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“Partner project impact” with a focus on the form of collaboration's impact on subcontractors is the starting point of the work. Partnering is an area of knowledge that is unfortunately still placed in the background. From the labor market to teaching, the ignorance of partnering is noticeable. Whether it depends on the generation working in the industry or the lack of interest, is difficult to answer. This ignorance of the form of cooperation and its significance aroused interest in this report and the hope of creating a greater interest in partnering. With Byggdialog AB as a helping company and their extensive knowledge in the field of partnering, research has been done on how the work environment and finances affect the subcontractors in a partneringproject compared to other projects with, for example, a fixed-price contract.  Partnering is a way of working where you work together from an early stage towards a common goal and with open finances. The contractor must be involved at an early stage together with the customer to arrive at how to create the best product, where they include the subcontractors already in phase 1 to jointly develop the best way of working.  The economic factor of upcoming and ongoing projects is of great importance to companies and their choices for upcoming projects. Relationships and collaborations between all parties in the project, from client to main contractor and subcontractors will be a new factor that has to be considered before the next choice of project.  The purpose of this report is to investigate whether partnering has any impact on a project and the subcontractors in the project. The work compares projects with and without partnering to see if the open economy has any impact and if it affects the work environment and the work on site. The goal is to create an overall picture from client to craftsman and see if the form of cooperation has any significance. The work will be based on these issues.  • How do the subcontractors' craftsmen experience that partnering affects the work on site? o How does job satisfaction differ between projects with and without partnering? o How does the subcontractor experience that workinghours are affected by partnering? • For what financial reasons does a subcontractor take a job on a partnering project?  The method for examining the issues were carried out through interviews and questionnaires to examine the soft parameters that partnering is about, humans, relationships and cooperation. The interviewees will be all parties in the project to get the overall picture. In addition to these interviews, literature studies as scientific reports are used to increase the credibility of the results, but also to create a better whole of the study. The results and conclusions were based on the methods and are reported according to the points below. • Partnering has a positive impact on the workplace. The relationship between all subcontractors is experienced as more open and better when the financial self-interest disappears and the communication between all parties is clearer. • The work environment is perceived to be less stressful and thus increases well-being in the workplace. Through a good work attitude between each other and for the common goal, the risk of extra work on evenings and weekends is minimized. • Partnering creates security in a troubled market where you deal with the problems together and work together for a better project. A market with high competition makes it difficult to consider the options of choice for the next project. But good relations and cooperation are in many cases more profitable for the work environment and the economy, and are factors that affect the next choice of project.

Rotavirus, the major cause of life-threatening infantile gastroenteritis, is a member of the Reoviridae family and is considered to be the single most important cause of virus-based severe diarrheal illness in infants and young children particularly 6 months to 2 years of age in industrialized and developing countries. Infection in infants and young children is often accompanied by severe life threatening diarrhea, most commonly following primary infection. Diarrhea is the major cause of death among children around the world. Responsible for 4 to 6 million deaths per year according to the World Health Organization (WHO), diarrhea is especially dangerous for infants and young children. Globally, it is estimated that 1.4 billion episodes of diarrhea occur in children less than five years of age annually. In the United States alone, rotavirus causes more than 3 million cases of childhood diarrhea each year, leading to an estimated 55,000 to 100,000 hospitalizations and 20 to 100 deaths. And is a major cause of mortality for children in developing countries with approximately one million deaths annually. Rotaviruses belong to the family Reoviridae and are spherical 70-nm particles. The virus genome contains 11 segments of double-stranded RNA, each encoding a viral capsid or nonstructural protein. The identification of a rotavirus nonstructural protein gene (NSP4) encoding a peptide, which functions both as a viral enterotoxin and as a factor involved in the acquisition of host cell membrane during virus budding from cells, provides a new approach for mucosal immunization. Protein expression through chloroplast transformation system offers a number of advantages like high level of transgene expression, transgene containment via maternal inheritance, lack of gene silencing and position effect due to site specific gene integration and also the possibility of multi gene engineering in single transformation event. It is also an environmentally friendly approach due to effective gene containment and lack of transgene expression in pollen. To achieve an enhanced immune response to rotavirus infection, a fusion gene encoding the cholera toxin B subunit linked to rotavirus enterotoxin 90 aa protein (CTB-NSP490) was introduced into transgenic chloroplast and was transformed into chloroplast genome of Nicotiana tabacum by homologous recombination. The chloroplast integration of CTB-NSP4(90) fusion gene was confirmed in transgenic tobacco plants by PCR analysis. Southern blot analysis further confirmed site specific gene integration and homoplasmy. Immunoblot analysis of transformed chloroplast confirmed the expression of CTBNSP490 fusion protein both in monomeric and pentameric forms that retained the binding affinity to the enterocytes GM1 ganglioside receptor. Expression levels of CTB-NSP4 protein was quantified by GM1 ganglioside binding ELISA assay; mature leaves expressed CTB-NSP4 fusion protein to upto 2.45 % in total soluble protein, 100-400 fold higher than nuclear expression which was only 0.006%-0.026%. Antibody titration and virus challenge experiments will be performed in mice at Loma Linda University to evaluate the antigenic and protective properties of the chloroplast derived CTB-NSP4 fusion protein.

Perverted in Neon is collection of short fictions engaged with various facets of modern popular culture. In its stories, a washed-up rocker enlists the aid of pigeons to deliver messages to his estranged wife; a writer obsessed with finding out what “really” happened to Andy Kaufman is pushed into the fringes of his own life; a kid on restriction discovers a secret level to a video game that threatens to change the nature of his reality; a woman on Airbnb advertises her home—and her life—to potential house renters. The characters throughout this collection tread among the desperate and downtrodden, often seeing some faint impression of hope in the distance, something worth continuing to fight for. Perverted in Neon challenges traditional distinctions of literary genres, often incorporating elements of non-fictional pop culture into fictional worlds, and vice-versa. The stories throughout aim to interrogate some notion of emotional maturity, or lack thereof—characters who think they understand the world, but quickly realize that they understand only their most immediate desires. / MFA

Sixty Four caffeinated chewing gum preparations were formulated by varying the amounts of (i) cinnamaldhyde, (0-0.75%), (ii) docusate (0-0.5%) and (iii) sucrose (40-60%). The gum base consisted of 33.33% yellow beeswax and 66.66% polyisobutylene MH, and was added, adjusting for a final weight of 2 grams per gum. The amount of caffeine was maintained at 100mg. The preparations were subjected to an in vivo release study as well as a hedonic survey with a panel of student volunteers. Data were analyzed by using multiple linear regression on a mainframe computer. The resulting mathematical model was used to predict a theoretically ideal formulation, relating various concentrations of the above constituents to a global rating. The results indicated consistent release (90-100%) of caffeine for most formulations, but considerable variation was observed for the hedonic scores. A positive correlation with cinnamaldehyde and flavor was observed, while increased amounts of sugar appeared to lower the overall rating. The optimum formulation predicted by the model should contain 40% sucrose, 0.5% docusate and 0.75% cinnamaldehyde.

Abstract: This thesis explores the application of isoperimetric functions to gain weak functional inequalities involving Dirichlet forms. The connection between such weak functional inequalities and bounds on the convergence speed of the corresponding Markov semi-group is established. Three examples of discrete graphs and the corresponding Dirichlet forms are discussed.

Developing interactive web application systems requires a large amount of effort on designing database, system logic and user interface. These tasks are expensive and error-prone. Web application systems are accessed and used by many different sets of people with different backgrounds and numerous demands. Meeting these demands requires frequent updating for Web application systems which results in a very high cost process. Thus, many attempts have been made to automate, to some degree, the construction of Web user interfaces. Three main directions have been cited for this purpose. The first direction suggested of generating user interfaces from the application¿s data model. This path was able to generate the static layout of user interfaces with dynamic behaviour specified programmatically. The second tendency suggested deployment of the domain model to generate both, the layout of a user interface and its dynamic behaviour. Web applications built based on this approach are most useful for domain-specific interfaces with a relatively fixed user dialogue. The last direction adopted the notion of deploying database metadata to developing dynamic user interfaces. Although the notion was quite valuable, its deployment did not present a generic solution for generating a variety of types of dynamic Web user interface targeting several platforms and electronic devices. This thesis has inherited the latter direction and presented significant improvements on the current deployment of this tendency. This thesis aims to contribute towards the development of an abstract framework to generate abstract and dynamic Web user interfaces not targeted to any particular domain or platform. To achieve this target, the thesis proposed and evaluates a general notion for implementing a prototype system that uses an internal model (i.e. database metadata) in conjunction with XML technology. Database metadata is richer than any external model and provides the information needed to build dynamic user interfaces. In addition, XML technology became the mainstream of presenting and storing data in an abstract structure. It is widely adopted in Web development society because of its ability to be transformed into many different formats with a little bit of effort. This thesis finds that only Java can provide us with a generalised database metadata based framework. Other programming languages apply some restrictions on accessing and extracting database metadata from numerous database management systems. Consequently, JavaServlets and relational database were used to implement the proposed framework. In addition, Java Data Base Connectivity was used to bridge the two mentioned technologies. The implementation of our proposed approach shows that it is possible and very straightforward to produce different automatic and dynamic Web entry forms that not targeted at any platform. In addition, this approach can be applied to a particular domain without affecting the main notion or framework architecture. The implemented approach demonstrates a number of advantages over the other approaches based on external or internal models.

Web forms development for Web based applications is often expensive, laborious, error-prone, time consuming and requires a lot of effort. Web forms are used by many different people with different backgrounds and a lot of demands. There is a very high cost associated with the need to update the Web application systems to achieve these demands. A wide range of techniques and ideas to automate the generation of Web forms exist. These techniques and ideas however, are not capable of generating the most dynamic behaviour of form elements, and make Insufficient use of database metadata to control Web forms¿ generation and appearance. In this thesis different techniques are proposed that use RuleML and database metadata to build rulebases to improve the automatic and dynamic generation of Web forms. First this thesis proposes the use of a RuleML format rulebase using Reaction RuleML that can be used to support the development of automated Web interfaces. Database metadata can be extracted from system catalogue tables in typical relational database systems, and used in conjunction with the rulebase to produce appropriate Web form elements. Results show that this mechanism successfully insulates application logic from code and suggests that Abstract iii the method can be extended from generic metadata rules to more domain specific rules. Second it proposes the use of common sense rules and domain specific rules rulebases using Reaction RuleML format in conjunction with database metadata rules to extend support for the development of automated Web forms. Third it proposes the use of rules that involve code to implement more semantics for Web forms. Separation between content, logic and presentation of Web applications has become an important issue for faster development and easy maintenance. Just as CSS applied on the client side to control the overall presentation of Web applications, a set of rules can give a similar consistency to the appearance and operation of any set of forms that interact with the same database. We develop rules to order Web form elements and query forms using Reaction RuleML format in conjunction with database metadata rules. The results show the potential of RuleML formats for representing database structural and active semantics. Fourth it proposes the use of a RuleML based approach to provide more support for greater semantics for example advanced domain support even when this is not a DBMS feature. The approach is to specify most of the semantics associated with data stored in RDBMS, to overcome some RDBMSs limitations. RuleML could be used to represent database metadata as an external format.

The majority of therapeutic pharmaceutical formulations are presented in the solid form. Moisture is able to play an important role in the functional performance of pharmaceutical solids. Moisture profiling is able to provide novel information with regards to the behaviour of moisture within materials using equilibrium relative humidity as a measurement. The hypothesis investigated explores the changes in equilibrium relative humidity of pharmaceutical material induced by physical, chemical or storage conditions, these are able to be monitored using the innovative moisture profiler system. The aims within this were to primarily validate the moisture profiler and secondly evaluate the effects of moisture on physical forms and with respect to effects of compaction, finally this was compared to conventional characterisation methods. Preliminary explorations were conducted in order to assess the validity of the moisture profiler, from this lactose was selected as a suitable pharmaceutical material for further work. Processing effects were then examined, firstly storage at elevated relative humidity of different forms of lactose were explored, and this was carried out with supplementary analysis. Secondly the effects of tabletting were explored, different compaction forces were investigated to observe if this had any notable effects on equilibrium relative humidity of the different lactose forms. Finally subsequent storage of the compacts were examined in order to explore if there were any changes in the equilibrium relative humidity. / EPSRC and Reckitt Benckiser

Using the representation theory of positive definite sequences some propositions in additive number theory are obtained and H. Bohr's approximation theorem is deduced. A unified approach to theorems by S. Bochner, S, N, Bernstein and H. Hamburger is discussed and some operator versions of numerical moment problems are studied. The Appendix contains comments to J. von Neumann's spectral theorem for self-adjoint operators in Hilbert space. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)