[pt] O Ministério da Comunicações vem incentivando a realização de avaliações com sistemas de radiodifusão sonora digital, visando a futura decisão para a escolha do Padrão de Rádio Digital a ser adotado no País. Nos anos de 2012 a 2014 foram realizadas pelo CETUC, em parceria com o Ministério da Comunicações, a Anatel e o Inmetro, campanhas de medições nas faixas de ondas médias e VHF em algumas cidades do país, para avaliar os padrões de radiodifusão digital e subsidiar a decisão em curso sobre o padrão a ser adotado no Brasil. As campanhas envolveram medições estáticas e medições com mobilidade. Os dados das medições estáticas já foram analisados e os resultados divulgados. Neste trabalho são analisados os resultados das medições móveis. A primeira parte desse estudo trata da comparação dos resultados experimentais com os modelos de predição semiempíricos. Posteriormente, a análise estatística da variabilidade do sinal recebido em termos dos desvanecimentos de larga e pequena escala. Na parte final, a qualidade de recepção e a cobertura do sinal digital foram analisados a partir dos dados das medições. / [en] The Communications Ministry has been encouraging evaluations with digital sound broadcasting systems, aiming at the future decision for the Digital Radio Standard choice to be adopted in Brazil. In 2012 to 2014 were carried out by CETUC, in partnership with the Communications Ministry, Anatel and Inmetro, measurements campaigns at the medium and VHF bands in some cities of the country, to evaluate the digital broadcasting standards and to subsidize the current decision on the standard to be adopted in Brazil. Static and mobility measurements were involved at the campaign. The static measurement data have already been analyzed and the results reported. In this work, the mobile measurements results are analyzed. At the first part of this study deals with the comparison between experimental results with prediction models. Subsequently, statistical analysis of the received signal variability in terms of large and small scale fading were done. In the final part, reception quality and digital signal coverage were examined from the measurement data.

High speed facilities are considered the backbone of any successful transportation system; Interstates, freeways, and expressways carry the majority of daily trips on the transportation network. Although these types of roads are relatively considered the safest among other types of roads, they still experience many crashes, many of which are severe, which not only affect human lives but also can have tremendous economical and social impacts. These facts signify the necessity of enhancing the safety of these high speed facilities to ensure better and efficient operation. Safety problems could be assessed through several approaches that can help in mitigating the crash risk on long and short term basis. Therefore, the main focus of the research in this dissertation is to provide a framework of risk assessment to promote safety and enhance mobility on freeways and expressways. Multi-level Safety Performance Functions (SPFs) were developed at the aggregate level using historical crash data and the corresponding exposure and risk factors to identify and rank sites with promise (hot-spots). Additionally, SPFs were developed at the disaggregate level utilizing real-time weather data collected from meteorological stations located at the freeway section as well as traffic flow parameters collected from different detection systems such as Automatic Vehicle Identification (AVI) and Remote Traffic Microwave Sensors (RTMS). These disaggregate SPFs can identify real-time risks due to turbulent traffic conditions and their interactions with other risk factors. In this study, two main datasets were obtained from two different regions. Those datasets comprise historical crash data, roadway geometrical characteristics, aggregate weather and traffic parameters as well as real-time weather and traffic data. iii At the aggregate level, Bayesian hierarchical models with spatial and random effects were compared to Poisson models to examine the safety effects of roadway geometrics on crash occurrence along freeway sections that feature mountainous terrain and adverse weather. At the disaggregate level; a main framework of a proactive safety management system using traffic data collected from AVI and RTMS, real-time weather and geometrical characteristics was provided. Different statistical techniques were implemented. These techniques ranged from classical frequentist classification approaches to explain the relationship between an event (crash) occurring at a given time and a set of risk factors in real time to other more advanced models. Bayesian statistics with updating approach to update beliefs about the behavior of the parameter with prior knowledge in order to achieve more reliable estimation was implemented. Also a relatively recent and promising Machine Learning technique (Stochastic Gradient Boosting) was utilized to calibrate several models utilizing different datasets collected from mixed detection systems as well as real-time meteorological stations. The results from this study suggest that both levels of analyses are important, the aggregate level helps in providing good understanding of different safety problems, and developing policies and countermeasures to reduce the number of crashes in total. At the disaggregate level, real-time safety functions help toward more proactive traffic management system that will not only enhance the performance of the high speed facilities and the whole traffic network but also provide safer mobility for people and goods. In general, the proposed multi-level analyses are useful in providing roadway authorities with detailed information on where countermeasures must be implemented and when resources should be devoted. The study also proves that traffic data collected from different detection systems could be a useful asset that should be utilized iv appropriately not only to alleviate traffic congestion but also to mitigate increased safety risks. The overall proposed framework can maximize the benefit of the existing archived data for freeway authorities as well as for road users.

The performance of water lifelines during seismic events is an area of ongoing research. In this study we evaluate eight (8) different seismic events and the impact that ground shaking and ground deformations had on water pipeline systems. The overall goal of this work is to provide municipalities and utility providers with tools for mitigating the consequences of seismic hazards on water lifeline systems by analyzing the accuracy of damage estimation models. Three (3) different repair rate models are evaluated using data collected from the seismic events and compared to observed repair rate data. Results are analyzed to examine the utility of the models for forecasting damage. Results are shown. The overall goal of this work is to provide municipalities and utility providers with tools for mitigating the consequences of seismic hazards on water lifeline systems by analyzing the accuracy of damage estimation models. Results indicate that fragility functions that utilize a linear PGV-based function are the most accurate in predicting repair rates to a system based on residual plots developed for different models. Differentiating between continuous and segmented water lifeline systems is best done by using coefficients to modify the backbone PGV-based equation. Results also indicate that utilizing an additional PGD-based function could increase the predictive capabilities of water lifeline system fragility functions.

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La Non-Linéarité-Différentielle (NLD) et la Non-Linéarité-Intégrale (NLI) sont les performances statiques les plus importantes des Convertisseurs Analogique-Numérique (CAN) qui sont mesurées lors d’un test de production. Ces deux performances indiquent la déviation de la fonction de transfert du CAN par rapport au cas idéal. Elles sont obtenues en appliquant une rampe ou une sinusoïde lente au CAN et en calculant le nombre d’occurrences de chacun des codes du CAN.Ceci permet la construction de l’histogramme qui permet l’extraction de la NLD et la NLI. Cette approche requiert lacollection d’une quantité importante de données puisque chacun des codes doit être traversé plusieurs fois afin de moyenner le bruit et la quantité de données nécessaire augmente exponentiellement avec la résolution du CAN sous test. En effet,malgré que les circuits analogiques et mixtes occupent une surface qui n’excède pas généralement 5% de la surface globald’un System-on-Chip (SoC), leur temps de test représente souvent plus que 30% du temps de test global. Pour cette raison, la réduction du temps de test des CANs est un domaine de recherche qui attire de plus en plus d’attention et qui est en train deprendre de l’ampleur. Les CAN de type pipeline offrent un bon compromis entre la vitesse, la résolution et la consommation.Ils sont convenables pour une variété d’applications et sont typiquement utilisés dans les SoCs destinés à des applicationsvidéo. En raison de leur façon particulière du traitement du signal d’entrée, les CAN de type pipeline ont des codes de sortiequi ont la même largeur. Par conséquent, au lieu de considérer tous les codes lors du test, il est possible de se limiter à un sous-ensemble, ce qui permet de réduire considérablement le temps de test. Dans ce travail, une technique pour l’applicationdu test à code réduit pour les CANs de type pipeline est proposée. Elle exploite principalement deux propriétés de ce type deCAN et permet d’obtenir une très bonne estimation des performances statiques. La technique est validée expérimentalementsur un CAN 11-bit, 55nm de STMicroelectronics, obtenant une estimation de la NLD et de la NLI pratiquement identiques àla NLD et la NLI obtenues par la méthode classique d’histogramme, en utilisant la mesure de seulement 6% des codes. / Differential Non Linearity (DNL) and Integral Non Linearity (INL) are the two main static performances ofAnalog to-Digital Converters (ADCs) typically measured during production testing. These two performances reflect thedeviation of the transfer curve of the ADC from its ideal form. In a classic testing scheme, a saturated sine-wave or ramp isapplied to the ADC and the number of occurrences of each code is obtained to construct the histogram from which DNL andINL can be readily calculated. This standard approach requires the collection of a large volume of data because each codeneeds to be traversed many times to average noise. Furthermore, the volume of data increases exponentially with theresolution of the ADC under test. According to recently published data, testing the mixed-signal functions (e.g. dataconverters and phase locked loops) of a System-on-Chip (SoC) contributes to more than 30% of the total test time, althoughmixed-signal circuits occupy a small fraction of the SoC area that typically does not exceed 5%. Thus, reducing test time forADCs is an area of industry focus and innovation. Pipeline ADCs offer a good compromise between speed, resolution, andpower consumption. They are well-suited for a variety of applications and are typically present in SoCs intended for videoapplications. By virtue of their operation, pipeline ADCs have groups of output codes which have the same width. Thus,instead of considering all the codes in the testing procedure, we can consider measuring only one code out of each group,thus reducing significantly the static test time. In this work, a technique for efficiently applying reduced code testing onpipeline ADCs is proposed. It exploits two main properties of the pipeline ADC architecture and allows obtaining an accurateestimation of the static performances. The technique is validated on an experimental 11-bit, 55nm pipeline ADC fromSTMicroelectronics, resulting in estimated DNL and INL that are practically indistinguishable from DNL and INL that areobtained with the standard histogram technique, while measuring only 6% of the codes.

La distribution de l'abondance des espèces en un site, et la similarité de la composition taxonomique d'un site à l'autre, sont deux mesures de la biodiversité ayant servi de longue date de base empirique aux écologues pour tenter d'établir les règles générales gouvernant l'assemblage des communautés d'organismes. Pour ce type de mesures intégratives, le séquençage haut-débit d'ADN prélevé dans l'environnement (" ADN environnemental ") représente une alternative récente et prometteuse aux observations naturalistes traditionnelles. Cette approche présente l'avantage d'être rapide et standardisée, et donne accès à un large éventail de taxons microbiens jusqu'alors indétectables. Toutefois, ces jeux de données de grande taille à la structure complexe sont difficiles à analyser, et le caractère indirect des observations complique leur interprétation. Le premier objectif de cette thèse est d'identifier les modèles statistiques permettant d'exploiter ce nouveau type de données afin de mieux comprendre l'assemblage des communautés. Le deuxième objectif est de tester les approches retenues sur des données de biodiversité du sol en forêt amazonienne, collectées en Guyane française. Deux grands types de processus sont invoqués pour expliquer l'assemblage des communautés d'organismes : les processus "neutres", indépendants de l'espèce considérée, que sont la naissance, la mort et la dispersion des organismes, et les processus liés à la niche écologique occupée par les organismes, c'est-à-dire les interactions avec l'environnement et entre organismes. Démêler l'importance relative de ces deux types de processus dans l'assemblage des communautés est une question fondamentale en écologie ayant de nombreuses implications, notamment pour l'estimation de la biodiversité et la conservation. Le premier chapitre aborde cette question à travers la comparaison d'échantillons d'ADN environnemental prélevés dans le sol de diverses parcelles forestières en Guyane française, via les outils classiques d'analyse statistique en écologie des communautés. Le deuxième chapitre se concentre sur les processus neutres d'assemblages des communautés.[...] / Integrative patterns of biodiversity, such as the distribution of taxa abundances and the spatial turnover of taxonomic composition, have been under scrutiny from ecologists for a long time, as they offer insight into the general rules governing the assembly of organisms into ecological communities. Thank to recent progress in high-throughput DNA sequencing, these patterns can now be measured in a fast and standardized fashion through the sequencing of DNA sampled from the environment (e.g. soil or water), instead of relying on tedious fieldwork and rare naturalist expertise. They can also be measured for the whole tree of life, including the vast and previously unexplored diversity of microorganisms. Taking full advantage of this new type of data is challenging however: DNA-based surveys are indirect, and suffer as such from many potential biases; they also produce large and complex datasets compared to classical censuses. The first goal of this thesis is to investigate how statistical tools and models classically used in ecology or coming from other fields can be adapted to DNA-based data so as to better understand the assembly of ecological communities. The second goal is to apply these approaches to soil DNA data from the Amazonian forest, the Earth's most diverse land ecosystem. Two broad types of mechanisms are classically invoked to explain the assembly of ecological communities: 'neutral' processes, i.e. the random birth, death and dispersal of organisms, and 'niche' processes, i.e. the interaction of the organisms with their environment and with each other according to their phenotype. Disentangling the relative importance of these two types of mechanisms in shaping taxonomic composition is a key ecological question, with many implications from estimating global diversity to conservation issues. In the first chapter, this question is addressed across the tree of life by applying the classical analytic tools of community ecology to soil DNA samples collected from various forest plots in French Guiana. The second chapter focuses on the neutral aspect of community assembly.[...]

Introgression of genes from crops into ruderal populations is a multi-step process requiring sympatry, synchronous flowering, chromosomal compatibility, successful pollination and development of the zygote, germination, establishment and reproduction of hybrid progeny. The goal of this thesis was to generate data on as many steps in this process as possible and integrate them into a predictive statistical model to estimate the likelihood of successful introgression under a range of scenarios. Rape (Brassica napus) and wild turnip (B. rapa var. oleifera) were used as a model system. A homozygous dominant mutation in the rape genome conferring herbicide resistance provided a convenient marker for the study of introgression. Potential differences between wild turnip populations from a wide range of geographic locations in New Zealand were examined. Hand pollination established the genetic compatibility of rape and wild turnip and a high potential for gene introgression from rape to wild turnip. Interspecific hybrids were easily generated using wild turnip as the maternal plant, with some minor differences between wild turnip populations. The frequency of successful hybridisation between the two species was higher on the lower raceme. However, the upper raceme produced more dormant interspecific hybrid seed. Field trials, designed to imitate rare rape crop escapes into the ruderal environment, examined the ability of rare rape plants to pollinate wild turnip plants over four summers. At a ratio of 1 rape plant for every 400 wild turnip plants, the incidence of interspecific hybridisation was consistently low (<0.1 to 2.1 % of total seed on wild turnip plants). There was a significant year effect with the first season producing significantly more seed and a greater frequency of interspecific hybrid progeny than the other years. The frequency of interspecific hybrid progeny increases when the ratio of rape: wild turnip plant numbers increases. The relative importance of anemophily and entomophily in the production of interspecific hybrids was examined. Wild turnip plants produced twice as many seeds with bee pollination relative to wind pollination. However, the frequency of interspecific hybrids under wind pollination was nearly twice that for bee pollination. Light reflectance patterns under UV light revealed a marked difference between wild turnip and rape flowers compared to near identical appearance under visible light. The data indicates that bees are able to distinguish between rape and wild turnip flowers and exhibit floral constancy when foraging among populations with these two species. Hybrid survival in the seed bank, germination and seedling establishment in the field are important components of fitness. Seed banks established in the soil after the field trials described above germinated in subsequent spring seasons. The predominantly brassica weed populations were screened for herbicide resistance and the numbers of interspecific hybrids germinating compared to the original frequency in the field trial results. Frequency of interspecific hybrids was reduced in the populations compared to the original seed deposit. Seed with a known frequency of interspecific hybrid seed was sown in a separate trial, and the frequency of interspecific hybrids compared at 0, 4, 6, and 8 weeks after sowing. Poor germination resulted limited competition between seedlings, however the frequency of interspecific hybrids declined over time indicating low plant fitness. There were no significant population effects on any parameters tested. Interspecific hybrids grown in a glasshouse were backcrossed to the parental species and selfed within the plant and within populations. Pollen from the interspecific hybrids was found to have markedly reduced fertility. Interspecific hybrid plants had low female fertility, with the majority (88%) of the pollinated flowers aborting the siliques. Of the remaining siliques, most (98%) had only one to three seeds per silique. Inheritance of the herbicide resistance gene was regular in backcrosses but highly skewed following self pollination with an excess of herbicide-sensitive progeny. Production of a stochastic predictive model integrated the information acquired over the practical work phase of this thesis and utilised the capabilities of @risk, a new application of a risk analysis tool. The three outputs examined were the number of flowering plants resulting from backcrosses to rape and wild turnip and self pollination of the interspecific hybrid progeny. Five scenarios were modelled and all demonstrated the high likelihood of introgression failure in this system. In all scenarios, >75% of simulations resulted in no interspecific hybrid progeny surviving to flowering in the third generation. In all scenarios, and for all three outputs, the seed set on the interspecific hybrids of the second generation was the major factor that limited the number interspecific hybrid progeny surviving to flowering in the third generation.

<p>Breeding for improved animal welfare is paramount for increasing the long-term sustainability of the animal food industry. In this context, the main objectives of this dissertation were to understand the genetic and genomic background of welfare indicators in livestock and evaluate the feasibility of single-step Genomic Best Linear Unbiased Prediction (ssGBLUP) for performing genomic selection in beef cattle. This dissertation includes five studies. First, we aimed to test and identify an optimal ssGBLUP scenario for crossbreeding schemes. We simulated multiple populations differing based on the genetic background of the trait, and then we tested alternative models, such as multiple-trait weighted ssGBLUP. Even though more elaborated scenarios were evaluated, a single-trait ssGBLUP approach was recommended when genetic correlation across populations were higher than 0.70. The goal of the second study was to identify genomic regions controlling behavior traits that are conserved across livestock species. We systematically reviewed genomic regions associated with behavioral indicators in beef and dairy cattle, pigs, and sheep. The genomic regions identified in this study were located in genes previously reported controlling human behavioral, neural, and mental disorders. In the third study we used a large dataset (675,678 records) from North American Angus cattle to investigate the genetic background of temperament, a behavioral indicator, recorded on one-year-old calves, and provide the models and protocols for implementing genomic selection. We reported a heritability estimate equal to 0.38 for yearling temperament, and it was, in general, genetically favorably correlated with other productivity and fertility traits. Candidate genomic regions controlling yearling temperament were also identified. The fourth study was based on temperament recorded on North American Angus cows from 2 to 15 years of age (797,187 records). The goal was to understand the genetic and genomic background of temperament across the animal’s lifetime. By fitting a random regression model, we observed that temperament is highly genetically correlated across time. However, animals have differential learning and behavioral plasticity (LBP; changes of the phenotype overtime), although the LBP heritability is low. In our last study we evaluated foot scores (foot angle, FA; and claw set, CS) in American (US) and Australian (AU) Angus cattle aiming to assess the genetic and genomic background of foot scores and investigate the feasibility of performing an across-country genomic evaluation (~1.15 million animals genotyped). Foot scores are heritable (heritability from 0.22 to 0.27), and genotype-by-environment interaction was observed between US and AU Angus populations (genetic correlation equal to 0.61 for FA and 0.76 for CS). An across-country genomic prediction outperformed within-country evaluations in terms of predictivity ability (bias, dispersion, and validation accuracy) and theoretical accuracies. We have also identified genes associated with FA and CS previously reported in human’s bone structure and repair mechanism. In conclusion, this dissertation presents a comprehensive genetic and genomic characterization of welfare indicators (temperament and foot scores) in (inter)national livestock populations. </p>

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