Les différences interindividuelles observées dans les troubles du comportement sous alcool, notamment au cours d’épisodes impulsifs associés à des troubles de la mémorisation (ivresses pathologiques ou IP), pourraient s’expliquer en partie par l’existence de polymorphismes affectant des gènes-clé du métabolisme du tryptophane (Trp), celui-ci étant en effet le précurseur, non seulement de la sérotonine, neurotransmetteur impliqué dans le contrôle de l’impulsivité, mais aussi de la kynurénine et de ses dérivés, dont certains présentent des propriétés neuromodulatrices impliquées dans les phénomènes de mémorisation. Nos travaux ont ainsi consisté à (1) étudier l’hypothèse mécanistique des IP en relation avec un dysfonctionnement du métabolisme du Trp chez des patients alcoolodépendants (AD) présentant ou non une susceptibilité aux IP, (2) étudier les variabilités d’origine génétique de la voie des kynurénines, à l’origine de variations d’expression et/ou d’activité, (3) explorer les interactions entre la voie des kynurénines et les axes biologiques impliqués dans l’addiction à l’alcool dans un modèle animal de stress prénatal. Les principaux résultats de ces travaux ont permis de montrer (1) une différence significative de l’activité de la tryptophane-2,3-dioxygénase (TDO), enzyme catalysant la 1ère étape de la voie des kynurénines, entre les patients AD IP+ et IP-, (2) l’existence d’un polymorphisme génétique affectant les régions promotrices de TDO2 et d’IDO1, gènes-clé de la voie des kynurénines, (3) le rôle des éléments de réponse aux glucocorticoides (GRE) dans l’expression de TDO2, ainsi que l’impact de certains polymorphismes affectant ces GRE, et enfin (4) l’existence d’un élément de réponse de type LEF1, non précédemment décrit, dans le promoteur d’IDO1. L’ensemble de ces résultats confirme l’existence d’une variabilité d’origine génétique du métabolisme du Trp, potentiellement à l’origine d’une vulnérabilité individuelle aux troubles du comportement sous alcool. / Interindividual variability in ethanol-induced behavioural disorders, such as blackouts and violent impulsive behaviours (BOVIB) following binge drinking could partly be explained by polymorphisms in genes encoding enzymes and transporters of the tryptophan (Trp) catabolic pathway. Indeed, Trp is the precursor of serotonin, a neurotransmitter that modulates mood, cognition and impulsivity, and is also transformed into various kynurenine metabolites, most of them displaying neuroactive properties and being involved in cognitive and memory dysfunctions. The aims of our work were (1) to test the BOVIB hypothesis in relation with a dysregulation of Trp metabolism in alcohol-dependent (AD) patients with or without BOVIB history, (2) to analyse the genetic variability of the kynurenine pathway (KP) leading to variations in expression and/or activity of key enzymes, (3) to explore interactions between the KP and the main biological neuroendocrine systems involved in ethanol addiction, using a rodent model of prenatal stress. The main results of our study showed (1) a significant difference in the rate-limiting enzyme tryptophan 2,3-dioxygenase (TDO) activity between AD patients with or without BOVIB history, (2) the existence of polymorphisms in the promoter region of two key genes of the KP, TDO2 and IDO1, (3) the presence of functional Glucocorticoid Responsive Elements (GRE) in the promoter of TDO2 which might be affected by some of the polymorphisms identified, and (4) the identification of LEF-1 response elements in the IDO1 promoter. These findings support the genetic variability of the Trp metabolism, as well as its potential role in individual vulnerability to ethanol-induced behavioural disorders.

Po 11. září 2001 po útocích na USA se stal terorismus součástí života západních demokratických států. Samotným problémem je však chápání a výklad pojmu terorismus. Navíc je otázkou, jaký vliv má terorismus na ekonomiku států. Co se týká České republiky, není příliš mnoho teroristických cílů na jejím území, které by mohly v takovém rozsahu přímo ohrozit nejen hospodářství České republiky, ale i hospodářství okolních zemí a možná i celé Evropské unie, jako je sektor elektroenergetiky.

Po 11. září 2001 po útocích na USA se stal terorismus součástí života západních demokratických států. Samotným problémem je však chápání a výklad pojmu terorismus. Navíc je otázkou, jaký vliv má terorismus na ekonomiku států. Co se týká České republiky, není příliš mnoho teroristických cílů na jejím území, které by mohly v takovém rozsahu přímo ohrozit nejen hospodářství České republiky, ale i hospodářství okolních zemí a možná i celé Evropské unie, jako je sektor elektroenergetiky.

Due to rising standard of life in Taiwan, power consumption rose dramatically, power systems network are becoming complicated, thus serious impact increasingly. But for many Taipower on-site staffs, lack of blackout related experience and emergency plan. Therefore it is necessary to understand the weaknesses of Taipower systems and the cause and affect of accidental accidents over the years, to develop blackout emergency plan and minimum the loss. In July 29, 1999, Taiwan had occurred unprecedented collapse of the power transmission system in the midnight, caused the country blackouts, outages four-fifths of users in Taiwan, this was the biggest power rationing during the past 50 years. Then 921 Chichi earthquakes, Chung-Liao substation led to the dumping destroyed, caused more than two weeks of power rationing in northern Taiwan. Such comprehensive blackout in the high-tech industries economic pattern¡¦s country like ours, the losses caused of the economic impact is goes without saying. This Study is base on the ¡§Crisis Management¡¨ theory to explore the emergency response while the power outage occurs, and how to deal with the crisis issue. This thesis through data collected, literature review and in-depth interview results, analysis Taipower internal contingency handling mechanism through unpredicted natural disasters or artificial improper operation, intend for Taipower reference to construct a contingency mechanism for unexpected incident which triggered off a blackout accident.

Since the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear accident, there have been ongoing efforts to enhance the modelling capabilities for severe accidents in nuclear power plants. The primary severe accident analysis code used in Canada for its CANDU reactors is MAAP-CANDU (adapted from MAAP-LWR). In order to meet the new requirements that have evolved since Fukushima, upgrades to MAAP-CANDU have been made most recently by the Canadian nuclear industry. While the newest version (i.e. MAAP5-CANDU) offers several important improvements primarily in core nodalization and core collapse modelling, it still lacks mechanistic models for many key thermo-mechanical deformation phenomena that may significantly impact accident progression and event timings. It is also a general consensus that having alternative analysis tools is beneficial in improving our confidence in the simulation results, especially given the complex nature of severe accident phenomena in CANDU and the limited experimental support. This thesis seeks a novel approach to CANDU severe accident modelling by combining the best-estimate thermal-hydraulic code RELAP5, the severe accident models in SCDAP, and several CANDU-specific mechanistic deformation models developed by the author. This work mainly consists of two parts. The first part is focused on the assessment of natural circulation heat sinks following crash-cooldown in the early-phase of a Station Blackout (SBO) accident where fuel channel deformation can be precluded. The effectiveness of steam generator heat removal after crash-cooldown and that of the several water make-up options were demonstrated through the simulation of several SBO scenarios with/without crash-cooldown, sensitivity studies, as well as benchmarking against station and experimental measurements. In the second part, several mechanistic severe accident models were developed to enhance the simulation fidelity beyond the initial steam generator heat sink phase to the moderator boil-off and core disassembly phases. This includes models for predicting the pressure tube ballooning and sagging phenomena during the fuel channel heat-up phase and models for the sagging and disassembly of fuel channel assemblies during the core disassembly phase. After benchmarking against relevant channel deformation experiments, the models were successfully integrated into the RELAP/SCDAPSIM/MOD3.6 code as part of the SCDAP subroutines. The advantage of utilizing a code such as SCDAP is that generic models for fission product release and hydrogen generations, which are well benchmarked, can be directly applied to CANDU simulations. With the modified MOD3.6 code the early-phase SBO simulations were extended to include the later stages of SBO until the calandria vessel dryout. The current modelling approach replaced the simple threshold-type models commonly seen in the integrated severe accident codes such as MAAP-CANDU with more mechanistic models thereby providing a more robust treatment of the core degradation process during severe accident in CANDU. / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Ombord på fartyg är det inte önskvärt att få strömavbrott, en så kallad blackout. Examensarbetet har undersökt i vilken utsträckning det är möjligt att utföra jämförande och förebyggande studier med haverirapporter från europeiska flaggstater som underlag. Detta för att undersöka återkommande brister, på fartyg eller i arbetet ombord som har orsakat blackout. Dessutom har även möjligheterna till att kunna kategorisera fallen undersökts. Kategorierna var tekniskt fel, operativt fel och organisationsfel. I ungefär häften av fallen gick det inte att kategorisera en blackout till ett fel, eftersom det annars var en kombination av fel. Däremot finns återkommande fel där händelseförloppen är väldigt lika. Till exempel var heta ytor inte korrekt isolerade, vilket resulterade i brand vid bränsleläckage. Undersökningen visar att det finns en bristfällig symmetri i rapporteringen av haveri med avseende på språk, struktur, omfattning och publiceringsform. Brister fanns även på sökfunktionerna i databaserna. / On board vessels it is not desirable to have a power failure, a so-called blackout. The thesis has investigated to what extent it is feasible to perform comparative and preventive studies with the accident reports from European flag states as a basis. This in order to investigate recurring shortcomings, of the vessels or in the work on board that has caused the blackout. In addition the possibility to categorize the cases was investigated. The categories were technical errors, operational errors and organization errors. Roughly half of the cases show that a single category of fault could not be identified due to a combination of faults leading to the blackout. However there are recurring cases with almost identical scenarios. For example unsatisfactory insulation caused fires due to leaking fuel hitting the hot surfaces. The survey shows that there is a lack of symmetry regarding the language used, structure, scope and form of publication. It also showed faults in the search engines of the databases.

ITC/USA 2007 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-Third Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 22-25, 2007 / Riviera Hotel & Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / As a vehicle reenters or flies at hypersonic speed through the atmosphere, the surrounding air is shock heated and becomes weakly ionized. The plasma layer thus formed causes a communication problem known as ‘radio blackout’. At sufficiently dense plasma conditions, the plasma layer either reflects or attenuates radio wave communications to and from the vehicle. In this paper, we propose an electromagnetic field configuration as a method to allow communication through the plasma layer. Theoretical models show that this may address the blackout problem under a range of conditions. Preliminary experimental results are also presented.

The title of my thesis is The impact of the electric power outage in the Pardubice region. Danger, coming from prolonged power outage, as the one area of critical infrastructure, is large and has extensive implications, since electricity has been currently necessary for human civilization and its existence. In the Czech Republic, the critical infrastructure is addressed in Act no. 240/2000 Coll., on crisis management and amending certain acts, where the Council Directive 2008/114 / EC on the identification and designation of European Critical Infrastructures and the assessment of needs to improve their protection was applied to this law. I decided to write a thesis about the impact of a power outage, because I have been very interested in the issue of blackouts and I think it is a very important up-to-date topic. I chose the area of Pardubice region because I come from this region, so I am personally attached to this area. In the first part, I decided to introduce critical infrastructure, its legislative grounding and protection, there is also description of electrical energy, its production, transmission and distribution. Finally, I dealt with replacement power sources, energy security and blackout in the theoretical part. I used basic scientific procedures: analysis and synthesis or induction and deduction for the needs of my thesis. The aim of the thesis, was to use research part to map the effects of the power outage in the Pardubice region. I chose a qualitative data collection and interviews with experienced professionals in the crisis management as a method of my research. The research question was: "Which of the consequences of the power outage is essential to conversely marginal?". The evaluation of the research was done by SWOT analysis, which identifies strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats in the Pardubice region in the event of a power outage. The results of the thesis will be provided to the Fire Rescue Service of the Pardubice region, which can use these data in crisis planning. The thesis will also be used as study material for students of the University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice.

Med en stark kapitalmarknad i ryggen ser vi fler börsnoteringar än någonsin i Sverige. Vi undersöker möjligheten att utnyttja känd information i samband med utgången av börsnoteringarnas blackout period i syfte att uppnå positiv marknadsjusterad avkastning. Undersökningen görs i form av en eventstudie där vi undersöker marknadsjusterad avkastning innan, under och efter utgången av blackout period. Vi finner en positiv marknadsjusterad avkastning i förhållande till jämförelseindex under en tidsperiod tio dagar innan till två dagar innan blackout periods utgång om 2,9%, men däremot är den inte statistiskt signifikant. Våra resultat tyder inte heller på att en signifikant marknadsjusterad avkastning förekommer under eller efter utgången av blackout period.

En studie om medveten memorering av harmonik inom klassiskt pianospel. Arbetet bygger på observationer av en tolv veckors lång instuderingsprocess, sett i relation till ett urval av tidigare litteratur och forskning inom området. Studien har i syfte att ge en djupare bild och förståelse av memoreringens påverkan vid konsertsituationen samt vilka fördelar respektive nackdelar det kan finnas med medveten memorering av harmonik. För att uppnå syftet tar studien utgångspunkt i tre frågeställningar. Frågeställningarna berör medveten memorering av harmonik som metod att instudera ett stycke, vilka fördelar och nackdelar det kan få samt om det kan hjälpa en musicerande att känna sig tryggare på scen. Som blivande lärare hoppas jag att detta dels ska hjälpa mig vid egna uppspel men också att jag ska kunna förmedla en bra memoreringsmetod till de elever som jag kommer att möta under min tid som lärare. / A study about conscious memorization of harmony in classical piano playing. The study is based on observations of a twelve week period and on chosen literature from previous research in this field. The purpose of the study is to get a deeper knowledge and understanding in how memorizing can effect the results at a performance and also what other benefits and disadvantages there could be. The study has as a starting point three questions. These questions are about memorization of harmonics as a method to learn a music piece, the benefits and disadvantages with conscious memorization and also if a pianist can feel safer on stage after consciously memorizing harmony. As a future teacher I hope this study will help me with my own performances and also the pupils that I will teach and meet during my professional work as a musicteacher.