The objective of this dissertation is to understand the structural and optoelectronic properties of group III-nitride materials grown by High-Pressure Metal Organic Chemical Vapor Deposition (HP-MOCVD) and Migration Enhanced Plasma Assisted MOCVD by FTIR reflectance spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction, and Atomic Force Microscopy. The influence of the substrates/templates (Sapphire, AlN, Ga-polar GaN, N-polar GaN, n-GaN, and p-GaN) on the free carrier concentration, carrier mobility, short-range crystalline ordering, and surface morphology of the InN layers grown on HP-MOCVD were investigated using those techniques. The lowest carrier concentration of 7.1×1018 cm-3 with mobility of 660 cm2V-1s-1 was found in the InN film on AlN template, by FTIR reflectance spectra analysis. Furthermore, in addition to the bulk layer, an intermediate InN layers with different optoelectronic properties were identified in these samples. The best local crystalline order was observed in the InN/AlN/Sapphire by the Raman E2 high analysis. The smoothest InN surface was observed on the InN film on p-GaN template. The influence of reactor pressures (2.5–18.5 bar) on the long-range crystalline order, in plane structural quality, local crystalline order, free carrier concentration, and carrier mobility of the InN epilayers deposited on GaN/sapphire by HP-MOCVD has also been studied using those methods. Within the studied process parameter space, the best material properties were achieved at a reactor pressure of 12.5 bar and a group-V/III ratio of 2500 with a free carrier concentration of 1.5x1018 cm-3, a mobility in the bulk InN layer of 270 cm2 V-1s-1 and the Raman (E2 high) FWHM of 10.3 cm-1. The crystalline properties, probed by XRD 2θ–ω scans have shown an improvement with the increasing reactor pressure. The effect of an AlN buffer layer on the free carrier concentration, carrier mobility, local crystalline order, and surface morphology of InN layers grown by Migration-Enhanced Plasma Assisted MOCVD were also investigated. Here, the AlN nucleation layer was varied to assess the physical properties of the InN layers. This study was focused on optimization of the AlN nucleation layer (e.g. temporal precursor exposure, nitrogen plasma exposure, and plasma power) and its effect on the InN layer properties.

Fluoroquinolones (FQ) are broad-spectrum charged antimicrobials exhibiting excellent tissue/fluid permeation. Thus, FQ disposition depends essentially on active transport and facilitative diffusion. Although most early transporter studies investigating renal elimination of FQs have focused on apical efflux of FQs from renal proximal tubule cell (RPTC) into urine, their basolateral uptake mechanism(s) from blood into RPTC (i.e., first step to tubular secretion) has not yet been explored in detail. Renally expressed SLC22 members: organic anion (OATs) and cation (OCTs) transporters are known to transport such small organic ionic substrates (molecular weight ~400 Da). Hence it is of interest to explore the role of these basolateral transporters in renal elimination of FQs, and to further quantitatively assess their impact in clinically observed FQ drug-drug interactions (DDI). An initial systematic review of clinical literature for FQs (n=18) demonstrated substantial differences among their renal clearance (CLren~46-fold) and unbound renal clearance (CLrenu~20-fold), and suggested that tubular secretion and reabsorption could be major determinants of FQ half-life, efficacy, and DDIs. FQs (n=13) identified from the above review were investigated by in-vitro transport studies using stably transfected cell lines, for potential interactions with organic cation [human (h) OCT1, hOCT2 and hOCT3] and anion [mouse (m) and hOAT3, hOAT1; and hOAT4] transporters. Further, kinetic inhibition studies were conducted to determine inhibition potency (Ki/IC50 values) for those FQs exhibiting significant OCT/OAT inhibition in preliminary interaction experiments. Gatifloxacin, moxifloxacin, prulifloxacin, and sparfloxacin were determined to be competitive inhibitors of hOCT1 with Ki = 250±18, 161±19, 136±33, and 94±8 μM, respectively. Moxifloxacin competitively inhibited hOCT3-mediated uptake, Ki = 1,598±146 μM. Enoxacin, fleroxacin, levofloxacin, lomefloxacin, moxifloxacin, prulifloxacin, and sparfloxacin exhibited competitive inhibition for mOat3 with Ki = 396±15, 817±31, 515±22, 539±27, 1356±114, 299±35, 205±12 μM, respectively. Fleroxacin and pefloxacin were found to inhibit hOAT1 with IC50 = 2228±84 and 1819±144 respectively. Despite expression in enterocytes, hepatocytes, and RPTC, hOCT3 does not appear to contribute significantly to FQ disposition. However, due to hepatic and potential RPTC expression, hOCT1 could play an important role in elimination of these antimicrobials. Among renally expressed OATs in humans, hOAT1 and hOAT3 are likely to be involved in FQ elimination.

This thesis deals with those issues in regulation of international air carriage, which are in the centre of interest of passengers. Author focuses on two key legal instruments establishing different regimes of air carrier's liability. The first one is the Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules for International Carriage by Air, also known as the Montreal Convention. The second is European regulation no. 261/2004, also known as the Air Passengers' Rights Regulation. The key question is whether these liability regimes are completely separate or they overlap. After introductory chapter, Chapter 2 follows, dealing with historical development of legal regulation in the field of air carriage liability. Evolution of the so called Warsaw system is described and the Montreal Convention and some of the most important European regulations are presented. Next chapter focuses on theoretical aspects of air carrier's liability in the light of Czech civil law jurisprudence. These findings are applied both to the Montreal Convention and to the regulation no. 261/2004. Provisions of the Montreal Convention are examined in Chapter 4. Scope of application as well as the most problematic terms such as "accident" or "bodily injury" are discussed. Some well known courts' findings are presented to demonstrate how...

We present an improved model of charge carrier photogeneration in π-conju- gated polymers with weak intermolecular interactions based on the model of Arkhipov. It includes quantum effects affecting the creation of charge transfer states, which occurs as an intermediate step in the free charge carrier photo- generation process. The electrostatic potential between the electron and the hole and transfer integrals needed for the calculation of the potential barrier for the charge transfer state dissociation are calculated quantum-chemically. We apply our model on experimental data of the charge carrier photogenera- tion efficiency in poly[1-trimethylsilylphenyl,2-phenyl]acetylene to explain its dependence on applied electric field. We eliminate several problems of the previous model. We are able to fit experimental data with just one set of parameters in the whole interval of the applied electric field. We do not have to consider several intervals of the electric field separately as in the previous work and reduce the number of needed parameters to three. Key words π-conjugated polymers, charge carrier photogeneration, photoconductivity 1

Selected legal issues of international passenger transport The topic of the diploma thesis is 'selected legal issues of international passenger transport'. The aim of the thesis is to analyse the issues of substantive law related to the liability of carriers and rights of passengers in the international rail, road and air transport. The thesis focuses on applicable legislation of liability of carriers and rights of passengers, but also deals with the legislation proposed pro futuro. The diploma thesis is divided into seven chapters, further divided into subchapters. In the introduction the thesis defines the term 'international passenger transport' and summarises its key legal sources. Further, it addresses the conflict of law rules applicable to the contract on international passenger transport. The core of the thesis is in the following chapters that deal with the direct substantive rules governing the liability of carriers and rights of passengers in individual types of transport, which are contained especially in multilateral international conventions and secondary legislation of the European Union. The conclusion of the thesis summarises and assesses the analysed legal issues in the researched legislation. The first, opening chapter contains the introduction to the topic of legislation related...

An experimental investigation of the electronic transport properties of bismuth telluride nanocomposite materials is presented. The primary transport measurements are electrical conductivity, Seebeck coefficient and Hall effect. An experimental apparatus for measuring Hall effect and electrical conductivity was designed, constructed and tested. Seebeck coefficient measurements were performed on a commercial instrument. The Hall effect and Seebeck coefficient measurements are two of the most important tools for characterizing thermoelectric materials and are widely used in the semiconductor industry for determining carrier types, carrier concentration and mobility. Further, these transport parameters are used to determine the thermal to electrical conversion efficiency of a thermoelectric material. The Boltzmann transport equation was used to analyze the Seebeck coefficient, carrier mobility and electrical conductivity as a function of carrier concentration for eleven samples. The relationship between the electronic transport and material/composite composition is discussed.

A thesis submitted in ful lment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the School of Electrical and Information Engineering Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment June 2017 / The realization of robust, reliable and e cient data transmission have been the theme of recent research, most importantly in real channel such as the noisy, fading prone power line communication (PLC) channel. The focus is to exploit old techniques or create new techniques capable of improving the transmission reliability and also increasing the transmission capacity of the real communication channels. Multi-carrier modulation scheme such as Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) utilizing conventional single-carrier modulation is developed to facilitate a robust data transmission, increasing transmission capacity (e cient bandwidth usage) and further reducing design complexity in PLC systems. On the contrary, the reliability of data transmission is subjected to several inhibiting factors as a result of the varying nature of the PLC channel. These inhibiting factors include noise, perturbation and disturbances. Contrary to the Additive White Gaussian noise (AWGN) model often assumed in several communication systems, this noise model fails to capture the attributes of noise encountered on the PLC channel. This is because periodic noise or random noise pulses injected by power electronic appliances on the network is a deviation from the AWGN. The nature of the noise is categorized as non-white non-Gaussian and unstable due to its impulsive attributes, thus, it is labeled as Non-additive White Gaussian Noise (NAWGN). These noise and disturbances results into long burst errors that corrupts signals being transmitted, thus, the PLC is labeled as a horrible or burst error channel. The e cient and optimal performance of a conventional linear receiver in the white Gaussian noise environment can therefore be made to drastically degrade in this NAWGN environment. Therefore, transmission reliability in such environment can be greatly enhanced if we know and exploit the knowledge of the channel's statistical attributes, thus, the need for developing statistical channel model based on empirical data. In this thesis, attention is focused on developing a recon gurable software de ned un-coded single-carrier and multicarrier PLC transceiver as a tool for realizing an optimized channel model for the narrowband PLC (NB-PLC) channel. First, a novel recon gurable software de ned un-coded single-carrier and multi-carrier PLC transceiver is developed for real-time NB-PLC transmission. The transceivers can be adapted to implement di erent waveforms for several real-time scenarios and performance evaluation. Due to the varying noise parameters obtained from country to country as a result of the dependence of noise impairment on mains voltages, topology of power line, place and time, the developed transceivers is capable of facilitating constant measurement campaigns to capture these varying noise parameters before statistical and mathematically inclined channel models are derived. Furthermore, the single-carrier (Binary Phase Shift Keying (BPSK), Di erential BPSK (DBPSK), Quadrature Phase Shift Keying (QPSK) and Di erential QPSK (DQPSK)) PLC transceiver system developed is used to facilitate a First-Order semi-hidden Fritchman Markov modeling (SHFMM) of the NB-PLC channel utilizing the e cient iterative Baum- Welch algorithm (BWA) for parameter estimation. The performance of each modulation scheme is evaluated in a mildly and heavily disturbed scenarios for both residential and laboratory site considered. The First-Order estimated error statistics of the realized First- Order SHFMM have been analytically validated in terms of performance metrics such as: log-likelihood ratio (LLR), error-free run distribution (EFRD), error probabilities, mean square error (MSE) and Chi-square ( 2) test. The reliability of the model results is also con rmed by an excellent match between the empirically obtained error sequence and the SHFMM regenerated error sequence as shown by the error-free run distribution plot. This thesis also reports a novel development of a low cost, low complexity Frequency-shift keying (FSK) - On-o keying (OOK) in-house hybrid PLC and VLC system. The functionality of this hybrid PLC-VLC transceiver system was ascertained at both residential and laboratory site at three di erent times of the day: morning, afternoon and evening. A First and Second-Order SHFMM of the hybrid system is realized. The error statistics of the realized First and Second-Order SHFMMs have been analytically validated in terms of LLR, EFRD, error probabilities, MSE and Chi-square ( 2). The Second-Order SHFMMs have also been analytically validated to be superior to the First-Order SHFMMs although at the expense of added computational complexity. The reliability of both First and Second-Order SHFMM results is con rmed by an excellent match between the empirical error sequences and SHFMM re-generated error sequences as shown by the EFRD plot. In addition, the multi-carrier (QPSK-OFDM, Di erential QPSK (DQPSK)-OFDM) and Di erential 8-PSK (D8PSK)-OFDM) PLC transceiver system developed is used to facilitate a First and Second-Order modeling of the NB-PLC system using the SHFMM and BWA for parameter estimation. The performance of each OFDM modulation scheme in evaluated and compared taking into consideration the mildly and heavily disturbed noise scenarios for the two measurement sites considered. The estimated error statistics of the realized SHFMMs have been analytically validated in terms of LLR, EFRD, error probabilities, MSE and Chi-square ( 2) test. The estimated Second-Order SHFMMs have been analytically validated to be outperform the First-Order SHFMMs although with added computational complexity. The reliability of the models is con rmed by an excellent match between the empirical data and SHFMM generated data as shown by the EFRD plot. The statistical models obtained using Baum-Welch to adjust the parameters of the adopted SHFMM are often locally maximized. To solve this problem, a novel Metropolis-Hastings algorithm, a Bayesian inference approach based on Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) is developed to optimize the parameters of the adopted SHFMM. The algorithm is used to optimize the model results obtained from the single-carrier and multi-carrier PLC systems as well as that of the hybrid PLC-VLC system. Consequently, as deduced from the results, the models obtained utilizing the novel Metropolis-Hastings algorithm are more precise, near optimal model with parameter sets that are closer to the global maxima. Generally, the model results obtained in this thesis are relevant in enhancing transmission reliability on the PLC channel through the use of the models to improve the adopted modulation schemes, create adaptive modulation techniques, develop and evaluate forward error correction (FEC) codes such as a concatenation of Reed-Solomon and Permutation codes and other robust codes suitable for exploiting and mitigating noise impairments encountered on the low voltage NB-PLC channel. Furthermore, the recon gurable software de ned NB-PLC transceiver test-bed developed can be utilized for future measurement campaign as well as adapted for multiple-input and multiple-output (MIMO) PLC applications. / MT2018

Liability of the carrier in international carriage of goods with respect to road carriage Abstract The content of this thesis is carrier's liability in international carriage of goods focused on carriage of goods by road, which is one of the crucial branches of carriage for landlocked states. The introducing part explains basic terms which are common in international carriage, defines subjects participating in the carriage and its possible plurality. Moreover, the thesis presents individual types of carriage and a specific chapter is dedicated to cabotage. The second part of the thesis describes both international and national legislation of carriage contract. This part includes the relation between these two from the private international law point of view. Different types of contracts are also mentioned as another possibility of carriage. Common interpretation is enclosed in the third part with issues of liability from legal doctrine perspective. This part also analyses particular presumptions in generating of liability and differences among strict liability and liability for fault. The liability of the carrier as a main point of this thesis is expanded in the adjacent passage. Fundamental types of carrier's liability for loss or damage of goods as well as for any delay in delivery are found in the fourth...

With increasing global energy demand and diminishing fossil fuel supplies, the development of clean and affordable renewable energy technology is more important than ever. Photovoltaic devices harvest the sun’s energy to produce electricity and produce very little pollution compared to nonrenewable sources. In order to make these devices affordable, however, technological advances are required. In this dissertation a novel photovoltaic device architecture that is designed to enhance sunlight-to-electricity conversion efficiency of photovoltaics is proposed and demonstrated. The increase in efficiency arises due to enhancement of the internal quantum efficiency of photoexcitation in the semiconductor absorber. In other words, the probability that the absorption of a single photon will produce two or more electron-hole pairs, instead of just one, is increased. This occurs through the process of impact ionization, by which a highly excited charge carrier (via absorption of a high energy photon) relaxes by excitation of a second electron-hole pair. The result is an increased photocurrent, and efficiency, of the photovoltaic device. Using thin films of ZnS on Si substrates, we demonstrate that the probability of impact ionization is enhanced at the (unbiased) heterojunction between these layers. The magnitude of enhancement depends on material properties, including crystallinity of the ZnS film as well as concentration of oxygen (impurity) at the interface. Thin films of ZnSe on Si substrates do not exhibit heterojunction-assisted impact ionization, but they do display promising characteristics that make them an intriguing system for future work. The same is true for ZnS/Si materials fabricated by O2-free chemical bath deposition. For the analysis of plain Si as well as ZnS/Si and ZnSe/Si heterostructures, we employ a novel pump-probe transient transmission and reflection spectroscopy technique. A method is demonstrated for using this technique to quantify internal quantum efficiency as well as interface recombination velocity in each of these materials. In bulk silicon, a free carrier absorption cross section that depends on free carrier concentration (above 1018 cm-3) is observed and the relationship is quantified. This dissertation includes unpublished and previously published co-authored material.

Studies have shown that tumor cells are susceptible to pharmacological targeting of their altered glycolytic metabolism with a variety of compounds that result in apoptosis. One such compound, 3-bromopyruvate (3-BP), has been shown to eradicate cancer in an animal model. However, no studies have shown whether the apoptotic fragments resulting from 3-BP treatment have the capacity to elicit an immunogenic cell death that activates dendritic cells, the primary antigen presenting cell in the immune system. Immunogenic cell death is critical to eliciting an effective adaptive immune response that selectively kills additional target cells and generates immunological memory. We demonstrated that 3-bromopyruvate induced apoptosis in a number of different murine breast cancer cell lines, including the highly metastatic 4T1 line. The dying tumor cells stimulated immature dendritic cells (DCs) of the immortal JAWS II cell line to produce high levels of the pro-inflammatory cytokine IL-12, and increased their expression of key co-stimulatory molecules CD80 and CD86. The activated dendritic cells showed increased uptake of fragments from dying tumor cells that correlated with the increased levels of calreticulin on the surface and release of high group motility box 1 (HMGB1) of the latter following 3-BP treatment. Additionally, the anti-phagocytic signal CD47 present on breast cancer cells was reduced by treatment with 3-bromopyruvate when compared to the levels on untreated 4T1 cells. 3-BP treated breast cancer cells were able to activate dendritic cells through TLR4 signaling. Signaling was dependent on both the expression of surface calreticulin and on the extracellular release of high mobility group box 1 protein (HMGB1) during the process of immunogenic cell death. Killing by 3-BP was compared to mitoxantrone and doxorubicin, among the few chemotherapeutics that induce immunogenic cell death. 3-BP killing was likewise compared to camptothecin, a compound that fails to induce immunogenic cell death. Importantly, 3-BP did not markedly decrease the levels of the key peptide presenting molecule MHC I on DCs that were co-cultivated with dying tumor cells. Treatment of the highly aggressive triple negative BT-20 human breast cancer cell line with 3-BP also induced an immunogenic cell death, activating human dendritic cells in vitro. / Includes bibliography. / Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2017. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection