Introduction Radiologic Technologists exposed to continuous low dose radiation may have an increased risk for spontaneous abortions. Although the federally mandated radiation dose limit to the developing fetus of an occupational worker is 5mSv, well below the documented threshold of 100mSv, some studies have suggested an increased risk for spontaneous abortions in occupationally exposed females. The effects of exposure to low levels of radiation are difficult to discern from the usual occurrence and are limited in the literature because of the large sample size needed to achieve statistical power. This study contains data from 152,439 self-reported pregnancies and possesses the appropriate sample size to assess the risk of spontaneous abortions incident to radiologic technologists who maintain fetal radiation dose levels within federal guidelines. Methods This non-experimental retrospective designed study uses data from the United States Radiologic Technologist Study (USRTS). The USRTS began in 1982 as a joint effort between the American Registry of Radiologic Technologists (ARRT),UniversityofMinnesotaand the National Cancer Institute to study the radiation effects from low-dose occupational exposure. This longitudinal study follows more than 90,000 current and former technologists through periodic surveys and contains a sufficient sample size to overcome statistical power concerns. The provided data included the order and outcome of each self-reported pregnancy as well as the year of each live birth. The data were therefore manipulated to provide a likely gestational interval for both a reported live birth and spontaneous abortion. After calculating the spontaneous abortion rate for the final sample, a binary logistic regression was performed to determine if levels of estimated fetal radiation dose are associated with predicting the odds of a reported spontaneous abortion. A linear regression analysis was then performed to assess the relationship between the calculated odds ratios of a reported spontaneous abortion as a function of estimated fetal radiation dose, specifically to determine the significance of the linear relationship Results The overall spontaneous abortion incidence to the cohort reporting at least one live birth or spontaneous abortion was 14.8%, lower than the reported national incidence of 15-20%. Using up to 1mSv as the reference fetal radiation dose category, the odds ratios of a spontaneous abortion for 1-2mSv, 2-3mSv, 3-4mSv and 4-5mSv were calculated as 1.57, 1.82, 2.11 and 2.15 respectively. This increase in odds was linear with estimated fetal radiation dose as demonstrated by the significant regression equation (F=29.93, p = .01) and an R2 of 0.9089. Conclusions By demonstrating an increased risk at levels of radiation as low as natural background, and further demonstrating the risk increases linearly with radiation dose, the Linear Non-Threshold Theory appears to be the more likely risk model for predicting spontaneous abortions in lieu of the belief that a 100mSv threshold must first be exceeded for a radiation induced spontaneous abortion to occur. Application of this model demonstrates the risk of a spontaneous abortion is twice as likely in occupational workers whose fetal radiation doses are closer to the maximum allowable limit of 5mSv compared with those who maintain fetal radiation doses below 1mSv.

Seismic inversion using a global optimization algorithm is a non-linear, model-driven process. It yields an optimal solution of the cost function – reflectivity/acoustic impedance, when prior information is sparse. The inversion result offers detailed interpretations of thin layers, internal stratigraphy, and lateral continuity and connectivity of sand bodies. This study compared two stable and robust global optimization techniques, Simulated Annealing (SA) and Basis Pursuit Inversion (BPI) as applied to post-stack seismic data from the Gulf of Mexico. Both methods use different routines and constraints to search for the minimum error energy function. Estimation of inversion parameters in SA is rigorous and more reliable because it depends on prior knowledge of subsurface geology. The BPI algorithm is a more robust deterministic process. It was developed as an alternative method to incorporating a priori information. Results for the Gulf of Mexico show that BPI gives a better stratigraphic and structural actualization due to its capacity to delineate layers thinner than the tuning thickness. The SA algorithm generates both absolute and relative impedances, which provide both qualitative and quantitative characterization of thin-bed reservoirs.

In this licentiate thesis, I present detailed case studies of students as they make use of simulated digital learning environments to engage with physics phenomena. In doing so, I reveal the moment-to-moment minutiae of physics students’ open-ended inquiry in the presence of two digital tools, namely the sandbox software Algodoo and the PhET simulation My Solar System (both running on an interactive whiteboard). As this is a topic which has yet to receive significant attention in the physics education research community, I employ an interpretivist, case-oriented methodology to illustrate, build, and refine several theoretical perspectives. Notably, I combine the notion of semi-formalisms with the notion of Newtonian modeling, I illustrate how Algodoo can be seen to function as a Papertian microworld, I meaningfully combine the theoretical perspectives of social semiotics and embodied cognition into a single analytic lens, and I reveal the need for a more nuanced taxonomy of students’ embodiment during physics learning activities. Each of the case studies presented in this thesis makes use of conversation analysis in a fine-grained examination of video-recorded, small-group student interactions. Of particular importance to this process is my attention to students’ non-verbal communication via gestures, gaze, body position, haptic-touch, and interactions with the environment. In this way, I bring into focus the multimodally-rich, often informal interactions of students as they deal with physics content. I make visible the ways in which the students (1) make the conceptual connection between the physical world and the formal/mathematical domain of disciplinary physics, (2) make informal and creative use of mathematical representations, and (3) incorporate their bodies to mechanistically reason about physical phenomena. Across each of the cases presented in this thesis, I show how, while using open-ended software on an interactive whiteboard, students can communicate and reason about physics phenomena in unexpectedly fruitful ways.

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As the amount of information available on the internet has increased sharply in the last years, methods for measuring and comparing text-based information is gaining popularity on financial markets. Text mining and natural language processing has become an important tool for classifying large collections of texts or documents. One field of applications is topic modelling of the minutes from central banks' monetary policy meetings, which tend to be about topics such as"inflation", "economic growth" and "rates". The central bank of Sweden is the Riksbank, which hold 6 annual monetary policy meetings where the members of the Executive Board decide on the new repo rate. Two weeks later, the minutes of the meeting is published and information regarding the future monetary policy is given to the market in the form of text. This information has before release been unknown to the market, thus having the potential to be market-sensitive. Using Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA), an algorithm used for uncovering latent topics in documents, the topics in the meeting minutes should be possible to identify and quantify. In this project, 8 topics were found regarding, among other, inflation, rates, household debt and economic development. An important factor in analysis of central bank communication is the underlying tone in the discussions. It is common to classify central bankers as hawkish or dovish. Hawkish members of the board tend to favour tightening monetary policy and rate hikes, while more dovish members advocate a more expansive monetary policy and rate cuts. Thus, analysing the tone of the minutes can give an indication of future moves of the monetary policy rate. The purpose of this project is to provide a fast method for analysing the minutes from the Riksbank monetary policy meetings. The project is divided into two parts. First, a LDA model was trained to identify the topics in the minutes, which was then used to compare the content of two consecutive meeting minutes. Next, the sentiment was measured as a degree of hawkishness or dovishness. This was done by categorising each sentence in terms of their content, and then counting words with hawkish or dovish sentiment. The resulting net score gives larger values to more hawkish minutes and was shown to follow the repo rate path well. At the time of the release of the minutes, the new repo rate is already known, but the net score does gives an indication of the stance of the board.

Organic electronics is the study of organic materials with electronic functionality and the applications of such materials. In the 1970s, the discovery that polymers can be made electrically conductive led to an explosion within this field which has continued to grow year by year. One of the attractive features of organic electronic materials is their inherent mechanical flexibility, which has led to the development of numerous flexible electronics technologies such as organic light emitting diodes and solar cells on flexible substrates. The possibility to produce electronics on flexible substrates like plastic or paper has also had a large impact on the field of printed, electronics where inks with electronic functionality are used for large area fabrication of electronic devices using classical printing methods, such as screen printing, inkjet printing and flexography. Recently, there has been a growing interest in the use of cellulose in organic and printed electronics, not only as a paper substrate but also as a component in composite materials where the cellulose provides mechanical strength and favorable 3D-microstructures. Nanofibrillated cellulose is composed of cellulose fibers with high aspect-ratio and diameters in the nanometer range. Due to its remarkable mechanical strength, large area-to-volume ratio, optical transparency and solution processability it has been widely used as a scaffold or binder for electronically active materials in applications such as batteries, supercapacitors and optoelectronics. The focus of this thesis is on flexible devices based on conductive polymers and can be divided into two parts: (1) Composite materials of nanofibrillated cellulose and the conductive polymer PEDOT:PSS and (2) patterning of vapor phase polymerized conductive polymers. In the first part, it is demonstrated how the combination of cellulose and conductive polymers can be used to make electronic materials of various form factors and functionality. Thick, freestanding and flexible “papers” are used to realize electrochemical devices such as transistors and supercapacitors while lightweight, porous and elastic aerogels are used for sensor applications. The second focus of the thesis is on a novel method of patterning conductive polymers produced by vapor phase polymerization using UV-light. This method is used to realize flexible electrochromic smart windows with high-resolution images and tunable optical contrast.

Quantum key distribution (QKD) is an application of quantum mechanics that allowstwo parties to communicate with perfect secrecy. Traditional QKD uses polarization of individual photons, but the development of energy-time entanglement could lead to QKD protocols robust against environmental effects. The security proofs of energy-time entangled QKD rely on a violation of the Bell inequality to certify the system as secure. This thesis shows that the Bell violation can be faked in energy-time entangled QKD protocols that involve a postselection step, such as Franson-based setups. Using pulsed and phase-modulated classical light, it is possible to circumvent the Bell test which allows for a local hidden-variable model to give the same predictions as the quantum-mechanical description. We show that this attack works experimentally and also how energy-time-entangled systems can be strengthened to avoid our attack.

Although dynamical systems have a multitude of classical uses in physics and applied mathematics, new research in theoretical computer science shows that dynamical systems can also be used as a highly secure method of encrypting data. Properties of Lorenz and similar systems of equations yield chaotic outputs that are good at masking the underlying data both physically and mathematically. This paper aims to show how Lorenz systems may be used to encrypt text and image data, as well as provide a framework for how physical mechanisms may be built using these properties to transmit encrypted wave signals.

Crystallographic image processing (CIP) is a technique first used to aid in the structure determination of periodic organic complexes imaged with a high-resolution transmission electron microscope (TEM). The technique has subsequently been utilized for TEM images of inorganic crystals, scanning TEM images, and even scanning probe microscope (SPM) images of two-dimensional periodic arrays. We have written software specialized for use on such SPM images. A key step in the CIP process requires that an experimental image be classified as one of only 17 possible mathematical plane symmetry groups. The current methods used for making this symmetry determination are not entirely objective, and there is no generally accepted method for measuring or quantifying deviations from ideal symmetry. Here, we discuss the crystallographic symmetries present in real images and the general techniques of CIP, with emphasis on the current methods for symmetry determination in an experimental 2D periodic image. The geometric Akaike information criterion (AIC) is introduced as a viable statistical criterion for both quantifying deviations from ideal symmetry and determining which 2D Bravais lattice best fits the experimental data from an image being processed with CIP. By objectively determining the statistically favored 2D Bravais lattice, the determination of plane symmetry in the CIP procedure can be greatly improved. As examples, we examine scanning tunneling microscope images of 2D molecular arrays of the following compounds: cobalt phthalocyanine on Au (111) substrate; nominal cobalt phthalocyanine on Ag (111); tetraphenoxyphthalocyanine on highly oriented pyrolitic graphite; hexaazatriphenylene-hexacarbonitrile on Ag (111). We show that the geometric AIC procedure can unambiguously determine which 2D Bravais lattice fits the experimental data for a variety of different lattice types. In some cases, the geometric AIC procedure can be used to determine which plane symmetry group best fits the experimental data, when traditional CIP methods fail to do so.

Complete understanding of the physics underlying the changes in viscoelasticity, relaxation time, and phase transitions that mesoscopic fluid-like systems undergo at solid-liquid interfaces or under confinement remains one of the major challenges in condensed matter physics. Moreover, studies of confined mesoscopic fluid films are relevant to technological areas like adhesion, wetting processes and nanotribology. This thesis addresses the interaction between two sliding solids interfaces separated by a nanometer sized gap, with emphasis on the role of the mesoscopic fluid film trapped between them. For this purpose we integrated two acoustic techniques, recently introduced by our group, into a sub-nanometer precision and thermal drift corrected scanning probe microscope (SPM): the shear-force/acoustic near-field Microscope (SANM) and the whispering gallery acoustic sensing (WGAS). The SANM monitors the sound waves originating in the probe-layer interaction while the motion of the probe is monitored by the WGAS. Additionally, we decouple the interaction forces by using frequency modulation and measure the local tunneling current to help establish the location of the substrate. Our results show a strong correlation between the elastic component of the probe's interaction and the SANM amplitude, as well as between the phase lag response of the fluid relative to the probe's excitation (represented by the SANM phase) and the onset of the probe-sample contact region. Frequency modulation SANM-WGAS brings a new acoustic sensing mechanism to the challenging characterization of fluid-like physical systems at the nanometer scale.