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Cardiac transplantation is the treatment of choice for eligible patients with advanced heart failure; however, it is limited by a critical shortage of suitable organs from traditional brain-dead donors. Organs donated following circulatory death (DCD) have been used to successfully expand the pool of organs available for kidney, liver, and lung transplantation; however, concerns regarding the severity of injury sustained by the heart following withdrawal of life sustaining therapy have deterred the clinical transplantation of DCD hearts. Investigations aiming to optimize the resuscitation, preservation, and evaluation of DCD hearts may facilitate the development of an evidence based protocol for DCD heart transplantation that can be translated to the clinical area and expand the donor pool. Therefore, the objectives of this thesis are to develop a clinically relevant large animal model of DCD and gain a greater understanding regarding the physiologic impact of donor extubation on the DCD heart, demonstrate as a ‘proof-of-concept’ that utilizing an approach to donor heart resuscitation, preservation, and evaluation that is tailored to the DCD context can facilitate successful transplantation, and finally to investigate ways to optimize the resuscitation, preservation, and evaluation of DCD hearts for transplantation. The results of this thesis may then be used to inform the development of an evidence-based protocol for DCD heart transplantation that can be translated to the clinical area. The clinical adoption of such a protocol has the potential to expand the donor pool and improve outcomes for patients with end-stage heart failure. / May 2017

Detection and identification of pesticide residues on objects of cultural heritage is a serious and urgent challenge that currently faces many museums, Native American communities, and private collections worldwide. Organic artifact materials, such as wood, animal hide, basketry, textiles, paper, horn and bone, have traditionally been treated with pesticides to eradicate and prevent infestation by insects, rodents, and mold. These poisonous substances can persist for years in the controlled environment of a museum storeroom and present a potential poisoning risk to people who come in contact with the objects. Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) has the potential to detect volatile organic pesticides in this context. The technique can overcome the insensitivity of normal Raman spectroscopy and fluorescence interference, and make possible detection of many organic compounds in parts per million concentration. This investigation is aimed at evaluating SERS for the detection and identification of volatiles in museums, with emphasis on naphthalene vapor. The potential of several SERS-active materials; Tollens mirrors, gold film over nanosphere arrays, citrate-stabilized colloidal silver, and nanoporous gold; to detect Rhodamine B and naphthalene is investigated. The research also highlights the mechanisms that underlie SERS, and the relationship between substrate nanostructure and SERS performance.

Swedish cultural heritage policies put heritage of the Church of Sweden in an exceptional position. It is protected by law and managed by the Church of Sweden which receives a yearly economical compensation from the Swedish government to assure a continued protection and care. The purpose of this study has been to examine categories and definitions that are used in the formulations of the protection of this part of the national cultural heritage. The study also analyses the values and motives behind the distribution, which is being regulated by said definitions. To achieve this, I have answered questions about to what kind of projects the compensation has been distributed, focusing on the appointed object and intervention categories. These classifications have been compared to the projects actual character, and also to official guidelines and policies. The results of the study show that the distribution of the government compensation follow official guidelines more often than not, but also that the project categorizations are frequently misguiding in comparison to the actual character of the projects. In written statements from the Swedish National Heritage Board and the Church of Sweden a dissonance regarding their respective value perspectives has been shown. The big difference is found in a question of definitions regarding the nature of the religious heritage in policy documents. Definitions of cultural heritage are crucial in heritage management. The classification stated in policy documents and used during the management of the heritage of the Church of Sweden, is also defining what is included. These classifications and definitions are part of the traditional western heritage management discourse. By using theoretical frameworks like Authorized Heritage Discourse the results of the study has been put in a perspective of using categories as way to manifest material heritage. This is a two years master’s thesis in Archive, Library and Museum studies.

Homes are involved in a significant fraction of Internet traffic. However, meaningful and comprehensive information on the structure and use of home networks is still hard to obtain. The two main challenges in collecting such information are the lack of measurement infrastructure in the home network environment and individuals’ concerns about information privacy. To tackle these challenges, the dissertation introduces Home Network Flow Logger (HNFL) to bring lightweight privacy-preserving passive measurement to home networks. The core of HNFL is a Linux kernel module that runs on resource-constrained commodity home routers to collect network traffic data from raw packets. Unlike prior passive measurement tools, HNFL is shown to work without harming either data accuracy or router performance. This dissertation also includes a months-long field study to collect passive measurement data from home network gateways where network traffic is not mixed by NAT (Network Address Translation) in a non-intrusive way. The comprehensive data collected from over fifty households are analyzed to learn the characteristics of home networks such as number and distribution of connected devices, traffic distribution among internal devices, network availability, downlink/uplink bandwidth, data usage patterns, and application traffic distribution.

Behoven av att nyttja gamla ekonomibyggnader i sitt ursprungliga användningsområde har minskat. De gamla husen har dock kvalitéer som är värda att bevara vilket bör betänkas innan de plockas ner eller eldas upp. Denna rapport är en aktionsstudie av ladugårdsbyggnaden på Nygården, Vemdalens Kyrkby 4;5. Projektbyggnaden är en liggtimmerbyggnad från mitten av 1800-talet som för närvarande används som garage och förråd. Ägarna till gården har för avsikt att riva projektbyggnaden och istället uppföra en gäststuga på samma platts. I rapporten avhandlas möjligheten att istället med god byggnadsvård renovera liggtimmerstommen och anpassa ladugården till en modern bostad. I rapporten granskas vilka fördelar det kan innebära att bygga om ladugården istället för att riva den och bygga nytt. För att svara på frågor har olika undersökningsmetoder använts. En okulär besiktning av byggnaden ha genomförts där sakkunnig timmerman gav sin åsikt om stommens kondition och brister. Utifrån besiktning, intervju med ytterligare timmerman och med hjälp av litteraturstudier presenteras ett förslag om åtgärder inom ramen för god byggnadsvård. Diskussion förs angående ombyggnadens lönsamhet med avseende på ekonomi, ekologi och kvalité och jämförs med rivning och nybyggnad. Slutsatsen är att projektbyggnaden lämpar sig för ombyggnad då den är av god kvalité och kondition samt uppförd med en byggnadsteknik som är lämpad för förändring. Utförandet av förändringar och av åtgärder mot brister är relativt enkelt men tidskrävande. Kvalitativa, ekonomiska och ekologiska fördelar som värmetröghet, historia, materialbesparingar samt minskad mängd avfall står att finna. / The need to use old outbuildings in its original use has decreased. The old houses, however, has qualities that are worthy of protection which should be borne in mind before they are teared down. This report is an action study of the barn on Nygården, Vemdalens Kyrkby 4; 5th. The project building is a lug building from the mid-1800s, currently used as garage and storage. The owners of the estate intend to tear down the barn to make space for a new guest house. The report treats the possibility to maintain the barn and rebuild it into a modern residence, within the framework of building preservation. The report examines benefits with rebuilding the barn instead of tearing it down and new produce. Different research methods are used. A visual inspection of the building is done in cooperation with a lug carpenter who gives his opinion on structural conditions. Based on the inspection, an interview with another carpenter and literature studies a proposal on measures, within the framework of building preservation, is presented. Profitability in terms of economy, ecology and quality is discussed and compared with demolition and new production. The conclusion is that the project building is suitable for renovation due to good quality, good condition and it has a construction suitable for change. The measures of change are relatively simple but time consuming. Qualitative, economic and ecological benefits to be find is among other thermal inertia, material consuming savings and reduction of waste.

The evolutionary origins of animal phyla are intimately linked with the Cambrian explosion, a period of radical ecological and evolutionary innovation that begins approximately 540 Mya and continues for some 20 million years, during which most major animal groups appear. Lophotrochozoa, a major group of protostome animals that includes molluscs, annelids and brachiopods, represent a significant component of the oldest known fossil records of biomineralised animals, as disclosed by the enigmatic ‘small shelly fossil’ faunas of the early Cambrian. Determining the affinities of these scleritome taxa is highly informative for examining Cambrian evolutionary patterns, since many are supposed stem-group Lophotrochozoa. The main focus of this thesis pertained to the stem-group of the Brachiopoda, a highly diverse and important clade of suspension feeding animals in the Palaeozoic era, which are still extant but with only with a fraction of past diversity. Major findings include adding support for tommotiid affinity as stem-group lophophorates. Determining morphological character homologies vital to reconstructing the brachiopod stem-group was achieved by comparing Cambrian Lagerstätten with the widespread biomineralised record of Cambrian stem-brachiopods and small shelly fossils. Polarising character changes associated with the putative transition from scleritome organisms to crown-group brachiopods was furthered by the description of an enigmatic agglutinated tubular lophophorate Yuganotheca elegans from the Chengjiang Lagerstätte, China, which possesses an unusual combination of phoronid, brachiopod and tommotiid characters. These efforts were furthered by the use of X-ray tomographic techniques that revealed novel anatomical features, including exceptionally preserved setae in the tommotiid Micrina. The evidence for a common origin of columnar brachiopod shell structures in the tommotiids is suggested and critically examined. Enigmatic and problematic early and middle Cambrian lophotrochozoans are newly described or re-described in light of new evidence, namely: the stem-brachiopod Mickwitzia occidens Walcott from the Indian Springs Lagerstätte, Nevada; a putative stem-group entoproct Cotyledion tylodes Luo and Hu from Chengjiang, China; a new enigmatic family of rhynchonelliform brachiopods exemplified by the newly described Tomteluva perturbata from the Stephen Formation, Canada; and the tommotiid Micrina etheridgei (Tate) from the Flinders Ranges, South Australia. Cladistic analyses of fossil morphological data supports a monophyletic Brachiopoda.

<p>Predmet istraživanja ove doktorske disertacije je problem<br />interpolacije slike. Glavni fokus disertacije je interpolacija slike<br />uz očuvanje prirodnosti teksture i očuvanje ivica (oštrine)<br />interpolirane slike. Dodatni izazov je da algoritam za interpolaciju<br />slike bude pogodan za primenu u uređajima sa ograničenim resursima.<br />Kvalitet rešenja se ocenjuje poređenjem sa algoritmima poznatim u<br />dostupnoj literaturi korišćenjem odgovarajućih metrika.</p> / <p>This PhD dissertation addresses the problem of image interpolation. The main<br />focus of the dissertation is image interpolation algorithm which preserves<br />edges and keeps a natural texture of interpolated images. Additional challenge<br />for image interpolation algorithm is to be suitable for application on resourcelimited<br />platforms. The quality of the proposed solution is benchmarked against<br />known image interpolation algorithms using appropriate metrics.</p>

This study is centred on transformation towards sustainable living. It investigated how global education prepares learners to live a sustainable lifestyle. To explore this area, the concept of sustainability, global education and transformative learning were critically examined, with a view to finding their relationships. Literature on sustainability, transformative learning and global education were reviewed to find out how their relationships impact on international students learning about sustainable living. The focus of the thesis is on environmental sustainability, especially through management of anthropogenic factors. The mixed methods research, involving the collection of quantitative and qualitative data was employed for the study. Quantitative data collection was done using survey instruments while qualitative data collection was through face-to-face interview of research participants. Each set of data was collected and analysed separately. The outcomes of the analysis of the two sets of data were integrated at the stage of discussion of findings. The aim of the study was to find out whether global education transforms learners towards sustainable living. Findings from the study showed that global education field transforms students towards sustainable living. Evidence from the study suggests that global education help students to acquire the skills and knowledge required for living sustainably. Also, the actions and behaviours of international students were found to be influenced more towards sustainable lifestyle than those from the host country. The degree of transformation students experience was measured by attitude change, intention to change and actions of students toward the environment. This study contributed to the conceptual understanding of the relationship between global education and transformation of learners towards sustainable living. It made both theoretical and practical contribution to knowledge. The findings from the study will be of benefit to different impact groups. These groups include business organisations, policy makers in government, educational institutions, and individuals.

Dried blood spots is an alternative method to collect blood samples from research subjects. However, little is known about how hemoglobin and hematocrit affect bead-based multiplex assay performance. The purpose of this study was to determine how bead-based multiplex assays perform when analyzing dried blood spot samples. A series of four experiments outline the study each with a specific purpose. A total of 167 subject samples were collected and 92 different biomarkers were measured. Median fluorescence intensity results show a positive correlation between filtered and non-filtered samples. Utilizing a smaller quantity of sample results in a positive correlation to a larger sample. Removal of hemoglobin from the dried blood spot sample does not increase detection or concentration of biomarkers. Of the 92 different biomarkers measured 56 were detectable in 100-75% of the attempted samples. We conclude that blood biomarkers can be detected using bead-based multiplex assays. In addition, it is possible to utilize a smaller quantity of sample while avoiding the use of the entire sample, and maintaining a correlation to the total sample. While our method of hemoglobin was efficient it also removed the biomarkers we wished to analyze. Thus, an alternative method is necessary to determine if removing hemoglobin increases concentration of biomarkers. More research is necessary to determine if the biomarkers measured in this study can be measured over time or within an experimental model.