As states, districts, and teachers work to make science classes more about doing the work of science and less about remembering science facts, research is needed to show what doing science looks like. This is especially needed for the youngest students, since much of the current research studies examine the upper part of the K-12 grade range. Having been an early elementary science teacher, my work in this dissertation and beyond is focused on making the doing of science accessible to young children. One way to do science is to collect and interpret data – to measure something and make sense of changes in measurement over time. Kindergarten teachers already do this with the weather as called for in math curriculums and science standards, albeit in simplified forms with words like hot, cold, sunny, cloudy, etc. I was curious if the children could understand more complex ways of measuring the weather, using quantitative measurements with the help of a thermometer designed for young children. Over the course of three interviews for each child, I asked six kindergarteners to show illustrate different temperatures, read thermometers, and interpret graphs of changing temperatures. Based on my analysis of the interviews, my findings indicate that the six kindergarteners could all read the specialized thermometer and four of them demonstrated an understanding of how the measurements related to air temperature. This work may help with the planning of future science classes.

The objective of this work is to apply the method of variation of parameters to various direct and inverse nonlinear, multimode heat transfer problems. An overview of the general method of variation of parameters is presented and applied to a simple example problem. The method is then used to obtain solutions to three specific extended surface heat transfer problems: 1. a radiating annular fin, 2. convective and radiative exchange between the surface of a continuously moving strip and its surroundings, and 3. convection from a fin with temperature-dependent thermal conductivity and variable cross-sectional area. The results for each of these examples are compared to those obtained using other analytical and numerical methods. The method of variation of parameters is also applied to the more complex problem of combined conduction-radiation in a one-dimensional, planar, absorbing, emitting, non-gray medium with non-gray opaque boundaries. Unlike previous solutions to this problem, the solution presented here is exact. The model is verified by comparing the temperature profiles calculated from this work to those found using numerical methods for both gray and non-gray cases. The combined conduction-radiation model is then applied to determine the temperature profile in a ceramic thermal barrier coating designed to protect super alloy turbine blades from large and extended heat loads. Inverse methods are implemented in the development of a non-contact method of measuring the properties and temperatures within the thermal barrier coating. Numerical experiments are performed to assess the effectiveness of this measurement technique. The combined conduction-radiation model is also applied to determine the temperature profile along the fiber of an optical fiber thermometer. An optical fiber thermometer consists of an optical fiber whose sensing tip is coated with an opaque material which emits radiative energy along the fiber to a detector. Inverse methods are used to infer the tip temperature from spectral measurements made by the detector. Numerical experiments are conducted to assess the effectiveness of these methods. Experimental processes are presented in which a coating is applied to the end of an optical fiber and connected to an FTIR spectrometer. The system is calibrated and the inverse analysis is used to infer the tip temperature in various heat sources.

Objectives: The Distress Thermometer (DT) is a validated and widely used screening tool to identify clinically relevant distress in cancer patients. It is unclear, to which extend subjectively perceived distress measured by the DT is related to objective burden (mental disorder). We therefore examine the co-occurrence of a mental disorder for different DT thresholds and explore the diagnostic properties of the DT in detecting a mental disorder. Methods: In this multicenter cross-sectional study, we included 4,020 patients with mixed cancer diagnoses. After selection of relevant cases, weighting procedure and imputation of missing data we evaluated the data of N = 3,212 patients. We used the DT to assess perceived distress and the standardized Composite International Diagnostic Interview for Oncology (CIDI-O) to assess the 4-week prevalence of mental disorders. The association between distress and any mental disorder (MD) is calculated using Pearson correlations. Relative risks for MD in patients with/without distress and the co-occurrence of distress and MD were calculated with Poisson regression. To assess the operating characteristics between distress and MD, we present the area under the curve (AUC). Results: 22.9% of the participants had a cut-off DT level of 5 and were affected by MD. Each level of distress co-occurs with MD. The proportion of patients diagnosed with MD was not greater than the proportion of patients without MD until distress levels of DT = 6 were reached. The correlation between DT and MD was r = 0.27. The ROCanalysis shows the area under curve (AUC) = 0.67, which is classified as unsatisfactory. With increasing distress severity, patients are not more likely to have a mental disorder. Conclusion: Our results suggests viewing and treating cancer-related distress as a relatively distinct psychological entity. Cancer-related distress may be associated with an increased risk for a mental disorder and vice versa, but the overlap of both concepts is very moderate.

Arbetet utfördes på Södersjukhusets vuxenakut och utredde avdelningens tympaniska termometrar. Det finns två sorters tympaniska termometrar på vuxenakuten, Genius 2 från Philips och ThermoScan PRO 6000 från Braun. Genius 2 är uppkopplad till patientövervakningssystemet IntelliVue och ThermoScan PRO 6000 är mobil. Arbetet utfördes på förfrågan av Södersjukhuset då personalen på vuxenakuten var missnöjda med Genius 2-termometrarna, detta på grund av att de inte ansågs vara tillförlitliga. Arbetet ämnade att utreda orsaken till Genius 2-termometrarnas höga mätosäkerhet samt vad den generella bilden av termometern var hos personalen.  För att undersöka Genius 2-termometrarna och orsakerna till problematiken på vuxenakuten utfördes fyra olika moment. Utredningens första del började med intervjuer av vuxenakutens sjuksköterskor och undersköterskor. Målet med intervjuerna var att få en bild av problemet från personalens perspektiv för att sedan kunna undersöka problematiken med hjälp av kalibreringar och två termometertest. Del två av undersökningen gick ut på att kalibrera termometrarna för att säkerställa att de termometrar som deltog i termometertesten fungerade på ett korrekt sätt. Den tredje delen gick ut på att utföra två termometertest. Målet med det första termometertestet var att utreda variationen inom och mellan termometrarna Genius 2 och ThermoScanPRO 6000. I detta test var försökspersonerna och användarna densamma och termometrarna varierades. Målet med det andra termometertestet var att undersöka huruvida handhavandet påverkade mätvärdena. I detta test var försökspersonerna, en Genius 2-termometer och en ThermoScan PRO 6000-termometer densamma medan användaren varierades. Den sista delen av undersökningen gick ut på att utreda huruvida kalibreringen av Genius 2-termometrarna var hållbara ur ett tidsperspektiv. Termometrarna som en månad tidigare hade kalibrerats och fått ett godkänt resultat kalibrerades därför igen. Detta för att undersöka vilka termometrar som fortfarande fick ett godkänt resultat.  Resultatet påvisade att Genius 2-termometrarna har mycket större variation både inom och mellan termometrarna jämfört med ThermoScan PRO 6000. Variationen var dock inte så stor att det påverkade patientsäkerheten. Resultatet visade även att handhavandet påverkade mätvärdena och att delar av personalen utförde temperaturmätningar på ett mer komfortabelt sätt för patienten, detta gav också mätvärden som ansågs vara mer korrekta. Från resultatet framkom det att 20 % av termometrarna som tidigare hade klarat kalibreringen fick ett underkänt resultat när kalibreringen kontrollerades en månad senare. Detta innebär att Genius 2-termometern inte uppfyller de krav som finns för att säkerställa att den kan fungera på ett korrekt sätt. Tidigare nämnda resultat medför att personalen på vuxenakuten får arbeta med utrustning som inte lever upp till de förväntningar och krav som finns. Detta medför ineffektivitet, dubbelarbete och en minskad tillförlitlighet för Genius 2-termometern. Alla termometrar som fanns på vuxenakuten deltog inte i testerna och därför finns det behov av att vidare undersöka detta problem. / The investigation was done at Södersjukhuset’s emergency department where two types of tympanic thermometers were investigated. Genius 2 from Philips, which is connected to a patient monitor called IntelliVue and ThermoScan PRO 6000 from Braun, which is mobile. The investigation was done at the request of Södersjukhuset because the staff at the emergency department considered Genius 2 not to be reliable. The intent of the investigation was to determine the cause of Genius 2’s measurement uncertainty and to understand what the general opinion of the thermometer is among the employees.   The investigation began with interviews with nurses and assistant nurses. The goal was to get the general opinion and thereafter investigate the problems using calibrations and thermometer tests. After the interviews, all thermometers that were intended for the tests were calibrated. The calibrations were done to ensure that only working thermometers were included in the tests. The first thermometer test was intended to investigate the variation within and between the Genius 2 and ThermoScan PRO 6000 thermometers. The subjects and the users were constant while the thermometers were varied. The second thermometer test was intended to investigate whether the handling of the thermometers affected the measured values. In this test, the subjects, a Genius 2 thermometer and a ThermoScan PRO 6000 thermometer stayed the same while the user was varied. The last part of the investigation was intended to investigate whether the calibration of the Genius 2 thermometers was consistent after one month.  The results showed that Genius 2 had greater variation within and between the thermometers, compared to ThermoScan PRO 6000. However, the variation was not so great that it affects patient safety. The results also showed that the handling of the thermometers affects the results and that part of the staff were able to execute the temperature measurements in a more comfortable way for the patient. This gave measured values that were considered to be more accurate. The results showed that 20% of the thermometers that had previously undergone calibration failed when the calibration was redone a month later. This means that the Genius 2 thermometer does not meet the existing requirements to ensure that it functions properly. Not all thermometers were included in the investigation which is why our recommendation is to further investigate the problems.

Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are confined physically in order to contain their spread in nature and to minimise chances of horizontal gene transfer. However, with the potential that GMOs hold as cheap, reliable and efficient micro-machines, their eventual uncontrolled release into the wider space is becoming more likely. Indeed, their application as environmental sensors is largely increasing. Nevertheless, the field of synthetic biology may also afford solutions to the problem. A major potential application of GMOs is the delivery of antigens to human and animal hosts, through the utilization of live, engineered microbes. Recombinant technology is promising for several reasons including their capacity to be less reactogenic, more potent, safer and genetically definable. Also, they have the potential to provide protection against multiple targets simultaneously, are relatively inexpensive and can be eradicated with antibiotics, as the need arises. Besides, delivery of vaccines to mucosal surfaces is more efficient. Mutant Salmonella expressing heterologous antigens have been shown to induce protection against a variety of pathogens. Nevertheless, limited containment systems are available that can be applicable for bacterial antigen carriers. This project aims to design safeguards for the bacterial antigen delivery systems that limit ORF translatability and self-inactivates/destructs upon exit from the host. In this work, double quadruplet codons were suppressed by orthogonal tRNAs, providing a barrier for gene translation in the recipient cells when antigen is horizontally transferred. Furthermore, three kill switches were designed that are activated by a decrease in temperature from 37 °C. First, Sau3AI endonuclease was activated by protein self-splicing at low temperature mediated by Mtu recA intein. The activation of the endonuclease led to three-fold logarithmic decrease in the number of viable cells within two hours of gene expression. Second, RNA-dependent activation of RNase 7 showed a reduction in the number of viable cells at low temperature of three logarithmic folds. RNase 7 was controlled by the cspA 5’UTR, which sequesters ribosome binding site at 37 °C and allows translation at low temperature. Third, CspA 5’UTR was shown to regulate expression of TEV protease at 37 °C and low temperature. This led to bacterial cellular inhibition within two hours of TEV induction and five-fold logarithmic reduction in the number of viable cells at low temperature. In addition, for the first time and contrary to previous studies, the TEV protease was shown to inhibit cellular growth. It was also shown that biofilm formation was drastically impaired by the TEV activity. The three killing switches and the quadruplet translation system are poised to function as robust safeguards for bacterial antigen delivery systems.

<p>High speed analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) used in, e.g., read channel and ultra wideband (UWB) applications are often based on a flash topology. The read channel applications is the intended application of this work, where a part of the work covers the design of two different types of 6-bit flash ADCs. Another field of application is UWB receivers.</p><p>To optimize the performance of the whole system and derive the specifications for the sub-blocks of the system it is often desired to use a topdown design methodology. To facilitate the top-down design methodology the ADCs are modeled on behavioral level. The models are simulated in MATLAB®. The results are used to verify the functionality of the proposed circuit topologies and serve as a base to the circuit design phase.</p><p>The first flash ADC has a conventional topology. It has a resistor net connected to a number of latched comparators, but its thermometer-tobinary encoder is based on 2-to-1 multiplexers buffered with inverters. This gives a compact encoder with a regular structure and short critical path. The main disadvantage is the code dependent timing difference between the encoder outputs introduced by this topology. The ADC was simulated on schematic level in Cadence® using the foundry provided transistor models. The design obtained a maximum sampling frequency of 1 GHz, an effective resolution bandwidth of 390 MHz, and a power consumption of 170 mW.</p><p>The purpose of the second ADC is to demonstrate the concept of introducing dynamic element matching (DEM) into the reference net of a flash ADC. This design yields information about the performance improvements the DEM gives, and what the trade-offs are when introducing DEM. Behavioral level simulations indicate that the SFDR is improved by 11 dB when introducing DEM, but the settling time of the reference net with DEM will now limit the conversion speed of the converter. Further, the maximum input frequency is limited by the total resistance in the reference net, which gets increased in this topology. The total resistance is the total switch on-resistance plus the total resistance of the resistors. To increase the conversion speed and the maximum input frequency a new DEM topology is proposed in this work, which reduces the number of switches introduced into the reference net compared with earlier proposed DEM topologies. The transistor level simulations in Cadence® of the flash ADC with DEM indicates that the SFDR improves by 6 dB compared with when not using DEM, and is expected to improve more if more samples are used in the simulation. This was not possible in the current simulations due to the long simulation time. The improved SFDR is however traded for an increased chip area and a reduction of the maximum sampling frequency to 550 MHzfor this converter. The average power consumption is 92 mW.</p><p>A goal of this work is to evaluate a 130 nm partially depleted silicon-oninsulator (SOI) complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) technology with respect to analog circuit implementation. The converters are therefore implemented in this technology. When writing this the ADCs are still being manufactured. Since the technology evaluation will be based on the measurement results the final results of the evaluation are not included in this thesis. The conclusions regarding the SOI CMOS technology are therefore based on a literature study of published scientific papers in the SOI area, information extracted during the design phase of the ADCs, and from the transistor level circuit simulations. These inputs indicate that to fully utilize the potential performance advantages of the SOI CMOS technology the partially depleted SOI CMOS technology should be exchanged for a fully depleted SOI CMOS technology. The manufacturing difficulties regarding the control of the thin-film thickness must however first be solved before the exchange can be done.</p> / Report code: LiU-Tek-Lic-2005:68.

Analog-to-digital converter (ADC) plays an important role in mixed signal processingsystems. It serves as an interface between analog and digital signal processingsystems. In the last two decades, circuits implemented in current-modetechnique have drawn lots of interest for sensory systems and integrated circuits.Current-mode circuits have a few vital advantages such as low voltage operation,high speed and wide dynamic ranges. These circuits have wide applications in lowvoltage, high speed-mixed signal processing systems. In this thesis work, a 9-bitpipelined ADC with switch-current (SI) technique is designed and implemented in65 nm CMOS technology. The main focus of the thesis work is to implement thepipelined ADC in SI technique and to optimize the pipelined ADC for low power.The ADC has a stage resolution of 3 bits. The proposed architectures combine adifferential sample-and-hold amplifier, current comparator, binary-to-thermometerdecoder, a differential current-steering digital-to-analog converter, delay logic anddigital error correction block. The circuits are implemented at transistor level in 65nm CMOS technology. The static and dynamic performance metrics of pipelinedADC are evaluated. The simulations are carried out by Cadence Virtuoso SpectreCircuit Simulator 5.10. Matlab is used to determine the performance metrics ofADC.

The master's thesis is devoted to the history and performance of non-contact temperature measurement, characterization of infrared cameras and infrared thermometers. Temperature is one of the most important physical quantities. Using an infrared camera we obtain information about the surface temperature in all picture. In the master's thesis is included the measurement and capturing the fatal defects on the punched billet, finding out the quality of temperature field and the quality of the overlapping work rolls. During the measurements were used infrared cameras TIM200, TIM400 from the company Micro-Epsilon and infrared cameras SC325, SC660 from the company Flir.

The aim of the project was to make a detailed risk assessment using Swedish guidelines for a factory site in Kodaikanal, South India, and a nearby village called Vellagavi. The study areas were chosen due to previous records of mercury contamination on the factory site and a possible spread to Vellagavi. A comparison between Indian and Swedish guidelines for risk assessment of contaminated areas was performed. The purposes of comparing the two systems were to locate if there were any differences in the legislation, or guidelines, and to find ways of improving the processes. The project also included an evaluation of possible remedial actions that could reverse or prevent environmental damage that might be caused by the former factory. Methods used for the project were literature studies, semi-structured interviews and surveys. The results from the risk assessment were that the Swedish Computer Program for Calculation of Guideline Values (CPCGV), with some adjustments, could be used in order to calculate site specific guideline values for mercury concentrations on sites similar to Swedish conditions, such as climate. The site specific guideline values in soil rangedfrom 0.1-2.4 mg/kg. An Indian court decision had stated that a guideline value of 20 mg/kg should be used for remediation at the factory site. The result from the forward dose calculation showed that when a soil contains 20 mg/kg,the tolerable daily intake of mercury would be exceeded, and therefore pose a risk to human health. The comparison of legislation systems between India and Sweden showed several differences. India did not have any legislation relating directly to polluted soil. Risk assessments in India commonly relied on several different international standards even though the standards were not regulated by law. The results from the remedial evaluation showed that there were several possible remediation methods that could beused on the factory site. Limited remedial actions were suggested for Vellagavi since there were no measurements taken on site. Preferably, remediation should take place at the source of the contamination, i.e. the factory site. / Det övergripande målet med projektet var att genomföra en detaljerad riskbedömning för en fabriksplats i Kodaikanal, södra Indien, samt för en närliggande by, Vellagavi. Tidigare genomförda mätningar uppvisade förhöjda halter av kvicksilver i området, varför det ansågs vara ett lämpligt område för studien. Studien innehöll en jämförelse av riktlinjer för riskbedömningar för förorenad mark mellan Indien och Sverige där syftet var att identifiera skillnader i lagstiftning och riktlinjer samt lokalisera eventuella förbättringsmöjligheter. Studien innefattades även av en åtgärdsutredning för fabriksplatsen och Vellagavi, vars syfte var att utreda vilka åtgärder som skulle kunna minska risken för fortsatt miljöförstöring eller återställa området. Metoderna som användes i studien var litteraturstudier, semi-strukturerade intervjuer och en enkätundersökning. Resultatet från riskbedömningen visade att beräkningsverktyget för platsspecifika riktvärden från Naturvårdsverket kunde användas på platser som liknar Sverige klimatmässigt, efter att diverse justeringar hade gjorts. Beräkningsverktyget användes för att ta fram ett platsspecifikt gränsvärde för kvicksilverkoncentrationen i marken. Det framtagna platsspecifika gränsvärdet för koncentrationen kvicksilver i jord varierade mellan 0,1-2,4 mg/kg. Ett beslut utfärdat av indisk domstol angav att fabriksplatsen skulle saneras så att kvicksilverkoncentationen i marken inte skulle överskrida 20 mg/kg. Resultatet från den här studien visade att den nivån av förorening i marken skulle innebära att det tolerabla dagliga intaget av kvicksilver skulle överskridas. En jämförelse av de juridiska systemen som anknöt till förorenad jord i Indien respektive Sverige visade på flertalet skillnader mellan länderna. Indien hade ingen lagstiftning som speficikt reglerade förorenad jord medan det i Sverige reglerades av Miljöbalken. Riskbedömningar i Indien baserades ofta på internationella standarder, med det fanns ingen lagstifting som reglerade vilka standarder som skulle användas. Resultatet från åtgärdsutredningen var att det fanns flera olika åtgärdsmetoder som skulle kunna användas för att sanera fabriksplatsen. Åtgärdsutredningen för Vellagavi var begränsad eftersom det inte fanns tillräckligt mycket mätdata för området. Företrädesvis bör saneringsåtgärderna vidtas vid föroreningskällan, vilket i detta fall är fabriksplatsen.

This thesis describes a combination of two current areas of research: the Crayons image classifier system and active learning. Currently Crayons provides no guidance to the user in what pixels should be labeled or when the task is complete. This work focuses on two main areas: 1) active learning for user guidance, and 2) accuracy estimation as a measure of completion. First, I provide a study through simulation and user experiments of seven active learning techniques as they relate to Crayons. Three of these techniques were specifically designed for use in Crayons. These three perform comparably to the others and are much less computationally intensive. A new widget is proposed for use in the Crayons environment giving an overview of the system "confusion". Second, I give a comparison of four accuracy estimation techniques relating to true accuracy and for use as a completion estimate. I show how three traditional accuracy estimation techniques are ineffective when placed in the Crayons environment. The fourth technique uses the same computation as the three new active learning techniques proposed in this work and thus requires little extra computation and outstrips the other three as a completion estimate both in simulation and user experiments.