This study looks at characterizing the terrigenous OC sources, like permafrost, of POC and DOC through 17 rivers and six soils of the Hudson Bay (HB) using lignin biomarkers, and Δ14C. Our findings show the dominance of the OC flux (89%) from the southwest Hudson Bay Rivers, especially from DOC (93%), shedding light on the sources and fate of OC in HB sediments. With warming, organic cryosols, with high OC content in the Cz horizon, have the potential to release as much as 1.5 gOC/m2 for every cm increase in active layer depth. The [Ad/Al] ratios, when combined with 14C ages of DOM, show that older SOC is being released in some rivers and is fresher than expected due to its preservation within permafrost. S/V and C/V ratios, are well correlated to latitude in DOM, reflecting the vegetation in their drainage basins and can be used to indicate OC sources.

Inland waters including streams, rivers, reservoirs and lakes are regarded as a significant site of Organic Carbon (OC) cycling, and greenhouse gas production. As a result, there has been significant recent interest in the rates and fate of fluvial carbon exported from organic soils, such as peatlands. Additionally, peatlands can be subject to substantial degradation resulting in high rates of fluvial OC export, and this has led to efforts to repair degraded peatlands through restoration programmes. As a consequence, the study of degraded areas is useful to quantify the upper values of carbon release, understand processes of transformation, and evaluate the success of restoration programmes. Importantly peatlands are also collection areas for drinking water, which has implications for treatment, and requires better understanding of carbon cycling upstream of treatment works, in headwater rivers, reservoirs and pipes. UK upland blanket peat catchments are a key location in which to consider global questions surrounding fluvial carbon export and transformations, as they are highly degraded, provide a source of drinking water supply, and are currently undergoing pioneering methods of landscape scale restoration. This thesis considers Kinder Scout, an area of highly degraded and gullied blanket peatland in the South Pennines, UK. Using analysis of water samples collected over several years in the Kinder reservoir catchment and plateau, this thesis presents three novel contributions to global questions concerning OC cycling and peatlands. Firstly it provides (to date), the only carbon budget for a reservoir in a peat dominated catchment with high Particulate Organic Carbon (POC) export, which demonstrates that reservoirs may be net sources of Dissolved Organic Carbon (DOC), with the implication that POC-DOC interactions are important OC transformation mechanism in degraded systems. Secondly through use of a unique integrated combination of methods, it considers changes in carbon flux and composition in both river, lake and pipe locations, providing detailed understanding of the relative roles of river reaches, reservoirs and supply pipes, in controlling fluvial carbon cycling in peatland systems, and upstream of water treatment works. An important implication here, is that rate and direction of change in water treatability varies through a catchment. Finally, it includes results from the first widespread monitoring of the catchment scale effects of a new method of peatland revegetation. This restoration approach is being applied at landscape scale and the findings here, are that despite fears to the contrary, it does not lead to short term increases in fluvial carbon loss, which is an important piece of evidence supporting practical conservation approaches in these systems. To further enhance this research, a combination of field and laboratory investigations into carbon transformation processes, and ongoing restoration mentoring should be undertaken.

Correct diagnosis of disease is essential in the effort to save and improve lives. Point of care (POC) diagnostics are in-vitro tests that assist in patient diagnosis and can be used at the location of patient care. POC diagnostics are easy to use and provide near-instant readouts allowing medical providers and patients to make rapid decisions about treatment. Increased access to POC testing is especially beneficial to low-income and low resource areas that cannot afford expensive lab testing. The World Health Organization (WHO) has outlined at least 113 diseases for which POC diagnostics are needed. Because of this, developing effective, efficient, and economical methods for creating new POC tests is essential. Work in section one of this thesis describes strategies by which new POC bio-diagnostics can be created. The use of oxidized cellulose as a vector for antibody immobilization was explored in several cellulose-based materials to provide quick, economical tests while still obtaining effective limits of detection when used to detect the pregnancy hormone Human Chorionic Gonadotropin (HCG) in a proof of concept study. The majority of these tests could detect as low as 100 ng/mL of HCG well below the clinical level necessary for detection at 2400 ng/mL. The use of a hand-powered syringe-based POC named the fast flow immunoassay (FFI) was tested for its ability to increase observable signal in a sandwich immunoassay by passing the sample through the test filter multiple times. 10 passes through the filter resulted in a signal approximately 17x more intense than a 1-hour dot-blot sandwich immunoassay. Both oxidized cotton and FFI systems can be used to develop new POC assays quickly and economically. Future use of these POC systems could help expand the availability of diagnostic testing to disadvantaged areas. Gold-based drugs have been used and investigated as medications multiple times throughout history to treat various diseases such as Rheumatoid arthritis, parasitic infections, and cancer. In the last few decades, gold nanoparticles have been used as drug delivery agents and catalysts for various reactions. Recently catalytic gold nanocrystals have been characterized for their ability to treat neurodegenerative diseases. Although these results were promising, much is still unknown about their mechanism of action. Section two of this thesis investigates potential molecular pathways that gold nanocrystals could be affecting, specifically the IL-6/Jak/STAT3 inflammation pathway and the Nrf2 antioxidant pathway. The gold nanocrystals we tested did not affect these pathways at physiologically obtainable concentrations. Additional work was done to characterize protein interactome or protein corona of gold nanocrystals. Preliminary proteomic characterization of this protein corona in fetal bovine serum (FBS) identified 118 potential interactors and classified those based on function and structure. Future work will need to be done to follow up on these identifications and to determine what mechanistic implications they may have.

Internet of Things (IoT) is a phenomenon that involves providing things or objects with sensors and internet connection. The field of IoT is growing rapidly and there are strong incentives for companies to follow the trend to develop and create an IoT. However, the proportion of IoT initiatives considered to be successful has been shown to be low. This study therefore investigates how a project methodology can support a concept development and secure the business value for IoT initiatives. The project methodology developed in this study is named eXtreme PoC Development (XPD). XPD is based on existing project methodologies from literature and interviews from consulting companies within the field in the Stockholm region. It was evaluated by a case study where fault detection in street lighting was investigated and implemented. The evaluation of the methodology highlighted the importance of defining problems and solutions that are anchored in the business value, calculating a potential of an IoT initiative that determines the continuation of a project, involving stakeholders at an early stage and developing a PoC to validate and evaluate a concept with stakeholders. / Internet of Things (IoT) är ett fenomen som innebär att förse saker eller objekt med sensorer och internetförbindelse. Området för IoT är starkt växande och det finns starka incitament hos företag att följa trenden att utveckla och skapa en IoT. Andelen IoT-initiativ som anses vara framgångsrika har däremot visats sig vara låg. Denna studie undersöker hur en projektmetodik kan stödja en konceptutveckling och säkra affärsnyttan för IoT-initiativ. Projektmetodiken som tagits fram i denna studie benämns eXtreme PoC Development (XPD). XPD baseras på befintliga projektmetodiker från litteratur och intervjuer från konsultbolag i Stockholmsregionen. Den utvärderades genom en fallstudie där feldetektering i ljuspunkter i utomhusmiljö undersöktes och implementerades. Utvärderingen av metodiken belyste vikten av att definiera problem och lösningar som är förankrade i affärsnyttan, att beräkna en potential av ett IoT-initiativ som bestämmer ett projekts fortsättning, att involvera intressenter i ett tidigt stadie och att utveckla en PoC för att validera och utvärdera ett koncept med intressenterna.

A lot of children’s books in today’s society are meant to create diversity with a more including content but it often leads to a content full of stereotypes. The books become stigmatized rather than representative of the diversity in different people. This is an issue since children learn a lot from books even in the technological world we live in right now. That is why the book Pim & Purpurfolket was made. This is the master thesis by Louise Hannu, at Luleå University of Technology is about analyzing and defying the ongoing trend of stereotypical content in children’s literature, by using a norm creative approach. / I dagens samhälle finns det många böcker som är avsedda att skapa mångfald med ett mer inkluderande innehåll men detta leder ofta till ett innehåll fullt av stereotyper. Böckerna blir stigmatiserade snarare än representativa. Detta är ett stort problem då barn lär sig mycket via böcker, även i den teknologiska värld vi lever i just nu. Det är därför boken Pim & Purpurfolket gjordes. Detta examensarbete, skapat av Louise Hannu vid Luleå Tekniska Universitet, handlar om att analysera och trotsa den pågående, stereotypa trend inom barnens litterära värld genom att använda en normkreativ strategi.

[pt] Esta dissertação procura analisar as diferentes abordagens à proteção de civis (PoC, da sigla em inglês) mobilizadas por agentes policiais/militares e humanitários em situações de conflito armado e emergências humanitárias onde há presença de operações de paz das Nações Unidas. Inspirada pelas estratégias de análise de discurso pós-estrutural, a dissertação se concentra nos PoC sites no Sudão do Sul, espaços que abrigam civis deslocados pela violência e perseguição desde a conflagração do conflito armado em curso, em dezembro de 2013. Tais espaços de proteção têm integrado as estratégias e práticas de proteção avançadas tanto por humanitários quando pela Missão das Nações Unidas no Sudão do Sul (UNMISS) e são tomados como um microcosmo privilegiado para a análise do(s) discurso(s) de proteção, dada a coexistência de diferentes racionalidades de proteção que os caracteriza. Orientada por um arcabouço teórico-conceitual foucaultiano, a dissertação mobiliza os conceitos de poder soberano, governamentalidade e biopolítica desenvolvidos por Michel Foucault e trabalhados por literaturas críticas às operações de paz e ao humanitarismo. Defende-se que as racionalidades de proteção avançadas pelos setores humanitário e de segurança seguem a racionalidade do poder policial, entendido como um conjunto de tecnologias e técnicas quem mantêm a ordem e protegem a vida no nível da população, mas também decidem sobre a suspensão da lei. Apontando para a relação entre proteção, policiamento e excepcionalidade desenvolvida nos PoC sites, tais espaços serão analisados a partir do conceito de campo de Giorgio Agamben: espaços de normalização da excepcionalidade em que a vida nua é governada. / [en] This thesis analyses different approaches to the protection of civilians (PoC) as mobilized by police/military and humanitarian actors in contexts of armed conflict and humanitarian emergencies where a United Nations peacekeeping operation is deployed. Inspired by the strategies of post-structural discourse analysis, the thesis focuses on the PoC sites in South Sudan, which have sheltered civilians fleeing from violence and persecution since armed conflict broke out in that country, in December 2013. These protected sites have been an integral part of protection strategies and practices advanced by both humanitarian actors present in the country and the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) and are taken here as a privileged analytical microcosm for assessing protection discourse(s) due to the colocation of different protection rationales that characterizes those spaces. Grounded on a Foucauldian theoretical-conceptual framework, this work mobilizes the concepts of sovereign power, governmentality and biopolitics developed by Michel Foucault and employed by critical literature on peacekeeping operations and humanitarian action. It is argued in the thesis that the rationales of protection advanced by both the humanitarian and security sectors work according to the rationality of police power, understood as an ensemble of technologies and techniques that maintains order and protects life among populations but also decides on the suspension of law. Pointing to the particular relationship between protection, policing and exceptionality unraveled in the context of PoC sites, these spaces will be treated as Giorgio Agamben s camps: as spaces of normalized exceptionality where bare life is managed.

Le but de ce projet, en collaboration avec Héma-Québec, était de développer une méthode point de service (POC) pour la quantification des immunoglobulines A (IgA) dans un petit volume de plasma humain. Les IgA jouent un rôle important au niveau de notre système immunitaire, surtout au niveau des bio fluides sur les muqueuses comme la salive. On peut les retrouver normalement dans le plasma à des concentrations plus grandes que 2000 ng/mL pour la majorité des gens. Dans le cas d’une personne immunosupprimée, une concentration plus basse que 500 ng/mL est observée. La déficience en IgA est souvent associée à des maladies auto-immunes comme la maladie de Crohn. Ces individus peuvent éprouver un choc anaphylactique à la suite d’une transfusion de sang, ce qui nous motive à utiliser la résonance des plasmons de surface (SPR) sur place à des collectes de sang et dans les milieux hospitaliers. Pour réaliser ce capteur d’immunodéficience en IgA, un anticorps primaire spécifique aux IgA fut lié à un peptide formant une monocouche auto-assemblée sur une surface d’or du capteur SPR. Un deuxième anticorps a été utilisé pour quantifier spécifiquement cet analyte dans une matrice humaine complexe. Plusieurs étapes ont été optimisées pour obtenir une limite de détection basse, soit l’étape d’immobilisation de l’anticorps de capture, le type d’anticorps, le pH pour l’immobilisation, la détection secondaire, la validation dans différentes matrices biologiques, parmi d’autres. Le capteur a été validé avec quelques échantillons cliniques et la réponse SPR fut comparée avec ELISA. Ainsi, nous anticipons que cette méthode pourrait être utile à des collectes de sang pour assurer les réserves de sang déficient en IgA. / The goal of this project, in collaboration with Héma-Québec, was to develop a point-ofcare (POC) method to quantify immunoglobulin A (IgA) in a small volume of human plasma. Immunoglobulin A play an important role in immunity, specifically in biofluids on mucosaes like saliva. It can generally be found in plasma at concentrations higher than 2000 ng/mL for most people. In the case of an immunosuppressed individual, a concentration under 500 ng/mL is observed. IgA-deficiency is often associated with autoimmune diseases, such as Crohn’s disease. These individuals may experience an anaphylactic shock following a blood transfusion, which motivated us to use surface plasmon resonance (SPR) on site at blood drives and in a hospital setting. SPR quantifies the interactions between biomolecules. It is a complementary technique to ELISA that can test more rapidly individuals susceptible of being IgA-deficient in a hospital setting or at blood drives. To develop an IgA SPR sensor, a specific capture antibody to IgA was bound to a peptide monolayer on the gold surface. A second antibody was used to specifically quantify IgA in a complex matrix. Multiple steps were optimized to achieve the low detection limits required for IgA detection, such as the capture antibody immobilisation step, type of antibody, pH of immobilisation buffer, secondary detection, validation in different biological matrices, among others. The SPR sensor was validated with a few clinical samples, and compared to ELISA, to demonstrate the potential. As such, we envision that this rapid method may be used at blood drives to ensure sufficient reserves of IgA-deficient blood.

Les checkpoints de l'ADN coordonnent les réponses cellulaires aux dommages de l'ADN et au blocage de la réplication des cellules eucaryotes. Chez Saccharomyces cerevisiae, la protéine kinase Rad53 occupe une place centrale au sein des checkpoints de l'ADN. Afin d'identifier de nouveaux partenaires de Rad53, une approche génétique a été développée, utilisant l'allèle dominant létal RAD53-DL qui déclenche constitutivement des réponses cellulaires normalement induites par des lésions de l'ADN. Notre hypothèse est que l'absence des activateurs ou des substrats de Rad53 pourrait rétablir la croissance. Nous avons donc recherché, à l'échelle du génome de S. cerevisiae, les gènes qui suppriment la toxicité de RAD53-DL lorsqu'ils sont inactivés. 110 gènes ont été isolés et classés en groupes fonctionnels. Un groupe a particulièrement retenu notre attention. Il est composé de huit gènes dont l'inactivation confère à la cellule une hyper-résistance à plusieurs stress génotoxiques. Trois de ces gènes codent des composants du protéasome 26S, l'enzyme central du système de dégradation ubiquitine-dépendante des protéines qui joue un rôle crucial dans la plupart des processus cellulaires. Le protéasome est une structure macromoléculaire très sophistiquée composée d'une partie catalytique, la particule 20S, associée au complexe régulateur 19S, lui même formé de 2 sous-complexes, la base et le couvercle. Son assemblage comprend de nombreuses étapes ordonnées. Au moment du crible, un seul chaperon du protéasome était connu chez la levure, la protéine Ump1, impliquée dans les étapes finales de maturation du protéasome 20S. Par des analyses génétiques et biochimiques, nous avons caractérisé les cinq autres membres du groupe fonctionnel « protéasome », dont la fonction était jusqu'alors inconnue. Les gènes YLR021W, YPL144W, YLR199C et YKL206C, que nous avons baptisés POC1-4 (Proteasome Chaperone), codent 4 protéines formant deux paires de chaperons du protéasome 20S (Poc1-Poc2 et Poc3-Poc4) agissant en amont de Ump1. HSM3 code la première protéine chaperonne de la particule régulatrice du protéasome. Hsm3 s'associe avec la base du 19S et assiste son assemblage. Son rôle est également de réguler l'association du 19S en formation avec le protéasome 20S. Nous avons identifié les homologues mammifères de Poc1-4 (PAC1-4) et Hsm3 (S5b), mettant ainsi en lumière une conservation remarquable des facteurs d'assemblage du protéasome au cours de l'évolution

Long-term declines in birth rates pose a threat to the economic viability of higher education institutions (HEIs), and these institutions must strategically plan for these changes. Increasing the enrollment and retention of underrepresented Black and Latinx students is one potential strategy to offset declining numbers of high-school graduates. While educational attainment has increased overall during the last two decades, Black and Latinx students continue to have lower educational attainment levels than White students. This study uses quantitative data from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) from 2000 to 2018 to estimate enrollment and retention levels of Black, Latinx, and White students in Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs) in the New England Region (NER). The study estimates correlations between Black, Latinx, and White enrollment and retention levels, revealing a negative impact on Black and Latinx enrollment and retention as White enrollment increases. This research likewise reveals a decrease in White enrollment as Black and Latinx enrollment increases. Additionally, this study uses a K-means cluster analysis to understand the association between enrollment and retention level performance of NER HEIs. Findings from two different cluster analyses show 1) a negative pattern of retention of Blacks and Latinx students as enrollment for these populations increases in HEIs and 2) a positive retention pattern for a subset of HEIs with higher retention levels with lower numbers of Black and Latinx enrollment totals. This proposal describes and interprets these findings and proposes new research examining institutional characteristics that may give rise to Blacks and Latinx students' retention levels. This study considers a wide range of institutional characteristics, including supportive programming and the types of financial aid packages specifically designed to retain students, while accounting for endowment and institutional size. This dissertation aims to provide NER HEI administrators with data that can inform short and long-term strategic planning. / Business Administration/Interdisciplinary

Measuring antibodies to evaluate dogs’ immunity against canine parvovirus (CPV) is useful to avoid unnecessary re-vaccinations. The study aimed to evaluate the quality and practicability of four point-of-care (POC) tests for detection of anti-CPV antibodies. The sera of 198 client-owned and 43 specific pathogen-free (SPF) dogs were included; virus neutralization was the reference method. Specificity, sensitivity, positive and negative predictive value (PPV and NPV), and overall accuracy (OA) were calculated. Specificity was considered to be the most important indicator for POC test performance. Differences between specificity and sensitivity of POC tests in the sera of all dogs were determined by McNemar, agreement by Cohen’s kappa. Prevalence of anti-CPV antibodies in all dogs was 80% (192/241); in the subgroup of client-owned dogs, it was 97% (192/198); and in the subgroup of SPF dogs, it was 0% (0/43). FASTest® and CanTiCheck® were easiest to perform. Specificity was highest in the CanTiCheck® (overall dogs, 98%; client-owned dogs, 83%; SPF dogs, 100%) and the TiterCHEK® (overall dogs, 96%; client-owned dogs, 67%; SPF dogs, 100%); no significant differences in specificity were observed between the ImmunoComb®, the TiterCHEK®, and the CanTiCheck®. Sensitivity was highest in the FASTest® (overall dogs, 95%; client-owned dogs, 95%) and the CanTiCheck® (overall dogs, 80%; client-owned dogs, 80%); sensitivity of the FASTest® was significantly higher compared to the one of the other three tests (McNemars p-value in each comparison: <0.001). CanTiCheck® would be the POC test of choice when considering specificity and practicability. However, differences in the number of false positive results between CanTiCheck®, TiterCHEK®, and ImmunoComb® were minimal.