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Fine particulate matter (PM2.5) has been associated with adverse effects on human health, but whether specific components of PM2.5 are responsible for specific health effects is still under investigation. The complex chemical composition of PM2.5 and issues such as multi-component interactions, spatial variability and sampling/instrument error further complicates this analysis. A complementary approach to examining species-specific associations is to assess associations between health outcomes and sources contributing to PM2.5, which can provide critical information to regulators to tighten controls on sources that contribute most to adverse health effects and allows for better multi-pollutant epidemiologic analyses, as the number of source-categories is typically far less than the number of PM2.5 species. This study develops and evaluates various air quality modeling approaches for determining daily source contributions to ambient PM2.5. Results from long-term air quality simulations using an emissions-based model (Models-3/CMAQ - Community Multiscale Air-Quality model) were evaluated in terms of the model's ability to simulate short-term (e.g., daily) variability in concentrations of PM2.5 components. To examine source-specific health outcomes, an extended PM2.5 source-apportionment model, CMB-LGO (Chemical Mass Balance incorporating the Lipschitz Global Optimizer) was developed and compared with results based on other approaches such as CMB, PMF (Positive Matrix Factorization), and Models-3/CMAQ in terms of simulating the daily variability of source impacts. Based on findings from spatial and temporal analyses of tracer concentrations and source impacts, PM2.5 source-apportionment results from CMB-LGO and PMF were applied in a health-study for the Atlanta area. Despite methodological differences and uncertainties in the apportionment process, good agreement was observed between the CMB-LGO and PMF based risk ratios, indicating to the usefulness of applying apportionment methods in health studies.

The production of clean fuel faces the challenges of high production cost and complying with stricter environmental regulations. In this research, the ability of using a novel technology of upgrading heavy oil to treat Light Gas Oil (LGO) will be investigated. The target of this project is to produce cleaner transportation fuel with much lower cost of production. Recently, a novel process for upgrading of heavy oil has been developed at University of Waterloo. It is combining the two essential processes in bitumen upgrading; emulsion breaking and hydroprocessing into one process. The water in the emulsion is used to generate in situ hydrogen from the Water Gas Shift Reaction (WGSR). This hydrogen can be used for the hydrogenation and hydrotreating reaction which includes sulfur removal instead of the expensive molecular hydrogen. This process can be carried out for the upgrading of the bitumen emulsion which would improve its quality. In this study, the hydrodesulphurization (HDS) of LGO was conducted using in situ hydrogen produced via the Water Gas Shift Reaction (WGSR). The main objective of this experimental study is to evaluate the possibility of producing clean LGO over dispersed molybdenum sulphide catalyst and to evaluate the effect of different promoters and syn-gas on the activity of the dispersed Mo catalyst. Experiments were carried out in a 300 ml Autoclave batch reactor under 600 psi (initially) at 391oC for 1 to 3 hours and different amounts of water. After the hydrotreating reaction, the gas samples were collected and the conversion of carbon monoxide to hydrogen via WGSR was determined using a refinery gas analyzer. The sulphur content in liquid sample was analyzed via X-Ray Fluorescence. Experimental results showed that using more water will enhance WGSR but at the same time inhibits the HDS reaction. It was also shown that the amount of sulfur removed depends on the reaction time. The plan is to investigate the effect of synthesis gas (syngas) molar ratio by varying CO to H2 ratio. It is also planned to use different catalysts promoters and compare them with the un-promoted Mo based catalysts to achieve the optimum reaction conditions for treating LGO. The results of this study showed that Ni and Co have a promoting effect over un-promoted Mo catalysts for both HDS and WGSR. Ni was found to be the best promoter for both reactions. Fe showed no significant effect for both WGSR and HDS. V and K have a good promoting effect in WGSR but they inhibited the HDS reaction. Potassium was found to be the strongest inhibitor for the HDS reaction since no sulfur was removed during the reaction

The production of clean fuel faces the challenges of high production cost and complying with stricter environmental regulations. In this research, the ability of using a novel technology of upgrading heavy oil to treat Light Gas Oil (LGO) will be investigated. The target of this project is to produce cleaner transportation fuel with much lower cost of production. Recently, a novel process for upgrading of heavy oil has been developed at University of Waterloo. It is combining the two essential processes in bitumen upgrading; emulsion breaking and hydroprocessing into one process. The water in the emulsion is used to generate in situ hydrogen from the Water Gas Shift Reaction (WGSR). This hydrogen can be used for the hydrogenation and hydrotreating reaction which includes sulfur removal instead of the expensive molecular hydrogen. This process can be carried out for the upgrading of the bitumen emulsion which would improve its quality. In this study, the hydrodesulphurization (HDS) of LGO was conducted using in situ hydrogen produced via the Water Gas Shift Reaction (WGSR). The main objective of this experimental study is to evaluate the possibility of producing clean LGO over dispersed molybdenum sulphide catalyst and to evaluate the effect of different promoters and syn-gas on the activity of the dispersed Mo catalyst. Experiments were carried out in a 300 ml Autoclave batch reactor under 600 psi (initially) at 391oC for 1 to 3 hours and different amounts of water. After the hydrotreating reaction, the gas samples were collected and the conversion of carbon monoxide to hydrogen via WGSR was determined using a refinery gas analyzer. The sulphur content in liquid sample was analyzed via X-Ray Fluorescence. Experimental results showed that using more water will enhance WGSR but at the same time inhibits the HDS reaction. It was also shown that the amount of sulfur removed depends on the reaction time. The plan is to investigate the effect of synthesis gas (syngas) molar ratio by varying CO to H2 ratio. It is also planned to use different catalysts promoters and compare them with the un-promoted Mo based catalysts to achieve the optimum reaction conditions for treating LGO. The results of this study showed that Ni and Co have a promoting effect over un-promoted Mo catalysts for both HDS and WGSR. Ni was found to be the best promoter for both reactions. Fe showed no significant effect for both WGSR and HDS. V and K have a good promoting effect in WGSR but they inhibited the HDS reaction. Potassium was found to be the strongest inhibitor for the HDS reaction since no sulfur was removed during the reaction

HaKoll!, en arbetsterapeutisk gruppintervention för att hantera tid och organisera aktiviteter, har fått goda resultat i flera studier. Behovet att utveckla nya digitala lösningar är stort inom hälso- och sjukvård, samtidigt som initiativen till detta är begränsade inom arbetsterapi. Mot denna bakgrund blev syftet med studien att utforska och beskriva arbetsterapeuters resonemang om ett digitalt genomförande av HaKoll!. Fokusgrupp valdes som metod för datainsamling. Sex fokusgrupper genomfördes med arbetsterapeuter, tillika gruppledare för HaKoll! Data analyserades enligt analys för fokusgrupper och resulterade i ett övergripande tema, ’En digital lösning har potential om hinder kan överbryggas’ och fyra kategorier: ’Möjliggör ökad effektivitet och tillgänglighet’, ’Interaktionen i gruppen utmanas av ett digitalt format, ’Digitala möten ställer andra krav’ samt ’Behov att utveckla innehåll och upplägg’. Resultatet visade att innehållet i, formatet på och leveransen av HaKoll! behöver anpassas och utvecklas för ett digitalt genomförande, då det inte går att använda i sin nuvarande form. Idéer var bland annat att skapa ett digitalt format i form av en applikation eller att genomföra HaKoll! som videokonferens. Arbetsmiljö och organisation behöver också utvecklas för att stödja digitala lösningar. Resultaten av studien kan bidra med viktig kunskap i utvecklingen av en digital interventionsdesign för HaKoll!, men även kunskap som kan vara till nytta för utvecklandet av andra digitala interventioner inom hälso- och sjukvård. / The Let’s Get Organized (LGO) an occupational therapy group intervention to enhance time management and organize activities, has received good results in several studies. The need to develop new digital interventions in health care is great, but the initiatives for this are limited in occupational therapy. From this background, the objective of the study was to explore and describe occupational therapists' reasoning about a digital implementation of the LGO. Focus group was chosen for data collection. Six focus groups were conducted with occupational therapists, also group leaders for the LGO. Data was analyzed according to analysis for focus groups, and resulted in an overarching theme, ‘A digital implementation has potential if obstacles can be bridged’, and four categories: 'Enables increased efficiency and accessibility', 'The interaction in the group is challenged by a digital format', 'Digital meetings has other requirements', and 'A need to develop the content and arrangement'. The results showed that the content, the format and the delivery of the LGO needs to be adapted and developed for a digital implementation, as it cannot be used in its current form. Ideas included creating a digital format as an application, or implementing LGO as a video conference. The working environment and organization also need to be developed to support telerehabilitation and digital interventions. The results of the study may contribute with important knowledge in the development of a digital intervention design for the LGO, but also knowledge that might be useful for the development of other digital intervention programs in health care.