Excessive concentrations of arsenic in soil- and groundwater constitute a global issue. The spread of arsenic is due to both natural and anthropogenic effects in the environment. Historically, the anthropogenic emissions have originated from several different industrial sectors e.g. wood impregnation. In Sweden, there are approximately 85 000 contaminated sites. Most of them are contaminated due to industrial activities. The emissions of arsenic in Sweden are mainly due to the wood impregnating agent CCA (copper, chromium and arsenic). Arsenic is a toxic metalloid that predominantly occurs as the inorganic compounds arsenite As[III] and arsenate As[V] in soil and groundwater. The mobilization of the arsenic compounds in soil water is affected by the redox conditions and by other conditions in the field, e.g. pH. Arsenate adsorbs stronger to iron- and aluminum hydroxides. Arsenite is the most toxic, mobile and soluble of the two compounds.   In a previously remediated impregnation plant in Hjältevad, Småland, arsenic has started to spread in the soil and groundwater. High dissolved concentrations of arsenic have been measured in the area. A hypothesis about the recent mobilization of arsenic is that pollutants below the groundwater table which were left behind after remediation started to dissolve due to changed redox conditions. This report aims to evaluate how the mobilization and adsorption of arsenic in Hjältevad is effected by pH and redox potential. This was addressed by leaching tests and geochemical modeling in Visual MINTEQ. Soil samples were collected during autumn 2017. Soil samples from seven different sampling points, taken from different depths were collected. Leaching tests were carried out for both dry and humid soil samples. Oxalate extractable arsenic was used together with measured dissolved concentrations of cat- and anions as input in Visual MINTEQ. The input data were used to evaluate the mobilization and adsorption of arsenite, arsenate and total arsenic due to pH, redox potential and the specific surface area of ferrihydrite. The modeling showed that the mobilization and adsorption of arsenic is dependent on pH, redox potential and reactive surfaces in the soil solution. Arsenate was adsorbed more strongly between pH 4.5 and 6.5 while arsenite was adsorbed at pH values greater than 7. The conclusion is that the mobilization and adsorption of arsenic were affected to some extent by the pH value. However the redox potential and the specific surface area of ferrihydrite were more influential. To verify the trends seen in the report, additional modeling is required. The report shows that most likely, arsenic started to mobilize in Hjältevad due to the changed redox conditions.

This diploma thesis defines the term indexing and in preamble are discussed known indexing algorithms and difference between indexing static and moving objects. The practical part of this diploma thesis is aimed to designing and implementing of indexing algorithm for open source application MaNGOS with respect to generic design pattern and effectiveness of spatial search queries for selection of the objects given properties in the specified area. At the end I present and discuss reached results.

The goal of the master ́s thesis is to study index methods, spatial data type objects in PostgreSQL database systems and to create SP-GiST index by quadtree in the PostGIS. The PostGIS is spatial database, which extends of PostgreSQL. PostGIS adds support for geographic and spatial objects. It is a big benefit. PostGIS has its own data types, methods and GiST index too, but there is SP-GiST index missing, therefore master's thesis was created.

Background During development, endothelial cells acquire mesenchymal-like properties to migrate and facilitate normal vascular formation. This process of transformation is known as endothelial to mesenchymal transition (EndMT) and has also been implicated in diseases like vascular pathologies contributing to endothelial inflammation, atherosclerosis and tumour angiogenesis. The Angiomotin family of scaffold proteins play a role in transducing mechanical force at cell junctions. Of this family, Angiomotin-Like 2 (AmotL2) localises to endothelial cell junctions and was recently found to play a role in regulating endothelial cell mechanosensing and inflammation. Methods/Materials Primary human endothelial cell lines (HUVEC) were cultured and manipulated in vitro to investigate the role of AmotL2 in EndMT. Lentiviral short hairpin RNA interference was employed in AmotL2-loss-of-function studies, (produced using HEK - Human Embryonic Kidney - cells) to generate knockdown(kd) cells. Western blotting (WB) was used to assess AmotL2 depletion and changes in protein expression of key EndMT markers. qPCR was performed to look at the same at a transcriptional level. Immunofluorescent staining and confocal imaging were performed to validate WB and qPCR results as well as to study protein localisation. Results AmotL2 was found to regulate Snail1 and N-cadherin at both protein and mRNA levels. Morphological findings displayed the AmotL2kd cells to be elongated, deviating from the regular cobblestone morphology observed in control cells. An increase in scaffold protein levels was observed in the AmotL2 kd samples. Similar results were seen in qPCR data where increased mRNA expression was observed in the AmotL2 kd samples for the same targets. On analysis of IF image data, more nuclear staining was observed in the kd samples. qPCR analysis done on samples treated with TGF-β, exhibited an increase in mRNA expression of targets involved in the EndMT pathway in the treatment samples against the controls. Conclusion The results suggest that AmotL2 plays a role in EndMT by affecting the transcription factors and proteins involved in the pathway, which leads to changing morphology and behaviour of the cells. Looking into more targets involved in EndMT may give us a better understanding of how this process leads to diseases like atherosclerosis and tumour angiogenesis.

In order to enable deployment of large neuralnetwork models on devices with limited memory capacity, refinedmethods for compressing these are essential. This project aimsat investigating some possible solutions, namely pruning andpartitioned logit based knowledge distillation, using teacherstudentlearning methods. A cumbersome benchmark teacherneural network was developed and used as a reference. A specialcase of logit based teacher-student learning was then applied,resulting not only in a compressed model, but also in a convenientway of distributing it. The individual student models were ableto mimic the parts of the teacher model with small losses, whilethe network of student models achieved similar accuracy as theteacher model. Overall, the size of the network of student modelswas around 11% of the teacher. Another popular method ofcompressing neural networks was also tested - pruning. Pruningthe teacher network resulted in a much smaller model, around18% of the teacher model, with similar accuracy. / För att möjliggöra användning av storaneurala nätverksmodeller på enheter med begränsad minneskapacitetkrävs raffinerade metoder för komprimering av dessa.Detta projekt syftar till att undersöka några möjliga lösningar,nämligen pruning och partitionerad logit-baserad knowledgedistillation, med hjälp av teacher-student-träning. Ett stortriktmärkesnätverk utvecklades och användes som referens. Enspeciell typ av logit-baserad teacher-student-träning tillämpadessedan, vilket inte bara resulterade i en komprimerad modellutan också i ett smidigt sätt att distribuera den på. De enskildastudent-modellerna kunde efterlikna delar av teachermodellenmed små förluster, medan nätverket av studentmodelleruppnådde ungefär samma noggrannhet som teachermodellen.Sammantaget uppmättes storleken av nätverket avstudent-modeller till cirka 11 % av teacher-modellen. En annanpopulär metod för komprimering av neurala nätverk testadesockså pruning. Pruning av teacher-modellen resulterade i enmycket mindre modell, cirka 18 % av teacher-modellen i termerav storlek, med liknande noggrannhet. / Kandidatexjobb i elektroteknik 2021, KTH, Stockholm

Die Kartierung und Lokalisierung eines mobilen Roboters in seiner Umgebung ist eine wichtige Voraussetzung für dessen Autonomie. In dieser Arbeit wird der Einsatz eines 3D-Laserscanners zur Erfüllung dieser Aufgaben untersucht. Durch die optimierte Anordnung eines rotierenden 2D-Laserscanners werden hochauflösende Bereiche vorgegeben. Zudem wird mit Hilfe von ICP die Kartierung und Lokalisierung im Stillstand durchgeführt. Bei der Betrachtung zur Verbesserung der Bewegungsschätzung wird auch eine Möglichkeit zur Lokalisierung während der Bewegung mit 3D-Scans vorgestellt. Die vorgestellten Algorithmen werden durch Experimente mit realer Hardware evaluiert.

This thesis deals with the method of distributed ray tracing focusing on optimalization of this method. The method uses simulation of some attributes of light by distributing rays of lights and it produces high quality and partly realistic images. The price for realitic effects is the high computational complexity of the method. The thesis analysis the theory connected with these aspects. A large part describes optimalizations of this method, i.e. searching for the nearest triangle intersection using kd-trees, quasi random sampling with faster convergence, the use of SSE instruction set and fast ray - triangle intersection. These optimalizations brought a noticable speed - up. The thesis includes description of implementation of these techniques. The implementation itself emphasises the practical usability including generating some advanced animations and universal description of objects.

Die Kartierung und Lokalisierung eines mobilen Roboters in seiner Umgebung ist eine wichtige Voraussetzung für dessen Autonomie. In dieser Arbeit wird der Einsatz eines 3D-Laserscanners zur Erfüllung dieser Aufgaben untersucht. Durch die optimierte Anordnung eines rotierenden 2D-Laserscanners werden hochauflösende Bereiche vorgegeben. Zudem wird mit Hilfe von ICP die Kartierung und Lokalisierung im Stillstand durchgeführt. Bei der Betrachtung zur Verbesserung der Bewegungsschätzung wird auch eine Möglichkeit zur Lokalisierung während der Bewegung mit 3D-Scans vorgestellt. Die vorgestellten Algorithmen werden durch Experimente mit realer Hardware evaluiert.

The axiomatic theory of ` Zelazko defines a variety of general spectra where specified axioms are satisfied. However, there arise a number of spectra, usually defined for a single element of a Banach algebra, that are not covered by the axiomatic theory of ` Zelazko. V. Kordula and V. M¨uller addressed this issue and created the theory of regularities. Their unique idea was to describe the underlying set of elements on which the spectrum is defined. The axioms of a regularity provide important consequences. We prove that the set of Koliha-Drazin invertible elements, which includes the Drazin invertible elements, forms a regularity. The properties of the spectrum corresponding to a regularity are also investigated. / Mathematical Sciences / M. Sc. (Mathematics)

Thèse numérisée par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.