This thesis is a part of the research work for Azelio TES.POD (Thermal energy storage. power on demand). It is a patented thermal energy storage system developed by Swedish cleantech company Azelio AB. The objective of this thesis work to find an alternative charging technology system that can be validated to be efficient and safe in operation for the charging of TES.POD. Induction heating technology is chosen as an alternative charging solution. Derived design steps to implement induction heater as a charging unit then selection of PCM container compatible with induction heater. Later simulating to evaluate total flux path in Finite Element Method Magnetics (FEMM) simulation tool which proposes the electrical results. The electrical performance of the induction heater indicates almost 9% higher electrical losses than the charging mechanism of the existing TES.POD design. However, from a safety standpoint, the alternate charging approach appears to be safer in operation than the existing system. Additionally, it reflects better intuitiveness from a manufacturing viewpoint.

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<p>The neural crest is a multipotent, vertebrate-specific stem cell population that gives rise to diverse cell types in the developing embryo, including craniofacial cartilage, enteric ganglia, and cardiac septa. Neural crest cells that originate from a given axial level in the embryo give rise to a characteristic array of progeny and follow distinct pathways from those arising at other levels. One of these subpopulations, called the cardiac neural crest, originates in the dorsal hindbrain and migrates into the developing heart, where it forms the aorticopulmonary septum, cardiac ganglion, and part of the interventricular septum. Mutations in or loss of these cells causes heart defects that are among the most common birth defects in the general population. For my thesis, I sought to identify the mechanisms that underlie the formation of neural crest cells, and confer cardiac neural crest cells with their unique developmental potential.</p> <p>To enable interrogation of epistatic relationships between key neural crest genes during neural crest induction and crest specification, I first optimized the CRISPR-Cas9 system for genome editing in gastrula and neurula-stage chicken embryos. I then further improved the CRISPR toolbox by devising an all-in-one single-plasmid strategy that harnesses the self-cleavage properties of ribozymes for the simultaneous delivery of Cas9, gRNAs, and fluorescent reporters in transfected cells. This has enabled live tracking of wildtype and mutant neural crest cells as they migrate to their terminal locations.</p> <p>Prior to their induction at the neural plate border, precursors in the neural plate border are transcriptionally primed toward multiple cell fates, including neural tube, neural crest, epidermis, and placode. While this priming has been thought to involve epigenetic regulation, chromatin remodeler genes have been overlooked in the context of neural crest formation given their concomitant expression in surrounding cell types. By combining single-cell transcriptional profiling of the early chick embryonic hindbrain with temporally-controlled knockouts, I uncovered a novel bimodal mechanism whereby the chromatin remodeler gene <i>Hmga1</i> first regulates <i>Pax7</i>-dependent neural crest induction at the neural plate border, and later modulates Wnt signaling in the dorsal neural tube to control neural crest delamination. These results established <i>Hmga1</i> as a direct regulator of neural crest induction and emigration.</p> <p>Finally, given that amongst distinct neural crest subpopulations designated as cranial, cardiac/vagal, and trunk, only cardiac crest has the ability to contribute to heart development, and that neither trunk nor cranial neural crest subpopulations can rescue the loss of cardiac crest, I investigated the genetic logic that imbues cardiac crest with its unique ability to form cardiovascular derivatives. To this end, I combined surgical ablations, bulk and single-cell transcriptional profiling, RNA labeling, CRISPR-Cas9-mediated gene editing, transcription factor binding motif mutation analysis, and transgenic tissue grafting approaches to uncover and characterize a cardiac-neural-crest-specific subcircuit comprised of the transcription factors <i>Sox8</i>, <i>Tgif1</i>, and <i>Ets1</i>. I demonstrated that ectopic expression of this subcircuit in trunk neural crest cells reprogrammed them towards a cardiac-crest-like fate, and transplanting these reprogrammed cells in place of ablated cardiac crest restored cardiac-crest-like migration patterns and rescued outflow tract septation defects.</p> <p>Taken together, my thesis work has not only built a genome engineering toolbox for a key model system in developmental biology, but has also expanded our understanding of the genetic circuits that govern the formation of the cardiac neural crest and underlie its unique ability to contribute to the heart.</p>

Estimation methods such as the Kalman filter identify best state estimates based on certain optimality criteria using a model of the system and the observations. A common assumption underlying the estimation is that the noise is Gaussian. In practical systems though, one quite frequently encounters thick-tailed, non-Gaussian noise. Statistically, contamination by this type of noise can be seen as inducing outliers among the data and leads to significant degradation in the KF. While many nonlinear methods to cope with non-Gaussian noise exist, a filter that is robust in the presence of outliers and maintains high statistical efficiency is desired. To solve this problem, a new robust Kalman filter framework is proposed that bounds the influence of observation, innovation, and structural outliers in a discrete linear system. This filter is designed to process the observations and predictions together, making it very effective in suppressing multiple outliers. In addition, it consists of a new prewhitening method that incorporates a robust multivariate estimator of location and covariance. Furthermore, the filter provides state estimates that are robust to outliers while maintaining a high statistical efficiency at the Gaussian distribution by applying a generalized maximum likelihood-type (GM) estimator. Finally, the filter incorporates the correct error covariance matrix that is derived using the GM-estimator's influence function. This dissertation also addresses robust state estimation for systems that follow a broad class of nonlinear models that possess two or more equilibrium points. Tracking state transitions from one equilibrium point to another rapidly and accurately in such models can be a difficult task, and a computationally simple solution is desirable. To that effect, a new robust extended Kalman filter is developed that exploits observational redundancy and the nonlinear weights of the GM-estimator to track the state transitions rapidly and accurately. Through simulations, the performances of the new filters are analyzed in terms of robustness to multiple outliers and estimation capabilities for the following applications: tracking autonomous systems, enhancing actual speech from cellular phones, and tracking climate transitions. Furthermore, the filters are compared with the state-of-the-art, i.e. the <i>H_â</i>-filter for tracking an autonomous vehicle and the extended Kalman filter for sensing climate transitions. / Ph. D.

The Global Supply Chain Forum (Stanford Global Supply Chain Forum Web Resource, http://www.stanford.edu/groups/scforum) defines supply chain management (SCM) as “Supply chain management is the integration of key business processes from end user through original suppliers that provides products, services and information that add value for customer and other stakeholders.” The rapid development of the Internet has dramatically changed the traditional definitions of manufacturer, suppliers and customers. Newer approaches to supply chain management attempt to organize the supply chain as a network of cooperating intelligent agents, each performing one or more supply chain functions and each coordinating actions with one another. This research is aimed at creating a viable model of a single manufacturer single supplier collaborative supply chain system using a Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI) system. The research further uses known inventory performance parameters to performance benchmark the VMI system with traditional push-pull systems, develop a collaborative forecasting spreadsheet solution and a best alternative ordering policy amongst EOQ, Monthly, JIT and VMI policies under known lead time and a variety of demand distribution functions. / Master of Science

Over the years, marketing researchers have conducted several investigations measuring the effectiveness of comparative advertising. The results of the investigations in this stream of research have been equivocal. While the results of some of the studies show comparative advertising inferior to noncomparative advertising, the results of some other studies show the opposite. A few other investigations show no difference between the effects of comparative and noncomparative advertising. After explaining the phenomenon of comparative advertising, its conceptualization is examined critically. Using the principles of categorization, the phenomenon of comparative advertising is reconceptualized. Next, the research proceeds to examine the effects of some of the dimensions of comparative advertising identified in its conceptualization. Specifically, this research analyzes the effects of explicitness of comparisons and specificity of cues in advertisements on consumers with differing levels of product familiarity. In a laboratory environment, the subjects’ responses to the advertisements are collected for informativeness of the advertisement, extreme brand evaluations, confidence in evaluations and purchase intention. The results show that high as well as low familiarity consumers find the explicit comparative advertisements more informative than the noncomparative advertisements. High familiarity consumers’ affective brand evaluation is more extreme and their purchase intention is greater with the explicit comparative advertisement than the noncomparative advertising. Further, the attribute cues about the sponsored brand in an advertisement are more effective than the general cues in raising the perceived informativeness of advertisements and their purchase intention more than the general information. Finally, the conceptual, substantive and methodological implications of the results are discussed and the directions for future research are identified. / Ph. D.

It is well known that the standard canonical uncertainty relation does not apply to the angular variable ? and its conjugate LZ. That is, the relation ? ø ? L Z > h/2 is false. The break down of the result has to do with difference in topology between the line and the circle. It is thus desirable to generalize the standard uncertainty relation topologically and find satisfactory results for the non-Euclidean spaces. This problem is intimately related to the issue of finding a consistent definition for quantum mechanics on "curved spaces". Just as the Heisenberg uncertainty relation was pivotal in understanding the basic structure of standard quantum mechanics, a solution to this problem should shine some light onto the proper conduct of quantum mechanics on general topological spaces. In this study we explore in detail how the standard uncertainty relation may breakdown. We also address the importance of topological considerations in quantum mechanics in general - we shall show how a change in topological character can change the nature of the quantum mechanics for a system and how the consideration of the topology of a system can greatly organize the solution of a problem and in some cases even be necessary for a. full understanding of the problem. We then discuss the derivation of satisfactory uncertainty relations for the compact, homogeneous spaces of the circle, the n-torus and the n-sphere. Finally, we draw out any implications to the issue of properly defining quantum mechanics on the non- Euclidean spaces.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1959. / Typescript. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 133-145).

Department: Architecture.