The world's energy demand has been rapidly increasing and is projected to continue growing for at least the next two decades. With increasing global energy demand and competition from renewable energy, the oil and gas industry is striving for more efficient petroleum production. Many technical breakthroughs have enabled the drilling industry to expand the exploration to more difficult drilling such as deepwater drilling and multilateral directional drilling. For example, managed pressure drilling (MPD) offers ceaseless operation with multiple manipulated variables (MV) and wired drill pipe (WDP) provides two-way, high-speed measurements from bottom hole and along-string sensors. These technologies have maximum benefit when applied in an automation system or as a real-time advisory tool. The objective of this study is to investigate the benefit of nonlinear model-based control and estimation algorithms with various types of models. This work presents a new simplified flow model (SFM) for bottomhole pressure (BHP) regulation in MPD operations. The SFM is embedded into model-based control and estimation algorithms that use model predictive control (MPC) and moving horizon estimation (MHE), respectively. This work also presents a new Hammerstein-Wiener nonlinear model predictive controller for BHP regulation. Hammerstein-Wiener models employ input and output static nonlinear blocks before and after linear dynamics blocks to simplify the controller design. The control performance of the new Hammerstein-Wiener nonlinear controller is superior to conventional PID controllers in a variety of drilling scenarios. Conventional controllers show severe limitations in MPD because of the interconnected multivariable and nonlinear nature of drilling operations. BHP control performance is evaluated in scenarios such as drilling, pipe connection, kick attenuation, and mud density displacement and the efficacy of the SFM and Hammerstein-Wiener models is tested in various control schemes applicable to both WDP and mud pulse systems. Trusted high-fidelity drilling simulators are used to simulate well conditions and are used to evaluate the performance of the controllers using the SFM and Hammerstein-Wiener models. The comparison between non-WDP (semi-closed loop) and WDP (full-closed loop) applications validates the accuracy of the SFM under the set of conditions tested and confirms comparability with model-based control and estimation algorithms. The SFM MPC maintains the BHP within ± 1 bar of the setpoint for each investigated scenario, including for pipe connection and mud density displacement procedures that experience a wider operation range than normal drilling.

The thesis deals with the financing opportunities of a research and development support for small and medium enterprises in Czech Republic from the European Union resources. It mainly observes a managed change in the company and risks related to this change. The thesis is a supporting document for the decision making of the company in the financing of the innovative technologies from European budget and in the international project participation.

Cette thèse s’intéresse au cas d’un port maritime dans lequel des terminaux à conteneurs coopèrent afin de fournir un meilleur service global. Pour coordonner les opérations entre les terminaux, un modèle et plusieurs méthodes de résolution sont proposés. L’objectif est de minimiser les temps de rotation des navires aux longs cours, des navires caboteurs, des barges fluviales et des trains. Une solution au modèle fournit une affectation des véhicules de transport de conteneurs aux terminaux, ce qui inclue les camions, ainsi qu’une allocation de ressources et des intervalles temporels pour leurs prises en charge et pour celles de leurs conteneurs. Pour obtenir des solutions au modèle, une formulation du problème comme un programme linéaire en variables mixtes est proposée, ainsi que plusieurs heuristiques basées sur la programmation mathématique. Une méthode de planification en horizon glissant est introduite pour la gestion dynamique avec prise en compte des incertitudes. Des expériences numériques sont conduites avec des milliers d’instances réalistes variées, dont les résultats indiquent la viabilité de notre approche. Des résultats démontrent qu’autoriser la coopération entre terminaux augmente significativement la performance du système. / This thesis deals with the case of a maritime port in which container terminals are cooperating to provide better global service. In order to coordinate operations between the terminals, a model and several solving methods are proposed. The objective is to minimize turnaround times of mother and feeder vessels, barges and trains. A solution to the model provides an assignment of container-transport vehicles to the terminals, including trucks, as well as an allocation of resources and time intervals to handle them and their containers. To obtain solutions to the model, a mixed-integer programming formulation is provided, as well as several mathematical programming based heuristics. A rolling horizon framework is introduced for dynamic management under uncertainty. Numerical experiments are conducted on thousands of various realistic instances. Results indicate the viability of our approach and demonstrate that allowing cooperation between terminals significantly increases the performance of the system.

The goal of this research is to understand the impacts of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill and the 1970-1980 IXTOC-I oil spill and other anthropogenic activity (e.g. dam construction) on surface water primary productivity by measuring sedimentary biogenic silica. It is known that sedimentary biogenic silica is distinct from mineral – bound silica, therefore it has been used as a proxy record for surface water primary productivity (e.g. diatom blooms). The Deepwater Horizon oil spill resulted in a widespread Marine Oil Snow Sedimentation and Flocculent Accumulation (MOSSFA) event. The IXTOC-I oil spill was one of the largest oil spills in history and it is likely that the MOSSFA event occurred as a direct result. MOSSFA is characterized by increased deposition of surface derived components and dramatic changes in post-depositional chemical (redox) and biological (benthic meio- and macro-fauna) conditions. Sedimentary biogenic silica provides an independent record of the surface derived portion of MOSSFA inputs. Occurrences of MOSSFA after IXTOC-I and Deepwater Horizon were compared by collecting sediment cores from the northern Gulf of Mexico (Deepwater Horizon) and the southern Gulf of Mexico (IXTOC-I). An age model for each core was developed using short-lived radioisotopes (i.e. 210Pbxs). Sedimentary biogenic silica was significantly elevated in sedimentary intervals affected by the Deepwater Horizon spill. This suggests that a significant portion of the surface biological materials entrained during the MOSSFA event were sourced by diatom production. However, only one core (of three from the oil spill influenced area utilized in this study) from shallower depth had elevated levels of sedimentary biogenic silica in the sedimentary interval associated with IXTOC-I. Also, the down-core profiles of sedimentary biogenic silica from the other cores collected in the southern Gulf of Mexico are consistent with the history of dam construction (1949 to 1989) on the Grijalva and Papaloapan river systems. These two river systems are the dominant freshwater and nutrient sources for primary production in the Bay of Campeche region in the southern Gulf of Mexico and therefore the dominant control on diatom productivity and sedimentary biogenic silica distribution. Consequently, distribution of annual fresh water outflow and nutrient supply has transitioned from seasonal (before 1940’s) to stable (after 1980’s). Overall, sedimentary biogenic silica provides an independent record of surface derived MOSSFA inputs and serves as a proxy for other anthropogenic influences related to surface primary productivity variability.

Denna studies syfte är att undersöka hur gitarrelever på gymnasiet upplever sin relation till gitarren och hur den kan influera deras identitet, självbild och framtidsvision – möjlighetshorisont. Fem kvalitativa intervjuer har genomförts med gymnasieelever på estetiska programmet som alla hade gitarr som huvudinstrument. Studien vilar huvudsakligen på en sociokulturell teoretisk grund där stor vikt har lagts på relationen mellan informanterna och deras omvärld i utformningen av intervjuerna och analysarbetet av insamlad data. Den tidigare forskningen som redovisats i arbetet fokuserar på identitet och musikalisk identitet samt möjlighetshorisont då identitetsskapandet och informanternas framtidsvisioner har varit de centrala ämnena i studien. Studien visar att gitarren kan ses som ett verktyg att genom denna förstå och bearbeta sin sinnevärld. Gitarren upplevdes som en stor del av informanternas liv och deras identitetsskapande, både på ett praktiskt plan genom musicerande, övande och utvecklande av teoretisk kunskap men också på ett känslomässigt plan där gitarrutövandet och musiken kunde hjälpa dem att bearbeta och hantera känslor. En viss diskrepans mellan informanternas gitarrundervisning och deras gitarrutövande på fritiden kunde även urskiljas i resultatet – någonting som uppmanade till vidare frågeställningar och reflektioner gällande utformning av vissa aspekter kopplade till gitarrundervisningen. Vidare framgick det att titlar och benämningar på sig själv kunde upplevas ha stor vikt i skapandet av den egna självbilden och projektionen av ens image mot omvärlden. / The purpose of this study is to investigate how guitar students in high school experience their relationship with the guitar and how it can influence their identity, self-image and vision for the future – horizon of opportunity. Five qualitative interviews have been conducted with high school students on the arts program, all of which had guitars as their main instrument. The study is mainly based on a sociocultural theoretical basis where great emphasis has been placed on the relationship between the informants' and their surroundings in the design of the interviews and in the analysis of collected data. The previous research reported in the paper focuses on identity, musical identity and the horizon of opportunity since the developing of identity and informants' vision of the future have been the central subjects in the study. The study shows that the guitar can be seen as a tool for understanding and processing one’s worldview. The guitar was perceived as a large part of the informants' lives and their identity development, not only on a practical level through musicianship, practice and development of theoretical knowledge, but also on an emotional level where the guitar practice and music listening could help to process and manage emotions. A perceived division between the informants' formal and their informal guitar practice could also be identified through the results – something that called for further questions and reflections on the design of certain didactic aspects related to guitar teaching. Furthermore, it became clear that certain titles and labels on oneself could be perceived as having great importance in the creation of one's self- image and the projection of one's image towards the outside world.

In this thesis, different types of PVT (photovoltaic-thermal collectors) for three different farms in Europe will be studied, as part of the RES4LIVE project from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Action programme. A suitable renewable energy system will be proposed for each farm, considering the temperature range requirement and the climate conditions in each farm. In addition, three simulation tools that will be used, namely, WINSUN, Collector Energy Performance Tool (CEPT) and Scenocalc, will be evaluated and compared. The PVT systems combine the production of electrical and thermal energy. The combination of these two technologies can result in higher electrical efficiency due to the cooling effect of the fluid in the thermal part. Other technologies that form part of this study include the concentrating photovoltaic (CPV) and concentrated photovoltaic thermal (CPVT) systems. There are two types of flat PVTs, unglazed and glazed. The advantages and disadvantages of each system will be disclosed in the section on literature review. In addition, the operation of the concentrated collectors have been compared with the flat PVT collectors. Three simulation tools are being compared in this project and the most widely used tool is Scenocalc, the free tool supported by the European Commission. In the results section, the inputs for each simulation tool are explained, starting with the weather files that were taken at the same time for all the simulation tools so that the outputs could be compared. These results will be shown numerically for each farm and compared in tables and represented in graphs to decide which one is best for each location. The outcomes have shown that Scenocalc has a very different thermal result compared with the other tools in the case of the flat collectors. On the other hand, WINSUN has resulted to be a suitable simulating tool for a first approach to the production of the different technologies. In the case of CEPT, this program is best fitted for concentrated collectors since it takes into account both the thermal and electrical IAMs, whereas Scenocalc only considers the thermal IAMs.

CrashCourse Literature and other educational YouTube videos are essential mechanisms for connecting students and the general public to the humanities. Public humanities projects are in an intellectual tug-of-war between what academia and the diverse developing public want them to be, but that contention can and should be mediated using new media tools like CrashCourse Literature. CrashCourse Literature's emphasis on bringing the reader to the text and the text to the reader, echoes the goals of reception theory. Reception theory focuses on finding meaning in a literary text using the reader's horizon of expectations more than an a traditional, essentialist, "original' reading of a text. Analyzing public humanities projects like CrashCourse Literature through the lens of reception theory can help to show why the public uses them to connect more fully with the humanities. Within the texts of the videos "Fate, Family, and Oedipus Rex: Crash Course Literature 202," "Shakespeare's Sonnets: Crash Course Literature 304", "Like Pale Gold--The Great Gatsby Part I: Crash Course English Literature #4," and "Was Gatsby Great? The Great Gatsby Part 2: Crash Course English Literature #5," I see two distinct levels of reception that influence and strengthen each other: 1. First level of reception: CrashCourse interacts with and refracts the texts they are explicating based on where the reader is in time and space. 2. Meta-reception: CrashCourse interacts and connects with the viewers of the video by interpreting their viewers' responses to said text. CrashCourse's use of popular culture references, references to current or familiar social, political, and cultural ideologies, jokes, validations of viewers previous literary experiences, informal language all situated well within sound academic scholarship constitute examples of first-level and meta-reception. CrashCourse Literature sees the humanities, and fictional literature in particular, as exercises in empathy. Accordingly, they treat their approach to the text (first-level reception) and their viewers response to the text (meta-reception) with the same empathetic care. Public humanities projects that use new media well, allow public access to and connection with scholarly discussion and information. If academic institutions want to continue humanities research and discussion in a way that keeps their publics enthusiastically engaged, they will find good tools in CrashCourse Literature, which is engaging precisely in the kind of intellectual work and dialogue the academic establishment needs in order to stay relevant and significant to the publics they serve.

In 2010, the largest oil spill in U.S history occurred off the coast of Louisiana from April 20th to September 19th, when the well was declared officially sealed by the U.S Coast Guard, after releasing more than 4.4 million barrels of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) (McNutt et al., 2012). This spill was unique because it occurred in deep water approximately 1500 m below the ocean surface. Virtually nothing is known about the effects of oil spills on marine life in the deep sea, and there are limited data on mesopelagic and bathypelagic animals in the GOM before the Deepwater Horizon oil spill (DWHOS). The study presented here focuses on one of the most abundant and diverse groups of pelagic decapod crustaceans in the GOM – the family Oplophoridae and also includes one species from the family Pandalidae. Past studies on pelagic decapod crustaceans have been limited on both spatial and temporal scales. This study is unique because 1) it covers a large temporal range with data collected in 2011 and from 2015-2017, allowing for a more in-depth look at crustacean assemblage patterns, 2) it allows analysis of seasonality in reproduction, about which little is known for any deep-sea species, and 3) it assesses the potential effects of the Loop Current on species distribution and abundances, about which little is known. This information is important in understanding how the DWHOS may have affected the GOM ecosystem because pelagic decapod crustacean are intermediate components of the food web, and are in turn preyed upon by higher trophic levels. Unfortunately, there were little data on the mesopelagic ecosystem from this region before the spill, with the exception of a site in the eastern GOM (Standard Station, Hopkins et al., 1989; Hopkins et al., 1994). Therefore, these data, which incorporate samples taken one, five, six and seven years after the DWHOS, were analyzed with respect to year and season to determine if any trends were present. Results indicate that both biomass and abundance were significantly higher in 2011, than in subsequent years, indicating that the ecosystem has been declining since 2011. These two parameters were also lower in Loop Current water when compared to Common Water at all depths up to 1200 m, indicating that the Loop Current does have effects on deeper waters. The information obtained from this thesis will also act as a reference state for future studies in the GOM to monitor changes, or lack thereof, in the assemblage of deep-sea oplophorid and pandalid crustaceans.

Non-stationary signals, particularly frequency modulated (FM) signals which arecharacterized by their time-varying instantaneous frequencies (IFs), are fundamental to radar, sonar, radio astronomy, biomedical applications, image processing, speech processing, and wireless communications. Time-frequency (TF) analyses of such signals provide two-dimensional mapping of time-domain signals, and thus are regarded as the most preferred technique for detection, parameter estimation, analysis and utilization of such signals. In practice, these signals are often received with compressed measurements as a result of either missing samples, irregular samplings, or intentional under-sampling of the signals. These compressed measurements induce undesired noise-like artifacts in the TF representations (TFRs) of such signals. Compared to random missing data, burst missing samples present a more realistic, yet a more challenging, scenario for signal detection and parameter estimation through robust TFRs. In this dissertation, we investigated the effects of burst missing samples on different joint-variable domain representations in detail. Conventional TFRs are not designed to deal with such compressed observations. On the other hand, sparsity of such non-stationary signals in the TF domain facilitates utilization of sparse reconstruction-based methods. The limitations of conventional TF approaches and the sparsity of non-stationary signals in TF domain motivated us to develop effective TF analysis techniques that enable improved IF estimation of such signals with high resolution, mitigate undesired effects of cross terms and artifacts and achieve highly concentrated robust TFRs, which is the goal of this dissertation. In this dissertation, we developed several TF analysis techniques that achieved the aforementioned objectives. The developed methods are mainly classified into two three broad categories: iterative missing data recovery, adaptive local filtering based TF approach, and signal stationarization-based approaches. In the first category, we recovered the missing data in the instantaneous auto-correlation function (IAF) domain in conjunction with signal-adaptive TF kernels that are adopted to mitigate undesired cross-terms and preserve desired auto-terms. In these approaches, we took advantage of the fact that such non-stationary signals become stationary in the IAF domain at each time instant. In the second category, we developed a novel adaptive local filtering-based TF approach that involves local peak detection and filtering of TFRs within a window of a specified length at each time instant. The threshold for each local TF segment is adapted based on the local maximum values of the signal within that segment. This approach offers low-complexity, and is particularly useful for multi-component signals with distinct amplitude levels. Finally, we developed knowledge-based TFRs based on signal stationarization and demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed TF techniques in high-resolution Doppler analysis of multipath over-the-horizon radar (OTHR) signals. This is an effective technique that enables improved target parameter estimation in OTHR operations. However, due to high proximity of these Doppler signatures in TF domain, their separation poses a challenging problem. By utilizing signal self-stationarization and ensuring IF continuity, the developed approaches show excellent performance to handle multiple signal components with variations in their amplitude levels. / Electrical and Computer Engineering

This dissertation studies two important problems in the field of biomass supply chain network. In the first part of the dissertation, we study the pre-disaster planning problem that seeks to strengthen the links between the multi-modal facilities of a biomass supply chain network. A mixed-integer nonlinear programming model is developed to determine the optimal locations for multi-modal facilities and bio-refineries, offer suggestions on reliability improvement at vulnerable links, production at bio-refineries, and make transportation decision under both normal and disrupted scenarios. The aim is to assist investors in determining which links’ reliability can be improved under specific budget limitations so that the biouel supply chain network can prevent possible losses when transportation links are disrupted because of natural disasters. We used states Mississippi and Alabama as a testing ground for our model. As part of numerical experimentation, some realistic hurricane scenarios are presented to determine the potential impact that pre-investing may have on improving the bio-mass supply chain network’s reliability on vulnerable transportation links considering limited budget availability. In the second part of the dissertation, we study the impact of feedstock supply uncertainty on the design and management of an inbound biomass coiring supply chain network. A two-stage stochastic mixed integer linear programming model is developed to determine the optimal use of multi-modal facilities, biomass storage and processing plants, and shipment routes for delivering biomass to coal plants under feedstock supply uncertainty while considering congestion into account. To represent a more realistic case, we generated a scenario tree based on the prediction errors obtained from historical and forecasted feedstock supply availability. We linearized the nonlinear problem and solved with high quality and in a time efficient manner by using a hybrid decomposition algorithm that connects a Constraint generation algorithm with Sample average approximation algorithm and enhanced Progressive hedging algorithm. We used states Mississippi and Alabama as a testing ground for our study and conducted thorough computational experiments to test our model and to draw managerial insights.