Lapped joints of cold-formed steel (CFS) Z-shaped purlins are extensively used in metal building roof systems. The research that has been carried out so far for these lapped connections is primarily focused on connections with round holes. However, the lapped connections with vertical slotted holes are extensively used in current construction practice to simplify the erection of continuous Z-shaped roof purlins. There is no design guideline or recommendation available for CFS Z-purlin lapped connections with vertical slotted holes. Presented in this paper are the results of an experimental study and analysis of the structural behaviour of lapped CFS Z-shaped purlin connections with vertical slotted holes. 42 flexural tests were performed on lapped CFS Z-shaped purlins with vertical slotted connections with different lap lengths, purlin depths, thicknesses and spans. The flexural strength and deflection of each specimen were measured. The characteristics of moment resistance and flexure stiffness of the lapped purlins were computed. The test results show that the lapped purlins with vertical slotted holes may be more flexible than the lapped purlins with round holes or continuous purlins without lapped joint. Thus, the slotted connections may need greater lap lengths to achieve full stiffness of continuous purlins. The results also indicate that the characteristics of moment resistance and flexural stiffness in the slotted connections are dependent on the ratio of lap length to purlin depth, the ratio of lap length to purlin thickness, the ratio of purlin depth to purlin thickness, and the ratio of lap length to span. Based on the results, design recommendations for evaluating the moment resistance and flexural stiffness of lapped slotted connections were proposed.

With the advancement of semiconductor technology, the System on Chip (SoC) is becoming more and more complex, so the on-chip communication has become a bottleneck of SoC Design. Since the traditional bus system is inefficient and not scalable, the Network-On-Chip (NoC) has emerged as the promising communication mechanism for complex SoCs. As some systems have specific performance requirements, such as a minimum throughput (for real-time streaming data) or bounded latency (for interrupts, process synchronization, etc), communication with Guaranteed Service (GS) support becomes crucial for predictable SoC architectures. Circuit Switching (CS) is a popular approach to support GS, which firstly has to allocate an exclusively connection (circuit) between the source and destination nodes, and then the data packets are delivered over this connection. However, it is inefficient and inflexible because the resource is occupied by single connection during its whole lifetime, which can block other communications. Hence, two extensions of CS have been proposed to share resources: i) Time-Division Multiplexing (TDM), in which the available link capacity is split into multiple time slots to be shared by different flows in TDM scheme; and ii) Space-Division-Multiplexing (SDM), in which only a subset (sub-channel) of the link wires is exclusively allocated to a specific connection, while the remaining wires of the link can be used by other flows. The connection allocation is critical for CS, since the data delivery can start only after the associated connection is allocated. In this thesis, we propose a dedicated hardware connection allocator to solve the dynamic connection allocation problem for CS NoCs, which has to i) allocate a contention-free path between source-destination pairs and ii) allocate appropriate portions of link bandwidth (appropriate number of time slots and subsets) along the path. The dedicated connection allocator, called NoCManager, solves the connection allocation problem by employing a trellis-search based shortest path algorithm. The trellis search can explore all possible paths between source node and destination. Moreover, it shall find the requested path in a fixed low latency and can guarantee the path optimality in terms of path length if the path is available. In this thesis, two different trellis graphs, Forward-Backtrack trellis and Register-Exchange trellis are proposed. The Forward-Backtrack trellis completes the path search in two steps: forward search and backtracking. Firstly, the forward search begins at source node that traverses the network to find the free path. When destination node is reached, the backtrack starts from destination to select the survivor path and collect the associated path parameters. However, Register-Exchange trellis saves the entire survivor path sequences during forward search. Consequently, the backtracking step can be omitted, and thus the allocation time is halved compared to forward-backtrack approaches. Moreover, each trellis graph consists of three categories, unfolded structure, folded structure and bidirectional structure. The unfolded structure can provide high allocation speed while folded structure is more efficient from a hardware point of view. The bidirectional structure starts the search at two sides, source node and destination node simultaneously, so the allocation speed is 2 times faster than previous unidirectional search. Furthermore, in order to address the scalability issue of previous centralized systems, the partitioned architecture (i.e. spatial partitioning technique) is proposed to divide the large system into multiple smaller differentiated logical partitions served by local NoCManagers. This partitioning technique keeps the request load of the manager and manager-node communication overhead moderate. Inside each partition, the path search problem is solved by a local manager with trellis-search algorithm. To establish a path that crosses partitions, the managers communicate with each other in distributed manner to converge the global path. In order to further enhance the path diversity and resource utilization, we adopt the combined TDM and SDM technique. In combined TDM-SDM approach, each SDM sub-channel is split into multiple time slots so that can be shared by multiple flows. Hence, the number of sub-channels can be kept moderate to reduce router complexity, while still providing higher path diversity than TDM scheme. In order to investigate and optimize TDM-SDM partitioning strategy, we studied the influence of different TDM-SDM link partitioning strategies on success rate and path length that allowed us to find the optimal solution. The dedicated connection allocator using the trellis-search algorithm is employed for TDM, SDM and TDM-SDM CS. In the end, we present the router architecture that combines the circuit-switching network (for GS communication) and packet-switching network (for best-effort communication).

QUIC is an emerging connection-oriented transport layer protocol that aims to support low-latency and highly secure communication between users and cloud services. Cloud load balancers distribute incoming QUIC connections towards a pool of backend servers where applications run. The sheer size of today’s clouds requires to deploy large pools of load balancing instances across multi-core servers. Today, once a connection is handled by a load balancing instance, the handling of the connection cannot be delegated to another instance which is possibly running on an underutilized server or core. Recent work has shown that such imbalances lead to poor utilization of the server resources when implementing the load balancer component itself. Moving the handling of a connection from one load balancing instance to another one is key to achieve uniform distribution of the workload among the load balancing instances. This thesis discusses the system design, algorithmic principles, and evaluation of an approach to move the state of a QUIC connection from one QUIC instance to another one, a task that we call “connection migration”. Our preliminary investigation focuses on inter-CPU-core thread-based migration of QUIC connections within the same server machine with the goal of supporting different types of load balancers that dynamically spread the workload across the load balancing instances. We evaluated the performance of the proposed implementation in a real physical testbed in NSLab at KTH across different dimensions: the number of active connections, the size of the file transfers within each connection, and the number of load balancing instances. The results show that under ideal circumstances, the throughput of a server system built by an 8-core computer reaches 100MB per second and handles up to 500 client requests per second. Finally, this thesis analyzes the bottleneck of the system and the critical parts of the implementation that should be optimized for better performance. / QUIC är ett framväxande anslutningsorienterat protokoll för transportlager som syftar till att stödja låg latens och mycket säker kommunikation mellan användare och molntjänster. Molnslastbalansering distribuerar inkommande QUIC-anslutningar mot en pool av Backend-servrar där applikationer körs. Den stora storleken på dagens moln kräver att stora pooler av lastbalanseringsinstanser distribueras över flerkärniga servrar. Idag, när en anslutning hanteras av en lastbalanseringsinstanser, kan hanteringen av anslutningen inte delegeras till en annan instans som möjligen körs på en underutnyttjad server eller kärna. Senaste arbetet har visat att sådana obalanser leder till dåligt utnyttjande av serverresurserna vid implementering av själva lastbalanseringskomponenten. Att flytta hanteringen av en anslutning från en lastbalanseringsinstans till en annan är nyckeln för att uppnå enhetlig fördelning av arbetsbelastningen mellan lastbalanseringsinstanserna. Denna avhandling diskuterar systemdesign, algoritmiska principer och utvärdering av en metod för att flytta tillståndet för en QUIC-anslutning från en QUIC-instans till en annan, en uppgift som vi kallar “anslutningsmigrering”. Vår preliminära undersökning fokuserar på intel-CPU-core trådbaserad migration av QUIC-anslutningar inom samma servermaskin med målet att stödja olika typer av belastningsutjämnare som dynamiskt sprider arbetsbelastningen över lastbalanseringsinstanser. Vi utvärderade prestanda för den föreslagna implementeringen i en riktig fysisk testbädd i NSLab vid KTH över olika dimensioner: antalet aktiva anslutningar, storleken på filöverföringarna inom varje anslutning och antalet lastbalanseringsinstanser. Resultaten visar att under idealiska omständigheter når genomströmningen av ett serversystem som byggts av en 8-kärnig dator 100 MB per sekund och hanterar upp till 500 klientförfrågningar per sekund. Slutligen analyserar denna avhandling systemets flaskhals och de kritiska delarna av implementeringen som bör optimeras för bättre prestanda.

This thesis discusses the role of side openings in museums, in relation to users’ visiting experience.The research particularly focuses on the feature of view, analysing if the connection with the outsideenvironment provided through windows, results in an enriched museum’s experience and enhancedcultural identity. The analysis is based on the case study of the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm, wherethree rooms with stronger, moderate and weaker connection with the outside environment have beenevaluated through visitors’ surveys. Results show that the public revealed considerable awarenessabout windows and their landscape and yet the view was rarely considered a distracting feature. Theavailable literature on daylight in museums hardly includes view among the acknowledged daylightbenefits, and, also due to the difficulty in controlling the daylight intake, side openings have gained abad reputation in the museum field. However, as in the analysed case study, the view was consideredby many as an enriching part of the visiting experience, this thesis calls for further research on therole of view in exhibition rooms and on how to include it properly in museums’ design.

Neste trabalho estudou-se o comportamento de uma ligação viga-pilar de estrutura pré-moldada parcialmente resistente a momento fletor quando submetida a momentos negativos e positivos. A ligação estudada é composta por dois chumbadores inclinados presos à viga através de chapa metálica, porcas e arruelas e uma capa de concreto com armadura longitudinal passando por dentro do pilar. No programa experimental foram elaborados dois modelos submetidos a carregamentos alternados, em ciclos e de curta duração. Em seguida foi desenvolvido um modelo analítico para cálculo dos momentos resistentes e feita uma simulação numérica para avaliar a influência da semi-rigidez da ligação em estruturas típicas de concreto pré-moldado. Os resultados experimentais indicaram que a ligação apresenta uma boa capacidade de transmissão a momento fletor negativo e a momento fletor positivo com um comportamento bastante dúctil. Sem a necessidade de grandes alterações de custos e de execução, a ligação proposta promoveu uma redução significativa dos momentos na base dos pilares (aproximadamente 50%) quando comparada à ligação articulada. Quando comparada à ligação similar, porém com os chumbadores retilíneos, há um aumento superior a 2,5 vezes no momento de plastificação e de 3 vezes na rigidez no sentido do momento fletor positivo / In this research the behavior of a partial moment resistant beam-to-column connection in precast concrete subjected to negative and positive moments was studied. This connection has two inclined dowels fixed to the beam with steel plate, washer and nut and a concrete cap with longitudinal reinforced bars passing trough the column. In the experimental program two prototypes was made and subjected to an alternative cyclic e short duration load. Afterwards it was develop an analytical model and a numerical simulation to analyze the influence of the semi-rigid connection in a typical precast structure. The experimental results shown that the connection has a good capacity of transmitte the bending moments and has a ductile behave. Without any significative difference of cost and manufacture, the connection studied promoted a reduction on the column base bending moment (approximately 50%) when compared to pinned connection. When compared to similar structures but with a vertical dowel, the connection presents strength over 2.5 times and over 3 times the stiffens for positive bending moments

In der vorliegenden Arbeit wurden Verfahren entwickelt und getestet, um Prioritätsstufen für öffentliche Verkehrsmittel zur fahrtkonkreten Beeinflussung von Lichtsignalanlagen zu ermitteln und darüber hinaus Anschlüsse im öffentlichen Personennahverkehr zu sichern. Die Testergebnisse zeigen, dass die Ziele, eine höhere Pünktlichkeit und eine höhere Anschlusssicherheit, sehr gut erreicht werden.

Electrical connectors are the blocks that connect solar panels together. Whenever a photovoltaic plant commences, the main discussion goes around on solar panels, inverters, charge controllers, etc. But the topic of connectors is usually hardly discussed. Connectors in a photovoltaic system can definitely contribute to improve the overall performance of the system, provided that importance is given while selecting the connectors. The electrical connectors used in photovoltaic systems can be connected in two possible ways. Connectors can be connected either in a pure-connection or in a cross-connection. Male and female connectors from the same brand results a pure-connection (P-C). Male and female connectors from two different brands results in a cross-connection (C-C). There have been discussions in photovoltaic, electrical connector markets and international solar events regarding the risks involved, losses and consequences due to a cross-connection. The main reason behind cross-connections is the unawareness of the installers in knowing the difference between a pure-connection and a cross-connection. Even though the installers are aware of this difference, they are not aware of the consequences of cross-connections. Multi-Contact, a leading electrical connector manufacturer of MC4 photovoltaic connectors affected by the counterfeit products of MC4, due to the sudden boom in the solar market during 2011-12. With the help of TÜV Rheinland, Multi-Contact conducted couple of tests namely temperature increase test and accelerated stress tests to understand the disadvantages of cross-connections. This thesis tried to replicate the tests performed by Multi-Contact in an attempt to understand the test results by using connectors that are used in the Swedish market. Performing temperature increase test and accelerated stress tests on most commonly used connectors in the Swedish market is the main aim of this thesis. The first test, gives an understanding of the temperature variations across various connector sets (four connector sets from various manufacturers used in this thesis) and the latter tests helps to understand the quality of the contact resistance of these connector sets. The four connector set manufacturers used in this test were Multi-Contact (MC), Weidmüller (WM), Blussun solar (BSS) and PBM. The quality of contact resistance of a connector is directly related to the quality of the connector set. During the 20 minutes of the temperature increase test, the connector set from WM performed better than its competitors in the P-C. Whereas, the MC-BSS connector set had performed well in the C-C. The connector type of male MC and female BSS showed its dominance throughout the test. Unfortunately, no conclusions were able to be drawn from this test results due to insufficient information about the test procedure. From the results of accelerated stress tests, the C-C set from MC outperformed its P-C counterpart. All ten connector sets used in this project passed the standard and qualified as connectors with good quality contact resistance. Therefore the best results out of only a P-C connector set does not seems to be completely true. With the standard used in this thesis, it is quite difficult to judge the quality of connectors. Rather than saying a P-C is superior and a C-C is inferior in terms of quality, there is a need to come up with a new method to evaluate the quality of connectors. Matching the connectors based on their tolerances could be a potential solution to the mismatching problem in connectors.

Neste trabalho estudou-se o comportamento de uma ligação viga-pilar de estrutura pré-moldada parcialmente resistente a momento fletor quando submetida a momentos negativos e positivos. A ligação estudada é composta por dois chumbadores inclinados presos à viga através de chapa metálica, porcas e arruelas e uma capa de concreto com armadura longitudinal passando por dentro do pilar. No programa experimental foram elaborados dois modelos submetidos a carregamentos alternados, em ciclos e de curta duração. Em seguida foi desenvolvido um modelo analítico para cálculo dos momentos resistentes e feita uma simulação numérica para avaliar a influência da semi-rigidez da ligação em estruturas típicas de concreto pré-moldado. Os resultados experimentais indicaram que a ligação apresenta uma boa capacidade de transmissão a momento fletor negativo e a momento fletor positivo com um comportamento bastante dúctil. Sem a necessidade de grandes alterações de custos e de execução, a ligação proposta promoveu uma redução significativa dos momentos na base dos pilares (aproximadamente 50%) quando comparada à ligação articulada. Quando comparada à ligação similar, porém com os chumbadores retilíneos, há um aumento superior a 2,5 vezes no momento de plastificação e de 3 vezes na rigidez no sentido do momento fletor positivo / In this research the behavior of a partial moment resistant beam-to-column connection in precast concrete subjected to negative and positive moments was studied. This connection has two inclined dowels fixed to the beam with steel plate, washer and nut and a concrete cap with longitudinal reinforced bars passing trough the column. In the experimental program two prototypes was made and subjected to an alternative cyclic e short duration load. Afterwards it was develop an analytical model and a numerical simulation to analyze the influence of the semi-rigid connection in a typical precast structure. The experimental results shown that the connection has a good capacity of transmitte the bending moments and has a ductile behave. Without any significative difference of cost and manufacture, the connection studied promoted a reduction on the column base bending moment (approximately 50%) when compared to pinned connection. When compared to similar structures but with a vertical dowel, the connection presents strength over 2.5 times and over 3 times the stiffens for positive bending moments

Le cœur humain est un organe composé de différents types cellulaires tels que les cardiomyocytes, les fibroblastes, les muscles lisses et les cellules endothéliales. Ces cellules se diversifient grâce à des mécanismes moléculaires spécifiques en acquérant leurs propriétés fonctionnelles spécifiques. L’embryon de Drosophile est un modèle simple et adapté pour étudier la diversification des cellules cardiaques et leurs propriétés spécifiques. Le but du projet est d’améliorer notre connaissance sur les acteurs moléculaires qui contrôlent la diversification des cellules cardiaques. Pour atteindre cet objectif nous avons appliqué la méthode TRAP-rc ("rare cell Translation Ribosome Affinity Purification") suivie du séquençage ARN pour identifier les ARN messagers en cours de traduction spécifiques des cellules cardiaques Tin et Lb (Tin CBs et Lb CBs) à deux stades de développement corrélés avec la morphogenèse du cœur embryonnaire. Dans une première analyse focalisée sur l'analyse des données issues des TRAP-Seq sur cellules Tin nous avons mis en évidence que CAP et MSP-300 sont impliqués dans la migration des cardioblasts pendant la fermeture du cœur. En parallèle, nous avons également identifié deux autres gènes impliqués dans la morphogenèse, kon-tiki et dGrip qui semblent contrôler la cohésion des CBs au cours de la migration. En outre, nous avons trouvé qu'au stade 16, environ 60% des gènes enrichis sont communs entre les populations Tin et Lb. Parmi ces gènes, Src42, sqa et flr participent à la régulation du cytosquelette d'actine et nos analyses ont permis de démontrer qu'ils avaient également des fonctions dans la morphogenèse cardiaque. Nous avons également identifié des groupes de gènes plus spécifiques à chacune des populations ciblées. Une catégorie fonctionnelle fortement associée à la population Lb, comprend les gènes qui régulent l'épissage des ARN messagers et certains de ces gènes semblent être requis au cours de la morphogenèse cardiaque. Enfin, nous avons comparé nos données de TRAP-seq cardiaque avec des données de TRAP-Seq issues du muscle somatique (de l'équipe), et ainsi identifié près de 90 gènes qui présentent des isoformes protéiques spécifiques à chaque tissu notamment impliquées dans la formation de l'unité contractile sarcomérique. Ceci suggère que des mécanismes d'épissage spécifiques sont mis en place dans différents types cellulaires pour moduler les fonctions de certaines protéines musculaires. A travers ce projet, nous avons identifié de nouveaux acteurs généraux de la migration collective des cardioblastes au cours de la fermeture du cœur mais également de nouveaux gènes potentiellement impliqués dans l’acquisition des propriétés spécifiques dessous populations cardiaques Tin et Lb et de tissus musculaires distincts. Nous espérons que les données générées permettront dans le futur de mieux comprendre les mécanismes de la cardiogenèse des vertébrés ainsi que l’étiologie de maladies cardiaques. / Cardiac cells diversification is required for the formation of a functional heart. Human heart is a multi-lineage organ that develops through progressive diversification of progenitors derived from different heart fields. This process is underlined by numerous changes in the expression of a repertory of genes that allow cells to acquire their own identity and functions. The Drosophila embryo is a relatively simple model to study the diversification of cardiac cells and their properties. The goal of this project is to identify the repertories of genes that control the formation of different types of cardiac cells. To reach this objective we applied Translation Ribosome Affinity Purification (TRAP) method followed by RNA sequencing in order to identify mRNA engaged in translation specific to two cardiac cell types (Tinman (Tin) and Labybird (Lb) expressing cells), at two different time windows. We obtained a list of enriched genes for the different types of cardiac cells and time points. In a first part, we focused our attention on the Tindatasets and found that two genes, CAP and Msp300, are involved in cardioblasts migration during the heart closure. Then we identified two other candidate genes kontiki and dGrip that seem to contribute to maintain cohesion between CBs during heartmorphogenesis. Moreover by comparing our spatial datasets, we found that for the same time point, around 60% of Tin CBs enriched genes are common with Lb CBs enriched population and within this group we identified evolutionary conserved genes such as Src42, flr and sqa known to be involved in the cytoskeleton organization and in the actinpolymerization and depolymerisation. Our premiminary analyses show that they seem to be required for correct cardiac morphogenesis. We also identified sets of genes more specific for each cardiac cell population. Indeed, Lb CBs datasets show that in early stage there is the enrichment of genes mostly involved in transcriptional regulation and RNA splicing and some of these genes (prp8 and prp38) are involved in cardiac development. In parallel, we compared our TRAP-Seq dataset in the cardiac system with the TRAP-seqon muscle cells, and identified close to 90 genes that present cardiac or muscular specific isoforms. It is known that the alternative splicing, by increasing proteins diversity, contributes to the acquisition of specific cell properties. Furthermore, some cardiomyopathies are associated to defects in the alternative splicing of genes encoding sarcomeric proteins that we found in our dataset such as Tropomyosin and Zasp52. With this project, we have identified new actors of collective cardioblast migration and a set of genes with potential role in the acquisition of individual properties of Tin and Lbcardiac cells or of specific type of muscle tissue. We hope that our data could provide new insights into the genetic control of vertebrate cardiogenesis and into etiology of cardiac diseases.

In der vorliegenden Arbeit wurden Verfahren entwickelt und getestet, um Prioritätsstufen für öffentliche Verkehrsmittel zur fahrtkonkreten Beeinflussung von Lichtsignalanlagen zu ermitteln und darüber hinaus Anschlüsse im öffentlichen Personennahverkehr zu sichern. Die Testergebnisse zeigen, dass die Ziele, eine höhere Pünktlichkeit und eine höhere Anschlusssicherheit, sehr gut erreicht werden.