This research presented in this study demonstrates that county level population growth, economic growth, and localized social structure are interrelated. An analysis of the spatial distribution of these factors in the Southeast Region of the United States during the period of 1995-2000 also indicates the importance of differences in rural versus urban and coastal versus non-coastal areas as well as the importance of such factors as highways, large cities, and universities in economic, population, and social structure interrelationships. An extensive dataset is used in the analysis as a number of analysis tools including statistical analysis, econometric models, spatial econometric models, structural equation models, and GIS mapping.

Obwohl wir sie oft nicht bewusst wahrnehmen, sind Nanopartikel heutzutage in den meisten Bereichen unseres Alltags präsent, unter anderem in Lebensmitteln und ihren Verpackungen, Medizin, Medikamenten, Kosmetik, Pigmenten und in elektronischen Geräten wie Computermonitoren. Ein Großteil dieser Partikel weist, beabsichtigt oder unbeabsichtigt, eine Kern-Schale Morphologie auf. Einfachheitshalber wird diese Morphologie eines Kern-Schale-Nanopartikels (CSNP) oft als ideal angenommen, d.h. als ein sphärischer Kern, der komplett von einer Schale homogener Dicke bedeckt ist, mit einer scharfen Grenzfläche zwischen Kern- und Schalenmaterial. Außerdem wird vielfach auch davon ausgegangen, alle Partikel der Probe hätten gleiche Schalendicken. Tatsächlich weichen die meisten realen CSNPs in verschiedenster Weise von diesem Idealmodell ab, mit oft drastischen Auswirkungen darauf, wie gut sie ihre Aufgabe in einer bestimmten Anwendung erfüllen. Das Thema dieser kumulativen Doktorarbeit ist die exakte Charakterisierung der wirklichen Morphologie von CSNPs mit modernen Röntgen-basierten Methoden, konkret Röntgen-Photoelektronen-Spektroskopie (XPS) und Raster-Transmissions-Röntgen-Mikroskopie (STXM). Der Fokus liegt insbesondere auf CSNPs, die von einer idealen Kern-Schale-Morphologie abweichen. Aufgrund der enormen Vielfalt an CSNPs, die sich in Material, Zusammensetzung und Form unterscheiden, kann eine Messmethode nicht völlig unverändert von einer Probe auf eine andere übertragen werden. Nichtsdestotrotz, da die als Teil dieser Doktorarbeit präsentierten Artikel eine deutlich ausführlichere Beschreibung der Experimente enthalten als vergleichbare Publikationen, stellen sie eine wichtige Anleitung für andere Wissenschaftler dafür dar, wie aussagekräftige Informationen über CSNPs durch Oberflächenanalytik erhalten werden können. / Even though we often do not knowingly recognize them, nanoparticles are present these days in most areas of our daily life, including food and its packaging, medicine, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, pigments as well as electronic products, such as computer screens. The majority of these particles exhibits a core-shell morphology either intendedly or unintendedly. For the purpose of practicability, this core-shell nanoparticle (CSNP) morphology is often assumed to be ideal, namely a spherical core fully encapsulated by a shell of homogeneous thickness with a sharp interface between core and shell material. It is furthermore widely presumed that all nanoparticles in the sample possess the same shell thickness. As a matter of fact, most real CSNPs deviate in several ways from this ideal model with quite often severe impact on how efficiently they perform in a specific application. The topic of this cumulative PhD thesis is the accurate characterization of the actual morphology of CSNPs by advanced X-ray analytical techniques, namely X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and scanning transmission X-ray microscopy (STXM). A special focus is on CSNPs which deviate from an ideal core-shell morphology. Due to the vast diversity of nanoparticles differing in material, composition and shape, a measurement procedure cannot unalteredly be transferred from one sample to another. Nevertheless, because the articles in this thesis present a greater depth of reporting on the experiments than comparable publications, they constitute an important guidance for other scientists on how to obtain meaningful information about CSNPs from surface analysis.

Many Climate Scientists believe that global warming will produce more extreme weather events such as tropical storms, hurricanes, intense rainfall, and flooding. These events are considered to be the most catastrophic natural events for transportation systems especially in coastal areas. Due to the severe damage from storm surge and flooding. Evaluating the magnitude of possible storm surges and their impacts on transportation systems in coastal areas is fundamental to developing adaptation plans and impact assessments to mitigate the damage. This thesis focuses on existing transportation systems in the Georgia coastal area that could be affected by several storm surges. An existing storm surge model is used to estimate the storm surges and the surge heights based on the category, direction, and forward speed of a storm. The ground elevation of the ports, interstates, state roads, railroads, and the principal airports on the Georgia coast are identified through a GIS analysis using the national elevation data set. Having the storm surge elevation and the elevation of the existing infrastructure, a GIS study is performed to identify those parts of the transportation system that will be affected by each type of storm giving results such as the length or sections of transportation assets under or above the surge elevation. A literature review of storm surge, rising sea levels, and their impacts on coastal bridges, roads, airports, ports, and railroads is presented in the thesis. Also, a description of the software used to analyze and estimate the impacts of climate change on transportation systems is described.

No description available.

Seit 2010 werden die Geobasisprodukte „Amtliche Hausumringe“ und „Amtliche Hauskoordinaten“ (auch georeferenzierte Adressdaten genannt) – geometrische Teilauszüge der Automatisierten Liegenschaftskarte (ALK) – von der Zentralen Stelle für Hauskoordinaten, Hausumringe und 3D-Gebäudemodelle (ZSHH) der Bezirksregierung Köln für länderübergreifende oder bundesweite Untersuchungen angeboten. Erstmals sind dadurch umfassendere Untersuchungen zum deutschen Gebäudebestand möglich und Ausdifferenzierungen nach Menge, geometrischer Eigenschaften (u. a. Gebäudetyp) sowie seiner Nutzung durchführbar. Das Analysepotenzial ist aber noch weitaus größer, da sowohl auf administrativer Ebene als auch auf Rasterebene räumliche Muster für unterschiedliche thematische Fragestellungen abbildbar werden. Das raumbezogene Informationsinstrument Monitor der Siedlungs- und Freiraumentwicklung (IÖR-Monitor) ist eine wissenschaftliche Dienstleistung des Leibniz-Instituts für ökologische Raumentwicklung und stellt seit 2012 auch Gebäudeindikatoren auf Grundlage dieser Katasterdaten bereit. In diesem Beitrag werden dazu erste Arbeitsergebnisse vorgestellt.

Main goal of this master´s thesis is to propose and implement improvements to an original purely raster version of Flame Painter editor. An enhancement of the undo/redo system with emphasise to its functionality and memory requirements has been implemented. Moreover, the editor was extended by adding an ability to edit brush strokes using vector primitives which effectively assist the user in future stroke editing. This project was created in cooperation with employees of the Escape Motions Company.

Seit 2010 werden die Geobasisprodukte „Amtliche Hausumringe“ und „Amtliche Hauskoordinaten“ (auch georeferenzierte Adressdaten genannt) – geometrische Teilauszüge der Automatisierten Liegenschaftskarte (ALK) – von der Zentralen Stelle für Hauskoordinaten, Hausumringe und 3D-Gebäudemodelle (ZSHH) der Bezirksregierung Köln für länderübergreifende oder bundesweite Untersuchungen angeboten. Erstmals sind dadurch umfassendere Untersuchungen zum deutschen Gebäudebestand möglich und Ausdifferenzierungen nach Menge, geometrischer Eigenschaften (u. a. Gebäudetyp) sowie seiner Nutzung durchführbar. Das Analysepotenzial ist aber noch weitaus größer, da sowohl auf administrativer Ebene als auch auf Rasterebene räumliche Muster für unterschiedliche thematische Fragestellungen abbildbar werden. Das raumbezogene Informationsinstrument Monitor der Siedlungs- und Freiraumentwicklung (IÖR-Monitor) ist eine wissenschaftliche Dienstleistung des Leibniz-Instituts für ökologische Raumentwicklung und stellt seit 2012 auch Gebäudeindikatoren auf Grundlage dieser Katasterdaten bereit. In diesem Beitrag werden dazu erste Arbeitsergebnisse vorgestellt.

Advanced scanning magnetoresistive microscopy (SMRM) — a robust magnetic imaging and probing technique — is presented. It utilizes conventional recording heads of a hard disk drive as sensors. The spatial resolution of modern tunneling magnetoresistive sensors is nowadays comparable with more commonly used magnetic force microscopes. Important advantages of SMRM are the ability to detect pure magnetic signals directly proportional to the out-of-plane magnetic stray field, negligible sensor stray fields, and the ability to apply local bipolar magnetic field pulses up to 10 kOe with bandwidths from DC up to 1 GHz. The performance assessment of this method and corresponding best practices are discussed in the first section of this work. An application example of SMRM, the study on chemically ordered L10 FePt is presented in a second section. A constructed heater unit of SMRM opens the path to investigate temperature-dependent magnetic properties of the medium by recording and imaging at elevated temperatures. L10 FePt is one of the most promising materials to reach limits in storage density of future magnetic recording devices based on heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR). In order to be implemented in an actual recording scheme, the medium Curie temperature should be lowered. This will reduce the power requirements, and hence, wear and tear on a heat source — integrated plasmonic antenna. It is expected that the exchange coupling of FePt to thin Fe layers provides high saturation magnetization and elevated Curie temperature of the composite. The addition of Cu allows adjusting the magnetic properties such as perpendicular magnetic anisotropy, coercivity, saturation magnetization, and Curie temperature. This should lead to a lowering of the switching field of the hard magnetic FeCuPt layer and a reduction of thermally induced recording errors. In this regard, the influence of the Fe layer thickness on the switching behavior of the hard layer was investigated, revealing a strong reduction for Fe layer thicknesses larger than the exchange length of Fe. The recording performance of single-layer and bilayer structures was studied by SMRM roll-off curves and histogram methods at temperatures up to 180 °C In the last section of this work, SMRM advantages are demonstrated by various experiments on a two-dimensional magnetic vortex lattice. Magnetic vortex is a peculiar complex magnetization configuration which typically appears in a soft magnetic structured materials. It consists of two coupled sub-systems: the core, where magnetization vector points perpendicular to the structure plane, and the curling magnetization where magnetic flux is rotating in-plane. The unique properties of a magnetic vortex making it an object of a great research and technological interest for spintronic applications in sensorics or data storage. Manipulation of the vortex core as well as the rotation sense by applying a local field pulse is shown. A spatially resolved switching map reveals a significant "write window" where vortex cores can be addressed correctly. Moreover, the external in-plane magnet extension unit allow analyzing the magnetic vortex rotational sense which is extremely practical for magnetic coupling investigations of magnetic coupling phenomena.

This thesis deals with an object surface analysis in a simple scene represented by two-dimensional raster image. It summarizes the most common methods used within this branch of information technology and explains both their advantages and drawbacks. It introduces the design of an surface profile analysis algorithm based on the lighting analysis using knowledge and experiences from previous work. It contains a detailed description of the implemented algorithm and discusses the experimental results. It also brings up options for the possible enhancement of the projected algorithm.

Though ferroelectric HfO₂ thin films are now well characterized, little is currently known about their grain substructure. In particular, the formation of domain and phase boundaries requires investigation to better understand phase stabilization, switching, and phase interconversion. Here, scanning transmission electron microscopy is applied to investigate the atomic structure of boundaries in these materials. It is found that orthorhombic/orthorhombic domain walls and coherent orthorhombic/monoclinic interphase boundaries form throughout individual grains. The results inform how interphase boundaries can impose strain conditions that may be key to phase stabilization. Moreover, the atomic structure near interphase boundary walls suggests potential for their mobility under bias, which has been speculated to occur in perovskite morphotropic phase boundary systems by mechanisms similar to domain boundary motion.