In the oil industry, there is a special class of pipelines used for the transportation of refined products. The problem of sequencing the inputs to be pumped through this type of pipeline seeks to generate the optimal sequence of batches of products and their destination as well as the amount of product to be pumped such that the total operational cost of the system, or another operational objective, is optimized while satisfying the product demands according to the requirements set by the customers. This dissertation introduces a new modeling approach and proposes a solution methodology for this problem capable of dealing with the topology of all the scenarios reported in the literature so far. The system representation is based on a 1-0 multi commodity network flow formulation that models the dynamics of the system, including aspects such as conservation of product flow constraints at the depots, travel time of products from the refinery to their depot destination and what happens upstream and downstream the line whenever a product is being received at a given depot while another one is being injected into the line at the refinery. It is assumed that the products are already available at the refinery and their demand at each depot is deterministic and known beforehand. The model provides the sequence, the amounts, the destination and the trazability of the shipped batches of different products from their sources to their destinations during the entire horizon planning period while seeking the optimization of pumping and inventory holding costs satisfying the time window constraints. A survey for the available literature is presented. Given the problem structure, a decomposition based solution procedure is explored with the intention of exploiting the network structure using the network simplex method. A branch and bound algorithm that exploits the dynamics of the system assigning priorities for branching to a selected set of variables is proposed and its computational results for the solution, obtained via GAMS/CPLEX, of the formulation for random instances of the problem of different sizes are presented. Future research directions on this field are proposed.

Hurricane Katrina damaged 1.4 million hectares of forestland in Mississippi. Hardwood timber accounted for 40 percent of the damage. A cost-effective method of artificial regeneration is necessary to restore this resource. Bareroot, containerized, and EKOgrown® seedlings of Quercus shumardii and Quercus nuttallii were planted on two sites for evaluation of survival and growth. Survival was recorded monthly during the first growing season, and at the end of each growing season. Growth was measured at the end of each growing season. Survival was extremely low in 2014. Containerized seedlings suffered a total loss due to freezing at the nursery, and a large flood occurred on one site. After the two growing seasons monitored in this study, bareroot seedlings provided similar or greater growth, greater survival, and were remarkably cheaper than EKOgrown® seedlings. Consequently, bareroot seedlings are recommended as the most cost-effective method of artificial oak reforestation.

The role of αPhe-291 residue in phosphate binding by Escherichia coli F1F0-ATP synthase was examined. X-ray structures of bovine mitochondrial enzyme suggest that this residue resides in close proximity to the conserved βR246 residue. Herein, we show that mutations αF291D and αF291E in E. coli reduce the ATPase activity of F1F0 membranes by 350-fold. Yet, significant oxidative phosphorylation activity is retained. In contrast to wild-type, ATPase activities of mutants were not inhibited by MgADP-azide, MgADP-fluoroaluminate, or MgADP-fluoroscandium. Whereas, 7-chloro-4-nitrobenzo-2-oxa-1,3-diazole (NBD-Cl) inhibited wild-type ATPase essentially completely, ATPase in mutants was inhibited maximally by ∼75%, although reaction still occurred at residue βTyr-297, proximal to αPhe-291 in the phosphate-binding pocket. Inhibition characteristics supported the conclusion that NBD-Cl reacts in βE (empty) catalytic sites, as shown previously by X-ray structure analysis. Phosphate protected against NBD-Cl inhibition in wild-type but not in mutants. In addition, our data suggest that the interaction of αPhe-291 with phosphate during ATP hydrolysis or synthesis may be distinct.

国立情報学研究所で電子化したコンテンツを使用している。

Ce travail de cette thèse propose une conception et une réalisation d’un banc intégré de caractérisation temporelle des dispositifs RF non-linéaires conçu avec des récepteurs de type THA. Ce banc est une version miniaturisée, moins onéreuse et à performances comparables d’un banc similaire « éclaté » et développé au sein d’XLIM. Le banc intégré développé dans ce travail est entièrement étalonné. Il est versatile vis-à-vis des techniques de sous échantillonnage mis en œuvre pour mesurer des signaux RF sur des temps d’acquisition très différents (<50 µs ou < quelques ms). La technique CIS est utilisée pour l’acquisition périodiques de signaux RF périodiques de durée courtes. La technique DQD est utilisée pour l’acquisition périodiques ou apériodique de signaux RF périodiques ou apériodiques. Cet outil a été utilisé pour extraire, à partir des formes d’ondes temporelles mesurées à leurs accès, plusieurs paramètres caractéristiques (AM/AM- AM/PM, EVM) d’amplificateurs GaN de gamme 10 à 50 W soumis à des excitations simples ou à des signaux modulés. Ce manuscrit décrit aussi la mise en œuvre le développement, parallèlement au travail précédent, d’une plateforme de laboratoire de travaux pratiques à distance pour le projet européen TEMPUS EOLES. / This work proposes the design and the realization of a 4-channel integrated and calibrated time-domain characterization system for the characterization of non-linear microwave devices. This integrated measurement system uses THA based receivers. This is a miniaturized, less expensive and comparable version of a similar laboratory available tool developed within XLIM. The integrated instrument developed in this work is fully calibrated. It is versatile with respect to sub-sampling techniques used to measure RF signals over very different acquisition times (<50 µs or < few ms). The CIS technique is used for the periodic acquisition of periodic short duration RF signals. The DQD technique is used for the periodic or aperiodic acquisition of periodic or aperiodic RF signals. This tool was used to extract, from the measured time-domain waveforms at their ports, several characteristic parameters (AM/AM-AM/PM, EVM) of GaN amplifiers operating in the 10 to 50 W range and excited with simple or modulated signals. This manuscript also describes the implementation, and the development, performed along with the previous work, of a laboratory platform for remote practical works in the context of the European project TEMPUS EOLES.

Étude du comportement d'un acier inoxydable 316L et d'un Inconel 718 dans le cadre d'un schéma thermomécanique à mémoire discrète constitué d'une équation multivoque, d'un critère d'inversion et d'un algorithme. Analyse détaillée des propriétés du comportement d'hystérésis pure. Etude des modules tangents aux courbes de charge. Mise en évidence de la restauration des propriétés du matériau après inversion et de la non-existence d'une discontinuité elastique-plastique dans le diagramme contrainte-déformation. Description de l'écrouissage en déformation à partir d'une analyse de la microstructure