The whole-cell behavior arises from the interplay among signaling, metabolic, and regulatory processes, which differ not only in their mechanisms, but also in the time scale of their execution. Proper modeling of the overall function of the cell requires development of a new modeling approach that accurately integrates these three types of processes, using the representation that best captures each one of them, and the interconnections between them. Traditionally, signaling networks have been modeled with ordinary differential equations (ODEs), regulation with Boolean networks, and metabolic pathways with Petri nets – these approaches are widely accepted and extensively used. Nonetheless, each of these methods, while being effective, have had limitations pointed out to them. Particularly, ODEs generally require very thorough parameterization, which is difficult to acquire, Boolean networks have been argued to be not capable of capturing complex systems dynamics, and the effectiveness of Petri nets when comparing to other, steady-state methods, have been debated. The main goal of this dissertation is to devise an integrated model that capture the whole-cell behavior and accurately combines these three components in the interplay between them. I provide a systematic study on using particle swarm optimization (PSO) as an effective approach for parameterizing ODEs. I survey different inference method for Boolean networks on the sets of complex dynamic data and demonstrate that they are, in fact, capable of capturing a variety of different systems. I review the existing use of Petri nets in modeling of biochemical system to show their effectiveness and, particularly, the ease for their integration with other methods. Finally, I propose an integrated hybrid model (IHM) that uses Petri nets to represent metabolic and signaling components, and Boolean networks to model regulation. The interconnections between these models allow to overcome the time scale differences of the processes by adding appropriate delay mechanisms. I validate IHM on two data sets. The significant advantage of IHM over other models is that it is able to capture the dynamics of all three components and can potentially identify novel and important cross-talk within the cell.

Sweden is one of the European countries that became a main destination for the immigrants and refugees from different countries and from different cultural backgrounds especially from the developing world.        While there seems to be a consensus in the literature that cultural adjustment is needed to integrate immigrants in the host culture, so far, it is not clear how the immigrants in Sweden perceive that need, and how willing and how welcomed they are to adjust to the Swedish culture. Therefore, it becomes necessary to shed light on the debate of the need of cultural adjustment and the major theories in this debate like the assimilation theory and Harrison’s theory, which arguing that immigrants need to culturally adjust to be able to fit in and to integrate in the host culture.        In this sense, the study aims to shed a different light on this debate through the immigrant’s perspective and how they perceive the need for cultural adjustment to integrate in the Swedish culture, and how willing as well as how welcomed they are to adjust to the host culture. A qualitative study was carried out using 18 semi-structured interviews as the primary source of data in the study, while the scope of this study was limited only to Växjö city which makes it difficult to generalize the results of this study.        The findings have revealed that the sample of immigrants in this study have perceived the need for a socio-economic adjustment rather than a cultural one and they feel willing and welcomed by the Swedish culture to make such adjustment as it is crucial and necessary for them to improve the quality of life as well as for social inclusion to be integrated and not excluded or marginalized.        The author suggests further research in this topic by conducting similar research but on a wider scope and with deeper interviews that include a larger number of immigrants to further explore how they perceive the need to adjust to the Swedish society.     Key words: culture, adjustment, integration, assimilation, immigrants.

This master thesis work was done at Ipendo Systems in Linköping, a company that makes an intellectual property management system called Ipendo Platform. The master thesis describes the design and development of an extension to a web based solution to work as desktop application and demonstrating the solution with an Outlook plugin. The goal was to improve the workflow for the user when handling documents received by mail and also find and evaluate a model for product integration that could be re-used for future projects. The result of the master thesis is an Outlook plugin and a web service that exposes part of Ipendo Platform functionality in a service layer. As a final test the solution was tested in a production environment to simulate real world usage. The report provides conclusions about the pros and cons of this kind solution and how the current design and implementation of Ipendo Platform has affected the outcome.

In today’s world Lean and Green are becoming essential components of the supply chain. The thesis tries to contribute to a further understanding of the supply chain management, lean, green and their integration. The basic concepts and the research contributions of various authors are briefed in the theoretical framework made for a better understanding to the readers. Having gained the relevant theoretical knowledge, the interview questions are framed and case companies are analyzed for their lean and green activities in their supply chain. The empirical data collected from the case companies through interviews and surveys are projected. With the empirical results and the relevant theoretical results, an analysis & discussion is made which explicitly gives the implications of lean and green over the supply chain and their associated practical scenarios. The outcome and the findings are used to construct a model which depicts the relationship between lean, green and their influence over the supply chain. Influence on the supply chain by lean and green are projected independently in the lean supply chain model and green supply chain. The Integrated lean and green model illustrates the relationship and influence between lean, green and supply chain factors. This model also serves as a prototype for the industries to make their own indigenous integrated model. Further, outcome that how lean and green improves the supply chain and the lean and green integrated model are summarized in the conclusion. In a bird’s eye view, this research thesis work is a contribution to lean, green and their integration which explicitly shows the ways that lean, green improves the supply chain performance and  provides a framework / prototype model for lean and green integration for the industries.

The employment success of immigrants to Canada has been a primary focus of sociological research on immigrant integration. However, much of this research has examined the concept of “employment success” solely in terms of earnings. Studies that focus on whether immigrants obtain employment matching their desired or pre-migration occupations provide inadequate measures by examining whether or not immigrants obtain employment in their desired occupations at a very broad level. In addition, the majority of quantitative analyses use cross-sectional data to examine the economic integration of immigrants. The following research tests hypotheses which examine the relationships that various ascribed, human capital, and occupational characteristics have with multiple dimensions of employment success for a cohort of recent immigrants to Canada. Longitudinal analyses of several dimensions of the employment success of recent immigrants are conducted with the use of the Longitudinal Survey of Immigrants to Canada. These “dimensions” include an examination of the likelihood that an immigrant will obtain employment in his or her intended occupation, or a “job match”, at some point during his or her first two years in Canada, the rate at which he or she obtains a job match during this time, and the change in his or her occupational prestige scores and wages between jobs. A case study of immigrant engineers is also presented, providing some insight into the employment success of immigrants seeking employment in regulated professions. Human capital theory, the theory of discrimination, and Weber’s theory of social closure are employed to examine different predictors of immigrant employment success. A distinctive contribution of this study is the examination of how different characteristics of an immigrant’s intended occupation may influence the likelihood of him or her obtaining a job match and the rate at which he or she does so. By examining several different aspects of employment success and accounting for immigrants’ employment throughout their first two years in Canada a more comprehensive picture of the economic integration of recent immigrants is obtained. However, the results indicate that one over-arching theory is not adequate in explaining the process of the economic integration of recent immigrants to Canada.

In 1974 Boston, Massachusetts was forced to confront its civil rights violations. In the case of Morgan v. Hennigan, Judge W. Arthur Garrity Jr. found the city of Boston guilty of intentionally segregating its public schools and ordered Boston to bus students to achieve integration. When busing commenced in the fall of 1974, Boston was a city divided. The citizens of Boston were divided into two main groups: the opponents and supporters but there was no uniform consensus in either group. This study will argue that the motivations for support or opposition were multi-faceted. Those who supported busing had varied reasons for their support and those who opposed busing had varied reasons for their opposition. Through the examination of local and national newspapers and letters of public opinion this work elucidates how Judge Garrity and the Morgan v. Hennigan decision were represented and perceived throughout the city.

Denna studie syftade till att öka förståelsen för hur mottagandet av äldre invandrare kan upplevas i en svensk medelstor kommun. Frågeställningarna rörde hur företrädare för invandrades egna organisationer och yrkesverksamma uppfattar att mottagandet fungerar. För att undersöka detta har dokument rörande mottagandet av invandrare i kommunen undersökts. Företrädare för tre olika invandrarorganisationer har intervjuats enskilt och tre yrkesverksamma kommunala tjänstemän har deltagit i en fokusgruppsintervju i ämnet. Med hjälp av Aaron Antonovskys individteori känsla av sammanhang (KASAM), Roine Johanssons organisationsteori och Berth Danermarks tankar om samverkan har materialet analyserats hermeneutiskt. Studiens resultat visade att ingen särskild planering görs för att ta emot äldre invandrare. Både företrädarna för invandrarorganisationerna och de yrkesverksamma var kritiska till mottagandet i kommunen. Kritiken rörde bristen på planering och samarbete mellan organisationer som möter invandrare. Särskilt påpekades vikten av att tillvarata kunskaper från integrerade landsmän för att skapa förståelse för kulturella skillnader.

The intention of this paper was to study the integration between the students from the introductory class, and the students from a regular class. The school we studied called Arlanda Gymnasium. Where we did a study on what the municipality and the school makes for students at the school to be integrated with each other. And what the school does to achieve the educational goals set. We will also see if the school and the municipality meet and comply with criteria such as school work places. We also examined which resources used to achieve the objectives and whether they are adequate.

I det här arbetet har jag undersökt hur man kan använda en skönlitterär roman och en underhållningsfilm i ämnesintegrerad undervisning i syfte att uppnå målen i svenska och historia på gymnasiet. Som underlag för mitt arbete har jag använt Steven Spielbergs Schindler´s list och Jan Guillous Vägen till Jerusalem. Min undersökning bygger på en tolkning av styrdokumentens intentioner, samt svensk- och historielärares åsikter om mediernas användbarhet i ämnesintegrerad undervisning. Undersökningen visade att lärare uppfattade filmens och romanens integrationsmöjligheter som mycket väl användbara i syfte att uppnå kursmålen, vilka i sin tur tydligt uttryckte en gemensam nämnare mellan svenska och historia, det vill säga som identitetsskapande. Vidare återfanns förenande element så som en historisk dimension, en kritisk medvetenhet och språket som medium för kommunikation. Genom olika former av diskussioner, analyser och fördjupningsarbeten kan eleven, med utgångspunkt i filmen Schindler´s list och romanen Vägen till Jerusalem uppnå flera av kursmålen för svenska och historia A och B på gymnasienivå.

Company X develops a laboratory information system (LIS) called System Y. The informationsystem has a two-tier database architecture consisting of a production database and a historicaldatabase. A database constitutes the backbone of a IS, which makes the design of the databasevery important. A poorly designed database can cause major problems within an organization.The two databases in System Y are poorly modeled, particularly the historical database. Thecause of the poor modeling was unclear concepts. The unclear concepts have remained in thedatabase and in the company organization and caused a general confusion of concepts. The splitdatabase architecture itself has evolved into a bottleneck and is the cause of many problemsduring the development of System Y.Company X investigates the possibility of integrating the historical database with the productiondatabase. The goal of our thesis is to conduct a consequence analysis of such integration andwhat the effects would be on System Y, and to create a new design for the integrated database.We will also examine and describe the practical effects of confusion of concepts for a databaseconceptual design.To achieve the goal of the thesis, five different method steps have been performed: a preliminarystudy of the organization, a change analysis, a consequence analysis and an investigation of theconceptual design of the database. These method steps have helped identify changes necessaryfor the organization, a new design proposal for an integrated database, the impact of theproposed design and a number of effects of confusion for the database.