Polymer-derived ceramics (PDCs) are a unique class of multifunctional materials synthesized by thermal decomposition of polymeric precursors. Due to their unique and excellent properties and flexible manufacturing capability, PDC is a promising technology to prepare ceramic fibers, coatings, composites and micro-sensors for high-temperature applications. However, the structure-property relationships of PDCs have not been well understood. The lack of such understandings drastically limited the further developments and applications of the materials. In this dissertation, the structure and properties of amorphous polymer-derived silicon carbonitride (SiCN) and silicoboron carbonitride (SiBCN) have been studied. The SiCN was obtained using commercially available polysilazane as pre-ceramic precursor, and the SiBCN ceramics with varied Si-to-B ratio were obtained from polyborosilazanes, which were synthesized by the hydroboration and dehydrocoupling reaction of borane and polysilazane. The structural evolution of polymer-derived SiCN and SiBCN ceramics from polymer to ceramics was investigated by NMR, FTIR, Raman, EPR, TG/DTA, and XRD. The results show a phaseseparation of amorphous matrix and a graphitization of “free” carbon phase, and suggest that the boron doping has a great influence on the structural evolution. The electric and dielectric properties of the SiCN and SiBCNs were studied by I-V curves, LCR Meter, and network analyzer. A new electronic conduction mechanism and structure model has been proposed to account for the relationships between the observed properties and microstructure of the materials. Furthermore, the SiBCN ceramics showed the improved dielectric properties at characterization iv temperature up to 1300 ºC, which allows the fabrication of ultrahigh-temperature wireless microsensors for extreme environments.

Mesoporous alumina (Al2O3) in the gamma (γ) phase is widely used as a support in catalytic applications because of its high surface area, large pore volume, acid-base characteristics, and thermal stability. To improve the thermal stability of gamma alumina, dopants such as lanthanum, magnesium, zirconia, and silica are often introduced. Current laboratory-based methods for synthesizing gamma alumina generally involve 10-15 steps and/or use toxic, expensive surfactants and solvents. Industrial methods, while simpler, lack control of pore properties and surface chemistry. In contrast, we have developed an innovative solvent deficient, one-step method that is able to synthesize a wide range of pure and silica-doped aluminas with high surface areas, pore volumes from 0.3 to 1.8 cm3/g, and pore diameters from 5 to 40 nm. More significantly, our silica-doped aluminas are stable up to temperatures as high as 1300<°>C, which is 200<°>C higher than other pure and doped gamma alumina materials.The usefulness of gamma-alumina as a catalyst support is dependent on its favorable combination of textural, thermal, structural, and chemical properties, yet the relationship between structure and these other properties is still not clearly understood due to the poorly crystallized nature of the material. In particular, the mechanism by which the gamma structure is stabilized thermally by so many dopants is still not well understood. Based on our previous PDF experiments on pure and La-doped alumina, we have developed a hypothesis regarding the mechanism by which dopants increase thermal stability. To validate or refute this hypothesis, we collected PDF data on a wider range of laboratory and industrial alumina samples. Herein, we have utilized PDF analysis to study the local to intermediate-range structure of a series of our pure and silica-doped aluminas calcined at 50<°>C intervals between 50 and 1300<°>C as well as pure and silica-doped aluminas from commercial sources and other synthetic methods. This thorough study of alumina local structure will allow us to separate general trends in the local structure from idiosyncrasies based on synthetic method/conditions, and it will help us identify the structural features responsible for improved thermal stability. Having access to these PDF experiments, we have validated our current hypothesis on the nature of stabilization afforded by dopants and, more generally, developed a better understanding of the role structure plays in the properties of aluminas.

Die hohe thermische Belastung des Lichtbogens während des Schaltvorganges bewirkt ein Aufschmelzen des Kontaktwerkstoffes. Für einen kurzen Augenblick schwimmen Metalloxidpartikel in einem Bereich geschmolzenen Silbers. Dies hat eine Gefügeumordnung zur Folge, welche die Eigenschaften des Kontaktes beeinflussen. Die Zielstellung der vorliegenden Arbeit besteht darin, einen Beitrag zur Erweiterung des Verständnisses von Ag/SnO2-Werkstoffen zu leisten, um die Entwicklung neuer und optimierter Kontaktwerkstoffe voranzutreiben und nachhaltig den Einsatz von Umweltressourcen wie Werkstoffe (Edelmetallgehalt) und Energie zu verringern. Dabei nimmt die Gefügecharakterisierung von ungeschalteten und geschalteten Ag/SnO2-Kontaktwerkstoffen einen wichtigen Stellenwert ein. Die Ausbildung der Kontaktoberfläche und die Ausprägung der Gefügeumordnung (sog. Schaltgefüge) werden in Abhängigkeit der Schaltversuchsart, der Werkstoffzusammensetzung und der Herstellroute der Kontaktwerkstoffe charakterisiert. Ein wesentlicher Bestandteil der Arbeit ist die Untersuchung der Kontaktoberfläche und metallographischer Schliffe (Ionenstrahl poliert) von mehrfach geschalteten Kontakten (≥ 1000 Schaltungen) mittels FE-REM, um anschließend Zusammenhänge zwischen dem Ausgangsgefüge, dem Schaltgefüge und den Schalteigenschaften zu ermitteln. Dazu wird unter anderem die Wirkung der oxidischen Zusätze durch Benetzungsversuche von Ag auf Metalloxidsubstraten experimentell bestimmt. Des Weiteren wird die Schädigung des Werkstoffes durch die reine Lichtbogenbelastung mittels Laufschienenversuchen untersucht, wodurch das Laufverhalten des Lichtbogens und die Bildung der Anoden- und Kathodenkrater in Abhängigkeit des Werkstoffes untersucht werden kann. / During the switching process the contact material is melting. For a short time (about 10 ms) metal oxide particles will be swimming in liquid silver resulting in structural changes which will effect the properties of the contact materials. The goal of this investigation is to contribute to an improvement of knowledge about Ag/SnO2 contact materials in order to promote the development of new and improved contact materials to strongly reduce the stake of environmental resources like materials (precious metal content) and energy. The microstructure characterization of unswitched and switched Ag/SnO2-materials is the significant part of this study. The formation of the contact surface and the structural changes are investigated depending on several switching experiments, material composition and manufacturing process. An essential part of this work is to analyze the contact surface and the changes of the microstructure of multi-switched contacts (number of switches ≥ 1000) by FE-SEM. In order to identify relations between the bulk microstructure, the charged microstructure and switching behaviour. Furthermore, the effects of the oxide additives are investigated by wetting experiments of Ag on the metal oxide substrate. The erosion of the contact material is reviewed by using a running rails experiment with pure arc loading. Thereby it is possible to research the running arc behaviour and the formation of the anode and cathode craters depending on the contact material.

No / Two-dimensional gel electrophoresis-separated and excised haptoglobin alpha2-chain protein spots were subjected to in-gel digestion with trypsin. Previously unassigned peptide ion signals observed in mass spectrometric fingerprinting experiments were sequenced using the matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization-quadrupole ion trap-time of flight (MALDI-QIT-TOF) mass spectrometer and showed that the haptoglobin alpha-chain derivative under study was cleaved by trypsin unspecifically. Abundant cleavages occurred C-terminal to histidine residues at H23, H28, and H87. In addition, mild acidic hydrolysis leading to cleavage after aspartic acid residues at D13 was observed. The uninterpreted tandem mass spectrometry (MS/MS) spectrum of the peptide with ion signal at 2620.19 was submitted to database search and yielded the identification of the corresponding peptide sequence comprising amino acids (aa) aa65-87 from the haptoglobin alpha-chain protein. Also, the presence of a mixture of two tryptic peptides (mass to charge ratio m/z 1708.8; aa40-54, and aa99-113, respectively), that is caused by a tiny sequence variation between the two repeats in the haptoglobin alpha2-chain protein was resolved by MS/MS fragmentation using the MALDI-QIT-TOF mass spectrometer instrument. Advantageous features such as (i) easy parent ion creation, (ii) minimal sample consumption, and (iii) real collision induced dissociation conditions, were combined successfully to determine the amino acid sequences of the previously unassigned peptides. Hence, the novel mass spectrometric sequencing method applied here has proven effective for identification of distinct molecular protein structures.

Die hohe thermische Belastung des Lichtbogens während des Schaltvorganges bewirkt ein Aufschmelzen des Kontaktwerkstoffes. Für einen kurzen Augenblick schwimmen Metalloxidpartikel in einem Bereich geschmolzenen Silbers. Dies hat eine Gefügeumordnung zur Folge, welche die Eigenschaften des Kontaktes beeinflussen. Die Zielstellung der vorliegenden Arbeit besteht darin, einen Beitrag zur Erweiterung des Verständnisses von Ag/SnO2-Werkstoffen zu leisten, um die Entwicklung neuer und optimierter Kontaktwerkstoffe voranzutreiben und nachhaltig den Einsatz von Umweltressourcen wie Werkstoffe (Edelmetallgehalt) und Energie zu verringern. Dabei nimmt die Gefügecharakterisierung von ungeschalteten und geschalteten Ag/SnO2-Kontaktwerkstoffen einen wichtigen Stellenwert ein. Die Ausbildung der Kontaktoberfläche und die Ausprägung der Gefügeumordnung (sog. Schaltgefüge) werden in Abhängigkeit der Schaltversuchsart, der Werkstoffzusammensetzung und der Herstellroute der Kontaktwerkstoffe charakterisiert. Ein wesentlicher Bestandteil der Arbeit ist die Untersuchung der Kontaktoberfläche und metallographischer Schliffe (Ionenstrahl poliert) von mehrfach geschalteten Kontakten (≥ 1000 Schaltungen) mittels FE-REM, um anschließend Zusammenhänge zwischen dem Ausgangsgefüge, dem Schaltgefüge und den Schalteigenschaften zu ermitteln. Dazu wird unter anderem die Wirkung der oxidischen Zusätze durch Benetzungsversuche von Ag auf Metalloxidsubstraten experimentell bestimmt. Des Weiteren wird die Schädigung des Werkstoffes durch die reine Lichtbogenbelastung mittels Laufschienenversuchen untersucht, wodurch das Laufverhalten des Lichtbogens und die Bildung der Anoden- und Kathodenkrater in Abhängigkeit des Werkstoffes untersucht werden kann. / During the switching process the contact material is melting. For a short time (about 10 ms) metal oxide particles will be swimming in liquid silver resulting in structural changes which will effect the properties of the contact materials. The goal of this investigation is to contribute to an improvement of knowledge about Ag/SnO2 contact materials in order to promote the development of new and improved contact materials to strongly reduce the stake of environmental resources like materials (precious metal content) and energy. The microstructure characterization of unswitched and switched Ag/SnO2-materials is the significant part of this study. The formation of the contact surface and the structural changes are investigated depending on several switching experiments, material composition and manufacturing process. An essential part of this work is to analyze the contact surface and the changes of the microstructure of multi-switched contacts (number of switches ≥ 1000) by FE-SEM. In order to identify relations between the bulk microstructure, the charged microstructure and switching behaviour. Furthermore, the effects of the oxide additives are investigated by wetting experiments of Ag on the metal oxide substrate. The erosion of the contact material is reviewed by using a running rails experiment with pure arc loading. Thereby it is possible to research the running arc behaviour and the formation of the anode and cathode craters depending on the contact material.

En sjukdom kan många gånger härledas till en kaskadereaktion mellan proteiner, co-faktorer och substrat. Denna kaskadreaktion blir många gånger målet för att behandla sjukdomen med läkemedel. För att designa nya läkemedelsmoleyler används vanligen datorbaserade verktyg. Denna design av läkemedelsmolekyler drar stor nytta av att målproteinet är känt och då framförallt dess tredimensionella (3D) struktur. Är 3D-strukturen känd kan man utföra så kallad struktur- och datorbaserad molekyldesign, 3D-geometrin (f.f.a. för inbindningsplatsen) blir en vägledning för designen av en ny molekyl. Många faktorer avgör interaktionen mellan en molekyl och bindningsplatsen, till exempel fysikalisk-kemiska egenskaper hos molekylen och bindningsplatsen, flexibiliteten i molekylen och målproteinet, och det omgivande lösningsmedlet. För att strukturbaserad molekyldesign ska fungera väl måste två viktiga steg utföras: i) 3D anpassning av molekyler till bindningsplatsen i ett målprotein (s.k. dockning) och ii) prediktion av molekylers affinitet för bindningsplatsen. Huvudsyftena med arbetet i denna avhandling var som följer: i) skapa modeler för att prediktera affiniteten mellan en molekyl och bindningsplatsen i ett målprotein; ii) förfina molekyl-protein-geometrin som skapas vid 3D-anpassning mellan en molekyl och bindningsplatsen i ett målprotein (s.k. dockning); iii) karaktärisera proteiner och framför allt deras sekundärstruktur; iv) bedöma effekten av olika matematiska beskrivningar av lösningsmedlet för förfining av 3D molekyl-protein-geometrin skapad vid dockning och prediktion av molekylers affinitet för proteiners bindningsfickor. Ett övergripande syfte var att använda kemometriska metoder för modellering och dataanalys på de ovan nämnda punkterna. För att sammanfatta så presenterar denna avhandling metoder och resultat som är användbara för strukturbaserad molekyldesign. De rapporterade resultaten visar att det är möjligt att skapa kemometriska modeler för prediktion av molekylers affinitet för bindningsplatsen i ett protein och att dessa presterade lika bra som andra vanliga metoder. Dessutom kunde kemometriska modeller skapas för att beskriva effekten av hur inställningarna för olika parametrar i dockningsprogram påverkade den 3D molekyl-protein-geometrin som dockingsprogram skapade. Vidare kunde kemometriska modeller andvändas för att öka förståelsen för deskriptorer som beskrev sekundärstrukturen i proteiner. Förfining av molekyl-protein-geometrin skapad genom dockning gav liknande och ickesignifikanta resultat oberoende av vilken matematisk modell för lösningsmedlet som användes, förutom för ett fåtal (sex av 30) fall. Däremot visade det sig att användandet av en förfinad geometri var värdefullt för prediktion av molekylers affinitet för bindningsplatsen i ett protein. Förbättringen av prediktion av affintitet var markant då en Poisson-Boltzmann beskrivning av lösningsmedlet användes; jämfört med prediktionerna gjorda med ett dockningsprogram förbättrades korrelationen mellan beräknad affintiet och uppmätt affinitet med 0,7 (R2). / A disease is often associated with a cascade reaction pathway involving proteins, co-factors and substrates. Hence to treat the disease, elements of this pathway are often targeted using a therapeutic agent, a drug. Designing new drug molecules for use as therapeutic agents involves the application of methods collectively known as computer-aided molecular design, CAMD. When the three dimensional (3D) geometry of a macromolecular target (usually a protein) is known, structure-based CAMD is undertaken and structural information of the target guides the design of new molecules and their interactions with the binding sites in targeted proteins. Many factors influence the interactions between the designed molecules and the binding sites of the target proteins, such as the physico-chemical properties of the molecule and the binding site, the flexibility of the protein and the ligand, and the surrounding solvent. In order for structure-based CAMD to be successful, two important aspects must be considered that take the abovementioned factors into account. These are; i) 3D fitting of molecules to the binding site of the target protein (like fitting pieces of a jigsaw puzzle), and ii) predicting the affinity of molecules to the protein binding site. The main objectives of the work underlying this thesis were: to create models for predicting the affinity between a molecule and a protein binding site; to refine the geometry of the molecule-protein complex derived by or in 3D fitting (also known as docking); to characterize the proteins and their secondary structure; and to evaluate the effects of different generalized-Born (GB) and Poisson-Boltzmann (PB) implicit solvent models on the refinement of the molecule-protein complex geometry created in the docking and the prediction of the molecule-to-protein binding site affinity. A further objective was to apply chemometric methodologies for modeling and data analysis to all of the above. To summarize, this thesis presents methodologies and results applicable to structure-based CAMD. Results show that predictive chemometric models for molecule-to-protein binding site affinity could be created that yield comparable results to similar, commonly used methods. In addition, chemometric models could be created to model the effects of software settings on the molecule-protein complex geometry using software for molecule-to-binding site docking. Furthermore, the use of chemometric models provided a more profound understanding of protein secondary structure descriptors. Refining the geometry of molecule-protein complexes created through molecule-to-binding site docking gave similar results for all investigated implicit solvent models, but the geometry was significantly improved in only a few examined cases (six of 30). However, using the geometry-refined molecule-protein complexes was highly valuable for the prediction of molecule-to-binding site affinity. Indeed, using the PB solvent model it yielded improvements of 0.7 in correlation coefficients (R2) for binding affinity parameters of a set of Factor Xa protein drug molecules, relative to those obtained using the fitting software.