No abstract availabe. Copyright / Dissertation (MMus)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Music / unrestricted

A "gradient probe" consisting of two search coils has been developed to measure the current density in a pulsed plasma. This probe measures both the magnitude and the gradient of the magentic field simultaneously enabling more accurate measurements than the conventional magnetic probe which has only one coil. It has been used to measure the current densities and the magnetic fields in z-pinch discharges in helium at pressures between 500μ and 4 mmHg. The collapse curves obtained agreed with the predictions of a modified snow-plow equation which allowed for the loss of particles from the collapsing current shell. The flow of current in the plasma is distorted by the presence of a probe. Such an effect spoils the spatial resolution so that the measured values of the current density Jp are averages of the true current density J₀ over a finite region. To investigate this, a correction formula which relates Jp to J₀ has been developed. Our error analyses showed that any scatter in Jp due to experimental errors was magnified twenty times in J₀. For a pulsed plasma, therefore, one should try to reduce the perturbation of the probe instead of relying on the correction procedure. / Science, Faculty of / Physics and Astronomy, Department of / Graduate

The main goal of this work is to map main financial instruments of actual programming period which are offered by European Union and states of European Economic Area to their members and in regional aim to the Czech Republic and its citizens in areas of education, science and research. The work should show whether the provided instruments are widely focused, whether they cover all activities from these areas and enable countries to improve and increase their qualities for their own benefit and even for benefit of the whole community. Whether it is able to reach higher cooperation and integration in one competitive and dynamic area, by these instruments.

This graduation theses deals with the questions of the reporting in todays conditions of business. It is concerned with the meaning, sense and development and its relation to accounting and controlling. It pays attention to various classification of reporting, especially to internal and external reporting. It focuses on potential users of reporting and especially on its instruments. The graduation theses explains the principle of International Accounting Standard 11. The aim of the practical part of this theses is the description of the reporting system in the concrete company. It concentrates on the tools of the internal reporting in one division of the company. It presents the instruments of the internal reporting. It focuses on the purpose of individual reports, users of these reports and key figures that are reported in these reports.

Thesis deals with the problematics of instruments and methods used in the selection procedure and the subsequent comparison of theory with practice in ČSOB. Emphasis is placed on the determination of the advantages and disadvantages of individual instruments and methods. A part of thesis is questionnaire survey on the satisfaction of employees with the overall process of selection procedure. Thesis consists of 7 chapters.

Work deals with global trends in high-tech industry which are mainly consolidation, concentrations and regionalization. It provides the definition of the high-tech industry, then focuses on specific sector - semiconductor industry. It describes the characteristics of the manufacturing process and workforce. A special part is devoted to government policies regards to the semiconductors research and development. The last part is devoted to a case study of the American company - Texas Instruments Inc. which has been playing the important role in the world semiconductor industry.

This work discusses aspects of a fundamental problem in the theory of quantum fields on curved spacetimes - that of giving physical meaning to the particle representations of the theory. In particular, the response of model particle detectors is analysed in detail. Unruh (1976) first introduced the idea of a model particle detector in order to give an operational definition to particles. He found that even in flat spacetime, the excitation of a particle detector does not necessarily correspond to the presence of an energy carrier - an accelerating detector will excite in response to the zero-energy state of the Minkowski vacuum. The central question I consider in this work Is - where does the energy for the excitation of the accelerating detector come from? The accepted response has been that the accelerating force provides the energy. Evaluating the energy carried by the (conformally-invariant massless scalar) field after the Interaction with the detector, however, I find that the detector excitation is compensated by an equal but opposite emission of negative energy. This result suggests that there may be states of lesser energy than that of the Minkowski vacuum. To resolve this paradox, I argue that the emission of a detector following a more realistic trajectory than that of constant acceleration - one that starts and finishes in inertial motion - will in total be positive, although during periods of constant acceleration the detector will still emit negative energy. The Minkowski vacuum retains its status as the field state of lowest energy. The second question I consider is' the response of Unruh's detector in curved spacetime - is it possible to use such a detector to measure the energy carried by the field? In the particular case of a detector following a Killing trajectory, I find that there is a response to the energy of the field, but that there is also an inherent 'noise'. In a two dimensional model spacetime, I show that this 'noise' depends on the detector's acceleration and on the curvature of the spacetime, thereby encompassing previous results of Unruh (1976) and of Gibbons & Hawking (1977). / Science, Faculty of / Physics and Astronomy, Department of / Graduate

Enterprise-wide planning process, comparing the plan with reality, evaluating deviations and reporting are the most important aspects of corporate governance in the current period. Controller assigned irreplaceable function of initiator, coordinator and methodology in the entire planning process. Part of planning is the preparation of operational plans and budgets, which are the central theme of this work. This work covers applications controlling methods and tools for portfolio of managed projects (companies providing rental of commercial space). The nature and importance of controlling, controlling selected methods and analysis is explained in the theoretical part. In the second, practical part was, after the analysis of costs and revenues, prepared a model of corporate budget and its component parts

Line-of-sight stabilization of an optical instrument using magnetostnctlve actuators is described in this study. Various stabilization methods, i.e. gyroscopic, hydraulic, piezoelectric, electrodynamic and magnetostrictive methods, are compared and magnetostrictive stabilization is selected for its relatively large stroke length, low input voltage and wide frequency bandwidth. The system makes use of two magnetostrictive actuators, one at each end of the optical instrument, mounted between the moving base and instrument. Each actuator is equipped with cylindrical rods of Terfenol-D, a highly magnetostrictive material. Field coils are wound around the rods to produce a strain in the rods, thereby exciting angular motion of the instrument. Actuator stroke length is enhanced by means of a hingeless gain mechanism, rod prestressing and field biasing. Dynamic characteristics of the system are modelled to facilitate actuator, coil and control system design. A linear, single-degree-of-freedom actuator model, in state-space and transfer function forms, is derived and coupled to a distributed model of the optical instrument, using the Rayleigh-Ritz method. Transfer functions between actuator coil voltages and instrument angular acceleration are derived. Normal mode shapes, natural frequencies and damping factors are predicted. Design concepts for bias field, prestress, actuator gain and optical instrument support structure, are discussed and the most suitable concepts are selected. The required actuator gain, rod length and diameter, prestress spring stiffness, coil resistance and inductance are calculated. System components are designed in detail and safety of the design is checked. The actuators are characterized quasi-statically to determine the saturation strain, linear range of operation and DC bias field. The system is dynamically characterized to obtain transfer functions between the coil voltage and instrument angular acceleration. The test setups are described and limitations of the setups are discussed. Test results are processed and discussed. A comparison with the modelled results shows that the model is highly inaccurate. Reasons for inaccuracies are given and updating of the model is motivated. An updated model is obtained from the experimental results. The model is divided into electrical and mechanical subsystem models. The SDOF actuator models are replaced with 2DOF models (one for each actuator) and coupled to the instrument and base models, using substructure synthesis. The electrical and mechanical subsystem models are subsequently coupled. It is shown that the updated system model is considerably more accurate than the original model. A linear, suboptimal, disturbance feedforward plus output feedback controller, with output integral feedback, is designed, implemented and tested. An H2 optimal controller is designed and modified to improve robustness. The controller model is coupled to that of a suboptimal observer. An output integral feedback loop is added to further improve robustness. The controller is implemented in digital filter form. The test apparatus and procedure are described. Test results are processed and discussed. It is shown that the LOS stabilization system achieves 80% of the required isolation, over a frequency bandwidth of 0 Hz to 100 Hz. A summary of the work done, conclusions that can be drawn from the results, problems encountered and recommendations for future work, are given. / Thesis (PhD (Mechanical Engineering))--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Mechanical and Aeronautical Engineering / unrestricted

A Escherichia coli é uma bactéria que deve ser controlada na indústria alimentar e setor hospitalar. Biosensores magnetoelásticos oferecem a promessa de rápida identificação destes e de outros patógenos prejudiciais. Neste trabalho, tiras amorfas de Metglas 2826MB3 foram cortadas ao tamanho 5 mm x 1 mm, com uma serra de micro corte e, em seguida, foram revestidas com camadas finas de Au e Cr, como foi verificado pela análise de espessuras de filmes Rutherford Backscattering Spectroscopy (RBS). Foram estudadas várias superfícies dos sensores: 1) sensor as-cast, lado roda; 2) sensor as-cast, superfície livre; 3) superfície polida. Uma camada de cistamina (CYS) foi aplicada ao substrato magnetoelástico, formando monocamadas auto organizadas (SAM), seguido de anticorpos, utilizando um protocolo modificado de Hermanson. Foi utilizado a bactéria Escherichia coli ATCC 25922, um anticorpo primário anti E. coli para a formação do bioconjugado e um anticorpo secundário Goat IgG anti-rabbit H&L Alexa Fluor 488 para a microscopia de fluorescência por método imunológico. O crescimento da camada de cistamina foi caracterizado por espectroscopia de infravermelho com transformada de Fourier (FTIR) e microscopia eletrônica de varredura (MEV) para as superfícies. Os biosensores foram expostos a soluções de bactérias e a frequência de ressonância dos sensores foi medida com um analisador de impedância Agilent E5061B até 100 minutos, em 5 biosensores de cada tipo. As reduções na frequência de ressonância, que apresentam a captura de bactérias, foram medidos após a otimização da amplitude do sinal. Para tempos até 40 minutos, a altas taxas de captação foram observadas e, posteriormente, a saturação ocorreu. Os parâmetros associados com uma cinética de captura foram estudados para diferentes superfícies dos sensores. O sensor com uma superfície polida mostrou melhores resultados. Este trabalho mostra que os biosensores magnetoelásticos podem ser úteis para a detecção e quantificação de microrganismos. / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior. / Escherichia coli is a bacteria that must be controlled in the food industry and the hospital sector. Magnetoelastic biosensors offer the promise of rapid identification of these and other harmful pathogens. In this work, strips of amorphous Metglas 2826MB3 were cut to size (5 mm x 1 mm) with a micro-dicing saw and were then coated with thin layers of Cr and Au, as verified by Rutherford backscattering spectroscopy (RBS). Several sensor surfaces were studied: 1) as-cast strip, wheel side; 2) as-cast strip, free surface; 3) thinned and polished surface. A layer of Cystamine (CYS) was applied to the magnetoelastic substrate, forming a self-assembled monolayer (SAM), followed by antibodies, using a modified Hermanson protocol. For our Escherichia coli ATCC 25922, we used both a primary antibody anti E. coli and a secondary antibody Goat anti Rabbit IgG H&L Alexa Fluor 488. The cystamine layer growth was characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). The biosensors were exposed to solutions of bacteria and the resonant frequency of the sensors was measured with an Agilent E5061B impedance analyzer for times up to 100 minutes. Reductions in the resonant frequency, corresponding to bacteria capture, were measured after optimizing the signal amplitude. For times up to 40 minutes, high capture rates were observed and thereafter saturation occurred. Parameters associated with capture kinetics were studied for different sensor surfaces. The sensor with a polished surface was found the best results. This work shows that magnetoelastic biosensors may be useful for the detection and quantification of microorganisms.