In this study the formation of supported membranes onto planar solid supports has been investigated. The stability and activity of reconstituted membrane receptors has been studied. The potential use of such preparations in biosensor applications is discussed. The lipid films were made by the Langmuir Blodgett and by the liposome fusion techniques. These supported films were characterised by ellipsometry, atomic force microscopy, surface plasmon resonance (SPR) and resonant mirror techniques. The thickness of the films was in agreement with that of a cell membrane. The kinetics of formation of the lipid films was studied and discussed. The proteins, bacteriorhodopsin, cytochrome oxidase, acetylcholinesterase and the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor were reconstituted into the supported membrane. The subsequent analysis showed that the proteins were individually distributed and that the activity was retained, in some cases for several weeks after immobilisation. The glycolipids, GM1, GM2, GD1b, asialo-GM1, globotriaosylceramide, lactosylceramide and galactosylceramide, were also reconstituted into the supported membranes. Their specific interaction with the toxin ricin or with its B-chain was examined using SPR. The affinity of intact toxin and of its B-chain differed markedly and was pH dependent. The carbohydrate chain length and charge density of the glycolipids also influenced the affinity.

Over the past decade, fusion research has showed the potential of being a main candidate for energy production for future generations. Further advances in improved fusion performance are therefore vital. This thesis focuses on advanced fusion plasma scenarios and their diagnostic requirements. In particular the design of a motional Stark effect (MSE) diagnostic at the MAST spherical tokamak and the analysis of magneto-hydrodynamic mode feedback control and pulsed poloidal current drive (PPCD) at the reversed field pinch (RFP) experiment EXTRAP T2R are discussed. The MSE diagnostic is important for the determination of the plasma current profile, information that is necessary for studies in advanced confinement scenarios like reversed shear profiles or current holes. The MAST MSE system has two channels and selects the spectral components using 1Å FWHM interference filters. The diagnostic has been commissioned during the fall of 2006 and the results show the feasibility of the technique with rms-noise ~0.5° using a time resolution of 1 ms. Investigations of mirror labyrinths for the future ITER MSE diagnostic highlight the need for careful calibration considerations. Feedback control and PPCD are techniques for improved confinement. Feedback control dramatically decreases impurity influx at the end of discharges while transport in the bulk plasma is largely unaffected. During PPCD the transport is seen to decrease and it is demonstrated that PPCD and feedback control can be employed simultaneously. New and innovative techniques for fusion spectroscopy are furthermore described. This includes the use of correlations in line integrated signals to determine ion emission profiles in poloidally symmetric environments. Good agreement with other diagnostic methods is obtained. The assessment of electron temperature profiles using measured differences between Thomson scattering and vacuum ultra-violet spectroscopy is also shown. / QC 20100907

This thesis report is focused on the growth of Pt/Mg multilayers and the studies of the sputter yield amplification effect in these. The main application is to use the multilayers as X-ray mirrors reflecting an X-ray wavelength of 17 Å. This wavelength is important for astronomical applications in general, and solar imaging applications in particular. For periodic X-ray multilayer mirrors only a certain specific wavelength of X-rays can be reflected. What wavelength that is reflected depends on the individual layer thicknesses of the materials that are constituting the multilayer. These thicknesses can be determined using modified Bragg’s law and are approximately a quarter of the wavelength. In order to obtain the exact desired layer thickness of each individual layer it is necessary to understand the growth processes and the effects that are going on during deposition of such multilayer mirrors. It has been shown that when depositing multilayers consisting of one very light and one very heavy material, like e.g. Pt and Mg, the deposition rate of the light element is non-linear with deposition time for thin layers. This is because of backscattered energetic neutrals from the heavy target material, which affects the growing film. Furthermore, a sputter yield amplification is present for thin layers when a light element is grown on top of a heavy element, i.e. for Mg on top of Pt. Dual DC magnetron sputtering has been used to grow the Pt/Mg multilayers, and the influence of the backscattered energetic neutrals and the sputter yield amplification effect has been studied for Ar and Kr sputtering gases at pressures ranging from 3 up to 9 mTorr. The individual layer thicknesses have been obtained from simulations of hard X-ray reflectivity measurements using the IMD program. The number of backscattered energetic neutrals and their energies at the target have been calculated using the TRIM code. Using the results obtained it is now possible to predict and compensate for the non-linear deposition rate of Mg.

Il razionale di questo progetto affonda le sue radici nelle recenti teorie che considerano il linguaggio come fondato sull’azione, e quindi strettamente collegato al sistema motorio. Negli ultimi decenni, infatti, la scoperta dei neuroni specchio, prima nella scimmia e poi negli esseri umani, ha portato ad un filone di ricerca spesso denominato “embodied language”. Grazie alle metodiche messe a disposizione dalle neuroscienze, ad oggi sono stati raccolti molti dati sperimentali a favore del legame tra sistema motorio e linguaggio, anche se la natura di questo legame non è del tutto chiara. In questa prospettiva, in aggiunta ai tradizionali strumenti di indagine come la Risonanza Magnetica Funzionale (fMRI) o la Stimolazione Magnetica Transcranica (TMS), anche la Realtà Virtuale (RV), che consente di provare un’”esperienza incorporata”, sembra possa aiutare i ricercatori a far luce sulle questioni ancora aperte. Il presente progetto, quindi, si compone di tre ricerche distinte, ciascuna delle quali pone ad oggetto di indagine una sfaccettatura diversa del complesso fenomeno dell’embodied language. Il primo esperimento è finalizzato ad indagare il ruolo della corteccia motoria primaria nei compiti di comprensione, utilizzando la rTMS; nel secondo esperimento viene introdotta la realtà virtuale per valutare se e come un’azione virtuale, grazie a un processo di simulazione, modula la comprensione di verbi; il terzo studio, infine, usando lo stesso ambiente virtuale del secondo studio, si propone di indagare il ruolo dell’azione virtuale durante l’apprendimento di una lingua straniera. / The rational of this project is rooted in the recent theories that consider language as grounded in action, and thus tightly tied to the motor system. In the last decades, the discovery of the mirror neurons in monkeys, and of the correspondent mirror neuron system in humans, led to a new research topic often called “embodied language”. Thanks to the methodics supplied by neuroscience, nowadays a great corpus of experimental data has been collected that support the link between language and motor system, even if the nature of this link is still not completely understood. In this perspective, beyond traditional tools such as Functional Magnetic Resonance (fMRI) or Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS), also Virtual reality (RV), which allows to create an embodied experience, seems suitable to shed light on the open questions. The present project, thereby, is structured in three independent researches, each one aiming at investigating one specific facet of the complex phenomenon of embodied language. The first experiment is designed to investigate the role of the primary motor cortex during language comprehension, using rTMS; in the second one, the virtual reality is introduced, in order to test if and how a virtual action, thanks to simulation, modulates verbs comprehension; the third study, finally, using the same virtual environment, aims at examining the role of the virtual action during foreign language learning.

For many years, theorists have turned to popular movies and books to help interpret the difficult principles of Jacques Lacan. However, one story that has gotten very little attention is Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and its derivative body of film adaptations. Both the novella and Rouben Mamoulian’s 1931 film are a small part of an intertextual body of work which contains scenes that play out the Lacanian principles of the mirror stage and the gaze very well. Since art imitates life, an in depth exploration of the way that these scenes play out can illuminate how Lacan’s abstract theories might look in the real life formation of identity and in male/female relations.

My thesis is a critical essay thematically focused on the fate of the body in the postmodern condition. In this thesis a fundamental question is posed: What happens to the (postmodern) body under the double pressure of postmodern technology and culture? Is the postmodern body altered under the pressure of postmodern technology and culture? How contemporary thought and architecture impact the body will also be examined. This thesis discusses the above questions through several key concepts such as exilic conditions, heterotopias and ‘trans’ states of being. After elaborating on these issues, this thesis attempts to design an architectural project “Hamam Complex” on a unique natural island in the Bosporus strait that separates the Western and Eastern worlds.

In this thesis, a parsimoniously parameterized digital predistorter is derived for linearization of the IQ modulation mismatch and the amplifier imperfection in the signal generator [1]. It is shown that the resulting predistorter is linear in its parameters, and thus they may be estimated by the method of least-squares. Spectrally pure signals are an indispensable requirement when the signal generator is to be used as part of a test bed. Due to the non-linear characteristic of the IQ modulator and power amplifier, distortion will be present at the output of the signal generator. The device under test was the IQ modulation mismatch and power amplifier deficiencies in the signal generator. In [2], the dynamic range of low-cost signal generators are improved by employing model based digital pre-distortion and the designed predistorter seems to give some improvement of the dynamic range of the signal generator. The goal of this project is to implement and verify the theory parts [1] using data program (Matlab) to improve the dynamic range of the signal generator. The design digital pre-distortion that is implemented in software so that the dynamic range of the signal generator output after predistortion is superior to that of the output prior to it. In this project, we have observed numerical problems in the proposed theory and we have found other methods to solve the problem. The polynomial model is commonly used in power amplifier modeling and predistorter design. However, the conventional polynomial model exhibits numerical instabilities when higher order terms are included, we have used the conventional and orthogonal polynomial models. The result shows that the orthogonal polynomial model generally yield better power amplifier modeling accuracy as well as predistortion linearization performance then the conventional polynomial model.

My thesis is a critical essay thematically focused on the fate of the body in the postmodern condition. In this thesis a fundamental question is posed: What happens to the (postmodern) body under the double pressure of postmodern technology and culture? Is the postmodern body altered under the pressure of postmodern technology and culture? How contemporary thought and architecture impact the body will also be examined. This thesis discusses the above questions through several key concepts such as exilic conditions, heterotopias and ‘trans’ states of being. After elaborating on these issues, this thesis attempts to design an architectural project “Hamam Complex” on a unique natural island in the Bosporus strait that separates the Western and Eastern worlds.

The limiting behavior of weighted paths associated with the semidefinite program (SDP) map $X^{1/2}SX^{1/2}$ was studied and some applications to error bound analysis and superlinear convergence of a class of primal-dual interior-point methods were provided. A new approach for solving large-scale well-structured sparse SDPs via a saddle point mirror-prox algorithm with ${cal O}(epsilon^{-1})$ efficiency was developed based on exploiting sparsity structure and reformulating SDPs into smooth convex-concave saddle point problems. An iterative solver-based long-step primal-dual infeasible path-following algorithm for convex quadratic programming (CQP) was developed. The search directions of this algorithm were computed by means of a preconditioned iterative linear solver. A uniform bound, depending only on the CQP data, on the number of iterations performed by a preconditioned iterative linear solver was established. A polynomial bound on the number of iterations of this algorithm was also obtained. One efficient ``nearly exact' type of method for solving large-scale ``low-rank' trust region subproblems was proposed by completely avoiding the computations of Cholesky or partial Cholesky factorizations. A computational study of this method was also provided by applying it to solve some large-scale nonlinear programming problems.

This dissertation concerns quasistatic torsional mirror's for optical applications. The intended main area of application is the use as switch in optical network's, replacing the conventional optical-electro-optical conversation. With these actuator's a new concept of electrostatic actuation has been realised. While the drive electrodes are integrated into the deflectable mirror, the whole counter electrode below the mirror plate remains at equal ground potential. The device is manufactured out of two parts using method's of silicon bulk mikro machining. A deflectable mirror plate, torsional spring's and the surrounding support structure are fabricated within the thin device layer at the top of BSOI material. The counter electrode is manufactured out of a highly doped silicon wafer. Both part's are assembled together by adhesive bonding at die level at the end. Since the driving potential is supplied to the mirror plate and the counter electrode is at ground level, lateral tolerances because of device assembly mismatches does not appear with the use of the new concept. In detail the mirror plate itself is divided into two seperate electrodes by a parallel arrangement of filled isolating trenches. The highly doped device layer provides electrical connection via the torsional spring's to the mirror electrodes. A quasistatic torsional actuation is performed if a dc-voltage is applied between one mirror side and the counter electrode. Several design's have been fabricated. The lateral dimension of the torsional mirror plate vary from 0,5 mm to 2,0 mm. The designed characteristic frequencies vary from 0,5 to 3 kHz. For quasistatic actuation the pull in angle vary from 1 to 5 degree and the pull in voltage goes up to several hundred volts. Accessorily the mirror plate is enclosed by a comb drive structure. So that the device could be used for low voltage resonant actuation or an capacitive position read out becomes feasible. Within this thesis the new concept has been verified and functionality has been demonstrated. Depending on their characteristic frequency, devices are suitable to perform quasistatic actuation within 10 ms. Experiments indicated that the electrical isolation damages irreversible at drive voltage's above 400 volt. It limits the maximum deflection of nearly all design's. At prototype actuators repeatability has been studied. No drift was observed in the static characteristic within several cycles for certain designs. Closed-loop position control is not mandatory for the actuators fabricated within this thesis. Mechanical stress inside the mirror plate causes deformation of the reflective surface larger than permitted by optical criteria. This paves the way for further device optimization, yield improvement and system integration.