Urban drainage systems are influenced by several future drivers that affect the performance as well as the costs of the systems. The uncertainties associated with future drivers and their impact creates difficulties in designing urban drainage systems sustainably. A review of the different future drivers for urban drainage systems illustrates that no sufficient future predictions for the long operational life spans of the systems are possible. This dissertation contends that to deal with future uncertainties, flexibility in urban drainage systems is necessary. At present, profound insights about defining, measuring, and generating flexible urban drainage systems do not exist. This research systematically approaches these issues. First, a clear definition of flexibility and an approach for the measurement and optimization of flexibility is operationalized. Based on the generic definitions of flexibility used in other disciplines, a definition tailored for urban drainage systems is generated. As such, flexibility in sustainable urban drainage systems is defined as `the ability of urban drainage systems to use their active capacity to act and respond to relevant alterations during operation in a performance-efficient, timely, and cost-effective way'. Next, a method for measuring flexibility is provided based on the developed definition of flexibility including the metrics, 'range of change', 'life-cycle performance' and 'effort of change'. These metrics are integrated into a framework for the measurement of flexibility based on a comparison of performance and effort in different alternative solution with respect to different future states. In addition the metrics are the core components for optimizing flexible design of urban drainage system. The measurement method is successfully applied in two case studies in Tuttle Hill, UK and Hamburg-Wilhelmsburg, Germany. Using the developed definition and method for the measurement of flexibility, this dissertation illustrates that a transfer of the general theoretical background of flexibility to the field of urban drainage is possible. It is currently unclear how the flexible design of urban drainage systems can be executed. Based on a review, this research identifies nine potential principles of flexible design, described by the indicators of modularity, platform design, flexible elements, cost efficiency, decentralized design, real time control, low degree of specialization, scalability, and a combination of these principles. A case study of Hamburg-Boberg is then presented to analyze which of these principles of flexible design can be verified. For each alternative solution in the sample, the indicators for the different potential principles of flexible design as well as the flexibility provided by the design are calculated. Testing is done to determine if there is a significant correlation between the potential principles of flexible design and the measured flexibility using a chi-square-test and F-test. Two principles are verified with a high degree of confidence, 'platform design' and `flexible elements'. The `platform design' principle provides high flexibility, in which urban drainage system elements with high change costs are designed robustly with huge tolerance margins, whereas elements with low change costs are designed with flexibility options. The 'flexible elements' principle aims to include as many component elements as possible, which provides high individual flexibility in the design of the urban drainage system. These design principles and associated static indicators enable a quick screening of huge number alternative solutions and provide guidance for the development and optimization of flexible urban drainage system. Within the framework for optimization of flexibility, the design principles can help identify the most promising alternative solutions for the design of urban drainage systems. The optimization framework includes the following steps: identification of the required flexibility, generation of alternative solutions for the design of urban drainage systems, screening of the most promising alternative solutions, detailed measurement of flexibility provided by the alternative solutions; and selection of optimal solution. Hence out of a sample of different design approaches, the solutions with the highest flexibility could be identified. The successful application of flexible design in three case studies illustrates that the concept provides a suitable strategy for dealing with the challenges associated with future uncertainties. For urban drainage systems, flexible design guarantees high levels of performance in uncertain future states while reducing the effort required to adapt the system to changing future conditions. This study contends that flexibility allows for profound decision making for urban drainage design despite future uncertainties.

Both real-time virtualization and recursive virtualization are desirable properties of a virtual machine monitor (or hypervisor). Although the prospect for virtualization and even recursive virtualization has become better as the PC hardware becomes faster, the real-time systems community so far has not been able to reap much benefits. This is because no existing virtualization mechanism can properly support the stringent timing requirements needed by real-time systems. It is hard to do real-time virtualization, and it is even harder to do it recursively. In this dissertation, we propose a framework whereby the hypervisor is capable of running real-time guests and participating in recursive virtualization. Such a hypervisor is called a real-time hierarchical hypervisor. We first look at virtualization of abstract resource types from the real-time systems perspective. Unlike the previous work on recursive real-time partitioning that assumes fully-preemptable resources, we concentrate on other and often more practical types of scheduling constraints, especially the non-preemptive and limited-preemptive ones. Then we consider the current x86 architecture and explore the problems that need to be addressed for real-time recursive virtualization. We drill down on the problem that affects timing properties the most, namely, the recursive forwarding and delivery of interrupts, exceptions and intercepts. We choose the x86 architecture because it is popular and readily available, but it is by no means the only architecture of choice for real-time recursive virtualization. We conclude the research with an architecture-independent discussion on future possibilities in real-time recursive virtualization. / text

No description available.

In children the way of life, nutrition and recreation changed in recent years and as a consequence body composition shifted as well. It is established that overweight belongs to a global problem. In addition, German children exhibit a less robust skeleton than ten years ago. These developments may elevate the risk of cardiovascular diseases and skeletal modifications. Heredity and environmental factors as nutrition, socioeconomic status, physical activity and inactivity influence fat accumulation and the skeletal system. Based on these negative developments associations between type of body shape, skeletal measures and physical activity; relations between external skeletal robustness, physical activity and inactivity, BMI and body fat and also the progress of body composition especially external skeletal robustness in comparison in Russian and German children were investigated. In a cross-sectional study 691 German boys and girls aged 6 to 10 years were examined. Anthropometric measurements were taken and questionnaires about physical activity and inactivity were answered by parents. Additionally, pedometers were worn to determinate the physical activity in children. To compare the body composition in Russian and German children data from the years 2000 and 2010 were used. The study has shown that pyknomorphic individuals exhibit the highest external skeletal robustness and leptomorphic ones the lowest. Leptomorphic children may have a higher risk for bone diseases in adulthood. Pyknomorphic boys are more physically active by tendency. This is assessed as positive because pyknomorphic types display the highest BMI and body fat. Results showed that physical activity may reduce BMI and body fat. In contrast physical inactivity may lead to an increase of BMI and body fat and may rise with increasing age. Physical activity encourages additionally a robust skeleton. Furthermore external skeletal robustness is associated with BMI in order that BMI as a measure of overweight should be consider critically. The international 10-year comparison has shown an increase of BMI in Russian children and German boys. Currently, Russian children exhibit a higher external skeletal robustness than the Germans. However, in Russian boys skeleton is less robust than ten years ago. This trend should be observed in the future as well in other countries. All in all, several measures should be used to describe health situation in children and adults. Furthermore, in children it is essential to support physical activity in order to reduce the risk of obesity and to maintain a robust skeleton. In this way diseases are able to prevent in adulthood. / Die Lebens- und Ernährungsweise sowie die Freizeitaktivitäten von Kindern haben sich im Laufe der letzten Jahre verändert. Daraus resultieren Veränderungen der Körperzusammensetzung. Es ist hinreichend bekannt, dass Übergewicht ein globales Problem ist. Des Weiteren weisen deutsche Kinder ein weniger robustes Skelett auf als noch vor 10 Jahren. Diese Entwicklungen können zu unterschiedlichen Erkrankungen des Herz-Kreislauf-Systems bzw. des Skelettsystems führen. Neben genetischen Faktoren haben Umweltfaktoren wie Ernährung, sozialer Status, die körperliche Aktivität bzw. Inaktivität einen Einfluss auf die Fettakkumulation und das Skelettsystem. Aufgrund der negativen Entwicklungen wurden daher die Zusammenhänge zwischen dem Körperbautyp, Skelettmaßen und der körperlichen Aktivität; die Beziehungen zwischen der äußeren Skelettrobustizität, der körperlichen Aktivität bzw. Inaktivität, dem BMI und dem Körperfettanteil sowie die Entwicklung der Körperzusammensetzung insbesondere die äußere Skelettrobustizität von russischen Kindern im Vergleich zu deutschen Kindern überprüft. In einer Querschnittstudie wurden 691 Jungen und Mädchen im Alter von 6 bis 10 Jahren aus Berlin und Brandenburg untersucht. Es wurden anthropometrische Messungen vorgenommen, Fragebögen bezüglich der sportlichen Aktivität und Inaktivität beantwortet sowie ein Schrittzähler zur Bestimmung der körperlichen Aktivität von den Kindern getragen. Für den internationalen Vergleich der Körperzusammensetzung wurden Daten aus den Jahren 2000 und 2010 von deutschen und russischen Kindern verwendet. Es konnte gezeigt werden, dass der pyknomorphe Körperbautyp die höchste und der leptomorphe Typ die niedrigste äußere Skelettrobustizität aufweisen. Leptomorphe Kinder könnten daher das höchste Risiko für Knochenerkrankungen im Erwachsenenalter aufweisen. Tendenziell zeigen pyknomorphe Jungen eine höhere körperliche Aktivität als die anderen Typen. Dies ist positiv zu bewerten, da die pyknomorphen Typen den höchsten BMI und Körperfettanteil besitzen. Wie die Resultate ergeben, kann die körperliche Aktivität zur Reduktion bzw. Inaktivität zur Erhöhung des BMIs und des Körperfettanteils führen. Die körperliche Inaktivität steigt mit zunehmendem Alter. Die körperliche Aktivität unterstützt weiterhin den Aufbau eines robusten Skeletts. Die äußere Skelettrobustizität ist ebenfalls positiv mit dem BMI assoziiert, so dass dargelegt werden konnte, dass der BMI als Maß für Übergewicht kritisch betrachtet werden sollte. Im internationalen 10-Jahresvergleich zeigt sich eine Zunahme des BMIs bei russischen Kindern und deutschen Jungen. Zurzeit weisen die russischen Kinder immer noch ein robusteres Skelett auf als die Deutschen jedoch ist das Skelett bei russischen Jungen weniger robust als noch vor 10 Jahren. Diese negative Entwicklung sollte weiterhin beobachtet werden auch in anderen Ländern. Alles in allem, sollten immer mehrere Maße zur Beschreibung des Gesundheitszustandes herangezogen werden. Weiterhin ist einer Förderung der körperlichen Aktivität bei Kindern notwendig, um zum einen das Risiko für Übergewicht zu minimieren und zum anderen ein robustes Skelett aufzubauen, um somit Erkrankungen im Erwachsenenalter vorzubeugen.

The growth in the use of machine learning in different areas has revealed challenging classification problems that require robust systems. Multiple Classier Systems (MCSs) have attracted interest from researchers as a method that could address such problems. Optimizing the fitness of an MCS improves its, robustness. The lack of an analysis for MCSs from a fitness perspective is identified. To fill this gap, an analytic model from this perspective is derived mathematically by extending the error analysis introduced by Brown and Kuncheva in 2010. The model relates the fitness of an MCS to the average accuracy, positive-diversity, and negative-diversity of the classifiers that constitute the MCS. The model is verified using a statistical analysis of a Monte-Carlo based simulation. This shows the significance of the indicated relationships by the model. This model provides guidelines for developing robust MCSs. It enables the selection of classifiers which compose an MCS with an improved fitness while improving computational cost by avoiding local calculations. The usefulness of the model for designing classification systems is investigated. A new measure consisting of the accuracy and positive-diversity is developed. This measure evaluates fitness while avoiding many calculations compared to the regular measures. A new system (Gadapt) is developed. Gadapt combines machine learning and genetic algorithms to define subsets of the feature space that closely match true class regions. It uses the new measure as a multi-objective criterion for a multi-objective genetic algorithm to identify the MCSs those create the subsets. The design of Gadapt is validated experimentally. The usefulness of the measure and the method of determining the subsets for the performance of Gadapt are examined based on five generated data sets that represent a wide range of problems. The robustness of Gadapt to small amounts of training data is evaluated in comparison with five existing systems on four benchmark data sets. The performance of Gadapt is evaluated in comparison with eleven existing systems on nine benchmark data sets. The analysis of the experiment results supports the validity of the Gadapt design and the outperforming of Gadapt on the existing systems in terms of robustness and performance.

Deterministic design optimization is widely used to design products or systems. However, due to the inherent uncertainties involved in different model parameters or operation processes, deterministic design optimization without considering uncertainties may result in unreliable designs. In this case, it is necessary to develop and implement optimization under uncertainties. One way to deal with this problem is reliability-based robust design optimization (RBRDO), in which additional uncertainty analysis (UA, including both of reliability analysis and moment evaluations) is required. For most practical applications however, UA is realized by Monte Carlo Simulation (MCS) combined with structural analyses that renders RBRDO computationally prohibitive. Therefore, this work focuses on development of efficient and robust methodologies for RBRDO in the context of MCS. We presented a polynomial chaos expansion (PCE) based MCS method for UA, in which the random response is approximated with the PCE. The efficiency is mainly improved by avoiding repeated structural analyses. Unfortunately, this method is not well suited for high dimensional problems, such as dynamic problems. To tackle this issue, we applied the convolution form to compute the dynamic response, in which the PCE is used to approximate the modal properties (i.e. to solve random eigenvalue problem) so that the dimension of uncertainties is reduced since only structural random parameters are considered in the PCE model. Moreover, to avoid the modal intermixing problem when using MCS to solve the random eigenvalue problem, we adopted the MAC factor to quantify the intermixing, and developed a univariable method to check which variable results in such a problem and thereafter to remove or reduce this issue. We proposed a sequential RBRDO to improve efficiency and to overcome the nonconvergence problem encountered in the framework of nested MCS based RBRDO. In this sequential RBRDO, we extended the conventional sequential strategy, which mainly aims to decouple the reliability analysis from the optimization procedure, to make the moment evaluations independent from the optimization procedure. Locally "first-torder" exponential approximation around the current design was utilized to construct the equivalently deterministic objective functions and probabilistic constraints. In order to efficiently calculate the coefficients, we developed the auxiliary distribution based reliability sensitivity analysis and the PCE based moment sensitivity analysis. We investigated and demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed methods for UA as well as RBRDO by several numerical examples. At last, RBRDO was applied to design the tuned mass damper (TMD) in the context of passive vibration control, for both deterministic and uncertain structures. The associated optimal designs obtained by RBRDO cannot only reduce the variability of the response, but also control the amplitude by the prescribed threshold.

The ATLAS experiment pushes the leading edge of experimental particle physics. Increasingly complex hardware, however, brings increasingly complex problems which manifest themselves not only in the detector, but also within the software which drives the detector. The magnitude of the expected interaction rate, too, adds enormous stress to the detector system and the software trigger. In order to prepare the software for these challenges, various detector quantities are considered which may provide debugging handles and robustness against detector problems arising in the ATLAS calorimeter trigger. The effect of electronics noise suppression on these quantities is studied and a brief study of the software trigger performance is followed by recommendations for the implementation of robustness checks.

No description available.

Substantial anthropogenic change of the Earth’s climate is modifying patterns of rainfall, river flow, glacial melt and groundwater recharge rates across the planet, undermining many of the stationarity assumptions upon which water resources infrastructure has been historically managed. This hydrological uncertainty is creating a potentially vast range of possible futures that could threaten the dependability of vital regional water supplies. This, combined with increased urbanisation and rapidly growing regional populations, is putting pressures on finite water resources. One of the greatest international challenges facing decision makers in the water industry is the increasing influences of these “deep” climate change and population growth uncertainties affecting the long-term balance of supply and demand and necessitating the need for adaptive action. Water companies and utilities worldwide are now under pressure to modernise their management frameworks and approaches to decision making in order to identify more sustainable and cost-effective water management adaptations that are reliable in the face of uncertainty. The aim of this thesis is to compare and contrast a range of existing Decision Making Methods (DMMs) for possible application to Water Resources Management (WRM) problems, critically analyse on real-life case studies their suitability for handling uncertainties relating to climate change and population growth and then use the knowledge generated this way to develop a new, resilience-based WRM planning methodology. This involves a critical evaluation of the advantages and disadvantages of a range of methods and metrics developed to improve on current engineering practice, to ultimately compile a list of suitable recommendations for a future framework for WRM adaptation planning under deep uncertainty. This thesis contributes to the growing vital research and literature in this area in several distinct ways. Firstly, it qualitatively reviews a range of DMMs for potential application to WRM adaptation problems using a set of developed criteria. Secondly, it quantitatively assesses two promising and contrasting DMMs on two suitable real-world case studies to compare highlighted aspects derived from the qualitative review and evaluate the adaptation outputs on a practical engineering level. Thirdly, it develops and reviews a range of new potential performance metrics that could be used to quantitatively define system resilience to help answer the water industries question of how best to build in more resilience in future water resource adaptation planning. This leads to the creation and testing of a novel resilience driven methodology for optimal water resource planning, combining optimal aspects derived from the quantitative case study work with the optimal metric derived from the resilience metric investigation. Ultimately, based on the results obtained, a list of suitable recommendations is compiled on how to improve the existing methodologies for future WRM planning under deep uncertainty. These recommendations include the incorporation of more complex simulation models into the planning process, utilisation of multi-objective optimisation algorithms, improved uncertainty characterisation and assessments, an explicit robustness examination and the incorporation of additional performance metrics to increase the clarity of the strategy assessment process.

Les systèmes RFID sont de plus en plus utilisés dans des applications critiques fonctionnant dans des environnements perturbés (ferroviaire, aéronautique, chaînes de production ou agroalimentaire) ou dans des applications où la sécurité est essentielle (identification, lutte contre la contrefaçon). Pourtant, ces systèmes faibles coûts, initialement conçus pour des applications de masse non critiques, sont peu robustes par nature. Pour les applications critiques, les défaillances des puces RFID peuvent avoir des conséquences catastrophiques ou créer des failles de sécurité importantes. Ces défaillances peuvent avoir des origines nombreuses : par exemple, des origines matérielles dues au vieillissement naturel des circuits intégrés ou à des attaques (optiques, électromagnétiques, en tension). Il est donc d'usage dans les applications critiques d'accroître la robustesse des systèmes RFID par la mise en œuvre de redondance matérielle. Cependant cette redondance accroît le coût du déploiement des systèmes RFID ainsi que la complexité des protocoles et middleware associés. L'amélioration de la robustesse des tags permet de grandement limiter cette redondance. L'objectif de la thèse est d'accroitre la robustesse des tags UHF passifs en proposant et validant de nouvelles architectures numériques de puces RFID robustes à la fois aux défaillances et aux attaques matérielles. Les approches de durcissement des circuits intégrés étudient généralement leur robustesse par simulation et ce de manière indépendante à la validation de leur conception. La méthode la plus courante afin de valider la robustesse d'un circuit repose sur l'injection de fautes par simulation. Pour les puces RFID, ce type d'approche par simulation est problématique car les performances des puces dépendent de nombreux paramètres difficilement modélisables globalement. En effet, le fonctionnement d'un tag dépend de son environnement électromagnétique, du nombre de tags présents dans le système, des protocoles mis en œuvre. Aussi, nous avons développé une méthodologie basée sur le prototypage permettant d'éviter des simulations complexes et chronophages. La puce RFID prototype est alors implantée dans un FPGA. Ainsi, dès la phase de conception, cette puce peut être validée fonctionnellement dans un environnement réel. De plus, en utilisant différentes techniques d'instrumentation permettant l'injection de fautes dans les circuits numériques sur FPGA, il est alors possible d'analyser l'effet sur l'ensemble du système des fautes injectées dans le tag. Dans cette thèse, dans un premier temps, le prototype fonctionnel d'un tag RFID a été développé. Dans un second temps, ce prototype a été instrumenté pour pouvoir réaliser des injections de fautes en ligne ou hors ligne. Ensuite, le comportement du système RFID en présence de fautes dans ce tag RFID a été évalué. L'analyse des effets de ces fautes sur le système a permis de proposer, de mettre en œuvre et de valider de nouvelles architectures numériques de tags RFID robustes. Ce nouvel environnement de prototypage et d'injection de fautes a également permis de démontrer les effets de nouvelles attaques contre les systèmes RFID reposant sur l'insertion de tags fautifs ou malveillants dans les systèmes. Enfin, cette approche a permis d'évaluer les méthodes de détection des tags fautifs. / RFID tags are more and more used for critical applications within harsh environments (aeronautics, railways) or for secure applications such as identification, countermeasure against counterfeiting. However, such low cost systems, initially designed for non-critical applications with a high volume, are not robust by themselves. For critical applications, a malfunction of RFID chip may have serious consequences or induce a severe security breach for hackers. Dysfunctions can have many origins: for instance, hardware issues can be due to aging effects or can also be due to hackers attack such as optical or electromagnetic fault injection. It is thus a common practice for critical applications to increase the robustness of RFID system. The main purpose of this PhD Thesis is to increase UHF tags robustness by proposing new digital architectures of RFID chips which would be resilient against both hardware attacks and natural defects.Usual design techniques for robustness IC improvement consist in evaluating the design robustness by simulation and to do this independently of the design validation. The main technique for robustness evaluation is the simulation based faults injection. Within the RFID context such an approach only based on simulation has several drawbacks. In fact, simulations often are inaccurate because the system behavior relies on several parameters such as the global electromagnetic environment, the number of tags present in the reader field, the RFID protocol parameters.The purposes of this PhD are to develop a design method dedicated to RFID system based on hardware prototyping in order to avoid time consuming simulations and then to evaluate the design within a real environment.The hardware prototyping based on FPGA allows the design to be validated in a real environment. Moreover, using instrumentation techniques for fault injection within FPGA , it will be then possible to analyze the effects of faulty tags on the global system in terms of safety and security and then to propose countermeasures.In this thesis an FPGA based emulation platform called RFIM has been developed. This platform is compliant to EPC C1 Gen2 RFID standard. The RFID tag emulator has been validated functionally in a real environment. The RFIM platform uses the instrumentation technique for injecting faults in the digital tag circuit. Through fault injection campaigns RFIM platform can analyze the effect on the entire system of the faults injected into the tag, and ten validate new robust digital architectures.The RFIM platform has been used to demonstrate the effects of further attacks against RFID systems based on the insertion of faulty or malicious tag that contains a hardware Trojan. Finally, RFIM platform helps to develop countermeasures against the fault effects. These countermeasures have been implemented and tested in a real RFID environment with several tags and reader.