Absence of Nuclear Family and its Consequences in the Work of John Irving

This thesis deals with one aspect of the literary work of the American writer John Irving, that is the frequent absence of nuclear family in his novels and its consequences. Irving's heroes grow up very often without either one or both parents and this thesis analyses how the deprivation has influenced them in their lives, especially in their adulthood. The beginning of the thesis presents at first theoretically the consequences of the absence of nuclear family in a human life and its basis is in psychological literature, then it introduces John Irving and his work. The core of the thesis is the analysis of the selected novels where the theme is the most prominent

SEM imaging and XPS characterization of doped PVDF fibers

Polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) is one of the most promising electroactive polymers; it exhibits excellent electroactive behaviours, good biocompatibility, excellent chemical resistance, and thermal stability, rendering it an attractive material for biomedical, electronic, environmental and energy harvesting applications. This work aims to further improve its properties by the inclusion of powders of piezoactive materials. Polyvinylidene fluoride was formed by electrospinning into fibres with a thickness of 1.5-0.3 µm and then examined in a scanning electron microscope. The work offers a description of the current procedure in the preparation of samples and their modification for examination in a scanning electron microscope, characterizes the individual components of doped fibres and deals with specific instruments used for various analytical methods. The work contains a theoretical introduction to the analytical methods to which the samples will be further subjected, such as energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). The obtained excellent properties of doped PVDF could be used in the design of sensor