  This article is based on my PhD thesis and covers the following topics:
Holographic meson spectra in a dilaton flow background, the mixed Coulomb-Higgs
branch in terms of instantons on D7 branes, and a dual description of
heavy-light mesons. Moreover, in a second part the conformal anomaly of four
dimensional supersymmetric quantum field theories coupled to classical N=1
supergravity is explored in a superfield formulation. The complete basis for
the anomaly and consistency conditions, which arise from cohomological
considerations, are given. Possible implications for an extension of
Zamolodchikov's c-theorem to four dimensional supersymmetric quantum field
theories are discussed.
