The aim of this thesis is to analyse empirically, proposing new methods to tackle disputed questions in the literature of political and labour economics, the Italian institutional setting both in a political competition context and in the occupational structure. The first paper explores the relationship between transfers from central state to political aligned municipalities and the effect of these transfers on local electoral consensus. This study contributes to the empirical literature of the political determinants of spikes in central transfers in pre-electoral periods and of the electoral benefits of pork barrel measures for incumbent politicians. Despite several findings of strong evidence that intergovernmental fiscal transfers rise during election years, in the Italian case researchers investigated little the political incentives that lay behind these increases or the success of these transfers in attracting votes. We focus on the so called swing municipalities, defined as those in which the probability of winning is close to one-half, analysing data of Italian comuni with more than 15 000 inhabitants, in the period 2007-2014. From an empirical perspective, every attempt to estimate the causal impact of political alignment on the amount of federal transfers is clearly complicated by endogeneity issues. Without a credible source of exogenous variation in political alignment, the empirical correlation between alignment and transfers (if any) can be completely driven by socio-economic factors influencing both dimensions. We propose a new model specification to account for the endogeneity issue arising when estimating the causal impact of political alignment on transfers: the unpredicted change in the government occurred in 2011 after the resignation of Silvio Berlusconi and the following appointment of Mario Monti as prime minister. We perform our empirical estimation in two steps: first, we apply the close-race RDD setup (Lee 2008) to assess the impact of political alignment on transfers. Results from the close-race RDD show that aligned municipalities receive more grants, with this effect being stronger before elections. At a second empirical stage, we perform a local linear regression of the re-election probability of the local incumbent on transfers, including the first stage error term to have our coefficient of interest measuring only the effect of politically-driven transfers on electoral outcomes, and we conclude that this probability increases as grants increase. The second paper stems from the observation of the most recent phenomena in the domestic and foreign labour market: technological progress has been associated to a crowding-out of cognitive-skill intensive jobs in favour of jobs requiring soft skills, such as social intelligence, flexibility and creativity. Soft skills can be defined as interpersonal, human, people or behavioural skills necessary for applying technical skills and knowledge in the workplace. The nature of the soft skills make them hardly replaceable by machine work, and Among soft skills, creativity is one of the hardest to define and to codify, therefore, creativity-intensive occupations have been shielded from automation. In our work, we focus on creativity, starting from its definition in order to get significant insights on which occupational profiles in Italy can be considered creative and to explore their dynamics in the labour market. A possible analytical definition of creativity comes from the seminal work of Edward De Bono. According to his pioneering research in the field, lateral thinking is strictly related to creativity and it can be described along four dimensions: 1) fluidity, as the ability of a subject to give the highest possible number of answers to a certain question; 2) flexibility, as the number of categories to which we can bring back these questions; 3) originality: ability of expressing new and innovative ideas; 4) processing: ability of realizing concretely one’s ideas. We apply this definition to a uniquely detailed occupational dataset on tasks, skills, work attitudes, and working conditions regarding all Italian occupations: the Inapp-Istat Survey on Occupations (Indagine Campionaria sulle Professioni, ICP hereafter), an O*NET-type dataset developed by the Italian National Institute for Public Policy Analysis. The Survey on Occupations, in fact, presents a list of skills and competences and workers are asked to identify those they make use of in performing their job. Inside this list, we identify 25 skills associated to creativity and we formulate a Matrix Completion (MC) optimization problem, as discussed theoretically in Mazumder (2010). Matrix Completion is the task of filling in the missing entries of a partially observed matrix, which we generate by obscuring randomly 10%, 25% and 50% of the entries in the columns associated with the creative skills, given a fixed row (occupation). In our analysis, we use a formulation of the problem known as Nuclear Norm Minimization and we solve it with the Soft Impute Algorithm. We conclude our analysis on social skills in our third paper where we analyse the effects of Covid-19 pandemic on soft skills in the context of Italian occupations, operating in about 100 economic sectors. We leverage detailed information from ICP, the Italian O*Net, and we simulate the impact of Covid-19 on those workplace characteristics and working style that were more seriously hit by the lockdown measures and the new sanitary dispositions (physical proximity, face-to-face discussions, working remotely, ecc.). We simulate three possible scenarios based on the intensity of the effects of COVID-19 on some working conditions, such as working from home, keeping physical distance and so on. We then apply matrix completion, a machine learning technique used in recommendation systems, in order to predict the levels of soft skills required for each occupation when working conditions change, as these changes might be persistent in the near future. Professions showing a lower intensity in the use of soft skills, with respect to the predicted one, are exposed to a deficit in their soft-skill endowment, which might ultimately lead to lower productivity or higher unemployment, thus enhancing the negative effects of the pandemic.

The effects of a composite overwrapped gun barrel with viscoelastic damping layers are investigated. Interlaminar stresses and constrained layer damping effects are described. The Modal Strain Energy method is developed for measuring the extent to which the barrel is damped. The equations of motion used in the finite element analysis are derived. The transient solution process is outlined. Decisions for selected parameters are discussed. The results of the finite element analyses are presented using the program written in FORTRAN. The static solution is solved with a constant internal pressure resulting in a calculated loss factor from the Modal Strain Energy Method. The transient solution is solved using the Newmark-Beta method and a variable internal pressure. The analyses conclude that strategically placed viscoelastic layers dissipate strain energy more effectively than a thick single viscoelastic layer. The optimal angle for maximizing the coefficient of mutual influence in a composite cylinder is not necessarily the optimal angle when viscoelastic layers are introduced between layers.

Das Ende der 90er Jahre neu entstandene Crystal Barrel-Experiment am Bonner Elektronenbeschleuniger ELSA, kurz CB-ELSA-Experiment, dient hauptsächlich dem Studium der Photoproduktion am Proton bei Strahlimpulsen zwischen 0.8 GeV/c und 3.2 GeV/c. Ziel dieses Experimentes ist es, neue Erkenntnisse über das Spektrum der leichten Baryonen zu gewinnen und auch einige wichtige Beiträge für ein besseres Verständnis des Spektrums der leichten Mesonen zu liefern. Die Besonderheit dieses Experimentes liegt in der Topologie der Detektoren. Das Herzstück bildet hierbei das Crystal Barrel-Kalorimeter, das unter Zuhilfenahme weiterer Detektoren die vollständige Erfassung von Ereignissen mit neutralen Mesonen über einen Raumwinkel von nahezu 4[pi] erlaubt. Die vorliegende Arbeit befasst sich zum einen mit dem Aufbau des Flüssig-Wasserstoff-Targets, für dessen Anpassung an die hohen Ansprüche des Experimentes eine umfangreiche Entwicklungsarbeit erforderlich war. Zum anderen bildet den Hauptteil der Arbeit die Untersuchung der photoinduzierten Reaktionen [gamma]proton nach proton[pi]0[pi]0 und [gamma]proton nach proton[pi]0[eta] bei einem Strahlimpuls unpolarisierter Elektronen von 2.6 GeV/c. Beim Studium dieser Reaktionen zeigen sich Hinweise auf missing resonances, die sequentiell über verschiedene Baryonenresonanzen zerfallen. Darüber hinaus gibt es deutliche Evidenzen für die f<sub>0</sub>(980)- und a<sub>0</sub>(980)-Photoproduktion, deren weitergehende Untersuchungen wichtige Beiträge zur Klärung des bis heute noch nicht verstandenen skalaren Mesonennonetts liefern könnten.

Today, there is an increasing demand for smart robots that can make decisions on their own and cooperate with humans in changing environments. The application areas for robotic arms with camera vision are likely to increase in the future of artificial intelligence as algorithms become more adaptable and intelligent than ever. The purpose of this bachelor’s thesis is to develop a robotic arm that recognises arbitrarily placed objects with camera vision and has the ability to pick and place the objects when they appear in unpredictable positions. The robotic arm has three degrees of freedom and the construction is modularised and 3D-printed with respect to maintenance, but also in order to be adaptive to new applications. The camera vision sensor is integrated in an external camera tripod with its field of view over the workspace. The camera vision sensor recognises objects through colour filtering and it uses an edge detection algorithm to return measurements of detected objects. The measurements are then used as input for the inverse kinematics, that calculates the rotation of each stepper motor. Moreover, there are three different angular potentiometers integrated in each axis to regulate the rotation by each stepper motor. The results in this thesis show that the robotic arm is able to pick up to 90% of the detected objects when using barrel distortion correction in the algorithm. The findings in this thesis is that barrel distortion, that comes with the camera lens, significantly impacts the precision of the robotic arm and thus the results. It can also be stated that the method for barrel distortion correction is affected by the geometry of detected objects and differences in illumination over the workspace. Another conclusion is that correct illumination is needed in order for the vision sensor to differentiate objects with different hue and saturation. / Idag ökar efterfrågan på smarta robotar som kan ta egna beslut och samarbeta med människor i föränderliga miljöer. Tillämpningsområdena för robotar med kamerasensorer kommer sannolikt att öka i en framtid av artificiell intelligens med algoritmer som blir mer intelligenta och anpassningsbara än tidigare. Syftet med detta kandidatexamensarbete är att utveckla en robotarm som, med hjälp av en kamerasensor, kan ta upp och sortera godtyckliga objekt när de uppträder på oförutsägbara positioner. Robotarmen har tre frihetsgrader och hela konstruktionen är 3D-printad och modulariserad för att vara underhållsvänlig, men också anpassningsbar för nya tillämpningsområden. Kamerasensorn ¨ar integrerad i ett externt kamerastativ med sitt synfält över robotarmens arbetsyta. Kamerasensorn detekterar objekt med hjälp av en färgfiltreringsalgoritm och returnerar sedan storlek, position och signatur för objekten med hjälp av en kantdetekteringsalgoritm. Objektens storlek används för att kalibrera kameran och kompensera för den radiella förvrängningen hos linsen. Objektens relativa position används sedan till invers kinematik för att räkna ut hur mycket varje stegmotor ska rotera för att erhålla den önskade vinkeln på varje axel som gör att gripdonet kan nå det detekterade objektet. Robotarmen har även tre olika potentiometrar integrerade i varje axel för att reglera rotationen av varje stegmotor. Resultaten i denna rapport visar att robotarmen kan detektera och plocka upp till 90% av objekten när kamerakalibrering används i algoritmen. Slutsatsen från rapporten är att förvrängningen från kameralinsen har störst påverkan på robotarmens precision och därmed resultatet. Det går även att konstatera att metoden som används för att korrigera kameraförvrängningen påverkas av geometrin samt orienteringen av objekten som ska detekteras, men framför allt variationer i belysning och skuggor över arbetsytan. En annan slutsats är att belysningen över arbetsytan är helt avgörande för om kamerasensorn ska kunna särskilja objekt med olika färgmättad och nyans.

No description available.

4AbstractA pre-filled syringe consists of a number of different components and materials e.g. glass, polymer and silicone oil, which will, in various degrees, interact with the pharmaceutical protein and excipients contained within. In addition to soluble protein loss due to adsorption to silicone droplets, silicone oil (SO) have also been reported to form complexes with pharmaceutical proteins that potentially provoke early and late-stage immune responses. The objective of this project was to investigate the impact of 10 different syringe barrel and plunger combination on the quality on pharmaceutical X and the performance of the syringe (syringeability). This is an explorative study and the purpose of this study was to investigate what options there were rather than to make firm recommendations. pH measurements indicated all chosen combinations were within acceptance criteria. Similarly, subvisible particle with reference standards and USP <788> tests indicated that all chosen combinations were within acceptance criteria. Analysis of visible particles without reference standards indicated that all combinations except 1B and 1C were within acceptance criteria. In terms of syringeability, functional testing revealed that combination 8A was a very poor choice and combination 1B a very good choice. In all of the tests, the currently used combination 1A was within the acceptance criteria. With respect to both the pharmaceutical quality and syringeability, it was considered to be equally preferred as many other combinations. Therefore, there is no real urgency to exchange the currently used syringe. Further investigation of plunger B, and possible other plunger combinations is recommended as they might play a bigger role than the syringe barrel with regard to the syringeability. Additionally, placebo suspension can only be used as a representative alternative for testing pH. / En förfylld spruta består av många olika komponenter och material så som glas, polymer, silikon olja, vilka, till olika grad, kommer reagera med proteiner och hjälpämnen i läkemedlet. Utöver förlust av protein (som följd av adsorption till silikon droppar), har det även rapporterats att silikon olja (SO) bildar komplex med proteinerna i läkemedlet vilka kan framkalla en immunologisk reaktion. Syftet med detta projekt var att undersöka effekten av 10 olika kombinationer av sprut-höljen samt kolvar på kvalitén på läkemedel X samt sprutans prestationsförmåga. Detta är en explorativ studie och syftet var att undersöka vilka alternativ som finns samt få en indikation för hur de uppför sig snarare än att ge tydliga rekommendationer. pH mätningar indikerade att alla valda kombinationer var inom acceptanskriterier. Liknande, både mätning av synliga och mikroskopiska partiklar med hjälp av referenslösningar samt metod USP 788 indikerade att alla valda kombinationer var inom acceptanskriterier. Mätning av synliga och mikroskopiska partiklar utan referenslösningar indikerade att alla kombinationer utom 1B och 1C var inom acceptanskriterier. Gällande sprutkombinationernas funktionalitet (prestationsförmåga) visade det sig att kombination 8A var ett dåligt val och kombination 1B ett attraktivt val. I alla tester, den nuvarande använda kombinationen (1A) var inom acceptanskriterier. Med avseende på både läkemedlets kvalité samt funktionalitet visade sig 1A vara ett likvärdigt alternativ till de andra kombinationerna. Detta innebär att det i dagsläget inte finns ett akut behov av att byta ut det nuvarande sprutkombinationen. Fortsatt utredning av kolv B, samt andra kolvar, är att rekommendera då de kan ha större påverkan funktionaliteten än höljet. Vidare kan placebolösning enbart användas som ett representativt alternativ för att testa pH.

<p dir="ltr">The obligate human pathogen, <i>Neisseria gonorrhoeae </i>(Ngo), has continued to acquire widespread antibiotic resistance. Ngo is the causative agent of the sexually transmitted disease gonorrhea, and can cause additional complications such as endocarditis, septicemia, and infertility if left untreated. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) now recommends a treatment option of a single drug of last resort, ceftriaxone, leaving a need for novel therapeutics against this pathogen.</p><p dir="ltr">Like many bacterial pathogens, Ngo is Gram-negative consisting of both an inner membrane (IM) and outer membrane (OM). The transmembrane proteins in the IM have primarily an α-helical fold, while the transmembrane proteins in the OM have a β-barrel fold. These β-barrel outer membrane proteins (OMPs) have essential functions in regulating the homeostasis and nutrient acquisition of the cell, in addition to promoting virulence in pathogenic strains. These OMPs are folded and inserted into the outer membrane by the β-barrel assembly machinery (BAM) complex. In <i>E. coli,</i> BAM consists of five proteins: BamA, an OMP itself, and four lipoproteins, BamB, C, D, and E.</p><p dir="ltr">Here we present our work toward the structural characterization of BAM from Ngo (<i>Ng</i>BAM) using cryo-EM. Ngo lack a homolog of BamB and may function as a four component complex. To better understand the mechanism for how <i>Ng</i>BAM is able to mediate OMP biogenesis despite lacking a component that is critical in <i>E. coli</i>, we determined the cryo-EM structure of <i>Ng</i>BAM, which revealed several distinct features including that the barrel domain of BamA being observed in the inward-open conformation. We also investigated <i>Ng</i>BAM as a therapeutic target, by studying its interaction with a novel broad spectrum antibiotic darobactin. We first showed darobactin is effective against the laboratory strains of NgoFA19 and ATCC-49226. We also show it is effective against the human isolate WHOX, with a comparable MIC to ceftriaxone. To structurally characterize the mechanism of inhibition by darobactin, we used cryo-EM to determine the structures of <i>Ng</i>BAM bound to two darobactin compounds. In these structures, darobactin binding was accompanied by large conformational changes in <i>Ng</i>BamA. To further probe the effects of darobactin on the conformational plasticity of <i>Ng</i>BAM we performed experiments using double electron-electron resonance spectroscopy, which showed distance changes between the engineered site labels consistent with the conformational changes observed in our structural observation. In addition, narrowing of the peak distributions indicated that darobactin binding was reducing the overall conformational heterogeneity of the complex. Taken together, the work presented here contributes to the understanding of how <i>Ng</i>BAM functions in folding and inserting OMPs and provides a foundation for future structure based drug design of darobactin and other potential compounds.</p>

Neuroligine (NL) sind vorwiegend postsynaptisch lokalisierte transmembrane Adhäsionsmoleküle, die in Wechselwirkung mit dem präsynaptisch lokalisierten Protein Neurexin eine wichtige Rolle in der Reifung und Funktion von Synapsen spielen. Es existieren verschiedene NL-Isoproteine (NL-1 – NL-4), die sich in ihrer Assoziation zu exzitatorischen und inhibitorischen Synapsen unterscheiden. Die funktionelle und klinische Relevanz der Neuroligine belegen beispielhaft Mutationen des Isotyps NL 4, welche mit neuropsychiatrischen Erkrankungen wie Autismus-Spektrum-Störungen assoziiert vorkommen. Anhand eines durch Ausschalten des human-orthologen NL-4-Gens generierten Mausmodells (NL 4 Knockout, NL 4 KO) konnte in vorhergehenden Studien die Bedeutung einer immunhistochemisch beobachteten Lokalisation von NL 4 an glycinergen Synapsen der Retina für die inhibitorische synaptische Übertragung nachgewiesen werden. Im Unterschied dazu konnte kein Zusammenhang zwischen einer in Schicht IV des Barrel-Kortex nachweisbaren Lokalisation von NL-4 mit inhibitorischen Synapsen hergestellt werden. Deshalb, und aufgrund der in Schicht IV dominierenden exzitatorischen Verschaltung von thalamischen Projektionen und den kolumnenassoziierten Rückverschaltungen aus dem Neokortex, lässt sich eine Interaktion von NL-4 mit exzitatorischen Synapsen in diesem Areal vermuten. Im Rahmen der vorliegenden Arbeit wurde anhand der NL-4-KO-Modellmaus der Frage nachgegangen, inwiefern NL-4 die exzitatorische synaptische Übertragung im Barrel-Kortex beeinflusst. Dafür wurden mit Hilfe der Patch-Clamp-Technik abgeleitete AMPA-Rezeptor-vermittelte exzitatorische postsynaptische Ströme (EPSC) von bedornten Sternzellen, Sternpyramiden- und Pyramidenzellen der Schicht IV ausgewertet und zwischen NL-4-Wildtyp- (NL 4-WT) und NL 4 KO-Neuronen verglichen. Dabei zeigten NL 4-KO-Neurone signifikant veränderte Parameter der EPSC-Kinetik. Die Abfallszeit war in NL 4 KO-Neuronen signifikant länger, das maximale Gefälle und die maximale Steigung signifikant flacher gegenüber NL-4-WT-Kontrollen. Diese Veränderungen sprechen für eine funktionelle Relevanz von NL-4 für die AMPA-Rezeptor-vermittelte synaptische Übertragung auf exzitatorische Neurone in Schicht IV des Barrel-Kortex. Das Muster der in NL-4-KO-Neuronen veränderten EPSC-Kinetik weist dabei auf eine Modulation der biophysikalischen AMPA-Rezeptoreigenschaften hin und könnte mit Veränderungen der synaptisch exprimierten AMPA-Rezeptor-TARP-Subtypen in Zusammenhang stehen, die über Proteine der postsynaptischen Dichte (wie PSD-95 und S SCAM) mit Neuroliginen interagieren.

No description available.

This thesis deals with the development of the hand-held firearms in the Middle East with an emphasis on the period from the 15th to the end of the 18th century. In some passages it also marginally mentions the early 19th century. The first part of the thesis concentrates on the development of firearms in a historical context. The focus is primarily on the Ottoman Empire and partially on Egypt. Among other topics it also analyses the practical use of firearms and the related military tactics including the presence of firearms in major battles, as shown on contemporary paintings and miniatures. In the second part the author deals with the technical development of hand-held firearms. This section focuses mostly on the components of firearms and their development. This section also in some degree deals with the artistic aspects of the preserved firearms. The supplements consist of numerous photographs of the preserved exhibits in Czech and foreign collections and also of other visual materials. Keywords firearms, gunpowder, Middle East, Ottoman Empire, Mamluks, Egypt, flintlock, matchlock, miquelet, stock, barrel, decoration, miniatures