Syndecan-1 is a cell surface proteoglycan which participates in cell adhesion, differentiation, motility, morphogenesis and intracellular signaling. The two glycosaminoglycans heparan sulfate and chondroitin sulfate are covalently attached to the ectodomain of syndecan-1 via a tetra saccharide linkage sequence. However, the ectodomain can be modified having only one or neither of the glycosaminglycans attached. The glycosaminoglycans are capable of binding ligands such as fibroblast growth factors (FGFs) and support activation of receptors. The ectodomain is proteolytically cleaved from the cell surface by metalloproteinases in a process known as shedding.

An attempt was made to GFP-tag the effector proteins of AvrLm6 and AvrLm4-7 using the GFP-tagging gene knockout method (GGKO) developed by Saitoh et al. (2008) in order to determine whether or not they are secreted. Successful pETHG-(target)KO vectors were not generated. The protocol was examined for potential errors. Fatal errors were pinpointed to the ligation reaction and the transformation required to generate and propagate the desired vector pETGH-(target)KO.

The thesis presents an optimally designed kinematic structure for a new 6-DOF haptic devicebased on TAU configuration. The configuration of the TAU-2 proposed by Suleman Khan andKjell Andersson [1] was modified and its mobility was verified by using Grübler criterion tohave a 6 DOF. Analytical kinematic models for the inverse and forward kinematics weredeveloped for the haptic TAU configuration to determine a set of optimal design parameters.Kinematic performance indices such as volume of the workspace, kinematic isotropy and payload index, were defined based on the singular values of the Jacobian matrix. The Jacobianmatrix was scaled to homogenize the physical units. The Jacobian matrix dependent on theposition and orientation of the End-effector gives local isotropy and pay load index, so globaldesign indices were defined, which represent the performance of the mechanism in the wholeworkspace.

In the assembly process of airframe structures there are many drilled holes and on some parts the holes are mainly drilled manually with pneumatic handheld drilling machines. During conventional drilling in metal, burrs appear. To remove these burrs the parts of the structure must be separated and deburred before they can be put together for fastening. This is a time consuming measure and therefore expensive. To facilitate this process and lower production costs some parts of the process needs to be automated.A part of this thesis was a project in co-operation with Saab, Novator, Specma Automation and the University of Linköping.