This thesis explores bodily representations in Late Iron Age Scandinavia (400–1050 AD). Non-human bodies, such as gold foil figures, and human bodies are analysed. The work starts with an examination and deconstruction of the sex/gender categories to the effect that they are considered to be of minor value for the purposes of the thesis. Three analytical concepts – masks, miniature, and metaphor – are deployed in order to interpret how and why the chosen bodies worked within their prehistoric contexts. The manipulations the figures sometimes have undergone are referred to as masking practices, discussed in Part One. It is shown that masks work and are powerful by being paradoxical; that they are vehicles for communication; and that they are, in effect, transitional objects bridging gaps that arise in continuity as a result of events such as symbolic or actual deaths. In Part Two miniaturization is discussed. Miniaturization contributes to making worlds intelligible, negotiable and communicative. Bodies in miniatures in comparison to other miniature objects are particularly potent. Taking gold foil figures under special scrutiny, it is claimed that gold, its allusions as well as its inherent properties conveyed numinosity. Consequently gold foil figures, regardless of the context, must be understood as extremely forceful agents. Part Three examines metaphorical thinking and how human and animal body parts were used in pro-creational acts, resulting in the birth of persons. However, these need not have been human, but could have been the outcomes of turning a deceased into an ancestor, iron into a steel sword, or clay into a ceramic urn, hence expanding and transforming the members of the family/household. Thus, bone in certain contexts acted as a transitional object or as a generative substance. It is concluded that the bodies of research are connected to transitions, and that the theme of transformation was one fundamental characteristic of the societies of study.

<p>This thesis explores bodily representations in Late Iron Age Scandinavia (400–1050 AD). Non-human bodies, such as gold foil figures, and human bodies are analysed. The work starts with an examination and deconstruction of the sex/gender categories to the effect that they are considered to be of minor value for the purposes of the thesis. Three analytical concepts – masks, miniature, and metaphor – are deployed in order to interpret how and why the chosen bodies worked within their prehistoric contexts.</p><p>The manipulations the figures sometimes have undergone are referred to as masking practices, discussed in Part One. It is shown that masks work and are powerful by being paradoxical; that they are vehicles for communication; and that they are, in effect, transitional objects bridging gaps that arise in continuity as a result of events such as symbolic or actual deaths.</p><p>In Part Two miniaturization is discussed. Miniaturization contributes to making worlds intelligible, negotiable and communicative. Bodies in miniatures in comparison to other miniature objects are particularly potent. Taking gold foil figures under special scrutiny, it is claimed that gold, its allusions as well as its inherent properties conveyed numinosity. Consequently gold foil figures, regardless of the context, must be understood as extremely forceful agents.</p><p>Part Three examines metaphorical thinking and how human and animal body parts were used in pro-creational acts, resulting in the birth of persons. However, these need not have been human, but could have been the outcomes of turning a deceased into an ancestor, iron into a steel sword, or clay into a ceramic urn, hence expanding and transforming the members of the family/household. Thus, bone in certain contexts acted as a transitional object or as a generative substance.</p><p>It is concluded that the bodies of research are connected to transitions, and that the theme of transformation was one fundamental characteristic of the societies of study.</p>

Many contemporary grassroots environmental campaigns do not begin in urban areas but in small towns, rural enclaves, and racially or economically disadvantaged communities. Citizens with no previous activist experience or association with the established environmental movement organize to fight industry-created degradation in their communities, such as coal-fired power plants in Texas, the focus of this dissertation. The Texas coal plant opposition movement is identified as sites of environmental justice, particularly as discriminatory practices against sparsely populated communities. The movement’s collaborative efforts are defined as a new category of counterpublic, co-counterpublic, due to the discrete organizations’ shared focus and common purpose. The concept that a growing number of environmental activists are atypical is advanced; atypical environmentalists often engage in environmental practices while rejecting traditional environmentalist language and identity to avoid stigmatization as tree-huggers, extremists, or affluent whites. Presented are rhetorical analyses of identity negotiation and modalities of public enactments of citizenship within the Texas coal plant opposition movement and a critique of plant proponent hegemonic discourses. Research focused on five sites of coal plant opposition in Texas, gathered through ethnographic fieldwork and through a compilation of mediated materials. Asen’s discourse theory of citizenship was used to analyze the data for instances of rhetorical negotiation of environmentalist identity in politically conservative and in ethnically marginalized communities, their localized performances as public citizens, and the collaborative processes between established environmental groups and discrete local organizations. Texas anti-coal activists engaged in what Asen called hybrid citizenship; activists were primarily motivated toward enacted citizenship by a sense of betrayal by authorities. Issue and identity framing theories were implemented to critique rhetorical strategies used by plant proponents. In order to silence the opposition, plant supporters marginalized local anti-coal activists using what Cloud called identity frames by foil; proponents borrowed derogatory rhetorics from well-established anti-environmentalist discourse through which they self-identified positively by framing opponents as Other. The means through which proponents deflected their responsibility to the community by promoting technological solutions to pollution and deferring authority to industry executives and government agencies is analyzed within Chong and Druckman’s competing frames and frames in communication theories. / text

This thesis presents results on the theoretical description of ion acceleration using ultra-short ultra-intense laser pulses. It consists of two parts. One deals with the very general and underlying description and theoretic modeling of the laser interaction with the plasma, the other part presents three approaches of optimizing the ion acceleration by target geometry improvements using the results of the first part. In the first part, a novel approach of modeling the electron average energy of an over-critical plasma that is irradiated by a few tens of femtoseconds laser pulse with relativistic intensity is introduced. The first step is the derivation of a general expression of the distribution of accelerated electrons in the laboratory time frame. As is shown, the distribution is homogeneous in the proper time of the accelerated electrons, provided they are at rest and distributed uniformly initially. The average hot electron energy can then be derived in a second step from a weighted average of the single electron energy evolution. This result is applied exemplary for the two important cases of infinite laser contrast and square laser temporal profile, and the case of an experimentally more realistic case of a laser pulse with a temporal profile sufficient to produce a preplasma profile with a scale length of a few hundred nanometers prior to the laser pulse peak. The thus derived electron temperatures are in excellent agreement with recent measurements and simulations, and in particular provide an analytic explanation for the reduced temperatures seen both in experiments and simulations compared to the widely used ponderomotive energy scaling. The implications of this new electron temperature scaling on the ion acceleration, i.e. the maximum proton energy, are then briefly studied in the frame of an isothermal 1D expansion model. Based on this model, two distinct regions of laser pulse duration are identified with respect to the maximum energy scaling. For short laser pulses, compared to a reference time, the maximum ion energy is found to scale linearly with the laser intensity for a simple flat foil, and the most important other parameter is the laser absorption efficiency. In particular the electron temperature is of minor importance. For long laser pulse durations the maximum ion energy scales only proportional to the square root of the laser peak intensity and the electron temperature has a large impact. Consequently, improvements of the ion acceleration beyond the simple flat foil target maximum energies should focus on the increase of the laser absorption in the first case and the increase of the hot electron temperature in the latter case. In the second part, exemplary geometric designs are studied by means of simulations and analytic discussions with respect to their capability for an improvement of the laser absorption efficiency and temperature increase. First, a stack of several foils spaced by a few hundred nanometers is proposed and it is shown that the laser energy absorption for short pulses and therefore the maximum proton energy can be significantly increased. Secondly, mass limited targets, i.e. thin foils with a finite lateral extension, are studied with respect to the increase of the hot electron temperature. An analytical model is provided predicting this temperature based on the lateral foil width. Finally, the important case of bent foils with attached flat top is analyzed. This target geometry resembles hollow cone targets with flat top attached to the tip, as were used in a recent experiment producing world record proton energies. The presented analysis explains the observed increase in proton energy with a new electron acceleration mechanism, the direct acceleration of surface confined electrons by the laser light. This mechanism occurs when the laser is aligned tangentially to the curved cone wall and the laser phase co-moves with the energetic electrons. The resulting electron average energy can exceed the energies from normal or oblique laser incidence by several times. Proton energies are therefore also greatly increased and show a theoretical scaling proportional to the laser intensity, even for long laser pulses.

Cette thèse vise à étudier les nanoparticules d'or (NPOs) comme radio sensibilisateur et nano catalyseur afin d'améliorer la production d'espèces réactives de l'oxygène (EROS) et à fournir un aperçu de l'effet protecteur potentiel des acides aminés de base contre les effets des rayonnements ionisants afin d'étudier le mécanisme de dommages de l'ADN. En outre, il vise à améliorer notre connaissance des effets directs et indirects sur l'ADN plasmatique qui est une cible importante et sensible lors de l'étude des effets des rayonnements ionisants. Cette étude nécessite à la fois Ia bonne distribution et le contrôle de l'ADN déposé sur graphite HOPG. Nous avons procédé à la préparation de films (couches nanométriques à l’échelle) faite d'un complexe d'ADN avec des amines, ainsi que les acides aminés basiques. Nous avons caractérisé le déposé sec par microscopie a force atomique et par XPS. Nous avons montré que les couches contenant des acides aminés basiques sont très denses et que la protection contre les dommages de l'ADN après re-dissolution dans l'eau est très efficace. Ensuite, nous avons déposé l'ADN plasmatique à sec soul sur des feuilles minces de mylar et d'exposé ces films à un faisceau de protons à différentes énergies, Nous avons montré que, dans le value de pic de Bragg d'énergie a protons énergies inferieure a 500 keV il y a un rendement Cleve de protons a endommagé l'ADN. L'effet indirect a donc été étudié en exposant l'ADN plasmatique en solution aqueuse par rayons X ultra-mous. Nous avons procédé a de telles expériences en utilisant 100 lit de solution d'ADN plasmatique avec et sans différentes concentrations de 2-amino-2-hydroxymethyl-propane-1,3-diol, (Tris) et l'arginine (Arg) à température ambiante et sous agitation. Une très bonne procédure expérimentale. Nous avons montré que les rendements pour les pauses ADN simples brins ont permis au ratio indirect des effets directs à déterminer à 96% en bon accord avec la valeur de 97% découlant d’une étude basée sur l’irradiation aux rayons gamma de solutions congelées de l’ADN plasmatique. Nous analysons nos résultats et nous suggérons que les produits secondaires de Arginine réagissent avec les radicaux OH pour produire des effets secondaires; notamment en raison du fait que, contrairement au Tris, Arg est capable de liaison à l'ADN à l'extérieur et également à l'intérieur de la double hélice. Nous avons exposé également l'ADN de plasmide en solution aqueuse et complexe aux deux autres acides aminés basiques (lysine et histidine) par rayons X ultra-mous. Nous avons constaté que la présence de ces acides aminés augmente également la détérioration de l'ADN et suggère que les acides aminés sont donc également susceptibles de produire des effets secondaires. Enfin, nous avons étudié Ie rôle de nanoparticules d'or (NPO) dans le renforcement de la sensibilisation de la radio de l'ADN. En utilisant de nouveaux protocoles expérimentaux, nous avons fini à interpréter l'interaction du (NPOs) avec ionisation rayonnement dans des solutions aqueuses oxygénées. Pour obtenir une meilleure compréhension des mécanismes de sensibilisation de radio par NPOs, nous avons utilisé une variété de espèces détritivores, spécifiques et réactives d'oxygène et l'ADN plasmatique comme sonde afin de favoriser les voies donnees et de determiner laquelle d'entre elles est la plus efficace dans l'ADN dommageable. Cette étude a démontré pour la première fois que les NPOs contribuent en permanence à l'amélioration de la production de OH en utilisant un stock potentiel maintenu sous la forme d'HO2 • / 02 • - et H202 produits de radiolyse de l'eau primaire. Nous avons montre en effet que H202 peut réagir avec NPOs pour produire • OH radicaux. / This thesis aims at studying the gold nanoparticles (GNPs) as radiosensitizer and nanocatalyst in order to enhance the generation of reactive oxygen species (ROSs) and at providing insight into the potential protective effect of basic amino acids against ionizing radiation effects in order to study the mechanism of DNA damage. Also, it aims at improving our knowledge of direct and indirect effect on plasmid DNA which is an important and sensible target when studying ionizing radiation effects. This study required both the good distribution and control of the DNA deposited on HOPG (Highly Ordered Pyrolytic Graphite). We carried out the preparation of films (nanometer scaled layers) made of complex of DNA with diamines as wel as basic amino acids. We have characterized dry deposited by AFM (Atomic Force Microscopy) and by XPS (X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy). We have shown that the layers containing basic amino acids are very dense and that the protection against DNA damage after re-dissolution in water is very effective. Then, we have deposited dry plasmid DNA alone on thin mylar foils and exposed those films to a proton beam at various energies. We have shown that in the Bragg-peak energy range i.e. at proton energies lower than 500 keV there is a high efficiency of protons to damage DNA. The indirec effect was thus studied by exposing plasmid DNA in aqueous solution by (USX). We carried out such experiments by using 100 pit of plasmid DNA solution with and without different concentrations of 2-Amino-2-hydroxymethyl-propane-1,3-diol (Tris) and arginine (Arg) at ambient temperature and under stirring. A very good agreement was found with the rare data dealing with DNA plasmid exposed to Al Ka photons at low temperature (T < 277 K), which therefore validated the experimental procedure. We showed that the yields for DNA single strand breaks determined enabled the ratio of indirect to direct effects to be determined at 96.2%; in good agreement with the value of 97.7% stemming from a study based on y-ray irradiation of frozen solutions of plasmid DNA. We analyze our results and suggest that secondary products of Arginine react with OH radicals to produce side effects; notably due to the fact that contrary to Tris, Arg is capable of binding DNA outside but also inside the double-helix. We exposed also the plasmid DNA in aqueous solution and complexed to the two other basic amino acids (histidine and lysine) by USX. We found that the presence of tilos amino acids also increases DNA damage and suggest that those amino acids are therefore also prone to produce side effects. Lastly, we studied the role of Gold Nano Particles (GNPs) in enhancing DNA radio sensitization. By using new experimental protocols, we achieved to interpret the interaction of GNPs with ionization radiation in oxygenated aqueous solutions. To get better insight into the mechanisms of radiosensitization by GNPs, we used a variety of specific reactive oxygen species scavengers and plasmid DNA as a probe in order to favor given pathways and to determine which of them is the most effective in damaging DNA. This study has demonstrated for the first time that the GNPs contribute permanently to the enhancement of ■OH production by using a potential stock kept under the form of 1102•/02•- and H202 primary water radiolysis products. We showed indeed that H202 ca react with GNPs to produce •0H radicals.

The theme of the diploma thesis is the preparation of project documentation for the construction of two designed buildings of the Primary School. Building plot for the planned new building is located near the existing nursery school near the center of Vracov. The campus is designed to provide basic education in a total of 18 classes with a proposed total capacity of 540 pupils. The complex consists of 4 main buildings that functionally divide individual operations. These are designed as free-standing, SO01 and SO04 objects will be two-storey, without basement. SO02 and SO03 objects as four-storey without basement. The construction system is designed as a prefabricated reinforced concrete skeleton with filling masonry from ceramic blocks to thin-walled masonry mortar. The ceiling construction consists of pre-stressed ceiling panels SPIROLL in combination with reinforced concrete. The staircases connecting the floors are designed in reinforced concrete. Vertical communication between floors will also be made possible by barrier-free passenger lifts. The roof cladding consists of a single-shell construction with thermal insulation made of EPS, the covering will be made of PVC foil weighted with a layer of peacock. The building will be insulated with a façade thermal insulation system with a ventilated gap and external surface treatment of HPL façade cladding panels. Paved pedestrian roads will be made of concrete interlocking pavement. The road for vehicle traffic will be with an asphalt surface. Parking spaces are designed from drainage concrete pavement. The project documentation was processed in ArchiCAD.

Master’s thesis deals with the realization of motion drives for the foil winding machine. Drives for this machine are supplied by company Siemens. Whole project is made in cooperation with that company. The reader gets a comprehensive overview of the product group SINAMICS that will be used for the realization of drives in this machine. Thesis describes the selection of individual drive components, their control and regulation. Measurement and evaluation of results foil winding machine is made in the last chapter of this thesis.

One of the key issues of our society is to decrease energy demand. About 40 % of energy consumption in Europe is related to building operation, mostly for heating. The required thermal comfort is related mainly to temperature of air and temperature of surrounding surfaces. Especially in older buildings with low level of thermal insulation the inner surface of perimeter wall can be several degrees colder than air. In such case the perception of thermal comfort will be lowered also depending on the layout of the room. Other issue can be related to thermal radiation asymmetry. The amount of energy that is eradiated from a surface is driven by material property called emissivity. A surface with sufficiently low emissivity will became “thermal mirror”. It is possible to elaborate about intelligent thermal management of the internal space with usage of low-emissive surfaces; where thermal radiation can be suppressed or can be enhanced. This depends on the surface emissivity and its real temperature. Recently, growing interest about the low-emissive surfaces can be seen. They can represent reasonable complement to conventional insulation, but they have certain limits. Potentially, even higher energy savings can be reached with so called retro reflection. If the thermal radiation of an object is reflected back, its thermal loss will be lower. In such case it can be expected that equivalent thermal comfort can be reached even with lower overall temperature of the room. The aim of the work is study of material combinations with potential for utilization as low-emissive interior surfaces. Research has been conducted on low-emissive paints and low-emissive foils. Another part of the work is related to retro reflection of thermal radiation as a potential way to influence thermal comfort. The work shows, that energy saving up to 20% can be obtained.

This thesis presents results on the theoretical description of ion acceleration using ultra-short ultra-intense laser pulses. It consists of two parts. One deals with the very general and underlying description and theoretic modeling of the laser interaction with the plasma, the other part presents three approaches of optimizing the ion acceleration by target geometry improvements using the results of the first part. In the first part, a novel approach of modeling the electron average energy of an over-critical plasma that is irradiated by a few tens of femtoseconds laser pulse with relativistic intensity is introduced. The first step is the derivation of a general expression of the distribution of accelerated electrons in the laboratory time frame. As is shown, the distribution is homogeneous in the proper time of the accelerated electrons, provided they are at rest and distributed uniformly initially. The average hot electron energy can then be derived in a second step from a weighted average of the single electron energy evolution. This result is applied exemplary for the two important cases of infinite laser contrast and square laser temporal profile, and the case of an experimentally more realistic case of a laser pulse with a temporal profile sufficient to produce a preplasma profile with a scale length of a few hundred nanometers prior to the laser pulse peak. The thus derived electron temperatures are in excellent agreement with recent measurements and simulations, and in particular provide an analytic explanation for the reduced temperatures seen both in experiments and simulations compared to the widely used ponderomotive energy scaling. The implications of this new electron temperature scaling on the ion acceleration, i.e. the maximum proton energy, are then briefly studied in the frame of an isothermal 1D expansion model. Based on this model, two distinct regions of laser pulse duration are identified with respect to the maximum energy scaling. For short laser pulses, compared to a reference time, the maximum ion energy is found to scale linearly with the laser intensity for a simple flat foil, and the most important other parameter is the laser absorption efficiency. In particular the electron temperature is of minor importance. For long laser pulse durations the maximum ion energy scales only proportional to the square root of the laser peak intensity and the electron temperature has a large impact. Consequently, improvements of the ion acceleration beyond the simple flat foil target maximum energies should focus on the increase of the laser absorption in the first case and the increase of the hot electron temperature in the latter case. In the second part, exemplary geometric designs are studied by means of simulations and analytic discussions with respect to their capability for an improvement of the laser absorption efficiency and temperature increase. First, a stack of several foils spaced by a few hundred nanometers is proposed and it is shown that the laser energy absorption for short pulses and therefore the maximum proton energy can be significantly increased. Secondly, mass limited targets, i.e. thin foils with a finite lateral extension, are studied with respect to the increase of the hot electron temperature. An analytical model is provided predicting this temperature based on the lateral foil width. Finally, the important case of bent foils with attached flat top is analyzed. This target geometry resembles hollow cone targets with flat top attached to the tip, as were used in a recent experiment producing world record proton energies. The presented analysis explains the observed increase in proton energy with a new electron acceleration mechanism, the direct acceleration of surface confined electrons by the laser light. This mechanism occurs when the laser is aligned tangentially to the curved cone wall and the laser phase co-moves with the energetic electrons. The resulting electron average energy can exceed the energies from normal or oblique laser incidence by several times. Proton energies are therefore also greatly increased and show a theoretical scaling proportional to the laser intensity, even for long laser pulses.

Gold Foil Figures or guldgubbar (henceforth GFFs) are precious metal artefacts from the Scandinavian Late Iron Age. This master's essay offers a new approach to GFFs. As opposed to the established understanding of GFFs as representational images with real or mythic referents, belonging to an aristocratic milieu, this essay instead attends to GFFs in terms of their material and Figural traits. The material for this study consists if 42 GFFs from the find site of Västra Vång, Blekinge, Sweden. A comprehensive presentation of this artefact material is a secondary aim of this essay. With the aid of a neomaterialist theoretical apparatus that draws heavily on the work of Gilles Deleuze, Félix Guattari, and Wilhelm Worringer, the 42 GFFs undergo two separate analyses. In the first, the material traits expressed in the sequence of GFF production and deposition is studied in terms of a chaîne opératoire. In the second, I attend to the non-significatory expressive qualities of form and expression, or Figural traits, belonging to these 42 GFFs within the wider artistic milieu of Animal Style Ornamentation. I conclude that GFFs were as a rule artefacts made for purposes of immediate disposal, not display, as a mode of dispersing gold. Västra Vång’s GFFs offer several indications that handling between the cutting operation and deposition was minimal, such as the fresh, unworn edges. The thin, brittle foils are ill suited to display. Approaching the designs on these artefacts as various sets of Figural traits being expressed allows me to contextualise the GFFs within the wider artistic milieu of Animal Style Ornamentation. New territorial rhythms can be established only as certain elements are freed from a settled state, and made to act together with new elements, in new terrains. GFFs bring about new territorial rhythms of form and expression to gold matter, gold made to circulate as it becomes deterritorialised from a monetary function within the Roman economy. A flow of gold is extended as gold is brought to Scandinavia from continental economies. The influx of this flow of gold is not contained to an élite social stratum. Individuals in possession of minute amounts of gold returned to Scandinavia, having acquired gold as payment for involvement in military operations on the continent. This ownership of gold may have hindered their harmonious reintegration into a society based on other economic principles. The GFFs emerge as a vector of dispersing gold. The artistic expression of Figural traits is equally energised by movements of de- and reterritorialisation. Understanding that the Figural traits expressed on the GFFs from Västra Vång are part of a wider artistic milieu of Animal Style Ornamentation, alongside other systematised expressions making up parts of a collective assemblage of enunciation, makes their appearance on artefacts that were deposited immediately upon their manufacture easier to grasp. The particular procedures of miniaturisation allowed for an acceleration of the expression of variation in the conjunction of a flow of artistic expression onto a flow of gold matter. The dispersive handling of gold must be traced to both the material premises and the expressive artistic ones. Gold is not chosen because it is precious, or because of what it connotes, but because it is available, because the artisan smith is attendant to its traits as a metal matter.