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Chicken is a food that is becoming increasingly common in Sweden.Consumption in 2012 was three times as high as in the 1980s. In this thesis, astudy was carried out with a company that produces various chickenproducts. In this thesis, a ready-made grilled chicken breast fillet that is readyto eat was used. Listeria monocytogenes is a gram-positive rod-shapedbacterium that lives as a saprophyte. It is present in food and can then pose athreat to individuals belonging to risk groups. These risk groups includepregnant and elderly, but also people with poorer immune systems. Thepurpose of this thesis was to study whether added L. monocytogenes cangrow in pre-grilled chicken at 4 °C and 8 °C respectively. This after the pregrilled chicken had been incubated for 10, 20 and 25 days after packing in amodified atmosphere (MAP). In this thesis, a patient isolate ofL.monocytogenes was used, which was propagated in broth and added to 200g of pre-grilled and sliced chicken breast fillet. Viable count determinationwas made on Brilliance Listeria Agar culture medium, a selective anddifferentiated medium. The L. monocytogenes content increased over timefor the samples incubated at 8 °C while the growth of L.monocytogenes inthe samples incubated at 4 °C decreased. The difference was statisticallysignificant with a p-value of <0,0001. L. monocytogenes had a generationtime of 64 hours at 8 °C. This means that L. monocytogenes could only growat 8 °C.

The outsourcing of the manufacturing of garments to regions with lower production costs has raised concerns over labor rights violations. Retailers and brands have responded to this by introducing codes of conduct outlining minimum requirements for working conditions at their suppliers. Has companies’ work with codes of conduct within the voluntary corporate social responsibility (CSR) framework managed to secure good working conditions, and if not, to drive improvements at the factory level?  This thesis examines the question empirically by analyzing code of conduct audits of garment factories conducted by Fair Wear Foundation (FWF), an independent non-profit multi-stakeholder organization. The data consist of audits of 229 sewing factories in Asia, Eastern Europe, and North Africa that supply European garment brands. Paper I analyses the non-compliances listed in the audit reports and whether factories audited several times by FWF improve over time. The results show that even rigorous multi-stakeholder factory audits have problems identifying violations of freedom of association and harassment of workers. Improvement over time could be seen between audits. However, these improvements were moderate, i.e. compliance increased by only 7–15% between audits.  Paper II examines chemical safety in the garment factories, an area where violations should be easy to identify and improvements are likely to be seen. The results show that 43% of the suppliers received remarks on chemical safety at the first audit. A model containing factors thought to be associated with better compliance was constructed including the number of previous audits, characteristics of the suppliers, and characteristics of the relationship between the brands and suppliers. The only statistically significant finding from this was that among factories audited ten or more times was there a clear increase in the number of factories receiving no remarks on chemical safety. / <p>QC 20160513</p>

As our population grows, so does the use of prescribed drugs. Pharmaceuticals are not completely degradable in the body and often end up in our sewage water. Wastewater treatment plants are not yet able to completely purify the water from medicines, which results in a large part of all medicines ending up in our watercourses and potentially affecting our aquatic ecosystems in a negative way. Hence, although pharmaceutical wastes in our waters have not yet shown any impact on humans, the increase in drugs polluting our waters may have a big effect on our public health in the future. Analysis of our sewage waters can be a good method to see if there is an increase in pollution of pharmaceuticals and can help us to put in measures and different types of water purification if needed. The purpose of this study is to investigate if there has been an increase in anti-anxiety drugs in Umeå’s sewage water since 2012, when a similar study was made, and to examine if the use varies over a week. For this study three samples were taken from Umeå’s main wastewater treatment plant and were analyzed using a liquid chromatography mass spectrometry method. The result in this study shows that the use doesn’t vary during the week and gives indications of an increase in use of anti-anxiety drugs since 2012. The increase can be due to the higher population in Umeå and possibly an increase in illicit use of anti-anxiety drugs.

Dagens samhälle är beroende av väl fungerande mjukvara. I en teknisk revolutionerande värld är det viktigt att ha en mjukvara som ständigt utvecklas och underhålls. Produkter som kräver detta är bl.a. datorer, surfplattor och mobiltelefoner. Dessa produkter är bara en del av mängden inom dagens industri som är beroende av mjukvara och har en stor betydelse i den moderna människans vardagliga liv. I samband med utvecklingen av sådana produkter måste även mjukvaran utvecklas i samma takt. Detta sätter krav på mjukvaruindustrin. Ett utvecklingsprojekt måste ha en fungerande arbetsmetod för att ständigt utveckla mjukvara på bästa möjliga sätt som uppfyller krav på produkten inom dagens marknad. Ett sådant arbetssätt är agila metoder som kännetecknas bland annat av att det hålls en bra kommunikation med kunden och anpassar mjukvaruutvecklingen efter kundens krav. Detta är möjligt då hela projektet utförs i ett flertal olika iterationer, som vid varje avslut levereras till kunden som återkopplar med eventuella förändringar eller vidare krav. Denna uppsats inriktar sig på en agil metod, Scrum. Det finns en bred mängd information gällande Scrum och hur metoden ska tillämpas. I denna uppsats görs en jämförelse mellan beskrivningen av Scrum i teorin och den praktiska tillämpningen i mjukvaruprojekt på företag. Studien genomförs på konsultföretaget Slagkryssaren AB, som för tillfället är på uppdrag vid ett annat företag. Deras projekt går ut på att utveckla en redan fungerande mobilapplikation. I projektet tillämpar utvecklingsteamet Scrum, vilket medför att projektet kan studeras utifrån vetenskapligt perspektiv. Företaget och projektet får inte nämnas i denna studie med hänsyn till företagets begäran. Studien påvisar både skillnader och likheter mellan utvecklingsteamets arbetssätt samt teorin bakom Scrum. Vid en jämförelse finns skillnader i vilka roller som ingår i utvecklingsteamet samt rollens ansvarsområde. Utvecklingsteamet tillämpade dock nästan alla artefakter, som finns beskrivet inom teorin om Scrum. Den enda artefakten som utvecklingsteamet har valt att avstå ifrån är att göra ett processdiagram, som grafiskt visar förhållandet mellan kvarvarande tid och arbete. En utveckling som framgår av studien är att det fysiska pappersarbetet under projektet har blivit digitalt. Utvecklingsteam har börjat använda webbaserade program för att hantera dokumentation och följa upp arbetet, vilket underlättar för medarbetare som inte kan närvara på arbetsplatsen för de dagliga mötena. / Today's society is dependent on the proper functioning of the software. In a revolutionary technological world, it is important to have software that are continually developed and maintained. Products that require this includes computers, tablets and mobile phones. These products are only part of the amount in today's industry that is dependent on the software and has a great importance in modern man's everyday life. In connection with the development of such products, the software must also develop at the same pace. This puts demands on the software industry. A development project must have a working methodology for the continuous development of software in the best possible way, which meets product requirements in today's market. Such approaches are agile methods that are notable in ways to keep up good communication with the client and customize the software development according to customer requirements. This is possible when the entire project is carried out in several different iterations, at each termination delivered to the customer who reconnects with any changes or further requirements. This paper focuses on an agile methodology, Scrum. There are a wide variety of information regarding Scrum and how the method should be applied. In this paper a comparison is made between the description of Scrum in the theory and practical application in software projects for companies. The study is conducted at consulting firm Slagkryssaren AB, whom are currently on assignment at another company. Their project is to develop an already functioning mobile application. The development team applies Scrum their project which facilitates that it can be studied from a scientific perspective. The company and the project must not be mentioned in this study with regard to the company's request. This study demonstrates both the differences and similarities between the development team's approach and the theory behind Scrum. When comparing the differences in the roles, it involved the development and the responsibility of the roles. The development team applied however, almost all the artifacts, which are described in the theory of Scrum. The only artifact that the development team has decided to give up is to make a process diagram, which graphically shows the relationship between the remaining time and work. A development that is clear from the study is that the physical paperwork for the project has become digital. Development team has started to use web-based application to manage documentation and follow up work, making it easier for employees who cannot attend the workplace for daily meetings.

Energy resources are a main factor for the development of industry and human life, however, the use of fusil fuels as energy is harmful to the environment. Taking these two matters into consideration, the use of waste energy is a good response. The thermoelectric phenomena, which was, discovered in the 18th century plays a main role in converting waste heat energy to electricity and vice-versa.  Germanium quantum dots (Ge QDs) have received special attention due to their unusual electrical and optical properties, which are correlated to the quantum confinement effect. In thermoelectric devices amazing electrical property of Ge QDs are utilized. Ge QDs can be applied in thermoelectric devices to increase the electrical conductivity while decreasing the thermal conductivity, resulting in an increasing of the figure of merit (ZT); a characteristic for thermoelectric devices that should be as high as possible.  In this study, Reduced Pressure Chemical Vapor Deposition (RPCVD) was used to synthesize Ge QDs utilizing GeH4 gas on silicon at a temperature of 450℃ with deposition times of 23s, 25s, 30s, 60s, 120s and 240s, and at a total and partial pressure of 20 Torr and 20 mTorr respectively. RPCVD was used to fabricate multi-layer Ge dots on silicon wafers, which were sandwiched between thin silicon films. Process parameters used in this study to deposit thin interlayers silicon film were as follows: Total pressure: 20 Torr, temperature: 500℃ and partial pressure of 10 mTorr. Deposition times of 150s, 300s and 600s were used to deposit interlayers of silicon utilizing Si2H6 gas to connect and disconnect carrier transfer between Ge QDs perpendicularly and to investigate the surface roughness. Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM), Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDS), and High Resolution X-Ray Diffraction (HRXRD) were employed to investigate the Ge dots and interlayers silicon films. These characterizations showed that the smallest dots are obtained from 23s deposition time which means higher tunneling of electrons and an increase of electrical conductivity. The data also showed that a shorter deposition time results in a higher relative strain which means higher carrier mobility and higher electrical conductivity. Finally, multilayers of Si/strained Ge-dots analyzed to find the smoothest surface, and the smoothest surface was obtained with 23s deposition time of Ge dots, which means less electrical noise in thermoelectric devices. Such structures are ready to be grown on silicon on insulator (SOI) wafer to make advanced coupled or uncoupled dots for future thermoelectric applications.

Thermoelectric devices directly convert heat into electricity or vice versa through simple structures without moving parts. SiGe materials are promising candidates for thermoelectric energy conversion. This study presents the electrical characterization of p- and n-type Si0.53Ge0.47 alloy nanowires (NWs) with an average diameter of 60 nm in the temperature range of 248 K to 473 K. The SiGe NWs were fabricated by two methods: Sidewall Transfer Lithography (STL) and conventional Iline lithography followed by Focus Ion Beam (FIB) thinning. A new approach was developed to characterize the electrical and thermal properties of the NWs. The SiGe material was grown by Reduced Pressure Chemical Vapor Deposition (RPCVD) using SiH4 and GeH4 precursors on Silicon on Insulator substrates (SOI). These samples were then condensed to Si0.53Ge0.47 layers. Doping of layers was performed through diffusion with two different sources gas of B2H6 or PH3 at 800°C. The electrical conductivity and thermopower of the SiGe NWs, fabricated by both methods, were studied and compared. The results showed an enhancement of thermopower, electrical conductivity and power factor of SiGe NWs compared to Si NWs, revealing their potential for thermoelectric material (TE) device applications.

No description available.

Spectra represent fingerprints of molecules, which contain unique information about their properties. Through analyzing the spectral data, one can reveal the molecules' energy level alignments, identify their species and geometric structures, and explore relevant chemical processes and microscopic mechanisms. Currently, spectroscopy is one of the main means for human beings to enter the mysterious world of molecules and hear their stories. However, interpreting molecular spectra is not a straightforward process, because the occurrence of spectra involves complex interactions between molecules and external stimuli. Theoretical simulations based on quantum chemistry play an indispensable role in this regard, which makes developing and applying related computational software become very important. This thesis focuses on the theoretical simulations of two types of molecular spectra, namely the vibrationally resolved optical spectra and the inelastic electron tunneling spectra (IETS). The former involves the transitions of electrons between a molecule's ground state and its excited states with the involvement of molecular vibrations, and the latter comes from the excitations of a molecule's vibrational states within its electronic ground state by inelastic tunneling electrons across a molecular junction.  By performing time-dependent density functional theory calculations as well as applying the DynaVib code, I have systematically investigated the optical absorption properties of two types of functional molecules, i.e., naphthalenediimide cyclophane (NDIC) derivatives and fused porphyrin derivatives, which have been proposed as building blocks for future single-molecule optoelectronic devices. Based on the Franck-Condon (FC) principle, the simulations well explain the energy shifts induced by chemical substitutions in the first intense absorption bands of the three NDIC derivatives, and nicely reproduce the vibrational features of their first two bands. Furthermore, by using three different exchange-correlation functionals (i.e., the conventional functional B3LYP and two long-range corrected functionals CAM-B3LYP and wB97XD), it is found that long-range corrections are very important for the description of the spectral features owing to the strong charge transfer in the related excited states. By taking into account both the FC and the non-FC Herzberg-Teller (HT) contributions, the experimentally measured electroluminescence spectrum of a single fused 5,15-(diphenyl)-10,20-(dibromo)porphyrin (fused-H2P) molecule is nicely reproduced by the simulations. It is found that the FC contribution also dominates the emission of the molecule, while the HT terms mainly contribute to the low-energy tail of the spectrum. The vibrational fine structures as observed in the experiments are unambiguously assigned based on the simulation results.  In terms of the development of computational software, I have developed a Windows version for the QCME package - an efficient package to perform first principles calculations of electron transport through molecules such as simulating the IETS. The implementation has been achieved by using the C# language and the Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) user interface framework. The Windows version of QCME exhibits compatibility, stability, scalability, and strong operability. It has a beautiful interface, is easy to learn and to use, and has improved human-computer interactions. Such an approach of the implementation can be also extended to other quantum chemistry packages. / Spektra representerar molekylära fingeravtryck som innehåller unik information om deras egenskaper. Genom att analysera spektraldata så kan man avslöja molekylernas energinivåjusteringar, identifiera deras art och geometriska strukturer, och utforska relevanta kemiska processer och mikroskopiska mekanismer. För närvarande är spektroskopi ett av de främsta sätten för människor att ge sig in i den mystiska världen av molekyler och ta del av deras berättelser. Det är dock inte en enkel process att tolka molekylära spektra, eftersom förekomsten av spektra involverar komplexa interaktioner mellan molekyler och externa stimuli. Teoretiska simulationer baserat på kvantkemi spelar en oumbärlig roll i detta avseende, vilket gör att utveckling och tillämpning av relaterad beräkningsprogramvara blir väldigt viktigt. Denna avhandling fokuserar på de teoretiska simulationerna hos två typer av molekylära spektra, nämligen den vibrationsupplösta optiska spektra och den oelastiska elektrontunnelspektra (IETS). Den föregående involverar elektronövergångar mellan en molekyls grundtillstånd och dess exciterade tillstånd med involvering av molekylära vibrationer, och den senare uppstår från excitationerna av en molekyls vibrationstillstånd inom dess elektroniska grundtillstånd genom oelastisk tunnling av elektroner över en molekylövergång. Genom att utföra tidsberoende densitetsfunktionella teoriberäkningar samt tillämpa DynaVib koden så har vi systematiskt undersökt de optiska absorptionsegenskaperna hos två typer av funktionella molekyler, d.v.s., naphthalenediimide cyclophane (NDIC) derivat och fusionerade porphyrin derivat, varav dessa har föreslagits som byggstenar för framtida enmolekylära optoelektroniska enheter. Baserat på Franck-Condon (FC) principen så har simulationerna förklarat energiskiftena inducerade av kemiska substitutioner i de första intensiva absorptionsbanden hos de tre NDIC-derivaten väl, och återger vibrationsegenskaperna hos deras två första band på ett snyggt sätt. Vidare, genom att använda tre olika utbytes korrelationsfunktioner d.v.s., den konventionella funktionella B3LYP och två långdistans korrigerade funktioner CAM-B3LYP and wB97XD), så har man upptäckt att långdistanskorrigeringar är väldigt viktiga för beskrivningen av de spektrala egenskaperna på grund av den starka laddningsöverföringen i de relaterade exciterade tillstånden. Genom att ta hänsyn till både FC och icke-FC Herzberg-Teller (HT) bidrag så kan det experimentellt uppmätta elektroluminescens spektrumet hos en enstaka fuserad 5,15-(difenyl)-10,20-(dibrom)porfyrin (fused-H2P) molekylen återges på ett snyggt sätt av simulationerna. Det visar sig att FC-bidraget också dominerar emissionen av molekylen, medan HT-termerna huvudsakligen bidrar till lågenergi-änden av spektrumet. Vibrations finstrukturerna som observerats i experimenten är tilldelat otvetydig baserat på simuleringsresultaten. Angående utvecklingen av beräkningsprogramvara så har jag utvecklat en Windows-version för QCME-paketet - ett effektivt paket att utföra de första princip beräknelserna av elektrontransport genom molekyler såsom IETS simulation. Implementeringen har uppnåtts genom att använda språket C och användargränssnittet Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF). Windows-versionen av QCME uppvisar kompatibilitet, stabilitet, skalbarhet, och stark funktionsduglighet. Den har ett vackert gränssnitt, är lätt att lära sig att använda, och har förbättrad human-computer interaktioner. Ett sådant tillvägagångssätt för implementeringen kan även utvidgas till andra kvantkemi-paket. / <p>QC 2022-02-17</p>

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