households who bought these flats. In order to estimate demand for a specific housing attribute a two-step method is used. In a first step the implicit marginal prices of housing attributes are revealed by the hedonic method. These marginal rates are used in a second step to reveal the specific household demand for individual housing attributes. The calculations are made in the statistical program EViews.<strong>Result & Conclusions: </strong>The result shows that some housing attributes can be linked with household socio-economic factors. The result shows a clear but very weak pattern of demand in the market, despite that the price structure in the same market is extremely remarkable. We note that the prices of housing attributes are very clear while the consumption of the same attributes is unclear.<strong>Suggestions for future research: </strong>It would be interesting to compare the results of this type of study with rental markets rent-model and see if it is based on the same valuation of the dwelling attributes that household’s demand. Another proposal is to estimate the actual housing costs for all of the households in the data and use disposable income rather than actual income in the demand function.<strong>Contribution of the thesis: </strong>The study has revealed how to estimate and identify household demand for specific housing attributes. In addition, the problem of endogeneity has been treated with instrument variables and a separation of the data set into four submarkets.</p>

Syfte: Syftet är att försöka urskilja samband mellan hushålls socioekonomiska faktorer och efterfrågan på specifika bostadsattribut. Vår frågeställning är: Finns det samband mellan vilka specifika attribut som efterfrågas hos bostadsrätter och hushålls socioekonomiska faktorer? Vår förhoppning är att åtminstone få en indikation på vad olika typer av hushåll efterfrågar.Metod: Denna studie baseras på en databas bestående av bostadsrättsförsäljningar som skett i Gävle under år 2008 samt socioekonomisk information om de hushåll som förvärvat dessa bostadsrätter. För att estimera hushålls efterfrågan på ett specifikt bostadsrättsattribut har en tvåstegsmetod använts. I ett första steg avslöjas de underförstådda marginalpriserna av bostadsrätters egenskaper med hjälp av den hedoniska metoden. Dessa marginalpriser används i ett andra steg där efterfrågeekvationer för enskilda bostadsrättsattribut estimeras. Beräkningarna utförs i statistikprogrammet EViews.Resultat &amp; slutsats: Resultatet visar att vissa bostadsrättsattribut kan sammankopplas med hushålls socioekonomiska faktorer. Vidare visar resultatet tydliga men mycket svaga mönster vad gäller efterfrågan på marknaden, trots att prisstrukturen på samma marknad är oerhört utmärkande. Vi kan konstatera att prissättningen på bostadsrätters attribut är väldigt tydlig medan konsumtionen av samma attribut är otydlig.Förslag till fortsatt forskning: Intressant vore att jämföra studier av denna typ med hyresmarknadens hyressättningsmodell och se om den utgår från samma värdering av bostadens attribut som det visat sig att hushåll efterfrågar. Ytterligare ett förslag är att skatta en faktisk boendekostnad för samtliga hushåll i datamaterialet och använda disponibel inkomst istället för taxerad förvärvsinkomst i efterfrågefunktionen.Uppsatsens bidrag: Studien har visat hur man kan estimera och finna samband mellan bostadsattribut och hushålls socioekonomiska faktorer. Därutöver har problemet med endogenitet behandlats genom instrumentvariabler och en uppdelning av datamaterialet i fyra delområden. / Aim: The purpose of this study is to try to distinguish a relationship between household socio-economic factors and the demand for specific housing attributes. Our question is: Is there a connection between the specific attributes requested by households and its socio-economic factors? Our hope is to at least get an indication of what different types of households demand.Method: This study is based on information of tenant-owner flats sales made in Gävle in 2008 as well as socio-economic information of those households who bought these flats. In order to estimate demand for a specific housing attribute a two-step method is used. In a first step the implicit marginal prices of housing attributes are revealed by the hedonic method. These marginal rates are used in a second step to reveal the specific household demand for individual housing attributes. The calculations are made in the statistical program EViews.Result &amp; Conclusions: The result shows that some housing attributes can be linked with household socio-economic factors. The result shows a clear but very weak pattern of demand in the market, despite that the price structure in the same market is extremely remarkable. We note that the prices of housing attributes are very clear while the consumption of the same attributes is unclear.Suggestions for future research: It would be interesting to compare the results of this type of study with rental markets rent-model and see if it is based on the same valuation of the dwelling attributes that household’s demand. Another proposal is to estimate the actual housing costs for all of the households in the data and use disposable income rather than actual income in the demand function.Contribution of the thesis: The study has revealed how to estimate and identify household demand for specific housing attributes. In addition, the problem of endogeneity has been treated with instrument variables and a separation of the data set into four submarkets.

Over the past three decades, economic reforms have brought about dramatic changes in China. The wave of structural and economic reforms regarding the State-owned Sector (SOS), and the surge of the Non-State-owned Sector (NSOS), have influenced returns in the labor market, such as the returns concerning human capital and political capital in urban China. Presumably, the NSOS would be more marketed-oriented compared to the SOS, and it would have different returns concerning political capital, as represented by Chinese Communist Party (CCP) membership. This is likely because the NSOS would not value Party membership as much as the SOS does. The question of how Party membership is rewarded in the two sectors might also change with the development of the two ownership sectors, as more time passes since the establishment of the economic reforms. I examine whether CCP members display any earnings advantage in these two sectors, and I also explore how such an advantage might have changed over time. Unlike most of the previous studies that have focused on earnings in urban China, I treat Party membership affiliation and ownership sector selection as being endogeneous. I apply the Mlogit -OLS two-stage selection correction estimation proposed by Lee (1983) and discover evidence which suggests that Party membership serves as a proxy for both political and productive skills. A flat Party premium in the SOS and a decreasing Party premium in the NSOS suggest that the Party card served a similar function in the payment scheme present in the SOS during this three year span, whereas the NSOS valued political capital by a decreasing amount over time. The evidence presented in my dissertation indicates that economic reforms tend to mitigate the earning advantage of Party members that occurs as a result of unequal treatment based on Party membership. This evidence suggests that CCP membership is losing its earning power, at least in the NSOS. In addition, the CCP members sacrifice the benefits previously possessed in the adaptation to the transformed economic environment in urban China. However, the rewards to other forms of human capital have increased over time.

This work deals with the control of the human immune system. A standard immune system model is modified by introducing control signals corresponding to drug cocktail and immune suppressor treatments. The ultimate objective is to use these control signals to 'cure' a chronically-ill patient. Control is challenging for this system due to nonlinearities and time delays. In fact, it is shown that fundamental aspects of the system dynamics are lost when the system is linearised; hence, control approaches involving linearisation are fruitless. Feedback linearisation and some optimal control methods are also investigated and shown to be infeasible. However, it is shown that, for certain parameter values and initial conditions related to the virus and patient, a specific open-loop control scheme using only the drug cocktail achieves the objective. It is also proven that, unfortunately, this control scheme fails for other parameter values and initial conditions. A two-stage open-loop controller that uses both control inputs is then proposed. It is shown in simulation that the two-stage controller works over a larger set of parameters and initial conditions than the single-stage controller, but a rigorous analysis of the two-stage controller remains elusive.

The application of anaerobic digestion technology is growing worldwide, mainly because of its environmental benefits. Nevertheless, anaerobic degradation is a rather slow and sensitive process. One of the reasons is the recalcitrance nature of certain fractions of the substrate (e.g., lignocelluloses) used for microbial degradation; thus, the hydrolysis becomes the rate-limiting step. The other reason is that the degradation of organic matter is based on a highly dynamic, multi-step process of physicochemical and biochemical reactions. The reactions take place in a sequential and parallel way under symbiotic interrelation of a variety of anaerobic microorganisms, which all together make the process sensitive. The first stage of the decomposition of the organic matter is performed by fast growing (hydrolytic and acid forming) microorganisms, while in the second stage the organic acids produced are metabolized by the slow growing methanogens, which are more sensitive than the acidogens; thus, methanogenesis becomes the rate-limiting step. The first part of this work evaluates the effects of a pretreatment using an organic solvent, N-methylmorpholine-N-oxide (NMMO), on cellulose-based materials in order to overcome the challenge of biomass recalcitrance and to increase the rate of the hydrolysis. NMMO-pretreatment of straw separated from the cattle and horse manure resulted in increased methane yields, by 53% and 51%, respectively, in batch digestion tests. The same kind of pretreatment of the forest residues led to an increase by 141% in the methane production during the following batch digestion assays. The second part of this work evaluates the efficacy of a two-stage process to overcome the second challenge with methanogenesis as the rate-limiting step, by using CSTR (continuous stirred tank reactors) and UASB (up flow anaerobic sludge blanket) on a wide variety of different waste fractions in order to decrease the time needed for the digestion process. In the two-stage semi-continuous process, the NMMO-pretreatment of jeans increased the biogas yield due to a more efficient hydrolysis compared to that of the untreated jeans. The results indicated that a higher organic loading rate (OLR) and a lower retention time could be achieved if the material was easily degradable. Comparing the two-stage and the single-stage process, treating the municipal solid waste (MSW) and waste from several food processing industries (FPW), showed that the OLR could be increased from 2 gVS/l/d to 10 gVS/l /d, and at the same time the HRT could be decreased from 10 to 3 days, which is a significant improvement that could be beneficial from an industrial point of view. The conventional single stage, on the other hand, could only handle an OLR of 3 gVS/l/d and HRT of 7 days.

In this dissertation, the problem of partitioning a set of treatments with respect to a control treatment is considered. Starting in 1950's a number of researchers have worked on this problem and have proposed alternative solutions. In Tong (1979), the authors proposed a formulation to solve this problem and hundreds of researchers and practitioners have used that formulation for the partition problem. However, Tong's formulation is somewhat rigid and misleading for the practitioners, if the distance between the ``good'' and the ``bad'' populations is large. In this case, the indifference zone gets quite large and the undesirable feature of the Tong's formulation to partition the populations in the indifference zone, without any penalty, can potentially lead Tong's formulation to produce misleading partitions. In this dissertation, a generalization of the Tong's formulation is proposed, under which, the treatments in the indifference zone are not partitioned as ``good'' or ``bad'', but are partitioned as a identifiable set. For this generalized partition, a fully sequential and a two-stage procedure is proposed and its theoretical properties are derived. The proposed procedures are also studied via Monte Carlo Simulation studies. The thesis concludes with some non-parametric partition procedures and the study of robustness of the various available procedures in the statistical literature.

Textile is a global product used by all people in the world. These textiles after the use are thrown into the trash for incineration or land filling. However an efficient way that can be used to produce more energy, in an environmentally friendly process is anaerobic digestion. Waste textiles which contain cellulosic fibers (e.g. Cotton and viscose) can be converted to biogas. In this study, the performance of a two-stage anaerobic digestion process for biogas production from four different materials, including untreated jeans, treated jeans, cotton, and starch was studied. Starch was used as an easy-to-digest material to compare its digestion with that of cellulosic materials.The two-stage processes were composed of a CSTR (for hydrolysis) and a UASB (for methanogenisis) which were investigated in two different configurations, namely (closed and open systems). In the closed system, the outlet of UASB was completely returned back to the CSTR, while in the open system the UASB outlet was sent to sewage. In a stepwise progress, the OLR was aimed to increase from 2 to 20 g Vs per L per day along with reduction in hydraulic retention time from 10 days to 1 day.The results showed that the closed system was more stable when compared to the open system. The pre-treatment of jeans by NMMO helped to produce methane as that of cotton. The hydraulic retention time was decreased to less than 9 days for treated jeans and less than 5 days for starch. The overall methane yield at OLR of 4 gVS per L per day for starch and treated jeans was 98.5% and 97.4% in the closed system, whereas in the open system the yield was 77.0% and 35.5%, respectively.Another experiment was conducted to compare the performance of two-stage process with that of a single stage process of anaerobic digestion of textiles containing polyester and cotton or viscose. Viscose textiles produced more gas compared to the cotton textile; it may be due to the higher crystalline of cotton which makes it hard to be degraded by the microorganisms. Furthermore, two-stage process could able to produce more methane than the single stage process.The parameters like total solids, volatile solids, pH, gas production, gas composition, concentration of nutrients, and COD were also analyzed for both of the experiments.

In the agricultural Midwest, subsurface drainage allows excess water to drain into agricultural channels, which flows into rivers and streams transporting excess nutrients downstream. The construction of an inset floodplain within agricultural channels enhances sedimentation of particulate nutrients and sediment, provides stable conditions for vegetation to establish, increases rates of microbial activity, and promotes denitrification. Sediments were collected from floodplains of two-stage channels and naturally forming floodplain benches in conventional channels to determine the effect of floodplain creation on carbon and nitrogen cycling. Denitrification rates were seasonally measured across the floodplain width using an unamended acetylene inhibition technique (DNFAIT). Composite respiration and denitrification rates were measured through sacrificial microcosms utilizing membrane inlet mass spectrometry (DNFMIMS). While the two-stage reach showed a significant increase in soil organic matter (two-way ANOVA, p < 0.001) and respiration rates (two-way ANOVA, p = 0.039), there was no effect on DNFMIMS rates (two-way ANOVA, p > 0.05). DNFAIT rates at the two-stage reach only showed an increase at locations closest to the channel (two-way ANOVA, p = 0.008). Nutrient processing rates were most dependent on local environmental conditions, particularly organic matter and sediment grain size. This suggests that site-specific conditions may dictate the impact of floodplain creation on water quality. However, because of the increase in biologically active surface area, the net effect on water quality is likely greater for the two-stage channels.

<p>Jag använder ett från Världsbanken nyligen utkommet datamaterial över institutionell kvalitet i världens länder för att i en replikeringsstudie undersöka sambandet mellan institutionell utveckling och ekonomisk tillväxt. Modellen har med framgång redan tidigare använts, men i detta arbete är tidsperioden en senare och datamaterialet enligt min bedömning av högre kvalitet. För att kunna göra det senare uttalandet och analysera resultaten på ett uttömmande sätt, innefattar arbetet en översiktlig presentation av institutionella teorier. Eftersom undersökt samband i utgångsläget antas uppvisa dubbelriktad kausalitet, använder jag ett ekonometriskt tillvägagångssätt innehållande instrumentering för att trygga validiteten. Sammantaget visar resultaten en enkelriktad, positiv kausaleffekt från institutionell kvalitet till ekonomisk tillväxt. Det är en bit kvar till en verkligt fruktbar modellkonstruktion, samtidigt som arbetet pekar på att institutioner hör hemma i en sådan.</p>