The presented thesis deals with optimization of parameters speciation analysis based on a selective hydride generation in a direct transfer mode of hydrides and on-line atomization in an atomic absorption spectrometer. In the first part of the thesis processes during generation were investigated. Important indicator of a reactions taking place in a generator is volume of hydrogen (created by decomposition of NaBH4) which is subsequently introduced to the atomizer. In this part of the thesis a new approach to determine a flow rate of hydrogen delivered to the atomizator was developed. An influence of relevant paremeters of the atomizers and atomic absorption spectrometers on basic analytical characteristics of arsenic determination based on hydride generation was performed in the second part. Three atomic absorption spectrometers were used and three sources of radiation were compared. The most important analytic characteristic was the limit of detection which is influenced by standard deviation of measurement values of blank samples and by sensitivity. The best values of the limit of detection were achieved with electrodeless discharge lamps. Key words: hydride generation, arsenic, speciation analysis, atomic absorption spectrometry

Speciation analysis of arsenic based on selective hydride generation and detection by atomic fluorescence spectrometry have been studied in this work. It was found that under optimum conditions of atomization in the flame in gas shield atomizer, sensitivity was approximately twice higher and detection limit was about four times lower compared to miniature diffusion flame, which is a standard atomizer for atomic fluorescence spectrometry. The conditions to generate hydrides from both inorganic forms of the arsenic, i.e. from arsenite and arsenate, with the same efficiency have been found in the batch arrangement, by using 1 mol dm-3 hydrochlorid acid and 1% solution of tetrahydridoborate. To determine only trivalent form, TRIS buffer at pH 6.00 was used together with 1% sodium tetrahydridoborate. The detection limits found for inorganic arsenic, i.e. for arsenite and arsenate, respectively, were 15 ng dm-3 and 9 ng dm-3 . It was found that in the batch arrangement under these conditions it is possible to generate corresponding hydrides methylarsonate and dimethylarsonate with the same efficiency as from the inorganic form. Finally, it was found when slightly changing the gas-liquid separator design in order to introduce the mixture of tetrahydridoborate with hydrochloric acid to the bottom of the...

The general aim of this work was a development of methodology and instrumentation for speciation analysis based on the combination of the selective generation of substituted hydrides with atomic absorption or atomic fluorescence spectrometry detection. The first topic of this work was the development of methodology and instrumentation for arsenic speciation analysis based on selective generation of substituted arsines with trapping in the cryogenic trap (U-tube packed with chromosorb) with AAS detection (HG- CT-AAS). The conditions of the selective hydride generation approach as well as working procedure of the cryogenic trap were optimized (appropriate approach for hydride generation, set up of heating program of cryogenic trap, new dryer - cartidge with NaOH, elimination of unspecific absorption, decreasing of the detection limits). The second important part of the work lay in applying of the developed method for arsenic speciation analysis in a homogenized mouse liver tissue. The direct slurry sampling to hydride generator was develop. Moreover the information about oxidation state (iAsIII,V , MAsIII,V a DMAsIII,V ) was obtain. The effect of relevant experimental parameters such as tetrahydroborate concentration, TRIS buffer concentration and time of pre-reduction of the samples by L-cysteine...

The aim of this diploma thesis was to verify the usability of the chemical generation of mercury cold vapor for speciation analysis of selected mercury compounds using high - performance liquid chromatography coupled within atomic absorption spectrometry in the determination of mercury in real tap water samples. In this work, mercuric chloride, methylmercury, ethylmercury and phenylmercury were selected as model analytes. In the first part, the working conditions of chemical generation of mercury cold vapor for each of the selected specie of mercury were optimized. Optimized equipment was used to measure the calibration dependence for each specie and the basic characteristics of the method were established. After optimization of the chemical generation, HPLC column was connected prior this derivatization step and in resulted combined apparatus HPLC - CVG - QTAAS, the separation step was optimized . At optimized conditions, the calibration dependence was measured for each specie and the basic characteristics of the developed method including HPLC separation were established. In conclusion, the proposed analytical method was tested on real flowing tap water samples. Because of low content of mercury species in these samples, the recovery of the method was established when comparing the signal of...

(EN) The presented dissertation is devoted to hydride generation from arsenic species and its application for speciation analysis based on atomic fluorescence detection. Hydride generation from toxicologically relevant arsenic species was optimized in order to achieve a 100% efficiency. The resulted experimental setup was subsequently used for speciation analysis of arsenic in human urine by high performance liquid chromatography with detection by atomic fluorescence spectrometry. The accuracy of the developed method was verified by comparative analyses of human urine samples collected from five individuals with an independent reference method. The cleavage of As-C bond during the reaction of methylated arsenic species with tetrahydridoborate(1-) (THB) in acidic media was studied in detail. Pronounced demethylation of methylated arsenic species was found during the reaction of THB with HCl, H2SO4, and HClO4 while hydride generation from CH3COOH or TRIS buffer after prereduction with L- cysteine resulted in the exclusive formation of the corresponding hydrides. Firstly, this phenomenon can endanger the accuracy of arsenic speciation which is based on hydride generation of substituted arsanes. Secondly, the more complex arsenic species can be converted to the hydride. That was demonstrated on hydride...

The aim of this work was to determine chemical species of arsenic in sea originating certified reference materials. Measurements were done using method of hydride generation. Hydrides were preconcentrated in liquid nitrogen cooled tube and detected using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. During the testing of the method, mutual conversion of arsenic species was observed for inorganic arsenic, monomethyl arsenic and dimethylarsenic. Further study revealed that with presence of matrix and hydrogen peroxide, demethylation occured only in hydride generation phase, not during extraction. Dissociation of hydrogen peroxide in extracts was verified using catalase. End of the demethylation process was proved using measurement with addition of arsenic species standards. The newly invented procedure was used to determine arsenic species in reference materials with sufficient accuracy. Final results are compatible with results from different method, and already published results as well. Key words: speciation analysis, arsenic, hydride generation, seafood, inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry

This master's thesis deals with optimization of conditions of chemical hydride generation of tellurium and conditions of its atomization, specifically in three types of atomizers - in a diffusion flame (DF), in a heated multiple microflame quartz tube atomizer (MMQTA) and in a dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) atomizer. Tellurium hydride was generated in a flow injection arrangement and a high-resolution continuum source atomic absorption spectrometer was used for detection. As hydride generation can be only done from tetravalent species of tellurium, at first a simple procedure of pre-reduction of hexavalent species of tellurium by heating a standard in hydrochloric acid at 6 mol dm-3 was verified. Further, conditions of chemical generation were optimized with a goal to achieve as high generation efficiency as possible, namely, concentration of hydrochloric acid and sodium tetrahydroborate, volume of the reaction coil and a flow rate of carrier gas. Subsequently, conditions of atomization of tellurium hydride were examined with chosen optimal generation conditions. In the case of DF, it was an amount of hydrogen in the flame, a total flow rate of gases and observation height. In the case of MMQTA, temperature of the atomizer, a flow rate of carrier gas and a flow rate of air or oxygen needed for...

Procedural Content Generation is now used in many games to generate a wide variety of content. It often uses players controlled by Artificial Intelligence for its evaluation. PCG content can also be used when training AI players to achieve better generalization. In both of these fields, evolutionary algorithms are employed, but they are rarely used together. In this thesis, we use the coevolution of AI players and level generators for platformer game Super Mario. Coevolution's benefit is, that the AI players are evaluated by adapting level generators, and vice versa, level generators are evaluated by adapting AI players. This approach has two results. The first one is a creation of multiple level generators, each generating levels of gradually increased difficulty. Levels generated using a sequence of these generators also mirror the learning curve of the AI player. This can be useful also for human players playing the game for the first time. The second result is an AI player, which was evolved on gradually more difficult levels. Making it learn progressively may yield better results. Using the coevolution also doesn't require any training data set.

Procedural content generation is a method that is sometimes used in video games to increase their replayability. In our previous work (Nepožitek, 2018), we implemented an algorithm for procedural generation of 2D dungeons, with the main focus on giving game designers complete control over the structure of generated levels. The algorithm takes a set of user-defined building blocks as input and produces levels that all follow the structure of a specified level connectivity graph. In the first part of the thesis, we address some shortcomings of our previous work. We improve the algorithm with several new features such as better support for corridors between rooms or the possibility to generate platformer levels. We also propose several performance improvements and analyze the speed of the algorithm on various inputs. In the second part of the thesis, we present an integration of our algorithm into the Unity game engine. In the final part of the thesis, we demonstrate that our generator is able to produce levels that are similar to what we can see in two popular games - Enter the Gungeon and Dead Cells. The resulting algorithm is much faster than the previous version, contains new features and is ready to be used in the Unity game engine.

Procedural content generation is present in many games today. However, little has been written about generating combat encounters in role playing video games (RPG). In these games the player's combat ability varies greatly from person to person and there are many different enemies that could be spawned for the player to fight. These factors make generation of combat encounters difficult. In this thesis we create a small game in which we implement a new algorithm for generating combat encounters. We then distribute this game to the general public. From the data we gather we conclude that this algorithm is at least as good at generating combat encounters as the author of the thesis and that it is a good starting point for further research.