Small wind turbines, and especially urban-mounted turbines which require no dedicated pole, have garnered great public enthusiasm in recent years. This enthusiasm has fueled widespread growth among energy conservationists, and estimates predict that the power produced nationally by small wind will increase thirty-fold by 2013. Unfortunately, most of the wind resources currently available have been designed for larger, rural-mounted turbines; thus, they are not well suited for this nascent market. A consequence of this is that many potential urban small wind turbine owners over-predict their local wind resource, which is both costly and inefficient. According to a recent study published by Encraft Ltd., small wind turbines mounted to buildings far underperformed their rural pole mounted counterparts. As a proposed solution to this problem, this project introduces the concept of a Web-based Wind Assessment System (WWAS). This system combines all the necessary resources for potential urban small wind turbine customers into a single web-based tool. The system also presents the concept of a modular wind measurement system, which couples with the WWAS to provide real-time wind data measurements. The benefits of the system include its ease of use, flexibility of installation, data accessibility from any web browser, and expert advice. The WWAS prevents potential clients from investing in a system that may not be viable for their location. In addition, a small wind turbine is designed in this project, which has a unique modular mounting system, allowing the same baseline wind turbine to attach to various structures using interchangeable mounting hardware. This includes such accessible urban structures as street lights, building corners, flag poles, and building walls, among others. This design also utilizes concepts that address some of the challenges associated with mounting small wind turbines to existing urban structures. These concepts include: swept tip blades and lower RPM to reduce noise; vibration suppression using rubber shims; a netted duct to protect wildlife; and a direct-drive permanent magnet generator to ensure low starting torque. Finally, the cost of this system is calculated using off-the-shelf components, which minimize testing and certification expense. This small wind turbine system is designed to be grid-connected, has a 6 foot diameter rotor, and is rated at 1 kW. This design features a unique modular interchangeable mounting system. The cost for this complete system is estimated to be $2,050. If a users' site has an average wind speed of 14 mph (6.5 m/s), this system will generate a return on investment in 8.5 years, leaving over 10 years of profit. The profit for this system, at this sample average wind speed, yields over $4,000 during its 20-year design life, which is a two-fold return on investment. This project has implications for various stakeholders in the small wind turbine market, including designers, engineers, manufacturers, and potential customers. Equally important is its potential role in guiding our future national--even global--energy agenda.

Gegenstand der vorliegenden Dissertation, die am Leibniz-Institut für Festkörper- und Werkstoffforschung (IFW) in Dresden durchgeführt wurde, sind die Herstellung und Analyse von supraleitenden Dünnschichten aus Seltenerd-Nickel-Borkarbiden, die mit einer biaxialen Vorzugstextur versehen sind. Dazu wurde am Beispiel von LuNi2B2C ein Prozessfenster für epitaktisches Wachstum dieser Materialien auf MgO(110)-Einkristallsubstraten definiert, wodurch im Vergleich zu früheren Arbeiten zu Dünnschichten aus Seltenerd-Nickel-Borkarbiden eine verbesserte Textur und eine höhere Schichtqualität erzielt wurde. Struktur, insbesondere die Ausbildung der biaxialen Textur, und Supraleitung der Schichten, insbesondere die Anisotropie des oberen kritischen Feldes in Abhängigkeit von Winkel und Temperatur, bilden die beiden Schwerpunkte der Untersuchungen. Als Ausblick wurde die Abscheidung von Seltenerd-Nickel-Borkarbid-Legierungsschichten am Beispiel von (HoxLu1-x)Ni2B2C demonstriert. Durch entsprechende Anpassung der Prozessparameter konnte, von LuNi2B2C ausgehend, die biaxiale Textur in den Legierungsdünnschichten weitgehend erhalten werden. Dies schafft als Ergänzung zur Kristallzucht eine attraktive Möglichkeit für zukünftige Untersuchungen dieser Materialien.

The aim of this thesis is to create collections of examples for the subject Astronomy taught for students of pedagogical faculties, studying this discipline as a part of physics courses. Due to very different mathematical knowledge of students I have chosen typical and not much difficult examples oriented to several branches of astronomy. Each part of examples begins with a self-contained theoretical introduction. The difficulty rises gradually from trivial to more complicated examples. The examples are mainly focused on motions in radial gravitational fields.

Between Text and Context: The Theory of the Literary Field and Cultural Materialism as Models of Mediation Josef Šebek, Mgr. Abstract In his dissertation Between Text and Context: The Theory of the Literary Field and Cultural Materialism as Models of Mediation the author deals with the problem of mediation between literary text and its social context. He focuses on two important contemporary context- oriented approaches to literature: the theory of literary field, developed by Pierre Bourdieu, and cultural materialism, first formulated by Raymond Williams and further elaborated by Alan Sinfield and Jonathan Dollimore. He interprets these two theories as basic, mutually complementary models of mediation: the theory of literary field presupposes the existence of a (semi-)autonomous literary micro-world, whereas cultural materialism stresses the full integration of the literary text into the social context, the "social material process" (Williams). After an introduction outlining the problem, the author concentrates on Bourdieu's theory of the literary field, his "new science of works," and on contemporary post-Bourdieusian approaches (those of Alain Viala, Anna Boschetti, Jacques Dubois, Gisèle Sapiro, Pascale Casanova, Bernard Lahire, Jérôme Meizoz, Geoffroy de Lagasnerie) which employ, develop, and modify...

This thesis is focused on succession in old fields in Central Europe. Repeated sampling, analysis of surrounding vegetation and soil measurements were conducted in the Bohemian Karst Landscape protected area. Samples from the Doupovské hory Mountains and the rest of the Czech Republic were added to discover basic principles of old field succession at the larger scale of landscapes.

Humic acids and humates are principal components of humic substances major organic constituents of soil, peat, coal and water around the world. I was involved in research into molecular dynamics simulations of interactions of quartz surfaces with aqueous solutions of ions and small organic molecules representing basic building blocks of larger biomolecules and functional groups of organic matter. We studied interactions of molecules with surfaces for a set of surface charge densities corresponding to the experimentally or environmentally relevant ranges of pH values employing molecular mechanics, molecular dynamics and ab initio techniques. Simulated quartz surfaces covered the range of surface charge densities 0.00, -0.03, -0.06 and -0.12 C-m-2, approximately corresponding to pH values 4.5, 7.5, 9.5 and 11. As model molecules, benzoic acid, phenol, o-salicylic acid and their conjugated bases were chosen. My task was to prepare topologies and parametric models of selected organic matter basic building blocks organic molecules. I focused on studying interactions of these molecules in an aqueous environment with mineral surface quartz. The aim was to process simulation results and analyse conformations of the adsorption complexes and their thermodynamic properties such as interaction energies, free energies and adsorption geometries.

This thesis describes a genetic approach for shaping the dynamic responses of linear state space systems through pole placement. This paper makes further comparisons between this approach and an island approach parallel genetic algorithm (PGA) which incorporates orthogonal mutation vectors to increase sub-population specialization and decrease convergence time. Both approaches generate a gain vector K. The vector K is used in state feedback for altering the poles of the system so as to meet step response requirements such as settling time and percent overshoot. To obtain the gain vector K by the proposed genetic approaches, a pair of ideal, desired poles is calculate first. Those poles serve as the basis by which an initial population is created. In the island approach, those poles serve as a basis for n populations, where n is the dimension of the necessary K vector. Each member of the population is tested for its fitness (the degree to which it matches the criteria). A new population is created each “generation” from the results of the previous iteration, until the criteria are met, or a certain number of generations have passed. Several case studies are provided in this paper to illustrate that this new approach is working, and also to compare performance of the two approaches.

Hlavním předmětem této diplomové práce jsou elektromagnetické simulace pomocí metody konečných prvků (FEM) k vyšetření vlivu grafenu na hrotem zesílenou Ramanovu spektroskopii (TERS) a povrchem zesílenou infračervenou absorpční spektroskopii (SEIRA) a k prozkoumání citlivosti sondy skenovacího optického mikroskopu blízkého pole (SNOM) ke složkám elektromagnetického pole v závislosti na parametrech sondy (průměru apertury v pokovení). Nejprve je proveden výpočet TERS systému složeného ze stříbrného hrotu nacházejícího se nad zlatým substrátem s tenkou vrstvou molekul, jehož účelem je porozumění principů TERS. Poté je na molekuly přidána grafenová vrstva, aby se prozkoumal její vliv ve viditelné (TERS) a infračervené (SEIRA) oblasti spektra. Druhá část práce se zabývá výpočty energiového toku SNOM hrotem složeným z pokoveného skleněného vlákna interagujícím s blízkým polem povrchových plasmonových polaritonů. Zde uvažujeme zlatou vrstvu se čtyřmi štěrbinami uspořádanými do čtverce na skleněném substrátu sloužícími jako zdroj stojatého vlnění povrchových plasmonů s prostorově oddělenými maximy složek elektrického pole orientovanými rovnoběžně či kolmo na vzorek. Ve výpočtech hrotem zesílené spektroskopie zjišťujeme, že grafen přispívá pouze malým dílem k zesílení pole ve viditelné oblasti spektra, ovšem v infračervené oblasti má grafen vliv pro záření s energií menší než dvojnásobek Fermiho energie grafenu, pro kterou je hodnota zesílení pole větší než v případě výpočtu bez grafenu. Avšak pro velmi vysoké vlnové délky zesílení pole v přítomnosti grafenu klesá pod (konstantní) hodnotu pro případ bez grafenu. Při studiu citlivosti SNOM hrotu k jednotlivým složkám pole shledáváme, že pro hrot se zlatým pokovením je energiový tok skleněným jádrem hrotu kombinací příspěvků energie prošlé aperturou a periodické výměny energie mezi povrchovým plasmonem šířícím se po vnějším okraji pokovení a mody propagujícími se v jádře. Dále zjišťujeme, že hroty s malou aperturou (či bez apertury) jsou více citlivé na složku elektrického pole orientovanou kolmo ke vzorku (rovnoběžně s osou hrotu), zatímco hroty s velkou aperturou sbírají spíše signál ze složky rovnoběžné s povrchem vzorku. V případě hrotu s hliníkovým pokovením jsou hroty citlivější ke složce pole rovnoběžné s povrchem, což je způsobeno slabším průnikem pole skrze pokovení.

Cílem diplomové práce je navrhnout konstrukční řešení držáků vzorků pro vysokofrekvenční elektron paramagnetickou resonanci. Předmětem návrhu je vytvořit jednoduchý zamykací systém pro spojování mikrovlnného vlnovodu a držáku vzorku. Dále navrhnout systém s řešením držáku pro více vzorků. Toto unikátní provedení držáku povede k několikanásobné úspoře celkového času měření vzorků. Poslední návrh spočívá v optimalizaci držáku vzorku s možností naklápění osy, kterou lze díky přímému napojení na piezoelektrický rotátor pootáčet s přesností na miliradiány. Oba typy držáku vzorku jsou navrženy s ohledem na automatizaci měření.

One of the main priorities of our society is to constantly increase the quality of life. Part of the new trends and technology is to optimize all factors affecting each individual in buildings at home, and in the work environment. Modern technology increasingly find inspiration in traditional materials and principles of architectural design. We can greatly affect the microclimate of buildings by suitable selection of material surfaces, ventilation systems and selection of structures that can affect the natural electromagnetic field of the Earth during the architectural design of buildings. And particular choice of the place where the building is located. In this thesis I focus on Ionic microclimate, which may be an indicator of a healthy environment and has a major impact on humans health and psychological well-being. I would like to contribute to the healthy and harmonious living and designing buildings in consideraion of sustainable development by my thesis.