A modified, single error-correcting, and double error detecting Hamming code, hereafter referred to as modified SEC-DED Hamming code, is proposed in this research. The code requires fewer logic gates to implement than the SEC-DED Hamming code. Also, unlike the popular Hsiao's code, the proposed code can determine the error in the received word from its syndrome location in the parity check matrix. A detailed analysis of the area and power utilization by the encoder and decoder circuits of the modified SEC-DED Hamming code is also discussed. Results demonstrate that this code is an excellent alternative to Hsiao's code as the area and power values are very similar. In addition, the ability to locate the error in the received word from its syndrome is also of particular interest. Primitive polynomials play a crucial role in the hardware realizations for error-correcting codes. This research describes an implementation of a scalable primitive polynomial circuit with coefficients in GF(2). The standard cell area and power values for various degrees of the circuit are analyzed. The physical design of a degree 6 primitive polynomial computation circuit is also provided. In addition to the codes, a background of the already existing SPX GCD computation algorithm is provided. Its implementation revealed that the combinational implementation of the SPX algorithm utilizes a significantly lesser area than Euclid's algorithm. The FSMD implementation of the SPX algorithm reduces both dynamic and leakage power consumption. The physical design of the GCD computation using the SPX algorithm is also provided.

[pt] As tecnologias de manufatura aditiva (MA) tornaram-se alvo de grande interesse industrial para fabricação de componentes e peças finais destinadas a inúmeras aplicações em diversos setores da indústria. Estes componentes, em sua maioria, são projetados para apresentar vida em serviço superior à 107ciclos, fazendo com que a análise do comportamento em fadiga no regime de altíssimo ciclo (VHCF) se tornasse um critério de projeto imprescindível. O aço inoxidável AISI 316L é um dos materiais mais processados por MA, com inúmeras abordagens na literatura. Contudo, ainda não há um conhecimento consolidado a respeito do comportamento deste material quando submetido a longas ou super longas vidas em fadiga após processamento pelas distintas técnicas disponíveis, nem tampouco dos mecanismos de iniciação de trincas predominantes. Em geral, no regime de VHCF as trincas tendem a se iniciar internamente ou em regiões subsuperficiais a partir de defeitos internos presente no material. Esse fato resulta em uma característica na superfície de fratura conhecida como fish-eye. Outro fenômeno que ocorre na superfície de fratura, mais especificamente dentro da região do fish-eye, é a formação de uma camada fina granular (FGA) ao redor dos sítios de iniciação de trincas. O presente trabalho analisou a resistência à fadiga de longa duração do aço AISI 316L manufaturado pela técnica de deposição por energia direcionada a laser (L-DED). Corpos de prova de duas condições de pós-processamento do material, com e sem tratamento térmico, foram submetidos a ensaios de fadiga em equipamento ultrassônico (frequência de 20±0,5 kHz), com R = -1 e tendo como alvo 109ciclos. Após o levantamento das curvas S-N das duas condições microestruturais, as superfícies de fratura foram analisadas. Os resultados da pesquisa indicaram que o tratamento térmico reduziu a vida em fadiga do material em função da população de defeitos metalúrgicos encontrada, bem como influenciou a formação de fish-eye e FGA durante a iniciação e propagação das trincas. Por fim, o tamanho do FGA foi quantificado experimentalmente, para permitir a comparação com dimensões de FGA estimadas por equações empíricas presentes na literatura. / [en] Additive manufacturing (AM) technologies have become a target of great industrial interest for manufacture of components and final parts intended for several applications in many sectors of the industry. Most of these components are designed to have a service life higher than 107cycles, making the analysis of the fatigue behavior in the very high cycle regime (VHCF) an essential design criterion. AISI 316L stainless steel is one of the most processed by AM, with numerous approaches in the literature. However, there is still no consolidated knowledge about the behavior of this material when subjected to long or super long fatigue lives after processing by the different available techniques, nor about the predominant crack initiation mechanisms. In general, in the VHCF regime, cracks tend to start internally or in subsurface regions from internal defects present in the material. This fact results in a characteristic in the fracture surface known as fish-eye. Another phenomenon that occurs at the fracture surface, more specifically within the fish-eye region, is the formation of a fine granular area (FGA) nearby the crack initiation sites. The present work analyzed the long-term fatigue strength of AISI 316L steel manufactured by laser directed energy deposition (L-DED) technique. Specimens of two post-processing conditions of the material, with and without heat treatment, were subjected to fatigue tests in ultrasonic equipment (frequency 20 ± 0.5 kHz), with R = -1 aiming 109cycles. After surveying the S-N curves of the two microstructural conditions, the fracture surfaces were analyzed. The research results indicated that the heat treatment reduced the fatigue life of the material as a function of the population of metallurgical defects found, as well as influenced the formation of fish-eye and FGA during the initiation and propagation of cracks. Finally, the size of FGA was experimentally quantified to allow comparison with the dimensions of the FGA estimated by empirical equations present in the literature.

Synthesis of polycrystalline, vs. single-crystalline porous materials, such as metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), is usually beneficial due to shorter synthetic time and higher yields. However, the structural characterization of these materials by X-ray powder diffraction can be complicated. Even more difficult, is to track structural changes of MOFs by in situ experiments. Hence, we designed several successful techniques for the structural investigation of porous MOFs. These methods utilize the Structure Envelope (SE) density maps. SEs are surfaces which describing the pore system with the framework. It was shown that these maps can be easily generated from the structure factors of a few (1 to 10) of the most intense low index reflections. Application of SE in Charge Flipping calculations shortens and simplifies structure determination of MOF materials. This method provides excellent MOF models which can be used as a good starting point for their refinement. However, the most interesting results have been found by using Difference Envelope Density (DED) analysis. DED plots are made by taking the difference between observed and calculated SE densities. This allows us to study guest related issues of MOFs such as, location of guest molecules in the pores, tracking activation of MOFs and gas loading, etc. We also have shown that, DED created from routine powder diffraction patterns might provide very important information about MOF structure itself. In fact DED can be used for study of interpenetration, substituents locations and effects conformational changes in the MOF ligands. Generation and analysis of SEs and DEDs are easy and straightforward. It provides the information needed to explain major deviations in structure-property relationship in MOFs. In our opinion, this method might become one of the important and routine techniques for MOFs structural analysis.

Thesis Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree Doctor Educationis in the Faculty of Education and Social Sciences at the CAPE PENINSULA UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY, 2012 / Quality and meaningful art education is a very important vehicle for learning and knowledge acquisition which is within the reach of all children in schools. Unfortunately, due to a variety of reasons such as the fact that generalist trained teachers, with no specialised training in art, are responsible for the teaching of art in schools in South Africa, as well as recurring educational change and subsequent uncertainty, lead to the situation that art lessons currently taught at many schools do not answer to the requirements for quality art education. There is a great need for in-service training to address the shortfalls in the teaching of art in schools. When skills building workshops in art education were offered, teachers requested personal interventions on a one-to-one basis with a focus on their own particular strengths and shortcomings. Mentoring the educators seems to be a means of addressing their needs to improve the quality of their teaching of art. In response to a plea from teachers this research project was designed during which inexperienced and insufficiently trained teachers who are responsible for art education were mentored. Four sites were selected at which the teachers were mentored. There were marked differences in the circumstances and conditions at the four schools, however, from all the sites there was an outcry for assistance in the planning and presentation of quality art lessons and for lesson ideas. The one similarity in all the cases was the fact that they were all generalist trained teachers who are responsible for the teaching of art in their own class and some other classes as well. The mentoring followed a cyclical process and was adapted for art education. The process comprised the establishment of a relationship in which the mentor and mentee played equally important roles, needs analysis, the mentoring process, which iv consisted of joint planning of lessons, model teaching, discussions and coaching sessions, reflection and then to return to the beginning of the cycle. The process concluded with a workshop. The entire process was recorded, reported on and assessed upon termination. Data that was collected at the four sites was analysed according to themes that were developed from the literature on mentoring in education as well as the literature on quality and meaningful art education. Themes that have emerged are the mentoring relationship, the role of the mentor, the role of the mentee, the purpose and goals of the mentoring, the mentoring process and the mentoring outcomes. The thesis concludes with recommendations for the mentoring of educators in the teaching of quality and meaningful art and suggests that no child should be deprived of the learning opportunities through art that can form part of their primary school experience.

Additive Manufacturing has brought about substantial benefits to the manufacturing industry due to the numerous advantages it provides, at the same time there are factors that can be improved upon. Temperature control is an important parameter during the build process as it affects build quality. The main objective of this thesis project was to investigate what sensors could be used for monitoring the temperature during the additive manufacturing processand to compare and evaluate their performance. This involved implementing two 2-color pyrometers and a short-wave infrared camera to monitor the temperature of the area behind the melt pool and then visualizing the respective data. Initial issues arose during test runs in the form of noise in the pyrometer data, this was solved by implementing a smoothing filter to the signal. Multiple runs were conducted to capture the required data as images produced by the camera were overexposed and out of focus during initial runs. This was solved by changing the camera position and exposure settings. Reading the temperature values from the images involved interpreting the Average Dark Units (ADU) values of the region of interest and then comparing those values to a reference chart. The data gathered with the help of LabVIEW software and the proprietary imaging software of the camera showed that the selected sensors were in fact suitable for the intended task and could be used in conjunction with each other. This data could then be used to create a closed-loop system in the future (not in the scope of this thesis work) and thus enable the increase in the level of automation for Robotized Laser Wire Additive Manufacturing.

This thesis aims to investigate whether additive manufacturing is applicable in manufacturing the 1N thruster option that Bradford Ecaps offers. Therefore, the nozzle design is of particular interest as AM provides accessibilities to manufacturing complex structures. The current Ecaps 1N thruster has an operating thrust lifespan that exceeds the required lifespan commonly needed for the majority of customers. With AM, an increase in production throughput and optimization of nozzle design is possible. A candidate material, a platinum group metal, was picked for a future 1N thruster prototype concerning the limiting operating constraints. Computational fluid analysis was performed to investigate different contour nozzles to investigate the possibility of improving the performance of the Bradford ECAPS 1N thruster. AMATLAB code was developed to model the contour nozzles, and ANSYS Fluent was used for the computational analysis. Three different nozzle geometries were evaluated to investigate the overall performance of the expanding exhaust gas and thrust properties in vacuum conditions. Configuration 1. which had an extended nozzle was selected as a solution since it eliminatedthe interferences with the continuum. The Nasa CEA code was used to generate the fluid gas properties. No substantial performance gain was observed for the 1N thruster. This was found to be due to the boundary-dominated flow exhibited in the nozzle. A conical nozzle was found to work comparatively well. / Detta examensarbete syftar till att undersöka om additiv tillverkning (AM) är tillämplig vid tillverkning av Bradford Ecaps 1N raketmotor. Därför är munstycksdesignen av särskilt intresse eftersom AM ger möjlighet för tillverkning av komplexa strukturer. Den nuvarande Ecaps 1N-motorn har en livslängd som överstiger den livslängd som krävs för de flesta kunder. Med AM är ökning av produktionsgenomströmningen och optimering av munstycksdesign möjlig. Ett kandidatmaterial, en metall i platinagruppen, valdes ut för en framtida 1N prototyp med hänvisning till de begränsande driftsbegränsningarna. Beräkningsflödesanalys utfördes för att undersöka olika konturmunstycken för att undersöka möjligheten till att förbättra prestandan hos Bradford ECAPS 1N framdrivningssystem. En MATLAB-kod utvecklades för att modellera konturmunstyckena och ANSYS Fluent användes för beräkningsanalysen. Tre olika munstycksgeometrier utvärderades för att undersöka den totala prestandan hos de expanderande avgaserna och dragkraftsegenskaperna under vakuumförhållanden. Konfiguration 1. som hade ett förlängt munstycke valdes som en lösning eftersom detta eliminerade interferenserna med kontinuumet. Nasa CEA-koden användes för att generera fluidens gasegenskaper. Ingen betydande prestandaökning observerades för 1N motorn. Detta visade sig bero på det gränsskiktsdominerade flödet som uppvisades i munstycket. Ett koniskt munstycke visade sig fungera relativt bra.

The capabilities of various metal Additive Manufacturing (AM) processes, such as Powder Bed Fusion – Laser (PBF-L) and Direct Energy Deposition (DED) are increasing such that it is becoming ever more common to use them in industrial applications. The ability to print atop a substrate broadens that scope of applications. There is ongoing research regarding the mechanical properties of additively processed materials, but little regarding the interaction between additive material and its substrate. An understanding of the mechanical and performance properties of the AM/substrate interface is imperative. This paper describes a study of the strength properties of AM/substrate interfaces, with respect to torsion and tension, and compares them to their fully wrought and fully additive counterparts. PBF-L and DED are used to produce tensile and torsion test specimens of two different materials, SS316L and M300 steels. This provides sufficient variety in testing for a confident analysis to be made.

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Internet of Things, or the infrastructure of the information age society, is an expanding area of research. It is the idea that physical things that we have today, can be turned into devices by being connected to a network. The purpose of these devices is through more sensors and actuators, allow smarter and more robust infrastructure to be built, as well as improving consumer devices interoperability. This thesis will investigate the current state of the art application layer communication protocols that have been developed with resource constrained mobile devices in mind. It will look specifically at high latency mid-range wireless cellular communication by investigating how the protocols affect energy consumption for an embedded Internet of Things device. This is done with the constraint that these findings needs to be applicable to the fifth generation of cellular networks, as well as extensions to current generation standards. The application layer communication protocols Constrained Applications Protocol(CoAP), Message Queue Telemetry Transport(MQTT) and Hypertext Transfer Protocol(HTTP) used on multiple modem modules, are investigated in a quantitative approach in deductive survey experiments, testing a variety of what is concluded to be typical sensor and actuator scenarios. The goal with the survey, is to ultimately select the protocol that shows to be the most suitable for a project to build a prototype platform for embedded mobile devices in the shape of publicly shared bikes in a city. This prototype is described and its architecture and design decisions are presented and argued for. The survey discovers that CoAP is the most suitable protocol for the purpose of the thesis, and proceeds to show how it is applied to the described platform.