Future 450mm semiconductor wafer foundries are expected to produce billions of low cost, leading-edge processors, memories, and wireless sensors for Internet of Everything applications in smart cities, smart grids, and smart infrastructures. The problem has been a lack of wise investment decision making using traditional semiconductor industry models. The purpose of this study was to design decision-making models to conserve financial resources from conception to commercialization using real options to optimize production capacity, to defer an investment, and to abandon the project. The study consisted of 4 research questions that compared net present value from real option closed-form equations and binomial lattice models using the Black-Scholes option pricing theory. Three had focused on sensitivity parameters. Moore's second law was applied to find the total foundry cost. Data were collected using snowball sampling and face-to-face surveys. Original survey data from 46 Americans in the U.S.A. were compared to 46 Europeans in Germany. Data were analyzed with a paired-difference test and the Box-Behnken design was employed to create prediction models to support each hypothesis. Data from the real option models and survey findings indicate American 450mm foundries will likely capture greater value and will choose the differentiation strategy to produce premium chips, whereas higher capacity, cost leadership European foundries will produce commodity chips. Positive social change and global quality of life improvements are expected to occur by 2020 when semiconductors will be needed for the $14 trillion Internet of Everything market to create safe self-driving vehicles, autonomous robots, smart homes, novel medical electronics, wearable computers with streaming augmented reality information, and digital wallets for cashless societies.

Flight planning is a large part of the air traffic operations that are presently being conducted. Airlines strive to achieve the cheapest and most cost effective routes for their flights, resulting in aircraft sometimes flying longer routes in order to avoid expensive airspaces with high unit rates. This issue has been an ongoing obstacle for the Swedish air navigation provider, LFV, as some airlines tend to fly over the Baltic Sea, through the Baltic countries, instead of the shorter route through Swedish airspace. These protracted routes result in extra kilometers being flown yearly,consuming extra fuel, as well as imply a revenue loss to LFV and Sweden. The conclusions of this study is that the airspace dodging behavior generate a revenue loss to LFV, totaling approximately €5 032 354 million per year. Should these flights fly the shortest route between their origin and destination, the before mentioned sum would mean an increase in LFV’s reported revenue from air traffic control services by 2%. Airspace dodging also results in roughly 380 408 superfluous kilometers being flown and 1 874 486 liters of additional fuel being consumed every year.

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Crystallization is often a major bottleneck to macromolecular structure determination. This is particularly true for membrane proteins, which have hydrophobic surfaces that cannot readily form crystal contacts. Of the roughly 109,000 protein structures in the PDB, only about 539 represent unique membrane proteins, despite immense interest in membrane proteins from both a biological and therapeutic standpoint. Membrane protein crystallization has been facilitated by the development of new detergents, lipidic cubic phase methods, soluble protein chimeras, and non-covalent protein complexes. The design process of protein fusion constructs and non-covalent antibody fragments specific for each target membrane protein, however, is costly and time-consuming. An improved, more general method of membrane protein co-crystallization is needed. This dissertation details the development of two approaches for cost-effective non-covalent crystallization chaperones: (1) Engineered hypercrystallizable Fab antibody fragment with high affinity for EYMPME (EE epitope), which form complexes with EE-tagged soluble and membrane proteins. (2) Engineered monomeric streptavidin (mSA2) for complexation with biotinylated membrane proteins. Both methods are generalizable through insertion of a short epitope into a surface-exposed loop of a membrane protein by site directed mutagenesis. Crystallization trials of representative chaperone-membrane protein complexes and possible difficulties with the approach are discussed.

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This practicum focuses on end-of-life care for older adults in rural Canada. Specifically, it addresses links between domesticity and terminal illness amongst adults within the building typology of hospice. The objective of the practicum is the creation of a model for hospice design in rural Manitoba. The hospice will be supported in pre-fabricated housing. The practicum will address contemporary issues arising from publicly-funded healthcare, the aging Canadian population, and cultural issues surrounding dying, death, and grieving. The main goals to be achieved with this project were the creation of care facilities that encourage dialogue, education, and wellbeing for all users. Additionally, the facilities will be designed as multi-sensory environments where all human senses can be stimulated, expanding beyond typical visual stimuli.

This practicum focuses on end-of-life care for older adults in rural Canada. Specifically, it addresses links between domesticity and terminal illness amongst adults within the building typology of hospice. The objective of the practicum is the creation of a model for hospice design in rural Manitoba. The hospice will be supported in pre-fabricated housing. The practicum will address contemporary issues arising from publicly-funded healthcare, the aging Canadian population, and cultural issues surrounding dying, death, and grieving. The main goals to be achieved with this project were the creation of care facilities that encourage dialogue, education, and wellbeing for all users. Additionally, the facilities will be designed as multi-sensory environments where all human senses can be stimulated, expanding beyond typical visual stimuli.