This thesis researches the efficacy of binaural beats for the treatment of chronic non-tumoral pain. The thesis is divided into theoretical and empirical part. The theoretical part discusses the impact of chronic pain on quality of life, psychological aspects of chronic pain and the changes in behaviour. The focus is on the treatment of chronic pain and its limitations. Binaural beats are presented as a new tool for treatment of chronic pain. The empirical part consists of the experiment focused on the effect of theta rhythm binaural beats on participants with chronic non-tumoral pain. The experiment was conducted at Klinika rehabilitace a tělovýchovného lékařství 2.LF UK a FNM. The sample size was 90 participants (N=90). Participants were divided into two groups- with intervention and without intervention. Participants with intervention listened binaural beats for 20 minutes, three times on average during their hospitalization. VAS, GAD- 7, BDI-II, TSK-CZ, Oswestry Disability Index and Emotion Thermometers methods were used. The first measurement took place before the hospitalization, the second before the intervention with binaural beats, then immediately after the intervention and at the end of hospitalization. The main aim of this study was to investigate the efficacy of binaural beats in...

The building sector is one of the largest energy consumers and there are global efforts toward sustainable and energy-efficient new buildings and existing buildings retrofit. The application of Building Information Modelling (BIM) in environmental assessment was practiced and studied following the increasing number of projects adopting the BIM workflows and pursuing green building certifications. The interest of this thesis is to study the use of different Building Information Modelling tools used globally for energy and environmental assessment to examine their practical benefits and challenges. Case studies of two primary school buildings that achieved the Swedish Miljöbyggnad system were used to compare what could have been achieved with Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) categories of energy and atmosphere and indoor environmental quality to what has been achieved in similar Miljöbyggnad areas. A review and summary of energy and atmosphere and indoor environmental categories in the LEED version 4 user’s guide is presented to evaluate the case study potential score in them. The early adoption of modeling in the evaluation from the conceptual design is the best approach to achieve better performance. It will improve the way of working and result in a more efficient and sustainable building. The Building Information Modelling software can be used directly in assessment using the integrated modules within the popular authoring tools such as Revit’s lighting and Insight the cloud base service or by transferring the model data to a stand-alone tool like IDA-ICE. The energy plug-ins of the authoring tools such as Revit are still lacking full control over the analytical model and the limited input options. The identified and discussed advantages of Building Information Modelling implementation are collaboration, accuracy, time, and cost saving. Data exchange issues, knowledge, and the differences in assessment tools were discussed as implementation barriers. Although the full comparison of certification systems is difficult, the comparison between the potential LEED score and achieved Miljöbyggnad rating showed some differences and similarities in the rating systems. The comparison requires rearranging the rating system indicators into unified categories. The framework that compares the scope, structure, content, and aggregation, would give a meaningful comparison. The way that the LEED and Miljöbyggnad are rewarding the indicators and the aggregation of aspects towards the final rating is totally different.

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Over the last decade, education-focused research/studies on young queers (or same-sex attracted young people) have highlighted the many problems or difficulties they face growing up in a homophobic, heterosexist society. Strategies to address these issues (proposed in numerous research articles and reports) have largely focused on the school setting. I argue that these strategies are limited by heterosexual norms, which regulate and contain in advance what is possible (for queers) within the formal school system. I examine the ways in which these heterosexual norms work to constrain the queer subject in education-focused research and studies on young queers. / Within this field of study, young queers have largely been characterized as victims: of homophobic abuse and harassment, and neglect by families and schools. They’re said to be lonely and isolated, at risk of attempted suicide, unsafe sex, drug and alcohol abuse, and homelessness. I argue that these representations convey a negative portrait of young queers as wounded subjects. I illustrate how the emphasis on the wounded queer subject can work against the interests of young queers. In particular, it obscures those queer perspectives involving agency: first, queer cultures and communities; second, the knowledge and experiences of those who have gained confidence in their queerness, who have queer social and sexual lives. These (agentic) queers can offer us ways of understanding how young queers move beyond isolation and loneliness. / This study highlights the importance, for many young queers, of having opportunities and spaces where they can connect with each other. Socialization and sexualization among young queers involves a certain openness being and doing queer a practice which is unintelligible within most education-focused research/studies on young queers. This is illustrated and explored through comparative analysis of queer subjectivities in two differentiated spheres: on the one hand education-focused research and studies relating to the school context, and on the other gay/lesbian/queer studies and literature relating to queer social and sexual contexts. The key contexts and themes examined here are: early sexual experience and beats, queer cultures and communities, and queer youth support and social groups.

As infrastructures and software grow in complexity the need to keep track of things becomes important. It is the job of log aggregation solutions to condense log data into a form that is easier to search, visualize, and analyze. There are many log aggregation solutions out there today with various pros and cons to fit the various types of data and architectures. This makes the choice of selecting a log aggregation solution an important one. This thesis analyzes two full-stack log aggregation solutions, Elastic stack and SigNoz, with the goal of evaluating how the ingestion and storage components of the two stacks perform with smaller and larger amounts of data. The evaluation of these solutions was done by ingesting log files of varying sizes into them while tracking their performance. These performance metrics were then analyzed to find similarities and differences. The thesis found that SigNoz featured a higher CPU usage on average, faster processing times, and lower memory usage. Elastic stack was found to do more processing and indexing on the data, requiring more memory and storage space to allow for more detailed searchability of the ingested data. This also meant that there was a larger storage space requirement for Elastic stack than SigNoz to store the ingested logs. The hope of this thesis is that these findings can be used to provide insight into the area and aid those choosing between the two solutions in making a more informed decision.

Ein Sturz ist ein Ereignis, das jeder Mensch im Laufe seines Lebens mehrfach erfährt, ob als Kind, Jugendlicher, Erwachsener oder Senior. Was sich über die Lebensspanne ändert, sind die durch Stürze verursachten Folgen. Gerade bei älteren Menschen sind diese oft schwerwiegend. Auf Grund der demographischen Entwicklung kommt der Altersgruppe der Senioren und dem Thema Sturz eine gestiegene Bedeutung zu. Stürze stellen eine große Gefahr für den Selbständigkeitserhalt im Alter dar. Deren Folgen wirken sich nicht nur auf den physischen Bereich aus sondern sehr häufig auch auf den psychischen und sozialen, was einer multifaktoriellen und ganzheitlichen Betrachtungsweise und Analyse bedarf. Das neuartige Ganzkörpererlebnis Drums Alive, in seiner auf die Zielgruppe Senioren ausgerichteten Version Golden Beats, wurde auf seine Wirkungen und Effekte in Bezug auf Sturzprävention im Rahmen eines Modellprojektes mit dem Ansatz einer randomisierten kontrollierten Längsschnittstudie evaluiert. Um zu überprüfen, inwieweit die Intervention Effekte bzgl. der Parameter Sturzanzahl und –häufigkeit (Stolpern, Fallen, Stürzen), Kraftfähigkeit, Gleichgewicht, Mobilität, habituelle Ganggeschwindigkeit, Sturzangst, soziale Indikatoren, körperliche Aktivität und Sinnesfunktionen hervorzurufen vermag, wurde ein zehnwöchiges (20 Einheiten) Interventionsprogramm mit einer Interventions- und Kontrollgruppe durchgeführt. Die Ergebnisse der Studie mit älteren Menschen mit einem niedrigen bis moderaten Sturzrisiko zeigen unmittelbare und längerfristig günstige Wirkungseffekte für die Parameter Stolperhäufigkeit, Gleichgewichtsfähigkeit, motorische Mobilität, intensive körperliche Aktivität sowie für eine verbesserte Einschätzung der sturzrelevanten Sinnesfunktionen. Für die Parameter Sturzhäufigkeit, Kognition und Angst vor Stürzen, die betrachteten sozialen Indikatoren, die Dimensionen leichte, moderate und gesamte körperliche Aktivität sowie die Parameter Kraftfähigkeit und habituelle Ganggeschwindigkeit konnten weder kurz- noch langfristig positive Veränderungen konstatiert werden.

Ein Sturz ist ein Ereignis, das jeder Mensch im Laufe seines Lebens mehrfach erfährt, ob als Kind, Jugendlicher, Erwachsener oder Senior. Was sich über die Lebensspanne ändert, sind die durch Stürze verursachten Folgen. Gerade bei älteren Menschen sind diese oft schwerwiegend. Auf Grund der demographischen Entwicklung kommt der Altersgruppe der Senioren und dem Thema Sturz eine gestiegene Bedeutung zu. Stürze stellen eine große Gefahr für den Selbständigkeitserhalt im Alter dar. Deren Folgen wirken sich nicht nur auf den physischen Bereich aus sondern sehr häufig auch auf den psychischen und sozialen, was einer multifaktoriellen und ganzheitlichen Betrachtungsweise und Analyse bedarf. Das neuartige Ganzkörpererlebnis Drums Alive, in seiner auf die Zielgruppe Senioren ausgerichteten Version Golden Beats, wurde auf seine Wirkungen und Effekte in Bezug auf Sturzprävention im Rahmen eines Modellprojektes mit dem Ansatz einer randomisierten kontrollierten Längsschnittstudie evaluiert. Um zu überprüfen, inwieweit die Intervention Effekte bzgl. der Parameter Sturzanzahl und –häufigkeit (Stolpern, Fallen, Stürzen), Kraftfähigkeit, Gleichgewicht, Mobilität, habituelle Ganggeschwindigkeit, Sturzangst, soziale Indikatoren, körperliche Aktivität und Sinnesfunktionen hervorzurufen vermag, wurde ein zehnwöchiges (20 Einheiten) Interventionsprogramm mit einer Interventions- und Kontrollgruppe durchgeführt. Die Ergebnisse der Studie mit älteren Menschen mit einem niedrigen bis moderaten Sturzrisiko zeigen unmittelbare und längerfristig günstige Wirkungseffekte für die Parameter Stolperhäufigkeit, Gleichgewichtsfähigkeit, motorische Mobilität, intensive körperliche Aktivität sowie für eine verbesserte Einschätzung der sturzrelevanten Sinnesfunktionen. Für die Parameter Sturzhäufigkeit, Kognition und Angst vor Stürzen, die betrachteten sozialen Indikatoren, die Dimensionen leichte, moderate und gesamte körperliche Aktivität sowie die Parameter Kraftfähigkeit und habituelle Ganggeschwindigkeit konnten weder kurz- noch langfristig positive Veränderungen konstatiert werden.

本文旨從語用和語音方面，來探討中文「敘述性」言談(narrative discourse)對話中，說話者自然產生的節拍手勢。在語用方面，主要是觀察說話者使用節拍手勢表達前後景(Grounding)和新/舊訊息(Information state)的關係。研究結果發現，說話者較常使用節拍手勢來傳達前景(foreground)的新訊息，以提示聽話者注意。此外，說話者在敘述的過程中，常使用節拍手勢來預示前後景訊息的轉換。在語音方面，主要探討說話者使用節拍手勢時，其所對應的語句之音調高低及說話能量強度的關係。研究發現，語句的音高和強度無法預測這類手勢的產生；但是，當傳達前景的新訊息時，這類手勢的出現常伴隨著較強的語氣。此外，研究結果也顯示，說話者使用節拍手勢通常是有規律性的。 / This thesis investigates gestural beats in Chinese narrative discourse at both pragmatic and acoustic levels. The relationship among grounding, information state and beat gestures is examined at the pragmatic level, and at the acoustic level, the relationship among pitch, intensity, and gestural beats is analyzed. Moreover, whether there is a rhythmic pattern for beat gestures is further studied. The subjects were four undergraduates who were asked to view an animated color cartoon episode and then to immediately recount the events in it to a listener. The subjects were audio-video taped. They were not informed of the particular interest of the study. 291 beats were transcribed and analyzed. The audio data was analyzed on Praat and a Kay’s Model 4100. The continuous beats were further analyzed to investigate the rhythmic patterns and were annotated in Anvil, a video annotation tool. Gestural beats, narrative data, and the annotations were statistically analyzed and five phenomena for beat gestures were explored. First, gestural beats can appear in both foregrounded and backgrounded clauses. Second, the occurrence of beat gestures signals shifts between levels of the narrative structure. Third, speakers usually incline to utter new information in foregrounded clauses in Chinese narrative discourse with accompanying beats. Fourth, neither intensity nor pitch changes can predict and correlate with the occurrence of gestural beats in the relationship between beats and two acoustic factors. However, when grounding and the information state of the associated referents are considered, beats are produced for new information in foregrounded clauses with greater intensity. Finally, there is a rhythmic pattern in the production of continuous beats and the regularity of the patterns correlates with the clause boundary. A close relationship is revealed between speech and gestures in this thesis. The findings provide some linguistic details that may help explore the performance of gestural beats and speech in Chinese narrative discourse.

In this thesis, a joint experimental and theoretical investigation of the vector properties that describe the inelastic scattering of a diatomic radical with an atomic collision partner is presented. A particular emphasis is placed on those correlations that include the final rotational angular momentum, j', of the radical. The depolarisation of both NO(A) and OH(A) brought about through collisions with krypton has been studied, providing a measure of the j-j' correlation, where j is the initial rotational angular momentum associated with the diatom. The total depolarisation cross- sections for both collisional disorientation and disalignment have been measured using quantum beat spectroscopy, and modelled theoretically using quasi-classical trajectory (QCT) calculations. The agreement between experiment and theory for NO(A)-Kr is excellent, but is not observed for OH(A)-Kr under thermal conditions. This has been attributed to the importance of electronic quenching in OH(A)-Kr. The depolarisation cross-sections have also been determined at a higher collision energy for OH(A)-Kr where electronic quenching is less significant, and the experimental results are in better agreement with those obtained theoretically. The NO(A)-Kr depolarisation cross-sections fall with increasing rotational quantum number, N, whereas for OH(A)-Kr, they exhibit less of an N dependence. This trend is mirrored in the elastic depolarisation cross-sections, which have also been determined experimentally for OH(A)-Kr. The significantly attractive and anisotropic nature of the OH(A)-Kr potential energy surface (PES) accounts for these observations. The j-j' correlation is extended to include the initial (relative) velocity (k) in a new theoretical treatment of the k-j-j' correlation. The formalism developed is used with the results from the QCT calculations for NO(A)-Kr and OH(A)-Kr to provide further insight into the mechanism of depolarisation in the two systems. Collisions of NO(A) with krypton do not cause significant depolarisation due to their impulsive nature, and the projection of j onto the kinematic apse is conserved. In contrast, collisions of OH(A) with krypton effectively randomise the direction of j, again showing the influence of the anisotropic and attractive nature of the PES. However, the projection of j onto the kinematic apse is still conserved. The inelastic scattering of NO(X) with argon and krypton has also been investigated, using a crossed molecular beam apparatus. The initial Λ-doublet state of the NO(X) was selected using hexapole focussing, and the products of the collision detected using velocity mapped ion imaging. The state to state differential cross-sections (equivalent to the k-k' correlation, where k' is the final relative velocity) have been measured for collisions which conserve the initial spin-orbit level of the NO(X) with krypton. The same parity dependent effects were seen as have been observed previously for NO(X)-Ar. The collision induced alignment (equivalent to the k-k'-j' correlation) of NO(X) as a result of scattering with argon has also been determined experimentally. The results can be explained classically by considering the conservation of the projection of j onto the kinematic apse.

New dynamical applications of quantum beat spectroscopy (QBS) to molecular dynamics are employed to probe the angular momentum polarization effects in photodissociation and molecular collisions. The magnitude and the dynamical behaviour of angular momentum alignment and orientation, two types of polarization, can be measured via QBS technique on a shot-by-shot basis. The first part of this thesis describes the experimental studies of collisional angular momentum depolarization for the electronically excited state radicals in the presence of the collider partners. Depolarization accompanies both inelastic collisions, giving rise to rotational energy transfer (RET), and elastic collisions. Experimental results also have a fairly good agreement with the results of quasi-classical trajectory scattering calculations. Chapter 1 provides the brief theories about the application of the QBS technique and collisional depolarization. Chapter 2 describes the method and instrumentation employed in the experiments of this work. In Chapter 3, the QBS technique is used to measure the total elastic plus elastic depolarization rate constants under thermal conditions for NO(A,v=0) in the presence of He, Ar, N2, and O2. In the case of NO(A) with Ar, and particularly with He, collisional depolarization is significantly smaller than RET, reflecting the weak long-range forces in these systems. In the case of NO(A)+N2/O2, collisional depolarization and RET are comparable, reflecting the relatively strong long-range forces in these systems. In Chapter 4, the QBS technique is used to measure the elastic and inelastic depolarization and total RET rate constants for OH(A,v=0) under thermal conditions in the presence of He and Ar, as well as the total depolarization rate constants under superthermal conditions. In the case of OH(A)+He, elastic depolarization is sensitive to the N rotational state, and inelastic depolarization is strongly dependent on the collision energy. In the case of OH(A)+Ar, elastic depolarization is insensitive to N, and inelastic depolarization is less sensitive to the collision energy, reflecting that the relatively strong long-range force in OH(A)+Ar system. The second part of this thesis describes the experimental studies of photodissociation under thermal conditions. Chapter 5 provides a brief introduction about several polarization parameter formalisms used for photodissociation, and the incorporation of the QBS technique to measure these polarization parameters. In this thesis, most polarization parameters of the molecular photofragments are measured using the LIF method, and the QBS technique is used as a complementary tool to probe these polarization parameters. In Chapter 6, rotational orientation in the OH(X,v=0) photofragments from H2O2 photodissociation using circularly polarized light at 193 nm is observed. Although H2O2 can be excited to both the A and B electronic states by 193 nm, the observed orientation is only related to the A state dynamics. A proposed mechanism about the coupling between a polarized photon and the H2O2 parent rotation is simulated, and the good agreement between the experimental and simulation results further confirms the validity of this mechanism. In Chapter 7, rotational orientation in the NO(X,v) photofragments from NO2 photodissociation using circularly polarized light at 306 nm (v=0,1,2) and at 355 nm (v=0,1) is observed. Two possible mechanisms, the parent molecular rotation and the coherent effect between multiple electronic states, are discussed. NOCl is photodissociated using circularly polarized light at 306 nm, and NO(X,v) rotational distributions (v=0,1) and rotational orientation (v=0) are measured. For the case of NOCl, the generation of orientation is attributed to the coherent effect.