This thesis explores the themes, and trends within the novels of the acclaimed Syrian writer Hanna Mina. Three novels are discussed: Fragments of Memory (بقايا صور), The Swamp (المستنقع), and Sun on a Cloudy Day (الشمس في يوم غائم). The focus revolves around the relationship between rich and poor during a stage of transformation from imperial feudalism into urban modernity in Syria following the Second World War.

The near- through mid-infrared offers a unique and, as this thesis aims to show, essential view of extragalactic stellar populations both nearby, at intermediate redshifts and at very high redshift. In chapter 2, I demonstrate that rest-frame near-IR photometry obtained by the Spitzer Space Telescope provides more robust stellar mass estimates for a spectroscopic sample of ~100 galaxies in the redshift desert (0.5<z<2), and is crucial for modeling galaxies with young star-forming populations. From this analysis, a surprising result emerges in the data. Although the rest-frame light short of 2 micron improves stellar mass estimates, the models and observations disagree beyond 2 micron and emission from non-stellar sources becomes significant. At wavelengths from 1-30 micron, stellar and non-stellar emission contribute equally to a galaxy's global spectral energy distribution. This is unlike visible wavelengths where stellar emission dominates or the far-IR where dust emission provides the bulk of a galaxy's luminosity. Using the sample of high-z galaxies, in chapter 3, I quantify the statistical significance of the excess emission at 2-5 micron and find the emission to correlate with the OII luminosity, suggesting a link between the excess emission and star formation. The origin of the excess emission is not clear, although I explore a number of non-stellar candidates in this chapter. Nearby resolved observations provide a clearer picture of the excess by spatially resolving 68 nearby galaxies. By analyzing the pixel-by-pixel near-IR colours within each galaxy at ~1-5 micron, increasingly red near-IR colors are mapped to spatial regions in chapter 4. For regions with red NIR colors and high star formation rates, I find the broad near- through mid-IR spectrum is constant, varying only in amplitude as a function of the intensity of star formation, suggesting the infrared emission of a young, dusty stellar populations can be added to stellar population synthesis models as an additional component tied to the star formation rate. In closing the thesis, the focus is moved to the detection of stellar populations in the earliest star-forming galaxies. By z>6, all visible wavelength emission is redshifted into near-IR wavelengths. In chapter 5, I show how a tunable near-IR filter I have helped develop holds promise for finding bright Lyman alpha emitting galaxies at redshifts of 8<z<11.

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Hazor’s role in an international Late Bronze Age context has long been indicated but never thoroughly investigated. This role, I believe, was more crucial than previously stressed. My assumption is based on the very large size of this flourishing city which, according to documents, possessed ancient traditions of diplomatic connections and trade with Mesopotamia in the Middle Bronze Age. Its strategic position along the most important N-S and E-W main trade routes, which connected Egypt with Syria-Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean Sea with the city and beyond, promoted contacts. Hazor was a city-state in Canaan, a province under Egyptian domination and exploitation during this period, a position that also influenced the city’s international relations. Methodologically the thesis examines areas of the earlier and the renewed excavations at Hazor, with the aim of discussing the city’s interregional relations and cultural belonging based on external influences in architectural structures (mainly temples), imported pottery and artistic expressions in small finds, supported by written evidence. Cultic influences are also considered. Various origin and find contexts of the imported and culturally influenced material can be recognized, which imply three concepts in the field of interaction studies found within the framework of a modified World Systems Theory and also according to C. Renfrew’s Peer Polity Interaction model: 1) The northern influenced material at Hazor should be understood in the context of cultural identity. It continues from earlier periods and is maintained through external trade and the regional interaction between Canaanite city-states in the north, resulting in certain cultural homogeneity. 2) A core-periphery approach is used to explain the special unequal relation between Canaan and Egypt, in which Hazor might have possessed an integrating semi-peripheral role, a kind of diplomatic position between Egypt and its northern enemies. The city’s loyalty to Egypt is hinted at in documents and in the increasing evidences of emulation in elite contexts appearing on the site. 3) A model of ‘interregional interaction networks’ describes the organization of the trade which provided certain consumers at Hazor with the Aegean and Cypriote pottery and its desirable content. The cargo of the Ulu Burun and Cape Gelidonya ships and documents show that luxury items were transited from afar through Canaan. Such long-distance trade / exchange require professional traders that established networks along the main trade routes. The thesis suggests that Hazor possessed a node position in such a network. Keywords: Hazor, Canaan, Eastern Mediterranean, Late Bronze Age, contacts, trade, temple architecture, Mycenaean pottery, Cypriote pottery, interregional interaction networks, emulation, peer polity interaction, centre-periphery approach.

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The synthetic methodology of tri- and pentamethine carbocyanines and their interactions with biomolecules will be discussed in two chapters. The first chapter describes the preparation of halogenated carbocyanine dyes that display multiple charges; furthermore, these particular compounds were examined for their ability to bind G-quadruplex DNA with selectivity over duplex DNA and have potential for developing novel chemotherapeutic agents. The second section discusses the synthetic methods utilized to prepare trimethine cyanine fluorophores. This chapter will show how varying the N-indolenyl substituients’ hydrophobicity from ethyl to phenylpropyl influences the binding to Human Serum Albumin (HSA); additionally, alternating the terminal heterocyclic moieties of the cyanine dye has a direct quantitative effect on the biomolecular interaction. These identical compounds were recognized to be structurally analogous to agents that commonly interact with Protein Arginine Methyl Transferase (PRMT) and these compounds display low IC50 values toward inhibition of PRMT1 with unique NIR imaging properties.

Near-infrared (NIR) fluorescence imaging has emerged as an attractive non-invasive approach for direct visualization of diseases which depends on the development of stable, highly specific and sensitive optical probes. The NIR region of the electronic spectrum offers a reduction in the background autofluorescence and an increase in the tissue penetration depth. Cyanine dyes have often been considered promising contrast optic agents owing to their photophysical properties. Herein the synthesis of various penta- and heptamethine benzothiazole cyanine dyes has been described and their in vivo imaging efficacy was determined. Varying functionalities on the benzothiazole aromatic ring and changing substituents on the benzothiazolium nitrogen atom reflected subsequent changes in the imaging pattern and have resulted in the development of promising brain targeting agents.

Mobile Phone, without this we can’t think to pass a day in presence. We have found a rapid increase of mobile phone users from a few years ago till now. Day by day the modern technologies allow the mobile phone to become smaller, cheaper, and more reliable. This also creates new possibilities for applications and integrations of the classical broadcast systems and modern mobile phone technologies. One example is the FM transmitter in mobile phone. The FM transmitter in a mobile phone is a “cool” feature which allows listening to the music content in phone on a car or home radio.   This thesis work deals with the near field characterization of FM transmitters in mobile phone applications. The RF scientists and engineers neglect the near field zone because typical RF links operate at distances of many wavelengths away where near field effects are totally insignificant. But in this work we are interested in the near field properties of the FM transmitter. We measured the field intensity at near field and estimated the field strength at the far field region at 3 meters. To measure the field intensity and the effective radiated power we used HR1 near field scanner. As this is a new measurement approach, we made the validation of this system by measuring a reference dipole antenna at 880MHz and then compare the measured results to the CST simulation results. A basic phone model of FM transmitter has been created by CST simulation and a prototype has been made which was also used as our DUT. After validation of the near field measurement system we measured our DUTs (3 models-one cable fed prototype and two active devices) with the near field system and estimate the effective radiated power and field intensity at 3 meter. Furthermore, we measured our DUTs at 3 meter with a far field measurement system with optical fiber connection. A feasible relation between field strength and measured power was defined in order to correlate the near field scanner results with the far field measurement system.   This paper also provides a short design guide line for built in FM antennas by relating the antenna size and placement to input power and the field strength in mobile phone FM transmitter application

The widely available charge coupled device (CCD) and lately CMOS imaging devices have created many applications on a mass scale. However these devices are limited to wavelengths shorter than about 1 μm. Hybrid photon upconversion devices have been developed recently. The end goal is to achieve an alternative technology for imaging in the 1.5-μm region. The hybrid upconversion idea relies on the integration of a photodetector and an organic light emitting diode (OLED). Under a forward bias for the OLED, the detected signal in the Photodetector is sent to the OLED, resulting in an increase in emission at a shorter wavelength and therefore achieving optical up conversion. An OLED device can simply consists of a stack of anode, a hole transport layer (HTL), a light-emitting layer, an electron transport layer (ETL), a cathode layer, and it typically emits visible light. As each organic molecule is a topologically perfect structure, the growth of each organic layer does not require “lattice matching”, which has been the fundamental limit for inorganic semiconductor monolithic devices. Thus, integration of an OLED with a III–V compound semiconductor is a highly feasible and desirable approach for making low-cost, large-area, potentially high efficiency devices. This thesis addresses the physics, fabrication and characterization of hybrid near infrared optical upconverters and their imaging application. Firstly, one novel hybrid optical upconverter structure is presented, which substantially improves the upconversion efficiency by embedding a metal mirror. Efficient carrier injection from the inorganic photodetector to the OLED is achieved by the insertion of a thin Au metal embedded mirror at the inorganic-organic interface. The upconversion efficiency was improved by more than 100%. Secondly, the overall upconversion efficiency can be increased significantly, by introducing a gain mechanism into the Photodetector section of the upconverter. A promising option to implement gain is a heterojunction phototransistor (HPT). An InGaAs-InP HPT was integrated with an OLED, which converts 1.5-μm Infrared light to visible light with a built-in electrical gain (~94). The overall upconversion efficiency was improved to be 1.55 W/W. Thirdly, this upconversion approach can also be used to realize a pixelless imaging device. A pixelless hybrid upconversion device consists of a large-area single-mesa device, where the OLED output is spatially correlated with the input 1.5-µm scene. Only the parts receiving incoming photons will emit output photons. To achieve this functionality, photon-generated carriers must flow mainly along the layer-growth direction when injected from the InGaAs light absorption layer into OLED light emission layer. A prototype of pixelless imaging device based on an i-In0.53Ga0.47As/C60 heterojunction was demonstrated, which minimized lateral current spreading. This thesis presents experimental results of the first organic/inorganic hybrid optical amplifer and the first hybrid near infrared imaging device.

Three small-scale seismic experiments were conducted with the objective of identifying shallow scatterers that are principally fractures. The experiment targeted the upper 100m of the Earths subsurface. The analysis consisted of three steps. In the first step, we acquired data from three seismic arrays, at two different field sites. In the second step, the seismic records were processed using semblance analysis. The semblance coefficient for scattered waves was calculated as a function of their arrival time, apparent velocity, and azimuth. This information was the input for the third step the 3-D imaging algorithm. Scatterers in a homogeneous media were imaged along ellipses with dimensions defined by the true velocity of propagation and the time of arrival. The depth was defined from the ratio of true to apparent velocity. The three-dimensional images from an outcrop field site outline a zone of contact between granite and amphibolite-biotite gneiss. This contact zone is most likely controlled by a combination of fractures, joints and differential weathering. The semblance imaging technique failed to locate a subhorizontal fracture within the bedrock of a site with a soil cover. These results suggest that the technique can be successfully applied to a medium that can be approximated with homogeneous velocity structure. For more complex environments, the algorithm must be modified. First, ray tracing must be incorporated in the algorithm to find the exact locations of the near-surface heterogeneities. Second, geophones and source should be applied to the bedrock to avoid the attenuation from the soil overburden.