The main purpose of this thesis is to explore the relationship between best practice adherence and the ownership status of an eco-labeling organization. The research question that is aiming to answer is what key factors most often explain differences in the level of credibility between for-profit carbon management eco-labels and not-for-profit carbon management eco-labels in transnational environmental governance. The case studies of interest are the two certification agencies Verra and The Carbon Reduction Institute. The issue of credibility of eco-labeling schemes will be looked through a Green IR theoretical perspective and debunked with Neoliberal IR theory. The methods which will be used are Small-N comparison and Qualitative Content Analysis conducted through Index for Best Practices. The data for the study is acquired from the online platforms of the two case studies for investigation.

In the first part of this dissertation, copper bimetallic corrosion and its inhibition in cleaning processes involved in interconnect fabrication is explored. In microelectronics fabrication, post chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) cleaning is required to remove organic contaminants and particles left on copper interconnects after the CMP process. Use of cleaning solutions, however, causes serious reliability issues due to corrosion and recession of the interconnects. In this study, different azole compounds are explored and pyrazole is found out to be a potentially superior Cu corrosion inhibitor, compared to the most widely used benzotriazole (BTA), for tetramethyl ammonium hydroxide (TMAH)-based post CMP cleaning solutions at pH 14. Micropattern corrosion screening results and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) revealed that 1 mM Pyrazole in 8 wt% TMAH solution inhibits Cu corrosion more effectively than 10 mM benzotriazole (BTA) under same conditions. Moreover, water contact angle measurement results also showed that Pyrazole-treated Cu surfaces are relatively hydrophilic compared to those treated with BTA/TMAH. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis supports Cu-Pyrazole complex formation on the Cu surface. Overall Cu corrosion rate in TMAH-based highly alkaline post CMP cleaning solution is shown to be considerably reduced to less than 1Å/min by addition of 1 mM Pyrazole. In the second part, a novel technique built in-house called multiple internal Reflection Infrared Spectroscopy (MIR-IR) was explored as a characterization tool for characterization of different low-k structures.In leading edge integrated circuit manufacturing, reduction of RC time delay by incorporation of porous ultra low-k interlayer dielectrics into Cu interconnect nanostructure continues to pose major integration challenges. The main challenge is that porous structure renders interlayer dielectrics mechanically weak, chemically unstable and more susceptible to the RIE plasma etching damages. Besides the challenge of handling weak porous ultra low-k materials, a lack of sensitive metrology to guide systematic development of plasma etching, restoration and cleaning processes is the major stumbling block. We explored Multiple Internal Reflection Infrared Spectroscopy and associated IR techniques as a sensitive (sub-5 nm) characterization tool to investigate chemical bonding modification across fluorocarbon etch residues and low-k dielectric interface after plasma etching, ashing, UV curing and post-etch cleaning. The new insights on chemical bonding transformation mapping can effectively guide the development of clean-friendly plasma etch for creating ultra low-k dielectric nanostructures with minimal dielectric damages.

Rabies is a fatal but preventable neurotropic disease of potentially all mammals. The disease is caused by lyssaviruses. Rabies is recognized as the 10th most common lethal infectious disease in the world, rendering it one of the most feared zoonotic diseases known to man. Nevertheless, rabies can be prevented by application of pre- or post exposure treatments. Rabies vaccines have been available since the time of Pasteur, more that one hundred years ago. Since, vaccine research focused on the development of safer and more effective vaccines. Topics of current interest in the field of rabies vaccinology were addressed in this study. A primary concern regarding the disease is human mortalities, in the range of 60 000, reported every year. Most of these are linked to exposure to rabid dogs. In addition, a great number of post exposure treatments are administered each year at great costs. Despite availability of efficacious biologics, several factors influence the optimal use and accessibility of these agents in the countries of interest, with cost and availability being the major contributing factors. A proven approach is mass oral vaccination of target animals, such as dogs, which indirectly infers protection to susceptible hosts, including man. Currently available vaccines present several disadvantages of use though, including issues of safety or doubtful stability. Safer but effective alternative vaccines that could be used in oral baits would be valuable. Here the use of two candidate host restricted poxvirus vaccine vectors were explored, particularly also in regard to oral innocuity. The construction, convenient isolation and use of a recombinant Lumpy skin disease virus (Neethling strain) expressing rabies virus glycoprotein in a mouse model were investigated. In addition, a recombinant Modified Vaccinia virus Ankara expressing rabies virus glycoprotein was prepared and tested as a vaccine in mice, dogs and raccoons. In both cases it was clear that the severe attenuation of these viruses did affect the efficacy of the recombinant vaccines in the non-permissive hosts. With the recombinant MVA a clear dosage effect could be shown, and equivalent humoral responses could only be attained at much higher titers of vaccine virus as with replication competent counterparts. Secondly, the cross-protection of rabies vaccines across the spectrum of lyssaviruses was addressed. Lyssaviruses can be divided into two groups based on sequence analysis and pathogenesis. Viruses belonging to the so-called phylogroup II, are the Mokola, Lagos and West Caucasian Bat viruses. Classic rabies biologics fail to fully protect against the viruses attributed to a lack of cross-neutralization. Here, cross-protection and cross-reactive immune responses induced by recombinant vaccinia viruses expressing rabies, Mokola or West Caucasian Bat virus glycoproteins, in single or dual combinations, were investigated. As expected, there was a lack of cross-protection of rabies and Mokola glycoprotein vaccines. There was also a clear lack of cross-protection of West Caucasian Bat virus glycoprotein vaccine and rabies and Mokola viruses. The dual antigen expressing vaccines did not appear to offer any additional protective effect in the tested model. The Mokola virus glycoprotein vaccines induced neutralizing antibody responses that significantly cross-neutralized Lagos Bat virus. / Thesis (PhD (Microbiology))--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Microbiology and Plant Pathology / unrestricted

The work deals with the preparation and study of polyphosphate composites. Aluminum phosphates provide some unusual properties like high-heat resistance in terms of inorganic binders. The addition of chromium in the form of Cr2O3 or directly the bond with the aluminum-chromium-phosphate can improve the properties of this binder. Highly viscous Al2Cr(H2PO4)9 and Al3Cr(H2PO4)12 binders were prepared by dissolving Al(OH)3 and CrO3 in 85% phosphoric acid, and mixed with Al2O3 and Cr2O3 fillers. The composites were cured in the furnace at 150 °C for 24 h under pressure of 10 MPa. During the annealing at temperatures up to 1 500 °C changes in chemical structure of the cured composites were observed, leading to the understanding of the creation of crystalline phases and their eventual changes. The characterization of binders was mainly based on FT-IR, EDAX, TG-DTA and optical microscopy analyses.

T1 mapping of myocardial tissue is important for diagnostics of myocardial fibrosis. Cardiac magnetic resonance imaging of small animals is challenging due to high heart and respiratory rates. Pulse sequences for T1 mapping are proposed in this thesis based on inversion recovery FLASH and Intragate FLASH. The sequence IR FLASH was compared to the reference sequence RARE on a static phantom. Both sequences were applied for measuring the myocardium of a rat. For T1 quantification a software in Matlab was developed. Using this software, T1 maps of rat myocardium were calculated.

This master’s thesis is specialized on the influence of correct parameters of emissivity, which depends on the temperature, wavelength and ambient environment. The investigation the parameter was taken infrared non-contact thermometer MI3 from company Raytek. To improve the quality of measurement was designed and programmed measuring utility program. The program was developed in the LabView 8.5 programming environment. To obtain the true value of the measured temperature of the target was designed and constructed the touch thermometer with the resistance dependent sensor. The thermometer is connected to the communication box of infrared thermometer and contain the same program. Nowadays are the most advanced IR thermometer with fixed parameters emissivity, which is applicable just to the real body in the vicinity of the parameter emissivity 0,95. For those IR thermometers were designed correction function, which would have temperature measured at a fixed emissivity parameter 0,95 set close to the actual value of the object.

This paper describes methods and procedures used for code analysis and transformation. It contains basic information of a science discipline called reverse engineering and its use in information technologies. The primary objective is a construction of a generic reverse compiler or decompiler, i.e. tool that can recompile from binary form (optionally from symbolic machine code) to a high level language. This operation is highly dependent on the concrete instruction set and processor architecture. This problem is solved with description of semantic of each instruction by a special language designed for this use. The output is the high level language code and is functionally equivalent to the input. The program is therefore able to work with each instruction set and code written by it can be transformed into the chosen high level language. This proposal is implemented in practice as a part of project Lissom. Generic decompiler is completely new idea. The thesis contains entirely new techniques from theory of compilers and optimizations made by the author.

This thesis deals with source-code migration of high-level programming languages using decompilation. A migration tool developed within the thesis is built on top of the middle-end and back-end parts of Lissom project decompiler. Several compilers generating LLVM IR code from input languages are discussed. Compilers suitable for integration to the migration tool were chosen. Compiled LLVM IR code is an input of the decompiler's optimizing middle-end. The output from the migration tool is a code in the C language or Python-like language generated by the back-end of the decompiler. The input languages are Fortran and its dialects, C/C++/Objective-C/Objective-C++, and D. The thesis describes problems connected with migration of these languages, their solutions, and ways to improve quality and readability of the produced source code.

<p>U ovom radu kori&scaron;cen je spektroskopski, teorijski i hemometrijski pristup<br />proucavanju N-HO i N-H&middot;&middot;&middot; vodonicne veze koja se uspostavlja izmedu<br />amidnog protona i etarskog kiseonika tj aromaticnog sistema. U ovom radu<br />odredeni su parametri N-HO i N-H vodonicne veze za &scaron;esnaest Nsupstituisanih<br />amida sa tetrahidrofuranom i toluenom. Vecina ispitivanih amida do<br />sada nije bila izucavana sa stanovi&scaron;ta vodonicne veze. Uspostavljene su korelacije<br />izmedu spektorsopskih i teorijskih parametara. Izvr&scaron;eno je poredenje medu<br />osobinama vodonicno vezanih kompleksa za razlicite amide kao proton donore.<br />Svih 32 ispitivanih vodonicno vezanih kompleksa okarakterisano je<br />hemometrijskim metodama: Klaster analizom i analizom glavne komponente, na<br />osnovu spektroskopskih, teorijskih i Taftovih parametara</p> / <p> In this PhD thesis, N-H&times;&times;&times;O and N-H&middot;&middot;&middot; hydrogen bond beetwen the amide<br /> proton with ether oxygen and aromatic system has been investigated using the<br /> spectroscopic and theoretical approach. The study included sixteen N-substituted<br /> amides (formamides, acetamides, caproamides and benzamides) as well as<br /> tetrahydrofuran and toluene. The possibility of using chemometric methods was<br /> investigated in order to characterise N-H...O and N-H&middot;&middot;&middot; hydrgen bonded<br /> complexes. Hierarchial clustering and Principal Component Analysis (PCA) have<br /> been applied on infrared spectroscopic, PM3 theoretical and Taft parameters of 32 Nsubstituted<br /> amide complexes with tetrahydrofuran and toluene</p>

Introduktion: Polycystiskt ovarialsyndrom ( PCOS)  är en av de vanligaste orsakerna till infertilitet och metabola störningar bland kvinnor i fertil ålder. Diagnosen vid PCOS karakteriseras av tre relaterade hälsotillstånd: ovulationsstörningar, hyperandrogenism och polycystiskt ovarial morfologi (PCOM). Oberoende av ovanstående huvuddiagnoser verkar insulinresistens (IR) och kompensatorisk hyperinsulinism spela en viktig roll för patogenesen av PCOS. Till följd av detta har ämnen som ökar insulinkänsligheten, såsom myo-inositol, hamnat i allt större fokus som en potentiell behandling av PCOS. Syftet med detta arbete var att undersöka effekten av ett kosttillskott med MI hos kvinnor som lider av infertilitet och ovulationsstörningar, med PCOS som bakomliggande sjukdom.   Metod: Detta är en litteraturstudie där litteratur sökts via databaserna PubMED och MEDLINE. Sökningen genomfördes med sökorden “PCOS” “Inositol PCOS” “myo-inositol PCOS” “myo-inositol metabolic effects PCOS” and “myo-inositol endocrine effects”. Totalt åtta originalstudier svarade mot utvalda urvalskriterier. Utifrån de utvalda studierna analyserades och sammanställdes vidare relevanta effekter av MI tillskott på infertilitet och ovulationsstörningar.  Resultat: Alla de undersökta studierna visade statistiskt signifikanta förbättringar när det gällde ovulationsstörningar. Detta indikerar även en förbättrad fertilitet hos patienterna. Signifikanta minskningar av androgena nivåer (särskilt testosteron) samt en ökad insulinkänslighet rapporterades därtill i ytterligare en majoritet av studierna (6 av 8 resp 5 av 8 studier).  Slutsats: Resultaten visar att Mi som tillskott verkar lindra ovulationsstörningar och förbättra fertilitet, vilket därtill stärker hypotesen om MI som en möjlig behandling av reproduktiva störningar hos kvinnor med PCOS. Fler studier bör genomföras för att fastställa effekten av MI-tillskott vid PCOS. / Introduction: Polycystic ovarian syndrome, PCOS is one of the most common causes of infertility and metabolic disturbances among women in reproductive age. The diagnosis of the syndrome assumes the occurrence of three interrelated health stages:  ovulation disorders, hyperandrogenism and polycystic ovarian morphology (PCOM). In addition to the main diagnoses, insulin resistance (IR) and compensatory hyperinsulinemia seems to  play an important role in the pathogenesis of PCOS. Recent studies have furthermore investigated insulin sensitizers, such as myo-inositol (MI), as a potential alternative treatment of PCOS. The aim of this study was thereby to investigate the effect of MI- supplement on PCOS patients suffering from infertility and ovulation disorders.  Method: This is a literature study relevant literature was gathered through PubMed and MEDLINE. The keywords used for the search were “PCOS” “Inositol PCOS” “myo-inositol PCOS” “myo-inositol metabolic effects PCOS” and “myo-inositol endocrine effects”. A total of 8 studies were selected based on previously determined selection criteria. Among the selected studies, relevant effects of MI-supplement on infertility and ovulation disorders in PCOS patients were further analyzed and compiled. Results: A majority of the studies reported either statistic significant ameliorated or normalized ovulation disorders, indicating an increased fertility among the patients. Likewise, a statistically significant amelioration in androgenic levels (especially testosterone) and insulin levels were also reported in a majority of the studies.  Conclusion: According to the compiled results, there seems to be an enhancing effect of MI-supplement on ovulation disorders and infertility, furthermore strengthening the hyphothesis of MI as a potential treatment for reproductive disorders in PCOS patients. Finally, more studies should be conducted to determine the effect of MI supplements on PCOS.