Graduation date: 1991

Photothermal energy conversion is important when designing optically active devices based on plasmonic nanoparticles. Many early applications of these nanoparticles, like photothermal tumor ablation, drug delivery, and microfluidic devices, depend on the conversion of light to heat. In this dissertation, we compare three nanoparticle species' theoretical absorption efficiency from electromagnetic calculations with their photothermal transduction efficiency from measurements of temperature in an illuminated system. Several mechanisms that may account for differences between the two efficiencies are suggested. With a view specifically toward clinical applications, our analysis assumes a random orientation of nanorods, as would occur naturally in the tumor vasculature. For the samples studied here, photothermal transduction efficiencies differed only by a factor of two or three, regardless of particle type and concentration. Both experiment and theory show that particle size plays a dominant role in determining transduction efficiency, with smaller particles more efficient for heating and larger particles for combined heating and imaging. Additionally, we evaluate the potential of mixtures of plasmonic nanoparticles for CO 2 scrubbing substrates that could be used in space applications. These measurements indicate possible dynamic nanoscale effects that need to be accounted for when modeling photothermal transduction.

Electricity has always had a great impact on our daily life. It plays an important role in every aspect  of  society,  economy,  and  technology  of  every  nation.  Sweden  among  other  Nordic countries has always strived to improve its energy landscape. Currently, Nuclear power and Hydroelectricity  are  the  main  methods  of  energy  generation  in  this  country.  Together  with exploring  new  ways  of  generating  energy  without  dependency  on  nuclear  power,  Sweden also  expresses  an  interest  in  encouraging  households  and  companies  to  use  energy  in  an efficient way in order to reduce energy  consumption and its associated costs. The scope of this thesis is to review and evaluate various state-of-the-art data analysis tools and algorithms to  generate  a  meaningful  consumer  behaviour  model  based  on  the  electricity  usage  data collected   from   households   in   several   areas   of   Sweden.   Understanding   the   demand characteristics  for  electricity  would  give  electric  suppliers  more  power  in  shaping  their marketing strategies as well as setting appropriate electricity pricing.

Studies assessing the electricity generation cost of various power generating technologies are becoming increasingly common and references to such studies can often be heard in the public debate. Different studies do however often present significantly different results. This is a problem as electricity generation cost assessments are important when it comes to choosing and designing future energy systems. In this thesis, existing electricity generation cost assessments are reviewed and issues and differences with current methodologies are investigated. As many of the reviewed studies lack detailed sensitivity analyses, an electricity generation cost model has been implemented in order to shed some light on the sensitivity in the produced results. The thesis shows that different methodological approaches and assumptions have a significant impact on electricity generation cost results. The habit of generalising electricity generation costs in a public context can also be questioned. Generation costs tend to be site-specific and sensitive to changes in input parameters. Another finding is that current methodologies are not suitable for comparing intermittent and dispatchable power generating technologies. The reasons are missing electricity system cost perspective and failure to account for differences in production profiles.

The trend toward liberalization and internationalization in economic development has caused the electricity structure of the world nations to change a great deal since 1970. It was legal that power plants were established by the private sector in the UK since 1983. As the result that "The Electricity Privatization White Paper" and "Electricity Law" were promulgated in 1988 and 1989, the British government was the first one to deploy privatization and liberalization of electricity market and implement successfully. The UK became the benchmarking of other countries because of the significant positive effect and developments. Then each government actively promoted and made needed reforms at privatization and liberalization of electricity market. It has been 20 years to advance the electricity liberalization market since 1983 in UK. It is worth to study how the effect and the dynamic process of the electricity liberalization is in UK. This focus of the report is on the cause, background and conditions of UK electricity liberalization market and on the evaluating performance model. To make a comprehensive survey of relevant evaluating indicators, the performance of electricity liberalization in UK is excellent. No wonder The UK is the most competitive electricity market within the EU and G7 from 2001 to 2005. To sum up the work on looking back on the UK electricity liberalization for about 20 years, the key success factors are competitive market forces, energy policy, balancing mechanism, the revised law in coordination and full information. All are the reference resources for Taiwan to build the favorable liberalization model.

A Comparison of the Electricity Industry Liberalization and Electricity Acts Thesis Abstract The purpose of this paper attempted to figure out the degrees of electricity industry liberalization through a comparative analysis of electricity acts among USA, Japan, and European countries. The result of this research will provide a reference for the government to amend the current draft of the Electricity Act. And the paper also made several suggestions for Taiwan to develop related regulations and operating rules under the Electricity Act. The approaches of this research are to review the background of the electricity act amendment in various countries, to analyze the framework of electricity market and its institutional aims among selected countries, and figure out prerequisites of electricity liberalization and its related conditional measures, including in Taiwan. The reason of driving electricity industry liberalization in those countries is to promote competition and increase efficiency. The paper finds out that Taiwan has the same culture and background in energy situation and economic pattern. The results of this paper will be worthy for the government agencies and legislative body to reconsider the competition mechanism and energy policy in the draft of the Electricity Act Amendment.

Abstract As the result of the free economic booming in the past years, th international trade relations have became more closed and intense. Especially, the globlization and WTO make most of the industries become more competitive. Each government takes reformation at the industry movement¡Bprivatization or free economy policy to achieve the cost down and efficiency in order to obtain international marketing advantage .for example,the British government was the first one todeploy privatizatiopn of electricity market Since 1980 .Its successful is the pattern of American¡AAustrian¡Anorth Europe and Asia countries. The electricity market is monopolized by the governent-own Taiwan Power Company for more than 50 years.It has the traditional bussinesss including the power generation¡Bthe transmission ¡Bthe distribution and the sales ,which made excellent contribution to this country. After 1980s¡Awith global economic booming¡A the electricity power demanding is gradually impeded by green party and public that corncern the impact to the environment verywhere on this island. Consequently ,without the sufficient power supply ,the electricity power shortage was quite often since then.In order to facilitate the efficient management and increase the capacity of the power the government ordered the Department of Economy of ROC to accomplish the de-regulation and privatization of the electricity market.By induced the capital with management skill from local private company¡Athe goal has been achieved with significant progresses.and more competitors.Three stages bid increased 9000 mw of power at final¡Ait nearly 25¢Mof total market, four privates power company was synconization already since 1998. Generally speaking ,the power deregulation policy is successful and has been gradually move to its target. The beginning of this paper is to probe the difficulties that the private-owned company ,though the planning, to the final achievement. By collecting and investigating all the related materials, this paper discusses and reviews the drawback and results of the power deregulation policy. And the main topics are to provide the advise and create new vision for the undergoing deregultion plan ,including the analysis and review of the privatization policy ,the location decision of new power plans the planning and design for the power distribution ,ande marketing of the electricity. The private power companies could use the final conclusionas the advice or references in their future plans

In this thesis we study characterize the dynamic relationships among two electricity price variables (residential and commercial) and six regional economic variables in order to examine each individual variable??s role in regional economic activity. We also answer the question ??Do electricity prices have impact on regional economic variables??? We use two statistical techniques as engines of analysis. First, we use directed acyclic graphs to discover how surprises (innovations) in prices from each variable are communicated to other variables in contemporaneous time. Second, we use time series methods to capture regularities in time lags among the series. Yearly time series data on two electricity prices and six regional economic variables for Montgomery County (Texas) are studied using time series methods. Directed Acyclic Graphs (DAGs) are used to impose restrictions on the Vector Auto Regression model (VAR). Using Innovation Accounting Analysis of the estimated Vector Auto Regression (VAR) model we unravel the dynamic relationships between the eight variables. We conclude that rising electricity prices have a negative impact on allregional economic variables. The commercial average electricity prices lead residential average electricity prices in the time frame we studied (1969-2000). Rising residential electricity prices also have a positive impact on income derived from transfer payments.

This dissertation uses recently developed empirical methodologies for the study of multi-unit auctions to test the impacts of Financial Transmission Rights (FTRs) on the competitiveness of restructured electricity markets. FTRs are a special type of financial option that hedge against volatility in the cost of transporting electricity over the grid. Policy makers seek to use the prices of FTRs as market signals to incentivize efficient investment and utilization of transmission capacity. However, prices will not send the correct signals if market participants strategically use FTRs. This dissertation uses data from the Texas electricity market to test whether the prices of FTRs are efficient to achieve such goals. The auctions studied are multiunit, uniform-price, sealed-bid auctions. The first part of the dissertation studies the auctions on the spot market of the wholesale electricity industry. I derive structural empirical models to test theoretical predictions as to whether bidders fully internalize the effect of FTRs on profits into their bidding decisions. I find that bidders are learning as to how to optimally bid above marginal cost for their inframarginal capacities. The bidders also learn to bid to include FTRs into their profit maximization problem during the course of the first year. But starting from the second year, they deviated from optimal bidding that includes FTRs in the profit maximization problems. Counterfactual analysis show that the primary effect of FTRs on market outcomes is changing the level of prices rather than production efficiency. Finally, I find that in most months, the current allocations of FTRs are statistically equivalent to the optimal allocations. The second part of the dissertation studies the bidding behavior in the FTR auctions. I find that FTRs?? strategic impact on the FTR purchasing behavior is significant for large bidders ?? firms exercising market power in the FTR auctions. Second, trader forecasts future FTR credit very accurately while large generators?? forecasts of future FTR credit tends to be biased upward. Finally, The bid shading patterns are consistent with theoretical predictions and support the existence of common values.

<p>This doctoral thesis presents density functionalcalculations applied in several domains of interest in solidstate physics and materials science. Non-collinear magnetismhas been studied both in an artificial multi-layer structure,which could have technological relevance as a magnetic sensordevice, and as excitations in 3d ferromagnets. The intricatebulk crystal structure of γ-alumina has been investigated.An improved embedded cluster method is developed and applied tostudy the geometric and electronic structures and opticalabsorption energies of neutral and positively charged oxygenvacancies in α-quartz. Ab initio total energycalculations, based on the EMTO theory, have been used todetermine the elastic properties of Al_1-xLi_xrandom alloys in the face-centered cubiccrystallographic phase. The obtained overall good agreementwith experiment demonstrates the applicability of the quantummechanics formulated within the framework of the DensityFunctional Theory for mapping the structural and mechanicalproperties of random alloys against chemical composition.</p>