Le principal objectif de ce travail de thèse a été de développer de nouvelles techniques de spectroscopie moléculaire afin obtenir de nouvelles données spectroscopiques dans le visible et le proche infrarouge pour des molécules, radicaux ou ions d’intérêt astrophysiques. La première partie de ce travail a consisté en l’étude d’harmoniques élevés, très faibles en intensité, de bandes vibrationnelles de la molécule HC₃N (cyanoacetylène), par la technique de spectroscopie CRDS. La deuxième partie a consisté en l’étude spectroscopique d’espèces instables radicalaires. Pour cela, une décharge inductive Radio Fréquence a été couplée au montage CRDS. Le plasma ainsi créé a été caractérisé et sa capacité à produire des anions a été démontrée via notamment la mesure quantitative du rapport C₂ / C₂⁻pour une grande variété de conditions expérimentales. De même, une analyse spectroscopique quantitative a été menée sur les radicaux isotopomères ¹⁴NH₂ et ¹⁵NH₂. Cette étude valide certaines hypothèses faites dans de précédents travaux ayant permis de mesurer le rapport isotopique ¹⁵N/¹⁴N dans les comètes, pour la première fois à partir de raies d’émission de ces 2 isotopomères portant un groupe amino. La troisième et dernière partie de ce travail a consisté en le développement d’une nouvelle technique expérimentale appelée Broad-Band Dual Etalon Frequency COMb. Cette technique expérimentale basée sur l’utilisation de 2 cavités optiques de haute finesse devrait permettre d’obtenir une spectroscopie avec une résolution spectrale ultime non limitée par la source laser nanoseconde large bande mais par l’intervalle spectral libre des cavités de haute finesse utilisées. / The main objective of this PhD was to develop spectroscopic techniques using high finesse optical cavities. These were applied to the measurement of quantitative spectroscopic data for neutral, radical and ionic molecular species of astrophysical interest in the near infrared and visible spectral range. The first part was devoted to the measurement of the oscillator strength of high vibrational overtone bands of the cyanoacetylene (HC₃N) molecule with the Cavity Ring Down Spectroscopy (CRDS) technique. The second part was devoted to the study of the spectroscopy of transient neutral and ionic species. For that, an inductively radio frequency (RF) discharged has been coupled to the CRDS set up. The pertinence of this plasma to efficiently produce anions was demonstrated via the quantitative measurement of the C₂ / C₂⁻ ratio in a wide variety of conditions. A quantitative spectral analysis of the radical isotopomers ¹⁴NH₂ and ¹⁵NH₂ was also performed for the first time. This study provides experimental data that will allow to better constraint the ¹⁵N/¹⁴N isotopic ratio in comets through the emission lines of these two amino bearing isotopomers. The third and last part of the work was devoted to the development of a CRDS scheme called Broad Band Dual Etalon Frequency Comb Ring Down Spectroscopy. This new heterodyne technique, based on the use of the microsecond frequency combs generated by two high finesse optical cavities, should allow performing molecular spectroscopy with ultrahigh spectral resolution. First proof experiments were performed and perspective’s for improvement of the method is provided.

Title: Palladium catalysts deposited over novel siliceous supports Author: Pavlína Křečková Department: Department of Inorganic Chemistry, Faculty of Science, Charles University in Prague Supervisor: prof. RNDr. Petr Štěpnička, Ph.D. Supervisor's e-mail address: stepnic@natur.cuni.cz Advisor: prof. Ing. Jiří Čejka, DrSc. Advisor's e-mail address: jiri.cejka@jh-inst.cas.cz Abstract Keywords: palladium; deposited catalysts; siliceous supports; C-C coupling reaction. The aim of this work was to prepare a deposited palladium catalyst from Pd2+ and twodimensional zeolite ITQ-2 bearing ≡SiCH2CH2CH2NHCH2CH2NEt2 groups at the surface. This catalys has been evaluated in the Heck reaction between n-butyl-acrylate and brombenzene to give n-butyl-cinnamate. Influence of the reaction temperature, the solvent, base and hydrate water on the progress of the Heck reaction was investigated. This work also deals with the possibility of recycling the catalyst and, due to its nature, with the quantity of leached palladium into the reaction mixture. Furthermore, the work describes differences in morphology between the fresh and a recycled catalyst.

The hepatitis G virus and GBV-C are recently discovered variants of the same virus belonging to the family Flavivirus (HGV/GBV-C). Although initially thought to be a hepatitis virus, it has been shown to have no association with liver disease. No work has been performed on the prevalence or molecular characteristics of HGV/GBV-C in southern Africa. In addition, although it is clear that the liver is not the primary site of replication, there is no data on the sites of HGV/GBV-C replication in normal subjects. Thus, this study aimed to assess the prevalence of HGV/GBV-C carriage in the urban and rural adult Black communities of the Western and Eastern Cape Provinces of South Africa, and compare it to the prevalence of serological markers of the hepatitis viruses A-E. In addition, this study aimed to assess the molecular features of South African HGV/GBV-C isolates and demonstrate the organs where viral replication was present. The mean prevalences of antibodies to hepatitis A lgG, hepatitis B surface antigen and antibodies to hepatitis B surface antigen were 98%, 4.3% and 61.1 % respectively. The mean prevalence of antibodies to hepatitis C was 1.8%. No significant differences in prevalence were shown between the urban and rural regions for these viruses. The mean anti-hepatitis E prevalence varied from 5.8% to 19.1 % in the different regions. Those living in mud houses without access to chlorinated tap water had a significantly higher prevalence of antihepatitis E. No anti-hepatitis D positive samples were isolated. The overall prevalence of HGV/GBV-C was 26.9%, with rural communities having a significantly lower prevalence than urban communities. A significant relationship was observed between HGV/GBV-C infection with the use of illicit drugs, female gender, younger age and past blood transfusions. Phylogenetic analysis demonstrated a novel fourth South African HGV/GBV-C genotype, distinct from the previously described genotypes 1-3. In addition, certain isolates showed a major deletion in the highly conserved 5' non-coding region of HGV/GBV-C. Analysis of 23 tissue biopsies from infected cadavers suggested that the spleen and bone marrow were the primary sites of HGV/GBVC replication.

The Candida genus is full of fungi that are subtle parts of the human microbiome, but they can cause complications if they overgrow within the body—specifically the mouth and throat, the genitalia, and the entire body through infection of the bloodstream. Candida species are a rising problem for many across the world, and this can be seen in the recent threat of Candida auris hospitalizing patients and being regularly resistant to anti-fungal medications. Beyond C. auris, Candida albicans is the most common Candida species that humans must combat because it causes the most infections in humans—mostly vaginal yeast infections. C. albicans does have natural competitors that can either inhibit its growth or kill it in general, and the competition that we took advantage of was with the Alcaligenes species. Alcaligenes faecalis and Alcaligenes viscolactis have been shown to at least inhibit C. albicans growth and maybe even kill the fungus. This rate of infection from C. albicans places it at the forefront of Candida research, and we attempted to further this research by utilizing both A. faecalis and A. viscolactis to create a co-infection model for Caenorhabditis elegans—a simple nematode lifeform. It is known that A. faecalis and A. viscolactis do not commonly adversely affect humans, so little research has been done concerning their clinical effects. We were looking to find a possible answer to C. albicans infections beyond antifungal drugs because we know that antibiotic resistance is on the rise. We performed liquid assays to test the survivability of C. elegans nematodes in various bacterial/fungal circumstances. We subjected batches of C. elegans to E. coli OP50 as a control, A. faecalis, A. viscolactis, C. albicans, A. faecalis and C. albicans, and A. viscolactis and C. albicans. This procedure was followed in order to determine the viability of using the Alcaligenes species to either help the C. elegans survive the infection or prevent them from getting infected at all. After following through with the project, we found that there was a noticeable increase in the survivability of C. elegans when subjected to both one of the Alcaligenes species and C. albicans as opposed to the C. albicans alone. The data, although early, shows the possibility of Alcaligenes species being used to combat C. albicans infections in lifeforms.

We consider the class of generalised Toeplitz algebras; those C*-algebras that can be expressed as an extension of C(X) by the compact operators K, for some compact metrizable space X. We show that one can generalise the result of Brake and Winter, that the nuclear dimension of the Toeplitz algebra is 1, to show that for any generalised Toeplitz algebra its nuclear dimension must be equal to dim_nuc C(X). This shows that Brake and Winter's dimension reduction phenomenon is applicable to a much wider class of algebras. We also introduce our definition for the relative nuclear dimension of a C*-algebra. This is a modification to the definition of nuclear dimension that requires us to factor through algebras of the form F \otimes B for F finite dimensional and B some fixed algebra we are working relative to. We explore various properties satisfied by the relative nuclear dimension with a particular eye to its being a modification of nuclear dimension.

The diploma thesis focuses on the design of inteligent sensory network in the enviroment of administrative building. First part of thesis introduces reader to the existing and used technology in thesis, the following section describes the design, construction and implementation of modules and control application. The result of this thesis is a~working sensory network which can be managed by control application, which collects data from end-point modules. The complete solution will be tested in the SmartPEF project.

This thesis is dealing with programming languages C and C++, various methods writing their constructions and development of application which detects very similar programs written in these languages. The application is intended to control plagiarism in school projects in which students have to create a program in C or C++. The application can check short programs as well as large programs divided into several modules.

Reniform nematode, Rotylenchulus reniformis is a semi-endoparasitic nematode infecting over 300 plant species including important fiber crops like cotton. Introgression of reniform nematode resistance from a distantly-related resistant species Gossypium longicalyx into cultivated upland species Gossypium hirsutum has been a challenge. An approach towards achieving nematode resistance in crop plants has been to identify candidate parasitism genes expressed in the nematode facilitating infection of host plant species, and silencing the same through reverse genetic approaches like RNAi. A cDNA library constructed from the sedentary female stage of reniform nematode revealed an EST coding for C-type lectins and occurring in high frequency. Identification and characterization of C-type lectins in reniform nematode is important in understanding the immune system of nematode and in planning strategies for the development of reniform nematode resistant cotton varieties. A total of 11 C-type lectin gene family members were identified across six life stages of reniform nematode, with each member expected to play a significant role in the development and parasitic establishment with the host plant. Conserved sites characteristic of C-type lectins found in other organisms have been identified in the C-type lectin genes in reniform nematode for binding of Ca+2 and mannose. The highest level of expression of C-type lectins was observed in the sedentary female stage indicating it to be possibly the most sensitive stage to microbial infection and so a likely stage to target for its management. The site of secretion of C-type lectins in the sedentary female stage could be identified by in situ hybridization as the hypodermal region of the exposed posterior body region which is not inserted into the host root tissue. Phylogenetic analyses of C-type lectin domains of various nematode groups placed the plant-parasitic nematodes in one group indicating the possibility of co-evolution and probably carrying out a similar function aiding in the establishment of parasitism with host plants. Our findings now extend the spectrum of known nematode C-type lectin genes and suggest that lectin activity might be a more general feature of parasitism which could be explored in better understanding the interactions occurring at the host-nematode and nematode-pathogen interfaces.

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