4 research outputs found
Behaviour of single stone columns in silty soil beds and load carrying improvement evaluation
No full textHow government authorities define their performance indicators and measure them up in relationship to the goals
No full textSAMMANFATTNING/SUMMARY Titel/Title: Hur myndigheter definierar sina prestationer i förhållande till sina mål och hur dessa följs upp./ How government authorities define their performance indicators and measure them up in relationship to the goals. Författare/Author Almaliki, Rayya; Hulaj, Anita; Nepola, Fisnik Handledare/Supervisor: Gyllberg, Henrick Sektion/Section: Sektionen för Management, Blekinge Tekniska Högskola./ The Section of Management, Blekinge Institute of Technology. Kurs/Course: Kandidatarbete i företagsekonomi (FEC007), 10 poäng./Bachelor’s thesis in Business Administration (FEC007), 10 credits. Syfte/Purpose: Syftet med denna uppsats är att studera hur statliga myndigheter definierar och följer upp sina prestationer, i förhållande till uppsatta mål för verksamheten./ The main purpose with this thesis is to research how government agencies define their performance indicators and measure them up in relationship to the goals. Metod/Method: Vi har genomfört en kvalitativ fallstudie, där vi har utfört sex semistandardiserade intervjuer på Blekinge Tekniska Högskola och Boverket. Det material som vi har fått från intervjuerna samt annat sekundärt material, utgör grunden för vår analys och slutsats./ We have done a qualitative case study, where we did six semi standard interviews at Blekinge Institute of Technology and Boverket. The material we got from the interviews and other secondary material make up the ground, for our analysis and conclusion. Slutsatser/Results: Utifrån vår studie har vi konstaterat att Blekinge Tekniska Högskola och Boverket har problem med ekonomistyrning och målstyrning. Samt att de har problem med att relatera sina prestationer med verksamhetens mål./ The result of our study shows that Blekinge Institute of Technology and Boverket in Sweden have problem with management control and management by objectives. They have also difficulties to relate performance measures with their goals
A High-Resolution Wind Farms Suitability Mapping Using GIS and Fuzzy AHP Approach: A National-Level Case Study in Sudan
No full textWind energy is one of the most attractive sustainable energy resources since it has low operation, maintenance, and production costs and a relatively low impact on the environment. Identifying the optimal sites for installing wind power plants (WPPs) is considered an important challenge of wind energy development which requires careful and combined analyses of numerous criteria. This study introduces a high-resolution wind farms suitability mapping based on Fuzzy Analytical Hierarchy Process (FAHP) and Geographic Information System (GIS) approaches considering technical, environmental, social, and spatial aspects, representing eight different criteria. First, a multi-criteria decision-making analysis based on the FAHP method is employed to assign appropriate weights for the addressed criteria with respect to their relative importance. Since the traditional AHP method, which was found employed in the majority of the relative case-studies, is not efficient in dealing with uncertainty when experts use a basic scale (0 to 1) for their assessments, the FAHP provides more flexible scales through the utilized fuzzy membership functions and the natural linguistic variables. Consequently, this helps to facilitate the assessments made by experts and increases the precision of the obtained results (weights). Next, the high-resolution GIS is used to carry out a spatial analysis and integrate various factors/criteria throughout the proposed index to produce the final suitability map and identify the unsuitable areas. The presented study emphasizes investigating the lightning strike flash rate due to its significant influences on the wind turbine’s safety and operation, yet this crucial factor has been seldomly investigated in previous studies. The obtained findings revealed that the wind speed, the land slope, and the elevation had the highest weighted criteria with 33.1%, 24.8%, and 12.2%, respectively. Besides, the final-developed suitability map revealed that 23.22% and 8.31% of the Sudanese territory are of high and very high suitability, respectively, for wind farms installation which are considered sufficient to cover the electricity needs. The difficulty of acquiring real data and resources for the addressed location was the main challenge of the presented work. The work outlook addresses the suitability mapping of hybrid photovoltaic-wind turbine energy systems, which will require addressing new and significant criteria in the applied methodology
Volatile organic compounds that are produced from human pathogenic fungi are toxic to the genetic model drosophila melanogaster
No full textVolatile organic compounds (VOCs) are organic compounds with low molecular mass and the ability to vaporize easily at room temperatures. Fungi produce many VOCs that vary in type and amount depending on producing species, as well as factors that influence growth such as temperature, substrate, moisture, pH, and other parameters. In nature, fungal VOCs are used as ecological signaling agents. In the built environment, for individuals who live in water damaged and mold infested houses, they have been implicated as possible contributors to “sick building syndrome” Finally, fungal VOCs have found practical applications in medical mycology as indirect assays for determining the presence of fungal growth.
In this thesis, I have postulated that the VOCs emitted by medically important fungi may contribute to the pathogenicity of human fungal pathogens. Using a Drosophila melanogaster bioassay, third instar larvae were placed in a shared atmosphere with growing cultures of Aspergillus fumigatus, Cryptococcus gatti, Cryptococcus neoformans, Candida albicans and Saccharomyces cerevisiae. In some cases, the human pathogenic fungi were pre-cultured at 25oC and in other cases they were pre-cultured at 37oC. Control larvae were incubated in the absence of fungal VOCs. The number of larvae, pupae and adults was counted over a 15-day period and the effect of fungal VOCs on stages of metamorphosis, time to eclosion, and fly viability was determined. In general, exposure of larvae to VOCs from human pathogenic fungi slowed the rate of metamorphosis, delayed eclosion, and caused toxicity. In some cases, morphological abnormalities were observed. These harmful effects were more pronounced when fungi were pre-grown at 37◦C than at 25◦C. Larvae grown in the presence of VOCs from Saccharomyces cerevisiae had metamorphotic and eclosion rates that were like controls. The VOCs from the environmental strain of A. fumigatus had the highest toxicity to the developmental stages of Drosophila when it was grown at either 25°C or 37°C. Exposure to VOCs from Cryptococcus neoformans caused more delays on fly metamorphosis and more toxicity than did exposure to VOCs from the six A. fumigatus strains tested. Using purge and trap gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS), the VOCs from the most toxic and least toxic strains of Aspergillus fumigatus were assayed. The most toxic strains produced high levels of 1-octen-3-ol, an eight carbon alcohol that previously has been determined to be toxic in low concentrations to Drosophila flies, Arabidopsis plants, human embryonic cell cultures, and to cause nasal irritation in trials with human subjects. In conclusion, I postulate that VOCs from medically important fungal species may be acting as virulence factors during human infections, thereby enhancing the pathogenic effects of these species.
The second section of the dissertation focused on Aspergillus fumigatus strains that did or did not carry defects in their oxylipin pathways. Lipoxygenase (LOX) genes and oxylipins are involved in biosynthesis of several metabolites that affect various reproductive functions in filamentous fungi that are mediated by VOCs. A. wild type A. fumigatus strain and a “near wild type strain” with normal oxylipin genes were compared with A. fumigatus mutants blocked in the lipoxygenase pathway. The Drosophila bioassay with third instar larvae was used to detect delays in metamorphosis, eclosion and possible toxicity to flies. Exposure of larvae to VOCs produced by A. fumigatus wild type and overexpressed LoxB strain caused more delays on fly metamorphosis than did exposure to VOCs from A. fumigatus carrying blocks in the lipoxygenase pathway. There were no significant effects shown in the presence of arachidonic acid on the metamorphosis of the fruit fly compared with cultures lacking arachidonic acid. GC-MS analysis showed the wild type strain produced more abundant VOCs in higher concentrations than did the triple LOX mutant which released fewer VOCs in lower concentrations. VOCs produced by the A. fumigatus wild type strain AF293 included 1-octen-3-ol, 1-butanal, 1-octen, decanoic acid, lauric acid, myristic acid, and palmitic acid. These VOCs were not detected from the LOX triple mutant strain.
The final section of the dissertation studied the most toxigenic eight carbon compound 1-octen-3-ol. I hypothesize 1-octen-3-ol is of distinct importance as a toxigenicity factor. Toxigenicity is usually defined as the ability of a pathogenic organism to product injurious substances that damage the host. In order further to investigate this hypothesis, I tested low concentrations of chemical standards of three eight carbon volatiles (1-octen-3-ol, 3-octanone and 3-octanol) characteristic of fungal metabolism against adult male Drosophila flies in order to determine their impact on fly survival. Two strains of Drosophila, one with red eyes and one with white eyes, that were wild type for immune pathway genes served as controls. In addition, strains that carried blocked mutations in the nitric oxide pathway, the Toll pathway, the Imd pathways, and a double mutant strains with blocks in both the Imd and Toll pathway were tested. Volatile phase 1-octen-3-ol and 3-octanone at 0. 5µL/L were toxic to almost all the strains after 24 hours. Oregon R (red-eyed, wild type) strain was less susceptible than wild type, white eyed strain (W1118) to all three volatile compounds at both concentrations. All strains showed high susceptibility to the high level of 1-octen-3-ol in the span of only two hours. Of the three compounds tested, 3-octanol at 0. 1µL/L was the least toxic to mutant and wild type strains. White eyed flies carrying the NOS mutation were more resistant to volatiles than were the white eyed control strains. The Relish E20 white-eyed, mutant strain was more susceptible than the spz6 red-eyed mutant strain to volatile phase 1-octen-3-ol at 0.1µL/L. The double mutant strain (red-eyed Relish E20 spz6) showed greater resistance to the presence of the volatile phase compounds than did either single mutant. This latter finding implies that the toxicity of 1-octen-3-ol and other VOCs may be related to aspects of the innate immune system that cause negative side effects on fly physiology; when the immune system is impaired, these negative side effects do not occur and the flies have increased survival in the presence of VOCs.
In summary, the Drosophila bioassay has been used to show that VOCs from several medically important fungi are toxigenic. Strains of A. fumigatus that were blocked in lipoxygenase activity emitted fewer VOCs and had less toxicity. Presence of the eight-carbon volatile, 1-octen-3-ol was correlated with higher levels of toxicity in the Drosophila bioassay. VOCs from growing fungi can be considered toxigenic factors that contribute to pathogenic profiles of medically important fungi. To our knowledge, this is the first report that correlates fungal VOCs such as 1-octen-3-ol to the virulence of human medical pathogens.Ph.D.Includes bibliographical reference
