This essay investigates the potential educational mismatch of immigrants compared to natives concerning the Swedish labor market. The data is collected from the European Social Survey between 2002-2014. Our results show that immigrants tend to be more overeducated than natives. Our results also indicate that more recent cohorts are more likely to be overeducated compared to cohorts that have lived for a longer time period in Sweden. Disparities in language and country specific skills but also if a person belong to an ethnic minority are reasons for why these mismatches occur.

Nearly all modern software applications, from the simplest website user account system to the most complex, enterprise-level, completely-integrated infrastructure, utilize some sort of backend data storage and business logic that interacts with the backend. The ubiquitous nature of this backend/business dichotomy makes sense as the need to both store and manipulate data can be traced as far back as the Turing Machine in Computer Science. The most commonly used technologies for these two aspects are Relational Database Management Systems (RDBMS) for backend and Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) for business logic. However, these two methodologies are not immediately compatible and the inherent differences between data represented in RDBMS and data represented in OOP are not trivial. Taking a .NET developer’s perspective, this report aims to explore the RDBMS/OO dichotomy and its inherent issues. Schema management theory and algebra are discussed to gain better perspective of the domain and a survey of existing solutions for the .NET environment is explored. Additionally, methods outside the mainstream are discussed. The advantages and disadvantages of each are weighed and presented to the reader to help aid in design implementations in the future. / text

The theme of this study is spatial mismatch, a concept that gave rise to an ever-expanding body of research concerned with how and why residential and employment distributions have shifted within cities and across metropolitan areas. The concept grew out of John F. Kain's research on how racial discrimination and segregation affects the spatial patterns of people/subgroups and jobs in the postwar American urban environment. Specifically, "Housing Segregation" posits that housing-market discrimination is at the root of increased unemployment among inner-city, nonwhite workers; concurrently, the pace and volume of decentralization (of residents and employment) from central-cities reinforces low-income, overwhelmingly African-American isolation and immobility. This study contributes to the New Orleans literature by providing a pre- and post-Katrina snapshot of spatial mismatch. The analysis addresses research questions aimed at gauging the extent to which mismatch and job-isolation have changed for poor workers in the New Orleans metro area since Hurricane Katrina.

"Due to the high variation of critical device parameters inherent in integrated circuit manufacturing, modern integrated circuit designs have evolved to rely on the ratios of similar devices for their performance rather than on the absolute characteristics of any individual device. Today's high performance analog integrated circuits depend on the ability to make identical or matched devices. Circuits are designed using a tolerance based on the overall matching characteristics of their particular manufacturing process. Circuit designers also follow a general rule of thumb that larger devices offer better matching characteristics. This results in circuits that are over designed and circuit layouts that are generally larger than necessary. In this project we develop a model to predict the mismatch in a pair of NPN bipolar transistors. Precise prediction of device mismatch will result in more efficient circuit deigns, smaller circuit layouts and higher test yields, all of which lead to into more reliable and less expensive products."

The von Hippel-Lindau (VHL) tumor suppressor pVHL is lost in 90% of clear-cell renal-cell carcinomas (ccRCCs). Jade-1 is a renal tumor suppressor that is normally stabilized by pVHL. MutS Homolog2 (MSH2) is a key initiator in DNA mismatch repair (MMR). Defects in MMR are associated with genome-wide instability and predisposition to certain types of cancer. Mass spectrometry data of immunoprecipitated Flag-tagged Jade-1 lysates showed signal for MSH2, suggesting Jade-1 may participate in MMR. Here, we confirmed an interaction between endogenous MSH2 and endogenous Jade-1 by coimmunoprecipitation. Using cell fractionation, we found that MSH2 and Jade-1 translocated to the nucleus in response to alkylating agent MNNG in kidney proximal tubule cells. We also visualized the translocation of Jade-1 by immunofluorescence. Silencing JADE1 also influenced the kinetics of MSH2 translocation. In addition, by colony forming assay, JADE1-silenced cells were resistant to mismatch damage induced by MNNG, which is a feature of cells with an MMR defect. Furthermore, reintroducing pVHL into renal cancer cells also changed the amount of translocated MSH2 and Jade-1. In contrast to wild-type mice, Jade1 heterozygous mice got spontaneous tumors, and those tumors continued to show heterozygosity for Jade1. Taken together, our results identify a mechanism for Jade-1 regulation of MMR through its nuclear translocation. pVHL may also contribute to MSH2 and Jade-1 translocation by increasing Jade-1 abundance. These findings establish an early role for Jade-1 in MMR, provide further indication that Jade-1 helps maintain genomic stability in the kidney and support that Jade-1 is a haploinsufficient renal tumor suppressor.

Heat dissipation is a critical bottleneck for microelectronic device performance and longevity. At micrometer and nanometer length scales heat carriers scatter at the boundaries of the material reducing its thermal conductivity. Additionally, thermal boundary conductance across dissimilar material interfaces becomes a dominant factor due to the increase in surface area relative to the volume of device layers. Therefore, techniques for monitoring spatially varying temperature profiles, and methods to improve thermal performance are critical to future device design and optimization. The first half of this thesis focused on frequency domain thermoreflectance (FDTR) to measure thermal transport in nanometer-thick polymer films and across an organic-inorganic interface. Hybrid structures of organic and inorganic materials are widely used in devices such as batteries, solar cells, transistors, and flexible electronics. The Langmuir-Blodgett (LB) technique was used to fabricate nanometer-thick polymer films ranging from 2 - 30 nm. FDTR was then used to experimentally determine the thermal boundary conductance between the polymer and solid substrates. The second half of the thesis focused on developing a fundamental understanding of thermal transport in wide-bandgap (WBG) materials, such as GaN, and ultrawide-bandgap (UWBG) materials, such as diamond, to improve thermal dissipation in power electronic devices. Improvements in WBG materials and device technologies have slowed as thermal properties limit their performance. UWBG materials can provide a dramatic leap in power electronics technologies while temporarily sidestepping the problems associated with their WBG cousins. However, for power electronic devices based on WBG- and UWBG-materials to reach their full potential the thermal dissipation issues in these hard-driven devices must be understood and solved. FDTR provides a comprehensive pathway towards fully understanding the physics governing phonon transport in WBG- and UWBG-based devices. By leveraging FDTR imaging and measuring samples as a function of temperature, defect concentration, and thickness, in conjunction with transport models, a well-founded understanding of the dominant thermal-carrier scattering mechanisms in these devices was achieved. With this knowledge we developed pathways for their mitigation.

The DNA Mismatch repair (MMR) pathway is responsible for the repair of base-base mismatches and insertion/deletion loops that arise during DNA replication. MMR deficiency is currently estimated to be present in 15-17% of colorectal cancer cases and 30% of endometrial cancers. MLH1 is one of the key proteins involved in the MMR pathway. MMR deficient tumours are often resistant to standard chemotherapies, therefore there is a critical need to identify new therapeutic strategies to treat MMR deficient disease. This study demonstrates that MLH1 deficient tumours are synthetically lethal with the mitochondrial-targeted agent Parthenolide which is known to induce reactive oxygen species (ROS) as one of its main mechanisms of action. Upon functional analysis, I show for the first time that loss of MLH1 is associated with deregulated mitochondrial function evidenced by a reduction in complex I expression and activity, reduced basal oxygen consumption rate and reduced spare respiratory capacity. This mitochondrial phenotype in the MLH1-deficient cell lines is accompanied by a reduction in mitochondrial biogenesis as evidenced by down regulation of pgc1β and decreased mitochondrial copy number. Furthermore, MLH1-deficient cancer cells have a decreased antioxidant defence capacity with reduced expression of the antioxidant genes NRF1, NRF2, Catalase, Glutathione peroxidase and SOD1 as well as increased ROS production when treated with Parthenolide. I further demonstrate that both MSH2- and MSH6-deficient cell lines also display deficiencies in complex I compared to their MMR-proficient counterparts. Taken together, the results of this study show a novel role for MLH1 in mitochondrial function and biogenesis. The MMR proteins MSH2 and MSH6 are also likely to have a role in the mitochondria. My results suggest that targeting the mitochondria may be a potential therapeutic strategy for the treatment of MMR and specifically MLH1 deficient disease.

The design processes for solar photovoltaic (PV) systems is improved to achieve higher reliability and reduced levelised cost of energy (LCOE) throughout this thesis. The design processes currently used in the development of PV systems are reviewed. This review process included embedding the author in a project to deliver four rooftop PV systems which totalled a megawatt of installed generating capacity, which at the time represented very significant system sizes. The processes used in this are analysed to identify improvement potential. Shortcomings are identified in three main areas: safety assurance, design process integration and financial optimisation. Better design process integration is required because data is not readily exchanged between the industry standard software tools. There is also a lack of clarity about how to optimise design decisions with respect to factors such as shading and cable size. Financial optimisation is identified as a challenge because current software tools facilitate optimising for maximum output or minimum cost, but do not readily optimise for minimum levelised cost of energy which is the primary objective in striving for grid parity. To achieve improved design process integration and financial optimisation, a new modelling framework with the working title SolaSIM is conceived to accurately model the performance of solar photovoltaic systems. This framework is developed for grid connected systems operating in the UK climate, but it could readily be adapted for other climates with appropriate weather data. This software development was conducted using an overarching systems engineering approach from design and architecture through to verification and validation. Within this SolaSIM framework, the impact of shading on array and inverter efficiency is identified as a significant area of uncertainty. A novel method for the calculation of shaded irradiance on each cell of an array with high computational efficiency is presented. The shading sub-model is validated against outdoor measurements with a modelling accuracy within one percent. Final verification of the over-arching SolaSIM framework found that it satisfied the requirements which were identified and actioned. The author installed the new CREST outdoor measurement system version 4 (COMS4). COMS4 is a calibrated system which measures 26 PV devices simultaneously. Validation of SolaSIM models against COMS4 found the modelling error to be within the 4% accuracy target except two sub-systems which had electronic faults. The model is validated against PV systems and found to be within the specified limits.

There is ample evidence that climate change is impacting on phenology and it has been suggested that this may generate trophic mismatches. A key system for investigating phenology and trophic mismatch occurs in spring in temperate deciduous woodlands, where folivorous caterpillars and their predators, insectivorous passerines, are reliant upon ephemeral resources for reproductive success and survival. However, studies are primarily conducted within single-site, oak- (Quercus sp) dominated woodland and focus on a single caterpillar species, winter moth (Operophtera brumata), despite these passerines being habitat generalists with large geographic ranges. It remains to be seen whether insights gained from these studies can be generalised on the landscape scale across different habitats. In this thesis, I explore the extent to which geographic and habitat variation operates in this system and attempt to expand the system beyond a linear single-species food chain into a more biologically realistic multi-species food web. I also identify the most important environmental factors predicting the phenology of the passerines to allow better predictions of how their phenology could alter under future climate change scenarios. To address these questions, I established a novel 220km transect of Scotland incorporating 40 field sites that vary in elevation and the type of deciduous woodland habitat, monitoring six blue tit (Cyanistes caeruleus) nestboxes, tree and invertebrate phenology and abundance, at each site throughout the springs of 2014-16. Firstly, I assess how blue tit occupancy and productivity are affected by the variation in fine-scale woodland habitat, latitude, elevation and prey availability that exists along the transect (Chapter 2). I find that habitat variables strongly affect fledging success but not occupancy or clutch size, whilst occupancy exhibits biogeographic trends, revealing that the relationship between breeding decisions and outcomes differs among habitats and implies that it may be difficult to generalise results from one habitat to others. Next, I aim to identify the environmental aspects which play a role in regulating blue tit reproductive phenology by examining the ability of temperature, tree phenology, invertebrate prey abundance and photoperiod to predict nest initiation and laying dates (Chapter 3). I find that night-time temperature in early spring is the most important predictor of both nest initiation and lay date (slopes ~ -3days/°C) and I suggest that this supports the hypothesis that temperature acts as a constraint on timing rather than a cue. Invertebrate abundance is also a positive correlate of lay date, possibly allowing fine-tuning of timing. This knowledge provides clearer foundations from which to predict future phenological change and possible trophic mismatch in this system. There is the potential that the apparent effect of temperature on blue tit reproductive phenology is indirect and mediated by diet, which is largely undescribed in the period prior to breeding. Therefore, in Chapter 4 I examine how blue tit diet varies across habitat, geography and time, and whether there is a dietary cue utilised to initiate breeding phenology, using data from metabarcoding faeces collected from nestbox-roosting adults in early spring. Geographic variation in diet is substantial, with high site-to-site dietary turnover (β-diversity), as well as high turnover along the elevational and latitudinal gradients studied. Dietary α-diversity (richness) is unaffected by geographical variables, but increases over time, with significant pre-breeding dietary increases in Lepidoptera and Hemiptera signifying a possible cue. In addition, these data provide the most comprehensive next-generation insights into the diet of a wild bird to date and identify 432 prey taxa. Finally, I analyse how biogeographic and habitat variables affect the phenology, abundance and diversity of caterpillars (Chapter 5). Host tree species’ varied significantly in their likelihood of hosting a caterpillar, with oak and willow (Salix sp.) the most likely. Biogeography had less effect on the likelihood of caterpillar occurrence, but elevation delayed peak date by 3.7 days/100m increase. There was also support for the spring caterpillar peak being dominated by a few key species, with over half of all caterpillars identified being of just three of the 62 total species, including winter moth. These findings contribute to understanding how the temporal distribution of caterpillars varies across habitats on the landscape scale. Taken together, the findings of this thesis reveal considerable geographic and habitat variation throughout this system, in both the composition of the food web and the impacts on blue tit productivity, demonstrating why caution must be exercised when extrapolating findings from one location or habitat to others.

Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy / It is well established that there are changes in cognition and in peripheral sensory mechanisms that occur with age. However, there is much less known about the cause of either change or indeed the relationship between age-related change in sensory processing and age-associated cognitive decline. Understanding these mechanisms could improve our capacity to devise strategies which could assist older adults in aging successfully. In this thesis, I aim to bridge a gap in our knowledge concerning the relationship between age-related change in sensory processing and age-associated cognitive decline by studying the effect of age on what can be considered an intermediary process, sensory memory (in the auditory modality). I continue this line of research by examining the relationship between auditory sensory memory and other types of memory for auditory information in young and older adults. To address these goals, I adopted a cognitive neuroscience approach, relating electrophysiological data to data derived from behavioural memory assessments. In the following thesis, I present a literature review, four studies, and a general discussion of results. Several waveforms of the auditory event-related potential (ERP), including N1, P2, repetition positivity (RP), and mismatch negativity (MMN) were studied. More specifically, in study 1, we looked at the effect of age on N1 and P2 amplitude. In study 2, we examined the conditions eliciting two repetition effects, RP and the MMN memory trace effect, in the auditory ERP of young adults. Studies 3 and 4 concerned the effect of age on RP and the relationship between RP and implicit memory for contextual information as well as explicit memory for auditory information. We concluded that i) age affects auditory sensory memory, ii) the potential relationship between auditory sensory memory and implicit memory for auditory information requires re-investigation, and iii) there is a relationship between auditory sensory memory and explicit memory for auditory information that is altered with age. That is, we concluded that RP occurring in the N1/P2 and MMN latency period indicates memory trace formation and that age affects RP amplitude (restricted to an anterior RP generator). In addition, we showed that RP may be related to implicit memory (priming) in both young and older adults. Across two studies, we found a positive correlation between the response to repetition in the ERP (due to RP activity) and explicit auditory verbal memory in young adults but a negative correlation in older adults. Therefore, although age-related change in RP could reflect the capacity of older adults to encode the context of auditory stimulation, this is potentially due to compensatory activity. We argue it is possible that implicit memory changes with age as a result of age-related change in explicit episodic memory. As a result of well established changes that occur in episodic memory with age, older adults may begin to rely on implicit memory as a source of memory more so than young adults. Our data shows that the implicit memory system may, as a result, favour content over contextual information. An important theme outlined in the discussion of results involves the idea that age-related changes in cognition that are commonly interpreted as cognitive deficits may in fact be beneficial in certain circumstances. We review our results in relation to cognitive theories of aging and find that several theories are applicable to the data, including the frontal hypothesis (incorporating the inhibitory deficit hypothesis), the information degradation hypothesis, and the speed of processing hypothesis. Future research in this area could focus on exploring whether top-down or bottom-up or influences primarily contribute to the age effect on auditory sensory memory and RP, as well as evaluating our hypothesis that the age-related change in RP may be beneficial for explicit item memory but detrimental for implicit contextual memory in older adults (i.e. compensatory mechanisms). While the studies presented in this thesis have provided the foundations guiding our understanding of these issues, researchers in the field of cognitive neuroscience are well equipped to resolve such questions in the future.