The amount of information transmitted in automation systems has grown exponentially, since the modern digital protection and control devices had been introduced. These systems with different features, limited data flow and the mutual incompatibility were mostly based on the principles defined by vendors themselves. The international communication standard IEC 61850 was created with the aim of introducing definite rules and the structure into the communication part of the electrical substations with the application of the latest technologies. This standard also emphasises the mutual interoperability of the different vendors´ devices. This thesis is focused on the comprehension of basic principles, the practical application and the testing of digital protections with IEC 61850 communication standard implemented. The first part of my thesis is a theoretical one and describes basic principles, services and possibilities of the abstract communication model defined by IEC 61850 standard. The second part of my thesis describes the configuration of IEC 61850 communication standard of the protective terminal REF 542plus with the partial support of this standard including only the vertical communication and the subsequent testing using the OMICRON's testing tool IED Scout. The third part of my thesis is focused on the configuration of the feeder protection REF615 which has fully implemented IEC 61850 standard covering both vertical and horizontal communication by means of the GOOSE messages and the subsequent testing using the ABB's testing tool ITT600 SA Explorer. The testing of both protective devices was carried out in the laboratory of the protection relays on the testing panels at ABB PPMV Brno. The conclusion summarizes the contributions of IEC 61850 communication standard and there are also compared the engineering procedures of the protective terminal REF 542plus and the feeder protection REF615.

Various remote sensing methods are being utilized to assess fundamental properties of forest stands, such as the height of trees, already for decades. Nevertheless, the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles in the combination with Structure from Motion software for these purposes, experiences its boom right now and thus not many pertinent studies exist yet. Such system producing image-based point clouds was utilized in this work to gain the canopy elevation data. To identify individual trees and to extract their height from these remote sensing data, a unique software tool called 'UAV Forest Explorer' was developed. Twenty forest study plots was established to acquire the field measurements ground truth data about almost 1 500 trees to thoroughly test the tool and calculate demanded statistics. The research proved, that the tool is fully applicable on all types of forest stands.

The Polstar mission will provide for a space-borne 60cm telescope operating at UV wavelengths with spectropolarimetric capability capturing all four Stokes parameters (intensity, two linear polarization components, and circular polarization). Polstar’s capabilities are designed to meet its goal of determining how circumstellar gas flows alter massive stars' evolution, and finding the consequences for the stellar remnant population and the stirring and enrichment of the interstellar medium, by addressing four key science objectives. In addition, Polstar will determine drivers for the alignment of the smallest interstellar grains, and probe the dust, magnetic fields, and environments in the hot diffuse interstellar medium, including for the first time a direct measurement of the polarized and energized properties of intergalactic dust. Polstar will also characterize processes that lead to the assembly of exoplanetary systems and that affect exoplanetary atmospheres and habitability. Science driven design requirements include: access to ultraviolet bands: where hot massive stars are brightest and circumstellar opacity is highest; high spectral resolution: accessing diagnostics of circumstellar gas flows and stellar composition in the far-UV at 122-200nm, including the NV, SiIV, and CIV resonance doublets and other transitions such as NIV, AlIII, HeII, and CIII; polarimetry: accessing diagnostics of circumstellar magnetic field shape and strength when combined with high FUV spectral resolution and diagnostics of stellar rotation and distribution of circumstellar gas when combined with low near-UV spectral resolution; sufficient signal-to-noise ratios: ~103 for spectropolarimetric precisions of 0.1% per exposure; ~102 for detailed spectroscopic studies; ~10 for exploring dimmer sources; and cadence: ranging from 1-10 minutes for most wind variability studies, to hours for sampling rotational phase, to days or weeks for sampling orbital phase. The ISM and exoplanet science program will be enabled by these capabilities driven by the massive star science.

We focus on planar Random Walks and some related stochastic processes. The discrete models are introduced and some of their core properties examined. We then turn to the question of continuous analogues, starting with the well-known convergence of the Random Walk to Brownian Motion. For the Harmonic Explorer and the Loop Erased Random Walk, we discuss the idea for convergence to SLE(\kappa) and carry out parts of the proof in the former case using a martingale observable to pin down the Loewner driving process.

Botenstoffe, die Informationen zwischen Nervenzellen übertragen, werden Neurotransmitter genannt. Die Neurotransmitter Gamma-Aminobuttersäure, Glutamat und Serotonin sind Neurotransmitter des Zentralen Nervensystems. Sie beeinflussen die psychische Gesundheit, Emotionen und die Stimmungslage. Gamma-Aminobuttersäure ist der wichtigste Vertreter der hemmenden Neurotransmitter und sorgt für die Verminderung von Angst- und Spannungszuständen. Glutamat ist der häufigste exzitatorische Neurotransmitter. Serotonin ist entwicklungsgeschichtlich einer der ältesten Neurotransmitter und kommt auch in pflanzlichen Lebewesen vor. Beim Menschen sorgt er für eine positive Stimmungslage und hat eine anregende Wirkung. In dieser Arbeit sollen die Grundlagen der chemischen Signalübertragung dargestellt und die Wirkungsweise von Neurotransmittern aufgezeigt werden. Die Effekte der drei genannten Neurotransmitter an ihren spezifischen Rezeptoren werden näher erläutert, agonistisch und antagonistisch wirkende Substanzen werden aufgeführt. Am Beispiel der Benzodiazepine wird die Möglichkeit der Einflussnahme auf das Neurotransmittersystem der Gamma-Aminobuttersäure diskutiert. Ergänzt wird die schriftliche Ausarbeitung durch entsprechendes Bildmaterial. Das Bildmaterial soll als Vorlage für Animationen und graphische Darstellungen in dem noch zu entwickelnden interaktiven Lernprogramm Toxnetz-Explorer verwendet werden. Das Lernprogramm soll zukünftig für die Vermittlung von Lerninhalten im Rahmen des postgradualen Studiums „Toxikologie und Umweltschutz“ verwendet werden. Das Programm wird wichtige physiologische und organspezifische Aspekte graphisch und mittels Animationen darstellen und diese durch Fachtexte ergänzen. / Messenger substances that transmit information between neurons are called neurotransmit-ters. Gamma-aminobutyric acid, glutamate and serotonin are neurotransmitters of the central nervous system. They influence mental health, emotions and mood. Gamma-aminobutyric acid is the most important inhibitory neurotransmitters and is responsible for reducing anxiety and tension. Glutamate is the most common excitatory neurotransmitter. Serotonin is one of the oldest neurotransmitters in developmental history and is also found in plant organisms. In humans, it ensures a positive mood and has a stimulating effect. In this thesis, the basics of chemical signal transmission will be presented and the mode of action of neurotransmitters will be shown. The effects of the three neurotransmitters already mentioned at their specific receptors are explained in more detail, and agonistic and antago-nistic substances are listed. Using the example of benzodiazepines, the possibility of influ-encing the neurotransmitter system of gamma-aminobutyric acid is discussed. The written elaboration is supplemented by corresponding visual material. The visual material is to be used as a template for animations and graphic representations in the interactive learning pro-gramme Toxnetz-Explorer, which is developed actually. The learning programme will be be used in the future for the teaching of learning content of the postgraduate course 'Toxicology and Environmental Protection'. The programme will present important physiological and or-gan-specific aspects graphically and by means of animations and supplement these with specialist texts.

Today, data warehouses are used to store large amounts of data. This thesis investigates the impact of various database schema designs on query execution time within the cloud platform Azure Data Explorer. As Azure Data Explorer is a relatively new platform, limited research exists on designing database schemas within the platform. Further, the design of the database schema has a direct impact on the query execution times. The design should also align with the use case of the data warehouse. This thesis conducts a requirements analysis, determines the use case, and designs three database schemas. The three database schemas are implemented and evaluated through a performance test. Schema 1 is designed to utilize results tables from stored functions, while schema 2 utilizes sub-functions divided by different departments or products to minimize the data accessed per query. Finally, schema 3 uses the results tables from the sub-functions found in schema 2. The result from the performance tests shows that schema 3 has the best overall improvement in query execution time compared to the other designs and the original design. The findings emphasize the critical role of database schema design in influencing query performance. Additionally, a conclusion is reached that using more than one approach to enhance query performance increases the potential query performance.

An unsupervised fuzzy logic navigation algorithm is designed and implemented in simulation for the Subsurface Explorer planetary exploration robot. The robot is intended for the subterranean exploration of Mars, and will be equipped with acoustic sensing for detecting obstacles. Measurements of obstacle distance and direction are anticipated to be imprecise however, since the performance of acoustic sensors is degraded in underground environments. Fuzzy logic is a satisfactory means of addressing imprecision in plant characteristics, and has been implemented in a variety of autonomous vehicle navigation applications. However, most fuzzy logic algorithms that perform well in unknown environments have large rule-bases or use complex methods for tuning fuzzy membership functions and rules. These qualities make them too computationally intensive to be used for planetary exploration robots like the SSX. In this thesis, we introduce an unsupervised fuzzy logic algorithm that can determine a trajectory for the SSX through unknown environments. This algorithm uses a combination of simple fusion of robot behaviors and self-tuning membership functions to determine robot navigation without resorting to the degree of complexity of previous fuzzy logic algorithms. Finally, we present some simulation results that demonstrate the practicality of our algorithm in navigating in different environments. The simulations justify the use of our fuzzy logic technique, and suggest future areas of research for fuzzy logic navigation algorithms. / Master of Science

International Telemetering Conference Proceedings / October 28-31, 1996 / Town and Country Hotel and Convention Center, San Diego, California / The science payload for NASA's Extreme Ultraviolet Explorer (EUVE) satellite is controlled from the EUVE Science Operations Center (ESOC) at the Center for EUV Astrophysics (CEA), University of California, Berkeley (UCB). The ESOC is in the process of a transition from a single staffed shift to an autonomous, zero-shift, "lights out" science payload operations scenario (a.k.a., 1:0). The purpose of the 1:0 transition is to automate all of the remaining routine, daily, controller telemetry monitoring and associated "shift" work. Building on the ESOC's recent success moving from three-shift to one-shift operations (completed in Feb 1995), the 1:0 transition will further reduce payload operations costs and will be a "proof of concept" for future missions; it is also in line with NASA's goals of "cheaper, faster, better" operations and with its desire to out-source missions like EUVE to academe and industry. This paper describes the 1:0 transition for the EUVE science payload: the purpose, goals, and benefits; the relevant science payload instrument health and safety considerations; the requirements for, and implementation of, the multi-phased approach; a cost/benefit analysis; and the various lessons learned along the way.

Background: Taxonomic descriptions are traditionally composed in natural language and published in a format that cannot be directly used by computers. The Exploring Taxon Concepts (ETC) project has been developing a set of web-based software tools that convert morphological descriptions published in telegraphic style to character data that can be reused and repurposed. This paper introduces the first semi-automated pipeline, to our knowledge, that converts morphological descriptions into taxon-character matrices to support systematics and evolutionary biology research. We then demonstrate and evaluate the use of the ETC Input Creation - Text Capture - Matrix Generation pipeline to generate body part measurement matrices from a set of 188 spider morphological descriptions and report the findings. Results: From the given set of spider taxonomic publications, two versions of input (original and normalized) were generated and used by the ETC Text Capture and ETC Matrix Generation tools. The tools produced two corresponding spider body part measurement matrices, and the matrix from the normalized input was found to be much more similar to a gold standard matrix hand-curated by the scientist co-authors. Special conventions utilized in the original descriptions (e.g., the omission of measurement units) were attributed to the lower performance of using the original input. The results show that simple normalization of the description text greatly increased the quality of the machine-generated matrix and reduced edit effort. The machine-generated matrix also helped identify issues in the gold standard matrix. Conclusions: ETC Text Capture and ETC Matrix Generation are low-barrier and effective tools for extracting measurement values from spider taxonomic descriptions and are more effective when the descriptions are self-contained. Special conventions that make the description text less self contained challenge automated extraction of data from biodiversity descriptions and hinder the automated reuse of the published knowledge. The tools will be updated to support new requirements revealed in this case study.

Syftet med studien är att synliggöra matematiken i den fria leken inom de matematiska aktiviteterna mätning, lokalisering och konstruktion. Studien skedde inomhus i förskolan på två yngreavdelningar, 1-3 år. En kvalitativ forskningsmetod valdes, och genomfördes med hjälp av ostrukturerade observationer. I resultatet kan man se prov på att yngre barn använder sig både av ett utforskande tillvägagångssätt och även av problemlösning inom de matematiska aktiviteterna som studien avsåg. / The purpose of this study is to examine the mathematical activities, measurement, localization, and construction during free play. The study was performed inside a preschool, in two toddler groups, 1-3 years old. A qualitative research study was chosen and performed with the help of unstructured observations.  The study shows that toddlers use both an exploring approach as well as a problem-solving approach within the mathematical activities that the study intended.