A generalized quantum chemical approach for electron transport in molecular devices is developed. It allows to treat the devices where the metal electrodes and the molecule are either chemically or physically bonded on equal footing. Effects of molecular length and hydrogen bonding on the current-voltage (I-V) characteristics of molecular devices are discussed. An extension to include the vibration motions of the molecule has been derived and implemented. It provides the inelastic electron tunneling spectroscopy (IETS) of molecular devices with unprecedented accuracy, and reveals important information about the molecular structures that are not accessible in the experiment. The IETS is shown to be a powerful characterization tool for molecular devices. An effective elongation method has been developed to study the electron transport in nanoand bio-electronic devices at hybrid density functional theory level. It enables to study electronic structures and transportation properties of a 40 nm long self-assembled conjugated polymer junction, a 21 nm long single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNT), and a 60 basepairs DNA molecule. It is the first time that systems consisting of more than 10,000 electrons have been described at such a sophisticated level. The calculations have shown that the electron transport in sub-22 nm long SWCNT and short DNA molecules is dominated by the coherent scattering through the delocalized unoccupied states. The derived length dependence of coherent electron transport in these nanostructured systems will be useful for the future experiments. Moreover, some unexpected behaviors of these devices have been discovered. / QC 20101203

Digital printing technology is a technique that has been growing since the 1990s and has a high growth potential when it comes to using different ink types and transfer printing techniques. In comparison to screen printing, digital transfer printing techniques have shown to consume less ink and water and are therefore considered to be a more environmentally friendly alternative for textile printing. Therefore, a digital printing technique called sublimation transfer printing was studied in this thesis. In a sublimation transfer printing process, an image is printed on a paper and then the image is transferred to a textile by using heat and pressure. Suitable coating of the paper surface has shown to improve the printing properties on the paper and therefore the paper samples used in the thesis were coated with three different coating formulas. The coating formulas used in this thesis were polyvinyl alcohol (PVOH) of a type A, PVOH A with ground calcium carbonate (GCC) and PVOH type B with GCC. PVOH A has a higher degree of hydrolysis than PVOH B. Results showed that there was no significant difference between optical densities between textiles and paper samples of different coat weights and coating formulas. The colour bleeding and colour penetration decreased in the printed paper samples for PVOH A + GCC and PVOH B + GCC when the coat weight increased, and the porosity of the coating decreased to some extent. As a conclusion, paper samples coated with PVOH A + GCC with coat weights above 15 g/m2 showed to give the best properties since the colour bleeding was minimal in those printed coated paper samples.

Excel is a great tool, however it has its flaws. Files quickly become slow as they increase in size, and Excel has no built-in feature to easily search through several documents for a specific word, phrase or value. This can be resolved through a LIMS, a Laboratory Information Management System, which is a database solution that can be used to store and trace laboratory data and information. Our task was to evaluate what system requirements the company Olink Proteomics AB has for a LIMS. By interviewing several departments at Olink, we gained information about what each group wanted from such a system and condensed it into a needs assessment. The interviews showed that traceability was needed for every single department, as well as having easy features for adding data into the system. We were also tasked by Olink to research which Swedish laws apply to old patient data, as the company wants to reuse the data for R&D. Our conclusions are that if data is made fully anonymous, there are no issues in using it for R&D. However, this can be difficult as many criteria have to be fulfilled in order for the data to become fully anonymous.

The aim of the work was to examine microalgae growth and nutrient elimination in various diluted digestates in the first trial, then to study CO2 removal from a simulated biogas mixture by the same strain in the second trial. Scenedesmus SCCP K-1826 was cultivated in the digestate from Sundet biogas plant diluted 10, 20 and 30 times. The cultures were open-air with occasional CO2 injections to control pH. On day 15, the best growth was obtained in the 10 times diluted sample. COD, TN and TP removal efficiencies were similar in each bottle as the strain didn’t perform better in any specific dilution. The control proved that additional mechanisms other than photosynthesis contributed to digestate cleaning. Using the 10 times diluted sludge, Scenedesmus was grown in sealed flasks filled with simulated biogas (35.3 % CO2 + 32.3 % CH4 + 32.3 % N2). More algal biomass was produced in this batch culture. Nutrient removal efficiencies were close to the ones reached in the open-air flasks. After 10 days, 96 % of carbon dioxide was reduced. Methane content was depleted as well, possibly due to undesirable methane oxidizing bacteria which infiltrated the medium.

Rural organic waste is becoming a problem in developing countries due to lack of financial and technological support comparing with situation in urban area. A rural organic waste treatment system was designed utilizing vermicomposting technology to treat organic waste generated in rural area. ROWATS is a theoretical facility to treat rural organic wastes in Shandong Peninsula, China where cow dung and domestic organic waste are disposed freely. Theoretical demonstration shows that ROWATS can treat 1,200 kg of organic wastes daily and produce around 20 tons of vermicast and 800 kg of earthworm body and larvae every month. Products of ROWATS can be used as soil fertilizer, fish bait, and biopharmaceuticals and so on. Sufficient financial support is the most important factor for ROWATS in rural area. Cost-Benefit Analysis and Net Present Value Calculation were made to assess the feasibility of ROWATS. Results showed that ROWATS is a profitable project in terms of 2 years and 5 years. Sensitivity Analysis is also applied to evaluate the impact of different factors variation on ROWATS, of which result shows price and productivity variation of products can affect the profit of ROWATS more significantly comparing with cost changes. Hence, operator should keep products production stable. ROWATS can also improve the environmental and hygienic impacts through reduction of leakages, odor and bacteria and virus infection from flies, mosquitoes and other poisonous species.

Is specificity an important issue regarding affinity reagents? What about the validation of affinity reagents today, is it good enough? This depends on the application and the producer of the reagent. Validation should be the most important marketing argument that can be found.Today there is a continuous growth of both the number of affinity reagents that are produced and the different types of affinity reagents that are developed. In proteomics they become more and more important in exploring the human proteome. Therefore, validated affinity reagents should be on top of every proteomic researcher’s list. How should this be accomplished?Better international agreements on how affinity reagents should be tested to be regarded as functional reagents are needed. One of the most important issues is the specificity of the affinity reagent. An international standard for which specific validation that is needed for different kinds of applications would be very useful.In this thesis, it is shown that the protein microarray platform that was established within the HPA project at KTH is a very good tool to determine the specificity of different affinity binders.In the first study, the production of mono-specific antibodies for tissue profiling in the Human Protein Atlas (HPA) project is presented. The section describing the use of protein microarrays for validation of the antibodies is relevant for this thesis. The implementation of protein microarrays in the HPA workflow was an important addition, because a deeper insight of the specificity of all the antibodies produced were now available.In a second study, bead based arrays were compared to planar protein microarrays used in the HPA project. In this study, 100 different bead identities were coupled with 100 different antigens and mixed together to generate an array. The correlation between the two types of assays was very high and the conclusion was that the methods can be used as backup to each other.A third study was a part of an international initiative to produce renewable affinity binders against proteins containing SH2 domain. Here, the HPA protein microarrays were modified to analyze different types of reagents produced at six laboratories around the world. Monoclonal antibodies, single chain fragment and fibronectin scaffolds were tested as well as mono-specific antibodies. It was shown to be possible to adapt protein microarrays used in the HPA project to validate other kinds of affinity reagents. / QC 20111117 / Development and applications of protein microarrays / The Swedish Human Proteome Resource (HPR) program

Introduction: Clostridium thermocellum is considered a model organism forconsolidated bioprocessing, due to its ability to hydrolyze lignocellulosicbiomass more efficiently than many other organisms and to produce ethanol.In order to meet the industrial requirements of ethanol yield and titer, metabolicengineering efforts have been made resulting in a strain that successfullydisplays increased ethanol yield with reduced amount of some byproducts.However, the ethanol yield in this engineered strain still does not meet theindustrial requirements and significant amounts of amino acids are stillproduced. To attempt to decrease the level of amino acid excretion intended toimprove the ethanol yield in C. thermocellum, it is essential to understand itsmetabolism and how it is affected by different cultivation conditions and mediumcompositions. This study aimed to gain an insight in how carbon- and nitrogenlimitation affect amino acid excretion in C. thermocellum, with the hypothesisthat excess of carbon and nitrogen yields more amino acid excretion. Methods: Mass-balance based calculations of rates and yields were used toanalyze the metabolism of a wild-type of C. thermocellum (DSM 1313) grownanaerobically in carbon- or nitrogen-limiting chemostats. For this, Low-Carbonmedium containing, respectively, cellobiose (5 g/L) and urea (0.15 g/L) as thelimiting nutrient was used. Both cultivations were performed at 55 °C, pH 7.0and 400 RPM shaking at a dilution rate of 0.1 h-1. Conclusion:  Considering yields of total amino acids excreted in bothlimitations, it was hypothesized that C. thermocellum exploited the amino acidexcretion to maintain carbon balance around the pyruvate node caused byexcess of the carbon. Based on yield of valine excreted in particular, it washypothesized that amino acid excretion was used to maintain redox balance inthe metabolism of C. thermocellum, where malate shunt could play a major role.However, results of the Carbon-limitation did not allow any conclusion ofnitrogen excess having an effect on amino acid excretion in C. thermocellum.

Previous small-scale methods for plasmid DNA (pDNA) purification fail to meet theindustry’s demand for sufficient quantities. Greater volumes of bacterial lysates are a consequence of larger volumetric fermentations and traditional large-scale down-stream purification processes have some disadvantages and limitations. The market is believed to continue to expand, hence the need for efficient, cost-effective, andscalable purification processes becomes apparent. A crucial trade-off exists between pDNA yield and purity, necessitating careful consideration in chromatographic pu-rification steps. Each step enhances purity while likely sacrificing yield. In order to achieve a higher degree of pDNA yield, optimal purification entails a single chro-matographic step, specifically anion-exchange chromatography (AEX) in combina-tion with filtration. Alternatively, a two-step purification approach involving AEX followed by hydrophobic interaction chromatography (HIC) is recommended to elim-inate complementary impurities and achieve a high level of purity. Furthermore, the utilization of monolithic chromatographic supports is suggested to facilitate the sug-gested purification strategies. This is due to monoliths promoting higher binding capacities, ensuring robust and consistent results even at high flow rates.

This work is a comparison of a well-established and a novel, "green" and efficient technique to separate peptides of pharmaceutical interest. An attempt is made to derive the chromatographic retention behaviour from these techniques to a number of property descriptors derived from the linear sequence of amino acids. A set of therapeutic peptides were carefully chosen to be experimentally evaluated using in silico-based descriptor calculations. A principle component analysis was performed to assess the distribution of calculated descriptors for including peptides with variable properties. A diluent optimization study was also included to find the optimal diluent for peptides with minimal diluent effects and peak splitting phenomena. The results showed that the solvents tert-butanol and methanol performed best between 20-30 and 50 volumetric percent water as additive in SFC and HPLC, respectively. These diluents were then used for the peptides within the set to evaluate the retention and selectivity in HPLC and SFC. SFC performed well in terms of resolving power. Inparticular, SFC was able to separate Leuprolide and Triptorelin while HPLC was not. A comparison was also made in between the two stationary phases CN and XT, where a global selectivity was shown to be higher for CN. This work does also assess a novel method for determining solubility of analytes in supercritical fluid. The method was evaluated using the pharmaceutical compounds caffeine and aspirin and then used to determine solubility of Leu-Enkephalin in 20% (v/v%) methanol. The solubility of caffeine was determined to be 0.45 mg ml-1 in pure SF-CO2 under 140 bar pressure and 3.9 mg ml-1 for aspirin in 2.4% methanol. Both values correlated well with measurements from four acknowledged papers within this field. Leu-Enkephalin was found to have a solubility of 1.90 mg ml-1 using a solvent corresponding to the initial phase condition of the gradient used for peptide analysis in SFC. Further experimental work is required before the method can be implemented as a useful tool in preparative chromatography, however the results presented here show the compatibility of assessing biomolecules in both pure SF-CO2 and mixed with modifier. The possibility to determine solubility with additional modifier infers an important step of including and evaluating these compounds creating a solid support to subsequent large scale separation.

Inom dagens tillverkande företag pågår en allt större konkurrens om att vinna marknadens kunder. En av de främsta konkurrenskrafterna är korta ledtider. Som ett led i detta har vetenskapliga filosofier och metoder inom Lean blivit allt mer förekommande inom verksamheterna. Teorierna handlar om att skapa effektiva processer och att producera rätt produkt, till rätt kvalitet inom rätt tid. Under de senaste åren har en ökad medvetenhet för inköp-och orderhanteringens betydelse trätt fram. Enligt tidigare forskning kan en effektiv inköps-och orderhanteringsprocess bidra till att den totala tillverkningsprocessens ledtid effektiviseras. Sekventiella arbetsprocesser är vanligt förekommande trots att administrativa handläggningsaktiviteter ofta kan utföras parallellt, detta medför en onödig fördröjning av ledtiden. Studiens syfte är undersöka hur orderhanteringsprocessen ledtid kan reduceras. En ledtidsreducering baserat på att finna icke värdeskapande aktiviteter och problemområden inom och åtgärda dessa med hjälp av lämpliga åtgärdsmetoder.   Arbetet är en fallstudie som utförts på teknikutvecklingsföretaget Syntronic. Arbetets empiriska studie gjordes genom intervjuer, observationer och dokument. För att underlätta analysarbetet användes ett fiskbensdiagram för att finna orsakerna till problemområden och icke värdeskapande aktiviteter i processen. För att förtydliga processflödet och vart i processen de identifierade problemområdena uppstod kartlades observationen genom en värdeflödesanalys. Arbetets litteraturstudie bestod av teorier kring orderhantering, effektivisering, ledtider och Lean.   Analysarbetet gav upphov till att bristande kommunikation, avsaknad av standardiserat arbetssätt, bristande planering, bristande affärssystem samt bristande helhetssyn var orsakerna till den ineffektiva orderhanteringsprocessen. Studien resulterade i att lämpliga förbättringsåtgärder och arbetsmetoder kunde urskiljas. Metoder inom Lean som 5S, Kaizen och TQM (Total Quality Management) ansågs kunna lämpa sig för fallstudien. Analysarbetet inspirerade även till att utveckla förslag till en ny arbetsmetod: 5S Administration Plus. Arbetsmodellen talar för vikten att standardisera arbetsrutiner, följa upp och utvärdera för att bibehålla förbättringsarbetet.   Studiens teoretiska bidrag talar för hur kombinationen av metoder inom Lean kan tillämpas som effektiviseringsverktyg i en administrativ orderhanteringsprocess. Det praktiska bidraget svarar på studiens syfte och frågeställning angående hur orderhanteringsprocessen kan effektiviseras.