Cette étude porte sur l'estimation par méthode inverse d'un champ de conductance thermique de contact entre deux matériaux formant la paroi d'un réacteur métallurgique. Dans le cas du montage de réacteur métallurgique, il est essentiel de venir déterminer la conductance thermique de contact dans l'assemblage. Cela permet de venir identifier et corriger les défauts de contact avant la mise en fonctionnement du réacteur métallurgique.Cette étude utilise les méthodes inverses, particulièrement la méthode du gradient conjugué avec un problème adjoint, pour venir réaliser cette estimation. Dans cette étude, la méthode a été validée à l'aide de tests numériques représentant un diagnostic du contact thermique entre la paroi de carbone et la paroi d'acier du réacteur métallurgique avec différentes conductances thermiques de contact. Suite [i.e. à] cette validation, un test avec un bruit de mesure sur les températures de référence de la méthode inverse a été réalisé. Il a été démontré que, pour les tests réalisés sans bruit de mesure, l'erreur d'estimation générale est inférieure à 2%. Pour le test avec un bruit de mesure de «0, 025 K le défaut de contact a été localisé à la bonne position, en revanche l'erreur d'estimation est de 39%. Dans un second temps, des tests supplémentaires ont été réalisés pour observer l'évolution de l'erreur d'estimation en fonction de deux nombres sans dimension, le rapport de conductivité thermique et le nombre de Biot. Cela a permis de conclure qu'il faut avoir simultanément un rapport de conductivité thermique supérieur à 1 et un nombre de Biot supérieur à 0,05 pour obtenir une estimation précise dans les cas étudiés. La méthode permet de venir estimer la conductance thermique de contact, d'une manière novatrice et non intrusive, dans un mur de réacteur métallurgique.

Ce mémoire s’intéresse à l’émergence du groupe autochtone Malécite entre 1600 et 1750. L’hypothèse défendue soutient que les Malécites sont apparus suite à des regroupements intertribaux forcés par le choc microbien, les guerres coloniales et les modifications économiques, culturelles et socio-politiques induites par la colonisation. Ce mémoire part d’un « problème d’identité » souvent relevé chez les Malécites et tente d’éclaircir leur provenance réelle, à l’aide d’une relecture des sources sous l’angle du concept d’ethnogenèse intra-amérindienne, ouvrant ainsi la voie à un aspect méconnu et inusité de l’histoire autochtone, à savoir les conséquences internes et identitaires de cette formidable rencontre que fut le contact.

Part I: A remarkable feature of life on Earth is that despite the apparent observed diversity, the underlying chemistry that powers it is highly conserved. From the level of the nucleobases, through the amino acids and proteins they encode, to the metabolic pathways of chemical reactions catalyzed by these proteins, biology often utilizes identical solutions in vastly disparate organisms. This universality is intriguing as it raises the question of whether these recurring features exist because they represent some truly optimal solution to a given problem in biology, or whether they simply exist by chance, having arisen very early in life's history. In this project we consider the universality of metabolism { the set of chemical reactions providing the energy and building blocks for cells to grow and divide. We develop an algorithm to construct the complete network of all possible biochemically feasible compounds and reactions, including many that could have been utilized by life but never were. Using this network we investigate the most highly conserved piece of metabolism in all of biology, the trunk pathway of glycolysis. We design a method which allows a comparison between the large number of alternatives to this pathway and which takes into account both thermodynamic and biophysical constraints, finding evidence that the existing version of this pathway produces optimal metabolic fluxes under physiologically relevant intracellular conditions. We then extend our method to include an evolutionary simulation so as to more fully explore the biochemical space. Part II: Studies of population dynamics have a long history and have been used to understand the properties of complex networks of ecological interactions, extinction events, biological diversity and the transmission of infectious disease. One aspect of these models that is known to be of great importance, but one which nonetheless is often neglected, is spatial structure. Various classes of models have been proposed with each allowing different insights into the role space plays. Here we use a lattice-based approach. Motivated by gene transfer and parasite dynamics, we extend the well-studied contact process of statistical physics to include multiple levels. Doing so generates a simple model which captures in a general way the most important features of such biological systems: spatial structure and the inclusion of both vertical as well as horizontal transmission. We show that spatial structure can produce a qualitatively new effect: a coupling between the dynamics of the infection and of the underlying host population, even when the infection does not affect the fitness of the host. Extending the model to an arbitrary number of levels, we find a transition between regimes where both a finite and infinite number of parasite levels are sustainable, and conjecture that this transition is related to the roughening transition of related surface growth models.

The study of topological superconductivity has been at the forefront of condensed matter physics for the past few years. Topological superconductors are predicted to have odd parity pairing and host so called Majorana fermions, which are not only of fundamental importance, but also proposed to be building blocks for fault-tolerant quantum computing. In this dissertation, we use point contact spectroscopy to study the pairing symmetry of candidate topological superconducting materials. We study proximity induced superconductivity in the topological insulator Bi2Se3 by a superconducting niobium tip, and propose a model to explain its features in point contact spectra. We further study the nature of the superconductivity in highly doped superconducting topological insulators, including CuxBi2Se3 and Sn1-xInxTe, using both a normal metal gold tip and a superconducting niobium tip. For CuxBi2Se3, we observe a robust zero-bias conductance peak (ZBCP) in the differential conductance spectra with the gold point contact, while with the niobium point contact we find the height of the peak exhibiting unusual non-monotonic temperature dependence. We argue that both observations cannot be explained by Andreev reflection within the standard Blonder-Tinkham-Klapwijk (BTK) model, but signify unconventional superconductivity in the material. For Sn1-xInxTe samples, we observe ZBCP in the differential conductance spectra with the gold point contact, while with the niobium point contact, the temperature dependence of ZBCP is monotonic as expected from conventional theory, leaving the nature of the superconductivity of Sn1-xInxTe still an open question.

This dissertation analyzes the effects of Latino immigration on the representation of Latinos and African-Americans on school boards and attempts to explain under what conditions Latino immigrants provoke opposition among whites. I consider two measures of representation based on representative bureaucracy—the membership of Latinos and African-Americans on school boards and bias in the responsiveness of white school board members toward these two groups. Whites as the major racial group in the U.S. have been the subject of much intergroup relations research focusing on competition for scarce resources, perceived threat and group biases (e.g., Evans and Giles, 1986; Giles and Evans, 1985, 1986; Esses, Jackson and Armstrong, 1998), and I also focus on their racial behaviors as voters in school board elections and as school board members. I consider Latino immigration in this research because emerging evidence suggests that Latino immigration poses a growing threat to whites, leading them to shift their support from Latinos to a countervailing group, such as African-Americans (e.g., Meier and Stewart, 1991; Rocha, 2007). It is likely that the reactions of whites to Latino immigration are conditioned by their preexisting racial attitudes, so this dissertation also tests competing theories of community racial climate—group threat and group contact. I expect that racial tensions within a community should moderate the influence of Latino immigration on these two forms of Latino and African-American representation. Overall, this dissertation expands the study of representative bureaucracy by combining past research on community racial climates with conditions influencing minority representation.

Cet ouvrage se penche sur le concept de conversion et évalue sa pertinence à la lumière de l'ethnographie d'une population de Papouasie occidentale, les Asmat. Son originalité tient au caractère récent de l'évangélisation (depuis 1953), à la transformation de pratiques culturelles asmat complexes telles que la chasse aux têtes, et à la présence simultanée de missionnaires catholiques et protestants (essentiellement croisiers et évangéliques). Réalisée en des circonstances politiques tendues, l'ouvrage compare ces derniers d'un point de vue anthropologique et ecclésiologique et leur influence réciproque sur les populations. Au-delà du champ strictement religieux, l'évangélisation se décline dans de nombreux domaines de la vie : architecture, dation du nom, organisation du temps, alimentation, sorcellerie, relations familiales, ancestralité, rapports entre l'homme et la nature, parures corporelles, sexualité, funérailles, etc. Complétant cette étude, il est proposé une anthropologie du missionnaire pionnier grâce à l'immersion du chercheur dans les communautés et les familles missionnaires. Enfin, les notions de "chrétien" et de "converti" sont au cœur d'une polémique divisant ceux qui se revendiquent de la foi chrétienne. Entre constructions théoriques connexes autour de la conversion apparaît un vide théorique qu'un nouveau concept s'apprête à combler : l'enchristianisation.

<p>The aim of this thesis is to increase the understanding of wear in rolling/sliding contacts such as the wheel-rail contact for railroads and the roller-washer contact for roller bearings.</p><p>The Stockholm commuter train network has been the subject of papers A and B in this thesis in which the wear and surface cracks on rails has been observed for a period of three years. By comparing the wear depth with the crack length, equilibrium between these two damage mechanisms was found for a lubricated rail. By using a lubricant with friction modifiers the stresses was low enough to prevent crack propagation; at the same time, the rail was hard enough to reduce the wear rate. This is probably the most favourable state in terms of rail maintenance cost.</p><p>Roller bearings subjected to lubricant borne particles have been the subject of papers C, D and E in this thesis. Particles in the lubricating oil can have a significant impact on the wear in lubricated contacts. Even at low concentration levels can self-generated particles cause significant wear. The here presented results shows that filtration during run-in can significantly reduce both the mass loss and the number of self generated particles. A series of experiments has been carried out to study the wear of roller bearings by ingested lubricant borne hard particles. The form of the worn profile and the length of wear scratches correspond closely to the sliding within the contact. A count of the number of wear scratches on the rolling element surface indicates that the contact concentrates particles. A novel wear model based on the observation of a single point on the contacting surface when a concentration of particles passes through it has been developed and the necessary data for the model has been determined from the experiments. Comparison of the simulation results with the experimental results shows good qualitative agreement for the form change of the washer surfaces.</p>

L'objectif de ce travail est de proposer une nouvelle approche pour la résolution du problème de contact unilatéral avec frottement de Coulomb tridimensionnel en mécanique des solides. On s'intéresse à des systèmes dynamiques composés de plusieurs corps possédant un nombre fini de degrés de liberté: rigides, ou déformables qui sont des approximations spatiales de modèles continus. Le frottement entre les corps est modélisé en utilisant une formulation classique de la loi de Coulomb. Après discrétisation en temps (ou approximation quasi-statique), on obtient à chaque pas de temps un problème contenant des équations de complémentarité sur un produit de cônes du second ordre, et d'autres équations. Plusieurs méthodes de résolution ont été proposées pour différentes formulations équivalentes de ce problème, en particulier par Moreau, Alart et Curnier, et De Saxcé. En considérant les équations de complémentarité comme celles des conditions d'optimalité (KKT) d'un problème d'optimisation, on propose une reformulation équivalente nouvelle sous forme d'un problème de minimisation paramétrique convexe couplé avec un problème de point fixe. Grâce à ce point de vue, on démontre l'existence de solutions sous une hypothèse assez faible, et vérifiable en pratique. De plus, on peut souvent calculer effectivement l'une de ces solutions en résolvant numériquement l'équation de point fixe. Les performances de cette approche sont comparées à celles des méthodes existantes.

<p>Experiments shows that the conductance of a quantum point contact is quantized in steps of  2e²/h, where e is the charge of the electron and h is Planck’s constant, and thereby Ohm’s law is not valid for nanostructures. By using the approximation method finite difference, the transmission for one-dimensional contacts and one- and two-dimensional potentials are investigated. In the case of two-dimensional contacts and a two-dimensional potential the Green’s function method is used. It turns out that if electrons are treated as waves, the transmission and the conductance just differ by the constant 2e²/h, which in this thesis is interpreted numerically in Matlab by using the Green’s function method.</p>

Bloodstain pattern analysis has been used in criminal investigations for more than 100 years. It provides valuable information about the events that took place prior to the formation of bloodstains at a crime scene. Forensic scientists use empirical laws to make a deduction from bloodstains, but the validity of these conclusions has been challenged in courts due to a lack of understanding of the underlying fluid mechanics. With this motivation, this thesis illustrates how mathematical modeling and numerical simulation can help gain insight into the spreading of blood droplets which eventually leads to the formation of a bloodstain. Understanding the fluid mechanics of droplet spreading and sliding has been accomplished with the help of the lubrication approximation which simplifies the Navier-Stokes equations to a more tractable form, i.e. a coupled set of non-linear partial differential equations. The resulting highly non-linear coupled set of equations is discretized using Finite-Difference. The resulting algebraic system is solved via an efficient Multigrid algorithm. These equations are modified to understand the effects of contact angle hysteresis, fluid rheology and absorptive properties of substrates on sliding dynamics. Variations in the inclination of the substrate cause the droplets to attain different advancing and receding contact angles as they slide down the incline under gravitational pull. This work explores a new way to introduce contact angle hysteresis in the numerical simulation to predict the different phases of a sliding droplet. Experiments of fluid droplet spreading/sliding on inclined surfaces have been performed to measure the terminal sliding velocity. A simplified hysteresis model has been proposed. This model automatically locates the section of the contact line which is advancing and the section which is receding which enables the application of the contact angles for the advancing and receding fronts and therefore takes into account contact angle hysteresis. A simplified analytical model is also suggested for droplets moving down the incline with near circular footprints. With the inclusion of the contact angle hysteresis, simulation results were brought in closer agreement with the experimental ones and the results from both were compared with the results from the analytical model. Blood is a shear-thinning fluid. One of the main objectives of this study is to investigate numerically the effect on the spreading and/or sliding of non-Newtonian fluid droplets on surfaces. To achieve this, the effect of rheology on the leveling of thin fluid films on horizontal solid substrates is first investigated as a preliminary investigation since this problem does not involve a contact line and is therefore more tractable. A mathematical model based on the lubrication approximation which defines non-Newtonian rheology using a power-law model is presented. Results for the leveling of sinusoidal perturbations of the fluid film highlight important differences between the leveling of shear-thinning and shear-thickening fluids. Namely, the onset of leveling occurs earlier for the shear-thinning fluid than for the shear-thickening one. However, the rate of leveling is higher for the shear-thickening fluid than the shear-thinning one. An important aspect of this part of the work is the verification of the numerical implementation using the Method of Manufactured Solutions (MMS). This leveling study also highlights differences between the leveling of two-dimensional and three-dimensional perturbations. This verified numerical formulation is then used to study the effects of rheology on the spreading/sliding of droplets. Results for the spreading of fully wetting droplets on a horizontal substrate show that, for all other quantities being equal, an increase of the flow index leads to a more rapid wetting. It also shows that, even for non-Newtonian fluids, the droplet velocity asymptotes to a constant value when sliding down an inclined substrate. This terminal velocity is strongly dependent on the rheological parameters and as it is reached, the droplets travel with a visibly constant profile. Finally, the numerical simulations revealed the formation of a tail at the rear of the droplet as it slides down the incline plane in the case of shear-thickening fluids. Finally, a more complex dynamics of fluid being absorbed in a porous substrate as it slides/spreads is considered. A mathematical model based on the lubrication approximation which defines the absorptive property of a substrate using a Darcy’s model is presented. This numerical model is verified with the help of comparison between the analytical and numerical solutions for the absorption of thin film on horizontal porous substrates. Results show that physical properties of the substrates, i.e. permeability, porosity, capillary pressure and equilibrium contact angle affect the rate of absorption of the fluid. Adding inclination to the problem, introduces the gravitational pull in the absorption dynamics. This directly shows its effects on the footprints formed inside the porous substrates. The following papers, based on sections of this thesis, have appeared or been accepted for publication: - Ahmed, G., Sellier, M., Lee, Y., Jermy, M., and Taylor, M. (2013). Modeling the spreading and sliding of power-law droplets. Colloids and Surfaces A: Physicochemical and Engineering Aspects, 432:2–7. - Ahmed, G., Sellier, M., Lee, Y., Jermy, M., and Taylor, M. (2014). Rheological effects on the leveling dynamics of thin fluid films. Accepted for publication in the International Journal of Numerical Methods for Heat and Fluid Flow. - Ahmed, G., Sellier, M., Jermy, M., and Taylor, M. (2014). Modelling the effects of contact angle hysteresis on sliding of droplets on inclined surfaces. Submitted for peer review in The European Journal of Mechanics - B/Fluids.