The presence of insoluble amyloid aggregates in various human tissues correlates with the development of many human disorders (amyloidoses), including neurodegenerative diseases. Deposition of the aggregated misfolded proteins in the brain, where aggregates can be localized extracellularly or intracellularly, is the main characteristic of Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Huntington's, prion diseases and …
Minimally invasive surgery is one of the most promising trends in medicine. Despite of its obvious advantages - the use of small incisions reducing trauma and risk of infection - it still represents a great challenge for the surgeon, as visual guidance and dexterity are severely impaired. In the case …
Engineered nanofibers and nanoparticles are recognized as capable of inducing cellular perturbations according to the oxidative stress paradigm or by interacting directly with biological membranes. A number of authors in their investigations with the nanofibres and nanoparticles has reported the ability of nanofibers and nanotparticle to cause the different damage …
Ion beam sputtering induces morphological as well as compositional changes on the surfaces of ion-sputtered substrates. The surface undergoes kinetic processes, which lead to different morphological details: periodic ripples, substrate-defined etch pits or protuberant structures, roughening and smoothing are some possibilities for surface evolution. The aim of my doctoral dissertation …
The toxicity, biological availability and mobility of aluminium (Al) depend on its chemical form. In order to understand toxicity and transport of Al in human body it is important to identify and quantify Al species present in human serum. This led to the development of sensitive and selective analytical methods …
This thesis presents studies of probability of heterogeneous recombination of oxygen and hydrogen atoms on surfaces of different types of carbon-based materials. The probability of heterogenous recombination is described with a quantity called recombination coefficient, which is defined as the probability that an atom which impinges upon a solid surface …
Behavioural responses are the most efficient thermoregulatory responses, since relatively simple actions can prevent the need to activate the more metabolically costly autonomic responses. Dependence on behavioural responses may increase in environmental conditions where the prevailing nonthermal factors (NTF) attenuate autonomic responses and alter thermal perception (Mekjavic et al., 2003; …
This PhD thesis presents experimental results from the synthesis, crystal structure and microwave dielectric characterization of BaO-rich phases within the BaO-Nb2O5 and BaONb2O5- WO3 system. I was primarily interested in two compounds with unknown crystal structure, i.e., the binary Ba4Nb2O9 and the ternary Ba6Nb2WO14, which lie on a common virtual …
Complex dynamical systems are often modeled as networks, with nodes representing dynamical units which interact through the network’s links. Gene regulatory networks, responsible for the production of proteins inside a cell, are an example of system that can be described as a network of interacting genes. The behavior of a …
Developing metaheuristics to solve optimization problems is a rapidly growing field of research. This is due to the importance of optimization problems in the scientific as well as the industrial world. The methods developed in this dissertation are based on stigmergy: a method of communication in emergent systems, where the …