An important consideration in discrete event dynamic systems control theory is the selection of a suitable modeling formalism that can capture the complex characteristics of the system and the capability to automatically synthesize a controller based on the system model. Net condition event systems are well suited for modeling complex discrete event dynamic systems owing to their input and output structure, which effectively captures the behavior of the physical devices to be monitored and/or controlled. To date, net condition event systems control models have not been extensively applied to highly automated manufacturing systems and there are few guidelines on how to automatically generate Programmable Logic Controller programming languages from net condition event systems models. This research automatically converted net condition event systems control models into Programmable Logic Controller programming language and evaluated the applicability of the proposed methodology in highly automated manufacturing systems using HAS-200 as a test bed.

In highly competitive industries where firms aren’t protected by barriers to entry and consumers’ preferences are constantly changing, the willingness and ability to adapt and continually improve operations may be critical for continued success. However, the internal exchanges between employees and managers that may be an integral part of the development and implementation of new ideas are often not modeled or included in our standard economic theories. In this research I investigate whether a higher level of employee voice (or employee input) predicts higher levels of continual improvement, and whether this continual improvement predicts higher levels of firm performance. Additionally, I will study whether humble managers keep this process going by fostering an environment where employees feel free to provide input. If this chain of events can help us better understand differences in firm performance then perhaps we can enhance our models by measuring and including these internal firm characteristics instead of simply leaving them inside the error term and calling them “unobservable.” Results across three separate studies show that humble managers are more likely to be perceived as making continual improvements and higher levels of perceived continual improvement leads to both greater levels of employee voice and fewer perceived job obstacles. A pilot study involving two separate quick-food restaurant chains also lends support for the above ideas, but uses sales in dollars as the measure for performance. Additionally, holding the employee constant in a fixed-effects analysis shows that the same employee is more likely to voice ideas to a manager he or she reports as continually improving the way things are done.

Network structures based upon metal-organic backbones represent a new class of functional materials that can be rationally constructed by employing the concepts of supramolecular chemistry and crystal engineering. The modularity of design strategies, the diversity of prototypal structures, and the dynamic features of networks have afforded great advantages over traditional materials syntheses. The research presented in this dissertation is primarily concerned with developing an in-depth understanding of the basic principles that govern the supramolecular behaviors of metal-organic frameworks and gaining an experimental control over the structure and function of these new classes of hybrid materials. The use of rigid and angular organic ligands along with transition metal clusters gives rise to a wide variety of novel metal-organic architectures ranging from zero-dimensional nanostructures to three-dimensional frameworks. Gas sorption experiments suggest some of these compounds are potentially useful as porous materials. Conformational analysis of these structural models reveals geometrical foundations for the existence of superstructural diversity. Controlled crystallization experiments further indicate synthetic factors that might determine the formation of supramolecular isomers. On the other hand, careful selection of more labile organic components leads to flexible metal-organic frameworks exhibiting dynamic characteristics that have not been observed in their rigid counterparts. The guest-dependent switch-on/off of cavities and the ease of fine-tuning their chemical environments demonstrate the effectiveness of such a strategy in the context of generating tailored functional materials. Discovery and recognition of novel three-periodic metal-organic nets remains a nontrivial exercise. In this context, rigorous topological analysis assists the understanding of complicated nets and application of geometrical principles facilitates desing of new metal-organic structures. Finally, scaled-up metal-organic frameworks are potentially accessible with the aid of existing prototypal structures and a systematic study on ligand design.

During the last two hundred years many wetlands and streams in Sweden have been lowered to provide land for agriculture and forestry. Some of the coastal wetlands and streams probably served as spawning sites for certain species of fish in the Baltic Sea, but the present situation is not well known. As standardized methods to monitor fish in running waters are carried out during late summer or autumn, there is a need for methods to sample spring-spawning fish in these streams. The aim of this study was to survey the lower kilometer stretch of Hammerstaån in Stockholm, to investigate the extent to which the stream is used by spring-spawning fish. Furthermore, the study aims to evaluate a new type of survey fishing gill net called strömöversiktsnät (SÖN). This was done by comparing the catch of fish by SÖN with that of fyke nets. The comparison of the types of gear included number of fish caught, on a catch per unit effort (CPUE) basis, number of species and the size distributions. The study included 14 days with one gill net and one fyke net at two sites, in total 28 net-days. The inventory yielded in total seventeen species among which only trout (Salmo trutta), perch (Perca fluvitalis), roach (Rutilus rutilus), burbot (Lota lota), eel (Anguilla anguilla) and pike (Esox lucius) were previously known to occur. Six spawning species, smelt (Osmerus eperlanus), vimba bream (Vimba vimba), perch (Perca fluvitalis), roach (Rutilus rutilus), bream (Abramis brama) and white bream (Blicka bjoerkna) were caught in more than 60 individuals, which was set as a limit for comparisons of size distributions. There was no significant difference in CPUE between SÖN and fyke nets. Also length distribution did not differ between SÖN and fyke nets except for the species perch and white bream were the nets caught significant smaller perch and bigger white bream than the fyke nets. The results show that investigations with SÖN or fyke nets during springtime can be of great importance to increase our knowledge about spring-spawning fish in Swedish streams and the coastal areas of the Baltic Sea.

During the last two hundred years many wetlands and streams in Sweden have been lowered to provide land for agriculture and forestry. Some of the coastal wetlands and streams probably served as spawning sites for certain species of fish in the Baltic Sea, but the present situation is not well known. As standardized methods to monitor fish in running waters are carried out during late summer or autumn, there is a need for methods to sample spring-spawning fish in these streams. The aim of this study was to survey the lower kilometer stretch of Hammerstaån in Stockholm, to investigate the extent to which the stream is used by spring-spawning fish. Furthermore, the study aims to evaluate a new type of survey fishing gill net called strömöversiktsnät (SÖN). This was done by comparing the catch of fish by SÖN with that of fyke nets. The comparison of the types of gear included number of fish caught, on a catch per unit effort (CPUE) basis, number of species and the size distributions. The study included 14 days with one gill net and one fyke net at two sites, in total 28 net-days. The inventory yielded in total seventeen species among which only trout (Salmo trutta), perch (Perca fluvitalis), roach (Rutilus rutilus), burbot (Lota lota), eel (Anguilla anguilla) and pike (Esox lucius) were previously known to occur. Six spawning species, smelt (Osmerus eperlanus), vimba bream (Vimba vimba), perch (Perca fluvitalis), roach (Rutilus rutilus), bream (Abramis brama) and white bream (Blicka bjoerkna) were caught in more than 60 individuals, which was set as a limit for comparisons of size distributions. There was no significant difference in CPUE between SÖN and fyke nets. Also length distribution did not differ between SÖN and fyke nets except for the species perch and white bream were the nets caught significant smaller perch and bigger white bream than the fyke nets. The results show that investigations with SÖN or fyke nets during springtime can be of great importance to increase our knowledge about spring-spawning fish in Swedish streams and the coastal areas of the Baltic Sea.

Is it probable that a reader can have an empathetic and learning experience of an historical event facilitated through text? Research in neuroscience indicates that the form of a text can trigger mirror neurons, enhancing empathy with the events and characters portrayed and enabling introspective learning through stimulation of the default state network in a reading brain. Narrative elements in historical and fictional literature are analyzed for their potential in facilitating the stimulation of these states. The historical fiction novel Morenga by Uwe Timm is analyzed in order to deduce what a reader neurologically experiences in relation to the text and the historical event portrayed in the novel during the reading process. The probability of the reader experiencing empathy and learning through text so that their perspectives on inter-textual and extra-textual similar events are affected is then developed.

Endocrine tumors arise from endocrine glands. Most endocrine tumors are benign but malignant variants exist. Several endocrine neoplasms display loss of parts of chromosome 11 or 18, produce hormones and responds poorly to conventional chemotherapeutics. The multiple endocrine neoplasia syndromes are mainly confined to endocrine tumors. This opens the question if there exists a single or several endocrine tumor genes. The aim of the study was to describe genetic derangements in endocrine tumors. Paper I: Investigation of mutational status of SDHAF2 in parathyroid tumors. SDHAF2 is located in the proximity of 11q13, a region that frequently displays loss in parathyroid tumors. We established that mutations in SDHAF2 are infrequent in parathyroid tumors. Paper II: Study of SDHAF2 gene expression in a cohort of benign pheochromocytomas (PCC) (n=40) and malignant PCC (n=10). We discovered a subset of  benign PCC (28/40) and all malignant PCC (10/10) with significantly lower SDHAF2 expression. Benign PCC with low SDHAF2 expression and malignant tumors consistently expressing low levels of SDHAF2 were methylated in the promoter region. SDHAF2 expression was restored in vitro after treatment with 5- aza-2-deoxycytidine. Paper III: HumanMethylation27 array (Illumina) covering 27578 CpG sites spanning over 14495 genes were analyzed in a discovery cohort of 10 primary small neuroendocrine tumors (SI-NETs) with matched metastases. 2697 genes showed different methylation pattern between the primary tumor and its metastasis. We identified several hypermethylated genes in key regions. Unsupervised clustering of the tumors identified three distinct clusters, one with a highly malignant behavior. Paper IV: Loss of chromosome 18 is the most frequent genetic aberration in SI-NETs. DNA from SI-NETs were subjected to whole exome capture sequencing and high resolution SNP array. Genomic profiling revealed loss of chromosome 18 in 5 out of 7 SI-NETs. No tumor-specific somatic mutation on chromosome 18 was identified which suggests involvement of other mechanisms than point mutations in SI-NET tumorigenesis. Paper V: The cost for diagnostic genetic screening of common susceptibility genes in PCC is expensive and labor intensive. Three PCC from three patients with no known family history were chosen for exome capture sequencing. We identified three variants in known candidate genes. We suggest that exome-capture sequencing is a quick and cost-effective tool.

Humans make mistakes, especially when faced to complex tasks, such as the construction of modern hardware or software. This thesis focuses on machine-assisted techniques to guarantee that computers behave correctly. Modern computer systems are large and complex. Automated formal verification stands as an alternative to testing or simulation to ensuring their reliability. It essentially proposes to employ computers to exhaustively check the system behavior. Unfortunately, automated verification suffers from the state-space explosion problem: even relatively small systems can reach a huge number of states. Using the right representation for the system behavior seems to be a key step to tackle the inherent complexity of the problems that automated verification solves. The verification of concurrent systems poses additional issues, as their analysis requires to evaluate, conceptually, all possible execution orders of their concurrent actions. Petri net unfoldings are a well-established verification technique for concurrent systems. They represent behavior by partial orders, which not only is natural but also efficient for automatic verification. This dissertation focuses on the verification of concurrent systems, employing Petri nets to formalize them, and studies two prominent verification techniques: model checking and fault diagnosis. We investigate the unfoldings of Petri nets extended with read arcs. The unfoldings of these so-called contextual nets seem to be a better representation for systems exhibiting concurrent read access to shared resources: they can be exponentially smaller than conventional unfoldings on these cases. Theoretical and practical contributions are made. We first study the construction of contextual unfoldings, introducing algorithms and data structures that enable their efficient computation. We integrate contextual unfoldings with merged processes, another representation of concurrent behavior that alleviates the explosion caused by non-determinism. The resulting structure, called contextual merged processes, is often orders of magnitude smaller than unfoldings, as we experimentally demonstrate. Next, we develop verification techniques based on unfoldings. We define SAT encodings for the reachability problem in contextual unfoldings, thus solving the problem of detecting cycles of asymmetric conflict. Also, an unfolding-based decision procedure for fault diagnosis under fairness constraints is presented, in this case only for conventional unfoldings. Finally, we implement our verification algorithms, aiming at producing a competitive model checker intended to handle realistic benchmarks. We subsequently evaluate our methods over a standard set of benchmarks and compare them with existing unfolding-based techniques. The experiments demonstrate that reachability checking based on contextual unfoldings outperforms existing techniques on a wide number of cases. This suggests that contextual unfoldings, and asymmetric event structures in general, have a rightful place in research on concurrency, also from an efficiency point of view.

Is it probable that a reader can have an empathetic and learning experience of an historical event facilitated through text? Research in neuroscience indicates that the form of a text can trigger mirror neurons, enhancing empathy with the events and characters portrayed and enabling introspective learning through stimulation of the default state network in a reading brain. Narrative elements in historical and fictional literature are analyzed for their potential in facilitating the stimulation of these states. The historical fiction novel Morenga by Uwe Timm is analyzed in order to deduce what a reader neurologically experiences in relation to the text and the historical event portrayed in the novel during the reading process. The probability of the reader experiencing empathy and learning through text so that their perspectives on inter-textual and extra-textual similar events are affected is then developed.

Perineuronale Netze (PN) sind eine spezialisierte Form der neuronalen extrazellulären Matrix. Es wird vermutet, dass sie neuroprotektive Eigenschaften besitzen und die von ihnen umschlossenen Neurone gegenüber Degeneration schützen. Mehrere Studien untersuchten bereits die PN in Zusammenhang mit der Pathologie der Alzheimer-Erkrankung. Für die Frontotemporalen Demenzen, die nach der Alzheimer-Erkrankung und der vaskulären Demenz zu den häufigsten dementiellen Erkrankungen gehören, ist die Beziehung von PN und Tau-Protein (TP)-Pathologie noch nicht untersucht worden. Die Dissertation beschäftigt sich mit der Korrelation von netztragenden Neuronen mit TP-Pathologie in einem Mausmodel der Frontotemporalen Demenz mit Parkinsonismus des Chromosoms 17 (FTDP-17). Sie geht der Frage nach, ob netztragende Neuronen vor Degeneration und intrazellulären Ablagerungen von verändertem TP, in Form von Hyperphosphorylierungen (HP) und Neurofibrillären Tangles (NFT), geschützt sind. Mit Hilfe immunhistochemischer Fluoreszenzmarkierung und Western Blot wurden die Gehirne transgener Mäuse mit der P301L-Mutation des TP im Alter von drei und achteinhalb Monaten untersucht. Dabei wurden sechs Hirnregionen ausgewählt: Primärer Somatosensorischer Kortex (PSC), Entorhinaler Kortex (EC), Hippokampus (Hipp), Pars magnocellularis des Nucleus ruber (NR-m), Pars reticulata der Substantia nigra (SN-r) und Motorischer Trigeminuskern (Mo5). Die Untersuchungen zeigen, dass die PN bei der FTDP-17 die Neurone nicht explizit vor TP-Pathologie schützen. Jedoch kommt es zu keiner signifikanten Reduktion der netztragenden Zellen im Altersgang, sodass eine neuroprotektive Funktion der PN weiterhin vermutet werden kann.