The insufficient amout of research regarding social media use in municipalities was in part why this study was conducted. This study examined how Swedish municipalities interact with its followers through Facebook’s different post types to create engagement. Grunigs excellence theory stood as the base for the theoretical framework. The method used was a quantitative content analysis. Data was collected from 30 different municipalities’ Facebook pages. The study found that municipalities use Facebook to engage their citizens in some ways more than others and that municipalities, in some regards, do not use Facebook to its full potential. To reach the various ways of engagement, municipalities need to be aware of how to achieve that. Such as what format best suits the engagement that the municipalities wish to achieve. Posting a larger variation of formats should be implemented in order to take advantage of all the benefits that the different formats provide.

The Internet was originally designed to be a next-generation phone system that could withstand a Soviet attack. Today, we ask the Internet to perform tasks that no longer resemble phone calls in the face of threats that no longer resemble Soviet bombardment. However, we have come to rely on names that can be subverted at every level of the stack or simply be allowed to rot by their original creators. It is possible for us to build networks of content that serve the content distribution needs of today while withstanding the hostile environment that all modern systems face. This dissertation presents the Cryptographically Curated File System (CCFS), which offers five properties that we feel a modern content distribution system should provide. The first property is Strong Links, which maintains that only the owner of a link can change the content to which it points. The second property, Permissionless Distribution, allows anyone to become a curator without dependence on a naming or numbering authority. Third, Independent Validation arises from the fact that the object seeking affirmation need not choose the source of trust. Connectivity, the fourth property, allows any curator to delegate and curate the right to alter links. Each curator can delegate the control of a link and that designee can do the same, leaving a chain of trust from the original curator to the one who assigned the content. Lastly, with the property of Collective Confidence, trust does not need to come from a single source, but can instead be an aggregate affirmation. Since CCFS embodies all five of these properties, it can serve as the foundational technology for a more robust Web. CCFS can serve as the base of a web that performs the tasks of today’s Web, but also may outperform it. In the third chapter, we present a number of scenarios that demonstrate the capacity and potential of CCFS. The system can be used as a publication platform that has been re-optimized within the constraints of the modern Internet, but not the constraints of decades past. The curated links can still be organized into a hierarchical namespace (e.g., a Domain Naming System (DNS)) and de jure verifications (e.g., a Certificate Authority (CA) system), but also support social, professional, and reputational graphs. This data can be distributed, versioned, and archived more efficiently. Although communication systems were not designed for such a content-centric system, the combination of broadcasts and point-to-point communications are perfectly suited for scaling the distribution, while allowing communities to share the burdens of hosting and maintenance. CCFS even supports the privacy of friend-to-friend networks without sacrificing the ability to interoperate with the wider world. Finally, CCFS does all of this without damaging the ability to operate search engines or alert systems, providing a discovery mechanism, which is vital to a usable, useful web. To demonstrate the viability of this model, we built a research prototype. The results of these tests demonstrate that while the CCFS prototype is not ready to be used as a drop-in replacement for all file system use cases, the system is feasible. CCFS is fast enough to be usable and can be used to publish, version, archive, and search data. Even in this crude form, CCFS already demonstrates advantages over previous state-of-the-art systems. When the Internet was designed, there were relatively fewer computers that were far weaker than the computers we have now. They were largely connected to each other over reliable connections. When the Internet was first created, computing was expensive and propagation delay was negligible. Since then, the propagation delay has not improved on a Moore’s Law Curve. Now, latency has come to dominate all other costs of retrieving content; specifically, the propagation time has come to dominate the latency. In order to improve the latency, we are paying more for storage, processing, and bandwidth. The only way to improve propagation delay is to move the content closer to the destination. In order to have the content close to the demand, we store multiple copies and search multiple locations, thus trading off storage, bandwidth, and processing for lower propagation delay. The computing world should re-evaluate these trade-offs because the situation has changed. We need an Internet that is designed for the technologies used today, rather than the tools of the 20th century. CCFS, which regards the trade-off for lower propagation delay, will be better suited for 21st-century technologies. Although CCFS is not preferable in all situations, it can still offer tremendous value. Better robustness, performance, and democracy make CCFS a contribution to the field. Robustness comes from the cryptographic assurances provided by the five properties of CCFS. Performance comes from the locality of content. Democracy arises from the lack of a centralized authority that may grant the right of Free Speech only to those who espouse rhetoric compatible with their ideals. Combined, this model for a cryptographically secure, content-centric system provides a novel contribution to the state of communications technology and information security.

Chickpea (Cicer Arietinum) was germinated for different lengths of time to determine the influence of germination on the functional and nutritional properties of this legume. Chemical analysis of the flours showed a very significant increase in vitamin C and in lysine during germination. Vitamin C values ranged from 1.2 to 15.6 mg/100 g and lysine from 10.5 to 13.5 g/100g of protein for the intact and the 48 hr-germinated chickpea, respectively. Starch content decreased 15.5% and soluble sugars increased 20% after only 24 hr of germination. Germination decreased trypsin inhibitor activity by 28%. Chickpea and 24 hr germinated chickpea were used as ingredients in the preparation of several products. Germination increased acceptability in some of these products by modifying their rheological and sensory properties. Seed germination enhanced significantly the nutritional quality of chickpea protein. Protein efficiency ratio associated with the germinated chickpea diets compared favorably to that obtained with the casein diet. Protein digestibility decreased as germination time increased. Essential amino acid availability did not change after 24 hr of germination, but small decreases were observed after 48 hr. Protein and starch were studied separately to determine their influence on the observed modifications. No significant changes were found in the concentration of proteins in germinated chickpea even after 72 hr of germination as indicated by densitometry scans of SDS-PAGE patterns. Starch was isolated from intact and germinated chickpeas and characterized by several of its physicochemical properties and its susceptibility to alpha-amylase hydrolysis. Germination increased substantially starch digestibility and modified some of the physico-chemical properties of starch. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) showed no apparent differences between starches except for a tendency of the germinated chickpea starch to clump. These results suggest that changes in texture, consistency and other physical parameters observed on the germinated chickpea-based products may be attributed mostly to starch.

A greenhouse experiment was conducted to study the effectiveness of Dwell, a nitrification inhibitor, on the efficiency of two fertilizers applied to three Arizona soils, Anthony sandy loam, Laveen loam, and Vinton loamy sand. Tomato plants Lycopersicum esculentum cultivar Row Pak were used as an index plant. These plants were grown in soil columns of 10 cm internal diameter and 50 cm in length, containing 4,500 g of soil. Two fertilizers, urea and ammonium sulfate (AS), were applied at two rates: 112 and 224 kg N/ha. The nitrification inhibitor Dwell was applied also at two rates: 0 and 1.27 kg/ha⁻¹ of active ingredient. The active ingredient in the chemical is 5- ethoxy -3- (trichloromethyl)-1, 2,4- thiadizole. Both fertilizers and Dwell were added to the soils using two methods: (1) uniform mixtures, in which the fertilizer and Dwell were mixed with the top 500 cm³ soil volume in the columns, and (2) banded fertilizers and Dwell, in which a soil paste, made by mixing 10 ml of 0.02% Dwell solution with the volume of 50 cm³ soil, was added to the required amount of the fertilizer to soil column about 7cm below the soil surface. This factorial designed experiment was arranged in a randomized complete block with three replications of each treatment. Plants were allowed to grow for 67 days after transplanting to the soil columns. At the end of the experiment, samples from two depths (0 to 18 cm and 18 5o 40 cm) were analyzed for NH₄, NO₃, and organic N. Dry matter yield and N content of plants were also determined. Results showed that Dwell was effective in improving N efficiency, as determined by yield and N content of plants, with all three soils and with both fertilizers. Higher yields were obtained when AS was used in all soils. Higher response to Dwell, but lower yields, were observed in urea treatments as compared to AS treatments. Dwell resulted in yield increase of 139 and 60% with urea in Vinton and Laveen soils, respectively, while with AS, the increases were 74 and 11%. The lowest response to Dwell occurred with the Anthony soil. Generally, higher yield was obtained when AS was thoroughly mixed and when urea was banded. Yield and N content in plants grown in these soils were in the following order: Laveen > Anthony > Vinton. Dwell was effective with both N rates, particularly with the high N rate of urea. Incubation studies showed that Dwell was effective in retarding nitrification for about 10 days. Accordingly, Dwell seems to have had no residual effect on soil nitrogen.

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