<p>In many spatio-temporal applications a vector of covariates is measured alongside a spatio-temporal response. In such cases, the purpose of the statistical model is to quantify the change, in expectation or otherwise, in the response due to a change in the predictors while adequately accounting for the spatio-temporal structure of the response, the predictors, or both. The most common approach for building such a model is to confine the relationship between the response and the predictors to a single spatio-temporal coordinate. For spatio-temporal problems, however, the relationship between the response and predictors may not be so confined. For example, spatial models are often used to quantify the effect of pollution exposure on mortality. Yet, an unknown lag exists between time of exposure to pollutants and mortality. Furthermore, due to mobility and atmospheric movement, a spatial lag between pollution concentration and mortality may also exist (e.g. subjects may live in the suburbs where pollution levels are low but work in the city where pollution levels are high).</p><p>The contribution of this thesis is to propose a hierarchical modeling framework which captures complex spatio-temporal relationships between responses and covariates. Specifically, the models proposed here use kernels to capture spatial and/or temporal lagged effects. Several forms of kernels are proposed with varying degrees of complexity. In each case, however, the kernels are assumed to be parametric with parameters that are easily interpretable and estimable from the data. Full distributional results are given for the Gaussian setting along with consequences of model misspecification. The methods are shown to be effective in understanding the complex relationship between responses and covariates through various simulated examples and analyses of physical data sets.</p> / Dissertation

This thesis deals with complex analysis of fine-grained magnesium alloy AZ91 prepared by ECAP process. Mechanical properties of investigated alloy in different states at various external conditions are compared. The structure of this material is inherently unstable therefore changes on microstructural and sub-microstructural level occur during thermal exposure and/or mechanical loading. These changes are analysed and quantified for investigated alloy in selected states in this thesis.

The aim of this work was to study the separate effect of fission fragment damage on the structural integrity and matrix dissolution of uranium dioxide in water. Radiation damage similar to fission damage was created by irradiating bulk undoped and doped ‘SIMFUEL’ disks of UO2, undoped bulk CeO2 and thin films of UO2 and CeO2 with high energy Xe and U ions. The UO2 thin films, with thicknesses in the range of 90 – 150 nm, were deposited onto (001), (110) and (111) orientations of single crystal LSAT (Al10La3O51Sr14Ta7) and YSZ (Yttria-Stabilised Zirconia) substrates. The CeO2 thin films were deposited onto single crystal silicon (001) substrates. Part of the bulk UO2 and CeO2 samples, the thin films of UO2 on the LSAT substrates and the thin films of CeO2 were irradiated with 92 MeV 129Xe23+ ions to a fluence of 4.8 × 1015 ions/cm2 to simulate the damage produced by fission fragments in uranium dioxide nuclear fuel. Part of the bulk UO2 and CeO2 samples and the thin films of UO2 on the YSZ substrates were irradiated with 110 MeV 238U31+ ions to a fluence of 5 × 1010, 5 × 1011 and 5 × 1012 ions/cm2 to study the accumulation of the damage induced. The irradiated and unirradiated samples were studied using scanning electron microscopy (SEM), focused ion beam (FIB), atomic force microscopy (AFM), energy dispersive X-ray (EDX) spectroscopy, electron probe microanalysis (EPMA), X-ray diffraction (XRD), electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD), secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) techniques to characterise the as-produced samples and assess the effects of the ion irradiations. Dissolution experiments were conducted to assess the effect of the Xe ion irradiation on the dissolution of the thin film UO2 samples on the LSAT substrates and the bulk and thin film CeO2 samples. The solutions obtained from the leaching of the irradiated and unirradiated samples were analysed using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS). XRD studies of the bulk UO2 samples showed that the ion irradiations resulted in an increased lattice parameter, microstrain and decreased crystallite size, as expected. The irradiated UO2 thin films on the LSAT substrates underwent significant microstructural and crystallographic rearrangements. It was shown that by irradiating thin films of UO2 with high energy, high fluence ions, it is possible to produce a structure that is similar to a thin slice through the high burn-up structure. It is expected that the ion irradiation induced chemical mixing of the UO2 films with the substrate elements (La, Sr, Al, Ta). As a result, a material similar to a doped SIMFUEL with induced radiation damage was produced.