Dissertation--Geographie--Marburg an der Lahn, Philipps Universität, 1978. / Bibliogr. p. 189-221.

This diploma thesis studies the external layers of water-stable aggregates found in different soil types. The selection of locations in which the soil samples were taken was dependent upon different soil types, economic interventions, and the age of forest vegetation. A total of twenty soil samples from the top mineral layer of soil were collected from five locations. The soil samples were subsequently tested for the stability of water-stable aggregates, and sent for a digital as well as grain size analysis. The tests revealed different values in the amount of surface area, aggregates volume, and contents of clay in soil. Water-stable aggregates found in the same soil type showed a similar trend in the amount of surface area and aggregates volume depending on the age of forest vegetation.

Background and Purpose: Falls are the leading cause of accidental death among older adults. Reducing falls risk is one of the major safety concerns for older persons. More than one-third of people 65 years and older will experience one or more falls per year and nearly half of the people over 80 years of age will fall at least once each year. A key initial step in reducing falls is identifying those persons at highest risk so that they can be assessed and prescribed appropriate interventions. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to examine the capacity of a number of field and laboratory tests to identify fallers in a sample of older independently-living, community-dwelling persons. Participants: 66 healthy, independently living older persons, ages 60 and older. Method: During three visits to the laboratory, participants performed various field and laboratory balance tests. Field tests included the Timed Up and Go Test (TUG), the One-Leg Stand Test (OLS), the Functional Reach Test (FR), and the Tinetti Performance Oriented Mobility Assessment (POMA). The laboratory tests included a center of pressure (COP) test with time-to-boundary (TTB) measurements on a force platform, and dynamic posturography using the Proprio 5000. Each participant was classified as a “faller” or “non-faller” based on whether he or she recalled experiencing a fall within the past year. Results: Receiver-operated characteristics (ROC) curve analyses (specificity and sensitivity throughout the measurement ranges) revealed the OLS and TUG field tests and selected Proprio 5000 and TTB variables had the best capacity to distinguish fallers from non-fallers. For both field and laboratory tests one-way ANOVA revealed between-group differences similar to those indicated by the ROC results. Discussion and Conclusion: Both selected field and laboratory tests could identify fallers (16 out of 66). In addition, the laboratory tests revealed balance decrements in specific planes of motion that provide information concerning directional falls risk and a offer a framework for the prescription of interventions to reduce that risk.

L’informatique utilitaire a évolué au fil des années pour aboutir à ce que nous appelons aujourd’hui le Cloud Computing. Pourtant, ces infrastructures ne sont pas adaptées pour répondre aux besoins de l’Internet des Objets ayant des besoins de calculs à faible latence malgré des ressources limitées. C’est pourquoi, en 2012, Cisco a proposé le paradigme de Fog Computing, consistant à répartir des serveurs sur de nombreux sites placés près des utilisateurs. Dans cette thèse, nous cherchons à créer une solution de stockage unifiée entre les différents sites de Fog. Notre première contribution consiste à évaluer si les solutions de stockage existantes peuvent être utilisées dans un tel environnement. Nous montrons que la solution de stockage InterPlanetary FileSystem (IPFS) reposant sur un protocole similaire à BitTorrent et une table de hachage distribuée (DHT) pour localiser les données est la plus prometteuse. Toutefois, le trafic réseau inter-sites généré impacte négativement les temps de lecture. Notre seconde contribution consiste à coupler IPFS au système de fichiers distribué RozoFS pour limiter ces échanges inter-sites dans le cas d’accès à des données stockées sur le site local. Enfin, notre dernier axe de recherche vise à localiser les données grâce à un protocole reposant sur un arbre des plus courts chemins, de façon à confiner le trafic réseau et à privilégier les nœuds atteignables avec une faible latence. Grâce à de nombreuses expérimentations sur la plateforme Grid’5000, nous montrons que le couplage à un système de fichiers réduit en moyenne de 34% les temps d’accès et que notre protocole de localisation permet un gain de 20% du temps de localisation des données. / Utility Computing has evolved for many years leading to the infrastructure we know today as Cloud Computing. Nevertheless, these infrastructures are unable to satisfy the needs of the Internet of Things which requires low latency computing despite limited resources. In 2012, Cisco proposed a paradigm called Fog Computing, consisting of deploying a huge number of small servers, spread on many sites located at the edge of the network, close to the end devices. In this thesis, we try to create a seamless storage solution between the different Fog sites. Our first contribution consists in comparing existing storage solution and check if they can be used in a such environment. We show that InterPlanetary FileSystem (IPFS), an object store relying on a BitTorrent like protocol and a Distributed Hash Table is a promising solution. Nevertheless, the amount of network traffic exchanged between the sites to locate the data is important and has a non-negligible impact on the overall performance. Our second contribution consists in coupling IPFS with RozoFS, a distributed filesystem deployed on each site to limit the use of the DHT when accessed data are stored on the local site. Finally, we proposed to replace the distributed hash table by a location mechanism relying on a shortest path tree built on the physical topology, in order to contain the network traffic and to first request nodes at a close location, reachable with a low latency. By performing many experiments on the Grid’5000 testbed, we show that the coupling of IPFS with a Scale-Out NAS reduces by 34 % in average the access times and that our protocol to locate the objects reduces by 20 % the time to locate the data.

Hybride Mikroschwimmer, die einen biologischen Antrieb und eine künstlich hergestellte Mikrostruktur enthalten sind ein attraktiver Ansatz um kontrollierte Bewegung auf kleinstem Maßstab zu erreichen. In dieser Dissertation wird ein neuer hybrider Mikroschwimmer vorgestellt, der aus ferromagnetischen Nanomembranen besteht, die sich zu Mikroröhrchen aufrollen und in der Lage sind, einzelne Spermien einzufangen. Dieser Mikrobioroboter nutzt die starke Antriebskraft der Spermazelle um das magnetische Mikroröhrchen fortzubewegen. Die vorliegende Arbeit beschreibt, wie dieser Mikroschwimmer seine Bewegung vollzieht und wie verschiedene Faktoren wie Temperatur, Radius der Mikroröhrchen, Eindringtiefe der Spermien in das Röhrchen und Länge der Röhrchen einen Einfluss auf sein Verhalten haben. Richtungskontrolle wird durch externe magnetische Felder realisiert und es wird dargestellt, wie dies zur Trennung der Mikrobioroboter aus einer Mischung von Spermien und Mikroröhrchen genutzt werden kann. Weiterhin werden zwei Oberflächenmodifizierungsmethoden angewandt um die Kupplungseffizienz zwischen Mikroröhrchen und Spermien zu erhöhen. In diesen Methoden wird das extrazelluläre Protein Fibronektin auf die innere Röhrchenoberfläche aufgebracht und dient als Bindungsstoff für Spermien. Schließlich wird durch den Einbau temperatursensitiver Material in die Mikroröhrchen ein ferngesteuerter Freisetzungsmechanismus für die Spermazelle vorgestellt. Dabei falten sich die Mikroröhrchen bei kleinen Temperaturerhöhungen auf und setzen die Zelle frei. Diese Arbeit diskutiert letztendlich das Potential solch eines hybriden Mikroschwimmers für die Anwendung in assistierter Reproduktion. / The search for autonomously moving, highly functional and controllable microdevices is a purpose of current micro/nanobiotechnology research, especially in the area of biomedical applications, for which reason, biocompatible solutions are in demand. In this thesis, a novel type of hybrid microswimmer is fabricated by the combination of rolled up thin nanomembranes with bovine spermatozoa. The microbiorobot presented here uses the powerful motion of the sperm flagella as a propulsion source for the magnetic microtube. This work demonstrates how the microswimmer performs its motion and how several factors such as temperature, radius of the microtube, penetration of the cell inside the microtube and length of the tube have influence on its performance. Directional control mechanisms are offered by external magnetic fields and are presented to be useful for the on-chip separation of the microbiorobots from a mixture of cells and microtubes. Two surface modification methods are presented as means to improve the coupling efficiency between the microtubes and the sperm cells. By these surface functionalizations, the extracellular matrix protein fibronectin is attached on the inner microtube walls and serves as binding agent for the spermatozoa. Finally, a remote release mechanism for the sperm cells is demonstrated by the incorporation of thermoresponsive material into the microtubes, which makes them fold and unfold upon small temperature changes. This work discusses the potential of such microswimmers for the application in assisted reproduction techniques and gives an outlook on future perspectives.

<p> The Zygo NewView 5000 is a new piece of equipment for McMaster University - it has recently been bought, and it is the first white light interferometer at McMaster. This thesis begins by developing the capabilities of this equipment. A significant limitation found is that the sample being measured must be near perpendicular to the optical axis. The optical axis is the centre of the light beam path for the light that the white light interferometer uses to make measurements. A significant enough angle away from perpendicularity will cause "dropout," where no data is returned for that pixel. Through experimenting with taking flat measurements (where the test part is perfectly perpendicular) and attempting to combine them with tilted measurements, a certain amount of distortion was found between the two. In order to properly fill in data, this problem needs to be addressed; correspondingly the focus of the thesis was altered to account for the distortion. Further experiments were performed comparing measurement profile results to those obtained using a Mitutoyo Formtracer, a stylus profilometer. It was determined that measurement distortion on the Zygo NewView only occurred when the samples were tilted; tilted measurements from the Zygo NewView were therefore altered with a distortion correction function to compensate for the error. There was a much better match of the tilted Zygo data to the Mitutoyo Formtracer results when the distortion correction was applied to the data, particularly in the areas where the tilt improves the data quality.</p> / Thesis / Master of Applied Science (MASc)

Title: Analysis of 5000 m runner's year training cycle. Objectives: Main goal of this thesis was evaluation of training progress of Vlastimil Sroubek, 5000 m runner, in the season 2014 / 2015. Training process in this period was analysed with content analysis composition from perspective of special training indexes and evaluation of dynamic changes of these indexes. The quality of core trainings was expertly evaluated and researched. These particular data were collected from training diary. Graphic evaluation by using Diagrams of the gained results is elementary part of this Thesis. The results of the research were compared with created model load characteristics for 5000m runner. Brief suggestions of continuous athlete preparation for next season, when we respect the results of content analysis and expert assessment, is in the conclusion. Methods: Content analyse of the training diary is the main method which I use to write this thesis with focus on general and specific training's indexes and expert assessment of growth training each special of running abilities. Percentage evaluation was used for quantitative comparison. Results: Thesis shows that different preparation from model characteristics load together with ineffective development trainings each special of running abilities and wrongly...

ABSTRACT The topic of the diploma thesis bears the title Possibilities of using technical means of narcotics checks in road traffic. The thesis endeavours to describe, compare and evaluate searching methods that are used in road checks for habit-forming drugs by public officials. The theoretical part is focused on the description of individual groups of habit-forming drugs and their effects on the human organism. Further, the theoretical part contains an overview of the most frequently used analytic methods. The practical part deals with the questions of detection aids used by the traffic police in the Czech Republic. Based on the methodology used, which included research in domestic and foreign sources and a structured interview, all the information obtained was thoroughly evaluated and it illustrates the substance of the topic. This diploma thesis is structured in such a way that enables its use by police units and other organisations that take part in fighting the use of habit-forming drugs. The thesis can be also a contribution for tuition as study material.

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Cerebrospinal fluid is examined using a variety of methods, which also include determining the number and type of each cell. Now the method of the first choice to determine the cellular elements is a microscopic method. This determination, however, can also be done using the analyzer method, which is not yet so widespread. The aim of my thesis was to compare these two methods and determine whether the examination of cerebrospinal fluid on the analyzer Sysmex XE-5000 in the "Body Fluid" mode can replace commonly used microscopic methods. To this purpose, we gathered the laboratory data measured by using both these methods. These data was compared, evaluated and statistically processed. The resulting data suggest that the values measured on the analyzer Sysmex XE-5000 are more accurate than from microscopic determination, especially at highly cell samples of cerebrospinal fluid. To this end, we came evaluation of Bland-Altman graphs and comparison graphs with marked of limits of physiological oligocytosis. For checking of the accuracy of measurements, we verified the repeatability of the analyzer for the values of leukocytes and erythrocytes, coefficients of variation corresponding to the values specified by the manufacturer's documentation. We also investigated the stability of samples of...