Aphasia is an acquired language impairment caused by damage in the regions of the brain that support language. The Main Concept Analysis (MCA) is a published formal assessment battery that allows the quantification of the presence, accuracy, completeness, and efficiency of content in spoken discourse produced by persons with aphasia (PWA). It utilizes a sequential picture description task (with four sets of pictures) for language sample elicitation. The MCA results can also be used clinically for targeting appropriate interventions of aphasic output. The purpose of this research is to develop a Spanish adaptation of the MCA by establishing normative data based on native unimpaired speakers of Spanish. In the pilot study, thirty-eight unimpaired Spanish participants were recruited by previous student researchers. Each participant was asked to complete a demographic questionnaire and a short form of the Cognitive Linguistic Quick Test was administered to rule out any unidentified language problems. The MCA was then be administered to participants and their oral description was audio recorded for later orthographic transcription. A total of 81 unimpaired participants that consisted of different genders, ages (young, middle-aged, and older groups), levels of education (high versus low), and dialect origins (e.g., Spain, Puerto Rico, Columbia) were recruited in the main study to establish a more balanced set of data. One person with aphasia (PWA) was recruited for this study. Based on the collected normative samples, the essential information was identified for each participant. A dialect-specific scoring criteria including target main concepts and lexicons of the Spanish-MCA were developed. The Spanish-MCA was conducted to test the validity of the assessment battery. In the current study, a preliminary set of data using the MCA scoring criteria has been established. Similar to findings in Kong and Yeh 2015, the results of the Spanish-MCA showed age and education did impact discourse performance. Results from one-way ANOVA revealed statistical differences between age groups and education levels of the unimpaired participants recruited. The groups of participants with a higher education conveyed more AC concepts compared to the other dialect groups. To compare data for PWA, it is suggested that a larger sample size of PWA be recruited to validate the Spanish-MCA.

High-oxidation state main-group metal complexes are potential alternatives to transition metals for electrophilic C-H functionalization reactions. However, there is little known about how selection of the p-block, main-group metal and ligand impact C-H activation and functionalization thermodynamics and reactivity. Chapter 2 reports density functional theory (DFT) calculations used to determine qualitative and quantitative features of C-H activation and metal-methyl functionalization energy landscapes for reaction between high-oxidation state d10s0 InIII, TlIII, SnIV, and PbIV carboxylate complexes with methane. While the main-group metal influences the C-H activation barrier height in a periodic manner, the carboxylate ligand has a much larger quantitative impact on C-H activation with stabilized carboxylate anions inducing the lowest barriers. For metal-methyl reductive functionalization reactions, the barrier heights, are correlated to bond heterolysis energies as model two-electron reduction energies.In Chapter 3, DFT calculations reveal that arene C-H functionalization by the p-block main-group metal complex TlIII(TFA)3 (TFA = trifluoroacetate) occurs by a C-H activation mechanism akin to transition metal-mediated C-H activation. For benzene, toluene, and xylenes a one-step C-H activation is preferred over electron transfer or proton-coupled electron transfer. The proposed C-H activation mechanism is consistent with calculation and comparison to experiment, of arene thallation rates, regioselectivity, and H/D kinetic isotope effects. For trimethyl and tetramethyl substituted arenes, electron transfer becomes the preferred pathway and thermodynamic and kinetic calculations correctly predict the experimentally reported electron transfer crossover region.In Chapter 4, DFT calculations are used to understand the C-H oxidation reactions of methane and isobutane with SbVF5. SbVF5 is generally assumed to oxidize methane through a methanium-methyl cation mechanism. DFT calculations were used to examine methane oxidation by SbVF5 in the presence of CO leading to the acylium cation, [CH3CO]+. While there is a low barrier for methane protonation by [SbVF6]-[H]+ to give the [SbVF5]-[CH5]+ ion pair, H2 dissociation is a relatively higher energy process, even with CO assistance, and so this protonation pathway is reversible. The C-H activation/[]-bond metathesis mechanism with formation of an SbV-Me intermediate is the lowest energy pathway examined. This pathway leads to [CH3CO]+ by functionalization of the SbV-Me intermediate by CO, and is consistent with no observation of H2. In contrast to methane, due to the much lower carbocation hydride affinity, isobutane significantly favors hydride transfer to give tert-butyl carbocation with concomitant SbV to SbIII reduction. In this mechanism, the resulting highly acidic SbV-H intermediate provides a route to H2 through protonation of isobutane.

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Inom det kliniska arbetet för logopeder finns det behov av fler riktlinjer och bedömningsmaterial för att kunna bedöma flerspråkiga barn. Därför finns det även behov av mer forskning gällande flerspråkiga barns språkutveckling och mer information om flerspråkigabarn med språkstörning. Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka hur flerspråkiga svenskarabisktalandebarn introducerade karaktärer i muntligt berättande. Berättarförmåganundersöktes hos 20 svensk-arabisktalande barn med typisk språkutveckling i åldrarna 5:0-6:11och 9 svensk-arabiskatalande barn med språkstörning i samma ålder. Sedan jämfördes förmågan att introducera karaktärer mellan de två grupperna. Det undersöktes även om det fanns några skillnader mellan barnens förmåga att introducera karaktärer vid berättande på svenska respektive arabiska. Det granskades om det fanns samband mellan förmågan att introducera karaktärer och barnets ordförråd på de olika språken eller bakgrundsfaktorer, såsom exponering av respektive språk. Testet Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives(MAIN) användes för elicitering av berättande till olika bildserier ur MAIN, där barnen vid ett tillfälle berättade på svenska och vid ett annat berättade på arabiska. Cross-linguistic LexicalTask (CLT) användes för att testa ordförrådet på båda barnens språk. Föräldrarna fick fylla i ett formulär med bakgrundsinformation om barnets språkutveckling och exponering för de båda språken. Vid jämförelse av barn med respektive utan språkstörning sågs en statistisk signifikant skillnad mellan hur barn med typisk språkutveckling introducerar karaktärer på svenska jämförtmed barn med språkstörning, men denna skillnad sågs inte vid berättande på arabiska. Däremot vid jämförelse av barnens förmåga att introducera karaktärer på arabiska respektive svenska, hos både barn med och utan språkstörning, framkom ingen skillnad mellan barnens förmåga att introducera karaktärer på arabiska respektive svenska, vilket kan tolkas som att förmågan att introducera karaktärer inte skiljer sig mellan språken. Vid introduktion av karaktärer använde både barnen med respektive utan språkstörning för det mesta substantiv (och inte endastpronomen eller ändelser) vilket visar på att de hade förståelse för att de måste introducera karaktären explicit och lexikalt för att lyssnaren ska förstå. Dock behärskade barnen ännu inte fullständigt användningen av den korrekta formen, dvs. obestämda nominalfraser, vid introduktion av karaktärer. Hur barnen valde att introducera karaktären hade även ett samband med karaktärens roll i berättelsen, animacitet, samt barnets grammatiska förmåga och ordförråd i språket som de berättade på. / In the clinical work of speech and language pathologists, there is a need for more guidelines and assessment materials to be able to assess multilingual children. Therefore, there is also a need for more research on multilingual children's language development, especially multilingual children with language impairment. The purpose of this study was to investigate how multilingual Swedish-Arabic-speaking children introduce characters in oral narratives. Storytelling abilities were examined in 20 Swedish-Arabic-speaking children 5:0-6:11years of age with typical language development and 9 Swedish-Arabic-speaking children with language impairment of the same age. Specifically, the ability to introduce characters was compared between the two groups. Potential differences between Swedish or Arabic were also investigated and whether vocabulary knowledge in the two languages or exposure had an impact on character introduction. The Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives (MAIN) was used to elicit storytelling with different picture sequences, at one test meeting in Swedish and at another test meeting in Arabic. Cross-linguistic Lexical Tasks (CLT) were used to test vocabulary in the children's both languages. Parents filled in a questionnaire with background information on the child's language development and their exposure to the different languages. There was a significant difference between how children with typical language development and children with language impairment introduced characters in Swedish, but this difference was not seen in Arabic. The children's ability to introduce characters did not significantly differ between Arabic and Swedish, respectively, and this can be interpreted as the ability to introduce characters is transferable between languages. When introducing characters, both children with and without language impairment used mostly lexical phrases (and not just pronouns or verbal inflection), indicating that they had an understanding that they must introduce the character explicitly and lexically in order for the listener to understand. However, the children had not yet fully mastered the use of the correct form, i.e. an indefinite noun phrase, when introducing characters. How the children chose to introduce the character was also influenced by the character's role in storytelling, animacy, and the child's grammatical ability and vocabulary in the language they were telling the story in.

With the development of the deforestation industry and the increased demand for sawn goods and woods over the world, created a need for more efficient harvesting methods, a need that was represented by mechanized harvesters and forwarders in forestry. These machines are efficient when it comes to mass production and can cut and delimb trees of all sizes and kinds. Still, these machines are large and heavy ,which causes high damage to the soil around the machinery. This causes ground disturbance. A new approach is to construct more specific light machines that are used to cut and delimb small trees without damaging the soil. The new harvester machine can minimize the use of the traditional big, mechanized harvesters. The project goal is to minimize the weight of the bearing structure of the harvester to increase the performance at the expense of robustness. In this master thesis, the biggest and heaviest bearing component is “the main plate” that carries most of the components is chosen to be optimized and remodeled. This master thesis is divided into two parts: ● The impact forces measurements created by delimbing. ● Optimization, redesign and material investigation to decrease the mass of the main plate. The first step was to design and manufacture a test rig, find an approach to measure the impact force, perform a structural test to 3 thicknesses of blades, execute the experiment and validate the results to estimate the maximum impact force. The measured forces are used to perform structural analysis, topology optimization and result validation using ANSYS, a new optimized model has been created from the optimization results using Solid Edge and a material investigation was performed using GRANTA CES EduPack. Finally, the mass of the main plate is reduced by 82% after the material removal and application of a new material alternative. / Med utvecklingen av avskogning industrin och den ökade efterfrågan på sågade gods och skogar över hela världen skapades ett behov för effektivare avverkningsmetoder. Detta behov representerades i mekaniserade skördare och skotare i skogsbruket. Dessa maskiner är effektiva när det gäller massproduktion och kan skära alla typer och storlekar av träd. Dock är dessa maskiner stora och tunga vilket orsakar stora skador på jorden runt maskinerna. Detta orsakar störningar i marken. Ett nytt tillvägagångssätt är att konstruera mer specifika lätta maskiner som används för att skära små träd utan att skada jorden. Den nya skördemaskinen kan minimera användningen av de traditionella stora, mekaniserade skördarna. Projektets syfte är att minimera vikten av skördarens bärande struktur för att öka prestandan på bekostnad av robusthet. I detta examensarbete är den största och tyngsta bärande strukturen huvudplattan som bär de flesta komponenterna vald för att optimeras och ommodelleras. Detta examensarbete är uppdelad i två delar: ● Mätning av slagkraft. ● Optimering, ommodellering och materialundersökning för att minska massan på huvudplattan. Det första steget var att konstruera och tillverka en testrigg, hitta en metod för att mäta slagkrafterna, utföra en strukturell provning till 3 tjocklekar på bladen, utföra experimentet och validera resultaten för att uppskatta den maximala slagkraften. De uppmätta krafterna används för att utföra strukturanalys, topologioptimering och resultatvalidering med ANSYS, en ny optimerad modell har skapats från optimeringsresultaten med Solid Edge och materialundersökning utfördes med GRANTA CES EduPack. Slutligen, massan av huvudplattan minskade med 82 % efter materialborttagning och applicering av ett nytt materialalternativ.