As mudanças feitas nos materiais utilizados em anéis de assento de válvula para trabalhar em motores que operam com qualquer mistura de gasolina e etanol (Flex) tornou o rebaixamento desses componentes um ponto crítico na produção destes motores. Para resistir aos maiores desgastes e à corrosão decorrentes do uso do etanol, foram criados novos materiais sinterizados. Isso gerou uma diminuição drástica da vida das ferramentas de PCBN utilizadas no rebaixamento desses componentes. Em alguns casos, são observados ainda lascamentos destas ferramentas, impedindo sua reafiação. Este aumento nos custos com ferramentas tornou-se ainda mais crítico nos últimos anos, quando os modelos Flex já representavam 87% da produção nacional de veículos leves. Uma vez que as fraturas observadas nas ferramentas de PCBN ocorrem por excesso de esforço mecânico sobre a ferramenta, objetivou-se a redução dos esforços de corte por meio do estudo e modificação dos parâmetros de corte e preparação do gume das ferramentas sem que a produtividade fosse comprometida. Antes, porém, foram estudadas a composição e microestrutura dos materiais utilizados nestes componentes para motores a gasolina e Flex, para entender o motivo da diferença das forças de corte na usinagem destes materiais. O estudo mostra que os esforços de corte são da ordem de 30% maiores para a usinagem dos anéis para motores Flex, e que o uso de um raio no gume da ferramenta gera menores forças de usinagem frente ao uso tradicional de chanfros. Confirma, ainda, que a velocidade de corte exerce baixa influência sobre os esforços de corte, enquanto os mesmos aumentam exponencialmente com o avanço. A alteração simultânea dos parâmetros de corte e da preparação do gume gera uma redução de até 36% na força resultante de corte sem alterar a produtividade do processo.

A significant part of the world economy depends on stationary or vehicular Diesel engines. Such engines are fed mainly by fossil fuels, among these, the standard diesel. The growing interest in renewable energy sources makes the use of ethanol in these engines a real technological demand. From the existing concepts to meet this goal the Diesel-Ethanol in the Dual-Fuel mode has demand for published experimental data. Such concept brings a greater degree of freedom, but implications in technological challenges. It works through a PFI (Port Fuel Injection) system to prepare a pre-mixture of air and ethanol in the intake port which is compressed in the combustion chamber and ignited by pilot injection of diesel. In this work a single cylinder research engine with 100% electronically controlled calibration was used. The engine control parameters were set to maximize diesel substitution rate by ethanol with a limited indicated efficiency loss. Comparisons were made among different working conditions. Initially, the flow structure in the combustion chamber was tested in both quiescent and high swirl modes. Compression ratios were adjusted at 3 different levels: 14:1, 16:1 and 17:1. Two injectors were tested, the first one with mass flow of 35 g/s and another of 45 g/s. Regarding pressure diesel injection, 4 levels were investigated namely 800, 1000, 1200 and 1400 bar. The experiments discussed in this work were able to achieve up to 65% of diesel energy substituted by hydrated ethanol energy with an indicated efficiency of 49%. In comparison with the diesel only running condition, the NOx emissions was improved by up to 60%. But the HC, CO and aldehydes emissions had a penalty, showing a trade-off that shall be further investigated with a final design engine in the beginning of product development process.

Neste trabalho estudamos alguns resultados importantes sobre a teoria das subvariedades bi-harmônicas de espaços homogêneos tridimensionais. Existem três classes de espaços homogêneos tridimensionais simplesmente conexos dependendo da dimensão do grupo de isometrias, que pode ser: 3, 4 ou 6. No caso da dimensão ser 6, M é uma forma espacial; se a dimensão do grupo de isometrias for 4, M é isométrica a: \'H IND. 3\' (grupo de Heisenberg), SU(2) (grupo unitário especial), ~SL(2,R) (revestimento universal do grupo linear especial), ou aos espaços produtos \'S POT. 2\' × R e \'H POT. 2\' × R. Feita exceção para \'H POT. 3\', no caso da dimensão ser 4 ou 6 o espaço homogêneo é localmente isométrico a (uma parte de) \'R POT. 3\', munido de uma métrica que depende de dois parâmetros reais. Tal família de métricas aparece primeiramente no trabalho [3] de L. Bianchi e, mais tarde, nos artigos [14, 35] de É. Cartan e G. Vranceanu, respectivamente. Nesse projeto de mestrado, queremos estudar (essencialmente) resultados de existência e classificação de subvariedades bi-harmônicas nesses espaços, também conhecidos como variedades de Bianchi-Cartan-Vranceanu / In this work we study some important results about the theory of the biharmonic submanifolds of tridimensional homogeneous spaces. There exist three classes of simply connected tridimensional homogeneous spaces depending on the dimension of the group of isometries, which can be: 3, 4 or 6. In the case of dimension 6, M will be a space form; if the dimension of the group of isometries is 4, M will be isometric to: either \'H IND. 3\' (Heisenbergs group), or SU(2) (special unitary group), or ~SL(2,R) (universal recovering of the special linear group), or the product spaces \'S POT. 2\' × R and \'H POT. 2\' × R. Except for \'H POT. 3\', in the case of dimension 4 or 6 the homogeneous space is locally isometric to (a part of) \'R POT. 3\', endowed with a metric that depends on two real parameters. Such family of metrics first appears in the work [3] of L. Bianchi and later in the articles [14, 35] of ´E. Cartan and G. Vranceanu, respectively. In this master thesis, we want to study (essentially) results of existence and classification of bi-harmonic submanifolds in these spaces, also known as Bianchi-Cartan-Vranceanus manifolds

Bismuth Hall effect sensors with active sizes in the range 0.1µm - 2µm have been fabricated by electron beam lithography and lift-off techniques for applications in scanning Hall probe microscopy (SHPM). The key figures of merit of the sensors have been systematically characterised as a function of device size. The miniumum detectable field of 100nm probes at room temperature is found to be Bmin=0.9mT/Hz0.5, with scope for more than a factor of ten reduction by using higher Hall probe currents. This is significantly lower than in similar samples fabricated by focussed ion beam (FIB) milling of continuous Bi films, suggesting that the elimination of FIB damage and Ga+ ion incorporation through the use of lift-off techniques leads to superior figures of merit. A number of ways in which the T=300K performance of our sensors could be improved still futher are discussed. High resolution scanning Hall probe microscopy (SHPM) with semiconductor 2DEG Hall probe devices has been used to search for novel phases of vortex matter in single crystals of the high temperature superconductor Bi2Sr2CaCu2O8+. In the crossing lattices regime of these highly anisotropic superconductors under tilted magnetic fields two orthogonal types of flux structure are formed known as Josephson and pancake vortices (JVs and PVs). SHPM has been used to study interacting JV-PV matter with very high in-plane fields. The spacing of JV chains has been systematically quantified as a function of both in-plane and out-of-plane fields. Surprisingly, it is found that the JV chain spacing is not solely a function of the in-plane field, as previously assumed, and the effective anisotropy, γ_eff, is shown to depend strongly on the out-of-plane field strength. Moreover, for a fixed in-plane field the JV stack spacing shows pronounced sawtooth-like oscillations as a function of the out-of-plane field. These measurements are giving us unique new insights into the properties of crossing vortex lattices in highly anisotropic cuprate superconductors at high Josephson vortex stack densities.

Decision trees are one of the most commonly used tools in decision analysis, knowledge representation, machine learning, etc., for its simplicity and interpretability. We consider an extension of dynamic programming approach to process the whole set of decision trees for the given decision table which was previously only attainable by brute-force algorithms. We study decision tables with many-valued decisions (each row may contain multiple decisions) because they are more reasonable models of data in many cases. To address this problem in a broad sense, we consider not only decision trees but also inhibitory trees where terminal nodes are labeled with “̸= decision”. Inhibitory trees can sometimes describe more knowledge from datasets than decision trees. As for cost functions, we consider depth or average depth to minimize time complexity of trees, and the number of nodes or the number of the terminal, or nonterminal nodes to minimize the space complexity of trees. We investigate the multi-stage optimization of trees relative to some cost functions, and also the possibility to describe the whole set of strictly optimal trees. Furthermore, we study the bi-criteria optimization cost vs. cost and cost vs. uncertainty for decision trees, and cost vs. cost and cost vs. completeness for inhibitory trees. The most interesting application of the developed technique is the creation of multi-pruning and restricted multi-pruning approaches which are useful for knowledge representation and prediction. The experimental results show that decision trees constructed by these approaches can often outperform the decision trees constructed by the CART algorithm. Another application includes the comparison of 12 greedy heuristics for single- and bi-criteria optimization (cost vs. cost) of trees. We also study the three approaches (decision tables with many-valued decisions, decision tables with most common decisions, and decision tables with generalized decisions) to handle inconsistency of decision tables. We also analyze the time complexity of decision and inhibitory trees over arbitrary sets of attributes represented by information systems in the frameworks of local (when we can use in trees only attributes from problem description) and global (when we can use in trees arbitrary attributes from the information system) approaches.

Innovative technologies have aided in the evolution of communicative patterns betweenindividuals, organizations, and society at large. For businesses this means that marketingmust be integrated with emergent ICT in an effort to exploit available digital marketingtactics. Although there is an emerging body of literature that defines the elements of digitalmarketing there still remains a need for models grounded in theoretical and empiricalevidence that explicitly integrates Software as a Service business intelligence (SaaS BI)within the realm of digital marketing.The purpose of this study is to explore existing challenges for digital marketers and SaaS BIvendors in an effort to uncover common ground where marketing activities and SaaS servicescan be effectively integrated. Within this investigation a socio-technical systems perspective isemployed in which the function of digital marketing represents a social sub-system and theservice of SaaS BI represents a technical sub-system. Interconnectivity is established betweendigital marketing, SaaS BI, and diffusion of innovation through the exploration of existingchallenges. A design artifact is constructed as a result of the thesis, which is intended to aiddigital marketers when planning, implementing, or adjusting a marketing campaign thatutilizes SaaS BI as an intelligence source. Within the investigation of digital marketing andSaaS BI both a theoretical and empirical study are conducted that serve as a basis for thedesigned model. The empirical study consists of a case study of the MeltWater Group, a SaaSvendor, and attempts to capture an in-depth understanding of the target domain. Empiricaldata is generated through semi-structured interviews triangulated with documents.Subsequent to building the conceptual model a short questionnaire was sent to participantswith related knowledge of the domain problem to elicit feedback on the conceptual model’scorrectness and usefulness.The theoretical study serves the purpose of establishing a conceptual framework within theresearch phenomena. The subsequent empirical study was used to validate the relevance ofthe conceptual framework in addition to assist with the build and evaluate phase of theconceptual model design. As a result of the thesis investigation a conceptual model of thetarget domain was developed that maps the interrelated processes of digital marketing andSaaS BI.In conclusion, the conceptual model captures a closed information loop between the SaaSvendor, client-organization, internal/external stakeholders, and the client-organization’sdigital presence. The system domain processes are illuminated as seven sub-closed loops thatdepict the existing relationships between domain components. The integration of digitalmarketing and SaaS BI elucidates three core input/output processes (IOPs): a dual IOPinternal and external of the SaaS vendor and an IOP internal of the client-organization. / Program: Masterutbildning i Informatik

Today we are in an age of Information. The systems that effectively use the vast amount of data available all over the world and provide meaningful insight (i.e. BI systems) for the people who need it are of critical importance. The development of such systems has always been a challenge as the development is outweighed by change. The methodologies that are devised for coping with the constant change during the system development are agile methodologies. So practitioners and researchers are showing keen interest to use agile strategies for the BI projects development.The research aims to find out how well the agile strategies suit for the development of BI projects. The research considers a case study in a very big organization as BI is organization centric. There by assessing the empirical results that are collected from interviews the author is trying to generalize the results. The results for the research will give an insight of the best practices that can be considered while considering agile strategies and also the practical problems that we may encounter on the journey. The findings have implications for both business and technical managers who want to consider agile strategies for the BI/DW development projects. / Program: Masterutbildning i Informatik

Undersökning har gjorts av möjligheten att återvinna uttjänta lakan från textilserviceföretaget Textilia till tillverkning av prepreg. Då dessa lakan, till skillnad mot mycket annat textilavfall, utgör en kontinuerlig resurs av relativt konsekvent kvalitet, finns stora möjligheter att tillverka en produkt av detta. Detta skulle även innebära att förbränning av lakan undviks samt att ett bättre utnyttjande av resurser åstadkoms. Stapelfiber av bi-komponent i polyester har tillförts väven genom nålning, samma typ av nålning som används vid non-woven-tillverkning. Genom att nålarna har fört bikomponentfibrer ner genom lakansväven har en mekanisk bindning skapats mellan väv och bi-komponent. Väven blir således en bärare av bi-komponenten och dessa har sedan värmepressats ihop till ett kompositmaterial. Dock orsakar nålningen brott i vävens trådsystem. Tester har genomförts för undersökning av mekaniska egenskaper hos ensam väv och färdig komposit. Ett tydligt resultat var att nålning signifikant försämrade vävens dragstyrka men hos färdig komposit gjorde nålning endast mindre påverkan på mekaniska egenskaper. Med förändringar i nålningsdjup och nålningsdensitet tros försvagning av väv bli lägre och färdig komposit påverkas än mindre. / Program: Textilingenjörsutbildningen

Undersökning har gjorts av möjligheten att återvinna uttjänta lakan från textilserviceföretaget Textilia till tillverkning av prepreg. Då dessa lakan, till skillnad mot mycket annat textilavfall, utgör en kontinuerlig resurs av relativt konsekvent kvalitet, finns stora möjligheter att tillverka en produkt av detta. Detta skulle även innebära att förbränning av lakan undviks samt att ett bättre utnyttjande av resurser åstadkoms. Stapelfiber av bi-komponent i polyester har tillförts väven genom nålning, samma typ av nålning som används vid non-woven-tillverkning. Genom att nålarna har fört bikomponentfibrer ner genom lakansväven har en mekanisk bindning skapats mellan väv och bi-komponent. Väven blir således en bärare av bi-komponenten och dessa har sedan värmepressats ihop till ett kompositmaterial. Dock orsakar nålningen brott i vävens trådsystem. Tester har genomförts för undersökning av mekaniska egenskaper hos ensam väv och färdig komposit. Ett tydligt resultat var att nålning signifikant försämrade vävens dragstyrka men hos färdig komposit gjorde nålning endast mindre påverkan på mekaniska egenskaper. Med förändringar i nålningsdjup och nålningsdensitet tros försvagning av väv bli lägre och färdig komposit påverkas än mindre. / Program: Textilingenjörsutbildningen

Análise de agrupamento é um problema fundamental de aprendizado de máquina não supervisionado em que se objetiva determinar categorias que descrevam um conjunto de objetos de acordo com suas similaridades ou inter-relacionamentos. Na formulação tradicional do problema, busca-se por partições ou hierarquias de partições contendo grupos cujos objetos são de alguma forma similares entre si e dissimilares aos objetos dos demais grupos, segundo alguma medida direta ou indireta de (dis)similaridade que leva em conta o conjunto completo de atributos que descrevem os objetos na base de dados sob análise. Entretanto, apesar de décadas de aplicações bem sucedidas, existem situações em que a natureza dos agrupamentos contidos nos dados não pode ser representada segundo este tipo de formulação. Em particular, existem situações em que grupos de objetos se caracterizam como tais apenas segundo um subconjunto dos atributos que os descrevem, sendo que tal subconjunto pode ser distinto para cada grupo. Ao contrário de algoritmos de agrupamento tradicionais, algoritmos de bi-agrupamento são capazes de agrupar simultaneamente linhas e colunas de uma matriz de dados. Tais algoritmos produzem bi-grupos formados por subconjuntos de objetos e subconjuntos de atributos de alguma forma fortemente co-relacionados. Esses algoritmos passaram a atrair a atenção da comunidade científica quando se evidenciou a relevância da tarefa de bi-agrupamento em problemas de análise de dados de expressão gênica em bioinformática. Embora em menor grau, as abordagens de bi-agrupamento também têm ganho atenção em outros domínios de aplicação, tais como mineração de textos (text mining) e filtragem colaborativa em sistemas de recomendação. O problema é que uma variedade de algoritmos de bi-agrupamento têm sido propostos na literatura baseados em diferentes princípios e suposições sobre os dados, podendo chegar a resultados completamente distintos em uma mesma aplicação. Nesse cenário, torna-se importante a realização de estudos comparativos que possam contrastar o comportamento e desempenho dos diversos algoritmos. Neste trabalho é apresentado um estudo comparativo envolvendo 17 algoritmos de bi-agrupamento (representativos das principais categorias de algoritmos existentes) em coleções de bases de dados tanto de natureza real como simulada, com particular ênfase em problemas de análise de dados de expressão gênica. Diversos aspectos metodológicos e procedimentos para a avaliação experimental foram considerados, a fim de superar as limitações de estudos comparativos anteriores da literatura. Além da comparação em si, todo o arcabouço comparativo pode ser reutilizado para a comparação de outros algoritmos no futuro. / Data clustering is a fundamental problem in the unsupervised machine learning field, whose objective is to find categories that describe a dataset according to similarities between its objects. In its traditional formulation, we search for partitions or hierarchies of partitions containing clusters such that the objects contained in the same cluster are similar to each other and dissimilar to objects from other clusters according to a similarity or dissimilarity measure that uses all the data attributes in its calculation. So, it is supposed that all clusters are characterized in the same feature space. However, there are several applications where the clusters are characterized only in a subset of the attributes, which could be different from one cluster to another. Different than traditional data clustering algorithms, biclustering algorithms are able to cluster the rows and columns of a data matrix simultaneously, producing biclusters formed with strongly related subsets of objects and subsets of attributes. These algorithms started to draw the scientific communitys attention only after some studies that show their importance for gene expression data analysis. To a lesser degree, biclustering techniques have also been used in other application domains, such as text mining and collaborative filtering in recommendation systems. The problem is that several biclustering algorithms have been proposed in the past recent years with different principles and assumptions, which could result in different outcomes in the same dataset. So, it becomes important to perform comparative studies that could illustrate the behavior and performance of some algorithms. In this thesis, it is presented a comparative study with 17 biclustering algorithms (which are representative of the main categories of algorithms in the literature) which were tested on synthetic and real data collections, with particular emphasis on gene expression data analysis. Several methodologies and experimental evaluation procedures were taken into account during the research, in order to overcome the limitations of previous comparative studies from the literature. Beyond the presented comparison, the comparative methodology developed could be reused to compare other algorithms in the future.