This dissertation draws inspiration from one of most iconic exchanges across the Indian Ocean in antiquity: that of Indian spices for Roman gold coins on the Periyar River in Malabar. While previous scholarship has outlined how these goods arrived at various entrepots like that on the Periyar, the larger impacts of Indian Ocean imports within new socio-cultural environments have yet to be explored. "Beyond the Periyar" articulates these impacts from a new perspective, the commodities themselves and the rippling patterns of consumption and industries that contribute to or arise from their importation. Roman coins changed functions as they changed hands, and surviving specimens often show the multiple stages of their long lives as objects through physical adaptations by Indian consumers. Their superficial design further held aesthetic value, provided useful idioms for Indian die-cutters, and inspired an industry of high-quality imitations. Indian spices like black pepper, cinnamon leaf, and ginger contributed to Roman culinary and cosmetic practices, as attested by Roman authors and associated utensils. These products have been discussed in the context of notions of “luxury” in reactionary texts—however, such critiques must be balanced against larger considerations of literary genre and known economic factors like prices vis-à-vis real wages. A hive of human activity throughout the Indian Ocean world underpinned these acts of consumption, which often stands behind the veil of consumer apathy. Human agents range from the investors financing transoceanic ventures and the traders manning oceangoing vessels, to state interests and regional security personnel, to the processors, craftsmen, and vendors who marketed these products to consumers. When we look beyond the Periyar, the consumption of long-distance imports appears not as a marginal force, but as a transformative component of ancient economies and societies with a far wider reach than previously assumed.

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Salmonella contamination of spices and other low water activity foods is a growing concern for the food industry due to increased frequency of salmonellosis outbreaks and detection-based product recalls. The impact of inoculation preparation on the survival of a Salmonella enterica and its proposed surrogate, Enterococcus faecium NRRL B-2385, on the whole black peppercorns and cumin seeds was examined. Three liquid inoculation methods (biofilm-inclusion, agar-grown, broth-grown) for Salmonella enterica and surrogate Enterococcus faecium and one dry transfer method for Salmonella enterica were developed then applied to whole peppercorn and cumin seeds. Spices were returned to original water activity (aw 0.3) and stored for 28 days with periodic sampling (0, 1, 7, 14, 21, 28 days) and surviving bacteria enumerated. Average log reductions (LR) over time were statistically analyzed to determine differences in stability during storage. Inoculation preparation was associated with significant differences in recovered Salmonella and Enterococcus from both peppercorn and cumin over the storage period. At 28 days, the most stable inoculations of Salmonella resulted from the biofilm-inclusion (-0.04 CFU/g LR) and agar grown (-0.75 CFU/g LR) methods on peppercorn and the biofilm inclusion method (-0.28 CFU/g LR) on cumin. Log reductions of Enterococcus faecium (-0.02 CFU/g LR biofilm-inclusion-peppercorn, -0.19 CFU/g LR agar-grown-peppercorn, -0.61 CFU/g LR biofilm-inclusion-cumin) were comparable to Salmonella after 28d desiccated storage. These results will guide the inoculation strategies for validating inactivation processes for reducing Salmonella on whole spices, and for comparisons of inactivation of Salmonella and its proposed surrogate Enterococcus faecium. / Master of Science in Life Sciences

Syftet med denna studie är att utröna varför personer väljer att använda syntetiska cannabinoider. Vidare ämnade studien undersöka om personer som använder syntetiska cannabinoider också använder andra droger. Samtidigt har studien målet att ta reda på i vilken utsträckning drogens laglighet inverkar vid valet att använda drogen. Studien är kvantitativ. Undersökningen utfördes genom en webbenkät som besvarades av totalt 356 respondenter. Av dessa hade 171 personer använt syntetiska cannabinoider. I resultatet framkom att anledningarna till att använda drogen är flera, men de främsta visade sig vara laglighet, nyfikenhet, tillgänglighet, ruset samt att det ej visar sig vid urinprov. Personer som använder syntetiska cannabinoider har en tendens att också använda flera andra droger. Drogens laglighet visade sig ha en relativt stor inverkan på valet att använda den. Det visade sig också att män i större utsträckning använder syntetiska cannabinoider i jämförelse med kvinnor. / The purpose of this study is to examine why people choose to use synthetic cannabinoids. Furthermore, the study intended to investigate whether people who use synthetic cannabinoids also using other drugs. Meanwhile the study has the objective to find out to what extent the drug affects the legality of the choice to use the drug. The study is quantitative. The survey was conducted through an online survey and was answered by a total of 356 respondents. Of these, 171 people used synthetic cannabinoids. The result showed that the reason for using the drug are several, but the main proved were legality, curiosity, availability, intoxication and that it is not revealed by urine testing. People using synthetic cannabinoids have a tendency to also use several other drugs. The legacy of the drug was found to have a relatively large impact on the decision to use it. It was also found that men in greater occurrence use synthetic cannabinoids compared to women.

The quality of a product depends on the quality of the underlying process is a well known fact. Software development organizations have been struggling to decrease their cost, increase their ROI, reduce time-to-market, and enhance the quality of their products. This all depends upon the improvement in the processes they are following inside their organizations. A number of software process improvement models exist in market, e.g., CMMI, SPICE and Automotive SPICE. But before an organization can improve its development and management processes, it is very important to know whether it is following the right processes. There exist a number of software development process models, mainly categorized into Traditional and Agile, which provide the step-by-step guidance to develop and manage the software projects.The current thesis presents a study of software process improvement models in automotive industry, their weaknesses and strengths and presents a comparison of how do they relate to each other. This thesis also explores some software development models which are more famous in automotive industry, and the applicability of process improvement models in conjunction with the Agile software development models. A case study was performed at an automotive software supplier organization to investigate the experience of combining Agile practices with organization’s company-tailored software development model that was incorporating Automotive SPICE standards.

Automotive SPICE is used to evaluate the efficiency of the development processes for OEMs and ECU suppliers. It is a domain specific version of SPICE. Many automotive manufacturers are demanding Automotive SPICE level 2 from their suppliers. Application life cycle management solutions specific to automotive industry focus more on standardisation yet providing very little information about performance of processes. This thesis shows how Business Intelligence (BI) solutions can be helpful in achieving Automotive SPICE level 2 compliance and as comprehensive reporting tools. Moreover the evaluation of approaches for implementation of different BI systems has shown that commercial solutions can be beneficial for small to medium size suppliers. Implementing a BI solution can also point out possible improvement opportunities and bad practices for an organisation. The implemented BI system can only be efficient and useful if the underlying data is accurate and responsive.

L’augmentation de la densité d’intégration des circuits intégrés nous a amené à étudier, dans le cadre du développement de la technologie CMOS 45 nm, les sources de variabilité inhérentes aux procédés de fabrication utilisés pour ce nœud technologique, et à en déterminer les composantes principales,dans le but ultime de permettre la simulation précise de l’impact de la variabilité technologique à la fois au niveau transistor et circuit. Après un état de l’art des sources de variabilité du transistor MOS et des moyens de simulation associés,ce travail s'est orienté sur les fluctuations d'un facteur technologique difficilement accessible à la mesure statistique qu'est le dopage canal. Ensuite le nœud 45 nm a été étudié expérimentalement via un plan d'expériences.Ceci a permis de connaitre les variations naturelles des facteurs technologiques mais surtout les sensibilités des performances électriques vis-à-vis de ces facteurs.Nous avons pu ainsi identifier les causes prépondérantes de variabilité dues au procédé.Enfin, nous proposons d’améliorer la prise en compte des déviations des facteurs process dans les simulations Monte-Carlo et pire-cas appliquées aux modèles compacts au regard de ces observations expérimentales. / Continuous improvement in integrated circuits density of integration lead us to study process-induced variations in the framework of the 45 nm node, and to determine their principal contributions with the ultimate goal being to allow an accurate simulation of both transistor and circuit level variability. This work starts with a study of the state of the art of variability sources of the MOS transistor and associated simulation means. Then it focuses on the fluctuations of the channel doping, which is a difficult factor to measure statistically.After that we study the 45 nm node through a design of experiment which let us learn about natural variations of process factors but mostly about electrical performances sensitivity to those factors.Thanks to that we could identify major causes of process-induced variability at this stage of this node development. At last, with respect to those experimental results, we propose to enhance the taking in account of process variations in Monte-Carlo and corner simulations applied to compact models.

This thesis has been performed at Clinical Chemistry at Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Gothenburg. The purpose of the project was to investigate new and alternative ways to determinate synthetic cannabinoids by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. Currently, the possibilities to quantify synthetic cannabinoids are very limited. This can lead to an increased use of synthetic cannabinoids as the risk of detection is low, which may be known by drug users. The synthetic cannabinoids are sold mixed with different herbs and have varying names like Spice Gold, Spice Silver, K2, Smoke and Pot-pourri. The synthetic cannabinoids analyzed were JWH-018 and JWH-073, which are commonly found in seized Spice material. At intake of these drugs, usually through smoking, cannabis-like effects arise. This is because they bind to cannabinoid receptors in a similar way as THC does, which is the primary active cannabinoid of cannabis. For urine samples an analytical method would probably be the most sensitive if the major metabolite could be analyzed, as it is expected to be present in high concentrations in this sample type. Since information regarding the metabolism of synthetic cannabinoids is very limited there may be reasons to analyze the mother substance in urine. Further, in plasma and serum samples the mother substance is expected in high concentrations. Thus different ways to detect JWH-018 and JWH-073 directly were investigated in this project. Derivatization of JWH-018 and JWH-073 was the first step to get more selective and sensitive GC-MS analysis. Different derivatization-reagents were investigated, for example BSTFA and TFAA. The results show that the derivatization of JWH-018 with BSTFA after reduction and extraction was successful. To achieve this, samples had to be heated at 115°C for 1-3 hours, but still the samples were not completely derivatized. The results indicate that JWH-substances are difficult to derivatized, but they are possible to derivatize with BSTFA. This could mean that a GC-MS-method maybe could be established for these substances, preferably trough TFAA-derivatization.

La miniaturisation de circuits intégrés, les hautes fréquences de fonctionnement, la baisse des potentiels d'alimentation, les fortes densités d'intégration rendent les signaux numériques propagés sur les interconnexions très susceptibles à la dégradation voire à la corruption. En vue d’évaluer la compatibilité électromagnétique et l’intégrité du signal il est nécessaire de disposer dès les premières phases de développement de modèles précis de ces interconnexions pour les insérer dans les simulateurs temporels. Nos travaux s'inscrivent dans ce contexte et concernent plus particulièrement la modélisation comportementale des buffers et drivers de ligne de transmission. Ils ont abouti à une approche originale de modélisation notamment basée sur les séries de Volterra-Laguerre. Les modèles boites noires développés disposent d’une implémentation SPICE assez simple autorisant ainsi une très bonne portabilité. Ils sont faciles à identifier et disposent d’une complexité paramétrique permettant un gain important de temps de simulation vis-à-vis des modèles transistors des drivers. En outre les méthodes développées permettent une modélisation dynamique non linéaire plus précise du port de sortie, et une gestion plus générale des entrées autorisant notamment une très bonne prise en compte du régime de sur-cadencement ce que par exemple ne fait pas le standard IBIS. / Integrated circuits miniaturization, high operating frequencies, lower supply voltages, high-density integration make digital signals propagating on interconnects highly vulnerable to degradation. Assessing EMC and signal integrity in the early stages of the design flow requires accurate interconnect models allowing for efficient time-domain simulations. In this context, our work addressed the issue of behavioral modeling of transmission line buffers, and particularly that of drivers. The main result is an original modeling approach partially based on Volterra-Laguerre series. The black box models we developed have a fairly simple implementation in SPICE thus allowing a very good portability. They are easy to identify and have a parametric complexity allowing a large gain in simulation time with respect to transistor driver models. In addition, the developed methods allow a more accurate output port nonlinear dynamics modeling, and a more general management of inputs. A very good reproduction of driver behaviour in overclocking conditions provides a significant advantage over standard IBIS models.

Automotive SPICE is used to evaluate the efficiency of the development processes for OEMs and ECU suppliers. It is a domain specific version of SPICE. Many automotive manufacturers are demanding Automotive SPICE level 2 from their suppliers. Application life cycle management solutions specific to automotive industry focus more on standardisation yet providing very little information about performance of processes. This thesis shows how Business Intelligence (BI) solutions can be helpful in achieving Automotive SPICE level 2 compliance and as comprehensive reporting tools. Moreover the evaluation of approaches for implementation of different BI systems has shown that commercial solutions can be beneficial for small to medium size suppliers. Implementing a BI solution can also point out possible improvement opportunities and bad practices for an organisation. The implemented BI system can only be efficient and useful if the underlying data is accurate and responsive.