Heat dissipation is a critical bottleneck for microelectronic device performance and longevity. At micrometer and nanometer length scales heat carriers scatter at the boundaries of the material reducing its thermal conductivity. Additionally, thermal boundary conductance across dissimilar material interfaces becomes a dominant factor due to the increase in surface area relative to the volume of device layers. Therefore, techniques for monitoring spatially varying temperature profiles, and methods to improve thermal performance are critical to future device design and optimization. The first half of this thesis focused on frequency domain thermoreflectance (FDTR) to measure thermal transport in nanometer-thick polymer films and across an organic-inorganic interface. Hybrid structures of organic and inorganic materials are widely used in devices such as batteries, solar cells, transistors, and flexible electronics. The Langmuir-Blodgett (LB) technique was used to fabricate nanometer-thick polymer films ranging from 2 - 30 nm. FDTR was then used to experimentally determine the thermal boundary conductance between the polymer and solid substrates. The second half of the thesis focused on developing a fundamental understanding of thermal transport in wide-bandgap (WBG) materials, such as GaN, and ultrawide-bandgap (UWBG) materials, such as diamond, to improve thermal dissipation in power electronic devices. Improvements in WBG materials and device technologies have slowed as thermal properties limit their performance. UWBG materials can provide a dramatic leap in power electronics technologies while temporarily sidestepping the problems associated with their WBG cousins. However, for power electronic devices based on WBG- and UWBG-materials to reach their full potential the thermal dissipation issues in these hard-driven devices must be understood and solved. FDTR provides a comprehensive pathway towards fully understanding the physics governing phonon transport in WBG- and UWBG-based devices. By leveraging FDTR imaging and measuring samples as a function of temperature, defect concentration, and thickness, in conjunction with transport models, a well-founded understanding of the dominant thermal-carrier scattering mechanisms in these devices was achieved. With this knowledge we developed pathways for their mitigation.

Digitale Menschmodelle (DMM) werden aktuell in Unternehmen vorwiegend zur ergonomischen Planung und Überprüfung der Ausführbarkeit und Erträglichkeit von Arbeitsprozessen eingesetzt. Im Rahmen der Nachwuchsforschergruppe „The Smart Virtual Worker“, welche im Interdisziplinären Kompetenzzentrum Virtual Humans der TU Chemnitz angesiedelt ist, entstand ein Framework zur Simulation komplexer Arbeitsabläufe im Kontext der virtuellen Fabrik. Ziel war die Entwicklung eines digitalen Menschmodells für den Einsatz in klein- und mittelständischen Unternehmen. Hierbei standen die autonome Steuerung, eine realistische Animation sowie die Einbeziehung physischer und psychischer Faktoren in die ergonomische Bewertung eines Arbeitsablaufes im Mittelpunkt. Darauf aufbauend wurde eine haptische Nutzerschnittstelle zur interaktiven Fabrik- und Aufgabenplanung entwickelt. Neben der Positionierung von statischen Objekten ist mit diesem Interface auch die Integration und Anpassung von Arbeitsaufgaben möglich.

Digitale Menschmodelle (DMM) werden aktuell in Unternehmen vorwiegend zur ergonomischen Planung und Überprüfung der Ausführbarkeit und Erträglichkeit von Arbeitsprozessen eingesetzt. Im Rahmen der Nachwuchsforschergruppe „The Smart Virtual Worker“, welche im Interdisziplinären Kompetenzzentrum Virtual Humans der TU Chemnitz angesiedelt ist, entstand ein Framework zur Simulation komplexer Arbeitsabläufe im Kontext der virtuellen Fabrik. Ziel war die Entwicklung eines digitalen Menschmodells für den Einsatz in klein- und mittelständischen Unternehmen. Hierbei standen die autonome Steuerung, eine realistische Animation sowie die Einbeziehung physischer und psychischer Faktoren in die ergonomische Bewertung eines Arbeitsablaufes im Mittelpunkt. Darauf aufbauend wurde eine haptische Nutzerschnittstelle zur interaktiven Fabrik- und Aufgabenplanung entwickelt. Neben der Positionierung von statischen Objekten ist mit diesem Interface auch die Integration und Anpassung von Arbeitsaufgaben möglich.

In today’s society, movies and videogames with a great deal of visual effects that contain objects that break, shatter or explode are popular. They are created from a number of different kinds of 3D programs and plugins. This time Autodesk Mayas nCloth is compared with the new built-in Digital Molecular Matter (DMM) Plugin to see which technique is easiest to use, as well as delivers the best result. A modeled sculpture was shattered using both nCloth and DMM and a set of predefined areas were studied. The results reveals that both techniques can be employed however the DMM technology has several advantages where less time consumption is one of them.

This thesis describes the issue of project dependencies. In managing projects we meet almost every time some kind of dependency. Currently, the project is almost never an isolated group of activity that is able to independently bring same value or result. Therefore, this issue occurs in many areas of managing project. The first theoretical part is focused on some of these areas. It describes disciplines such as Project, Program and Portfolio management. These areas are characterized and then described how they can solve project dependencies. The second part is focused on matrices DSM and DMM, which can serve as one of the methods to effectively manage all connections and dependencies in projects. Area DSM and DMM matrix is first explained and then are expressed its possibilities. In the last part are the information gained in the previous phase applied to a practical example in the banking environment. The method is applied to 25 projects that are guided in an unnamed banking institution. For these projects are set dimensions and are subsequently compiled specific DSM (Dependency Structure Matrix) and DMM (Domain Mapping Matrix) matrices. To certain dimensions is then used clustering method and on the resulting matrix is used simple matrix notation, such as transposition and matrix multiplication. It will create basically a tool, which is a network of all the dependencies between dimensions and projects that can simulate pre-defined scenarios.

Osteoarthritis (OA) is a degenerative joint disease that affects more than 60% of Americans 65 and older. Because human subjects and samples are not readily available for research, animal models are an invaluable resource for the study of OA. Disproportionate micromelia (Dmm) is one such model that develops OA early in life due to a deletion in the c-propeptide of the Col2a1 gene. Light microscope analysis of the articular cartilage in Dmm has been completed, but is insufficient to show the cellular effects of the deletion mutation in Dmm in adequate detail. The present study explores the changes that occur in the rough endoplasmic reticulum (ER) of chondrocytes in the articular cartilage of Dmm heterozygous mutants (D/+). Immunohistochemical analysis in Dmm has shown that type II collagen is absent extracellularly in articular cartilage of Dmm homozygous mutants and reduced in the heterozygotes. Because preprocollagens are processed through the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), it has been hypothesized that due to improper folding this mutation prevents newly synthesized collagen from leaving the ER, as a result large dilations are seen in the ER of Dmm mice. Furthermore, matrix area fractions should be reduced in the D/+ group if indeed type II collagen is not secreted. Data collected indicated that at 4 months and older, large distensions in the ER disappear. At age 0 months, there is significant dilation in the ER of the D/+ (p=.0013), and at .75 months significant dilation is also observed (p=.0063). In pooled age groups, the D/+ has a 1.77% greater ER fraction than the +/+ (p=.0022). The matrix area fraction was also significantly lower in the D/+ compared to the +/+ (p=.0037). Apoptosis was prominent in older ages, but did not appear to be different between +/+ and D/+ mice. Because decreased matrix and dilation of ER have been documented in OA, Dmm is a good model of OA that can be further used to study the molecular changes and deficiencies that occur in the pathogenesis of OA.

The thesis details the design and characterization of an innovative optical tweezer system. Optical tweezers provide a relatively new technique for non-contact manipulation of micron-scale particles. They employ a laser beam to hold such particles at the laser’s focus. Optical tweezers are used for many scientific purposes, such as: measuring the mechanical properties of bio-molecules, cell and molecule sorting, stiction-less micro-manipulators, and fundamental research in physics. Typically, trap location has been controlled using steer-mirrors or spatial light modulators, operating without beam quality feedback. Here, an innovative trap control system has been developed, featuring a closed-loop adaptive optics system. The prototype system employs a deformable mirror and wavefront sensor to control trap position in three dimensions, while simultaneously removing beam aberrations. The performance of this system is investigated in terms of controllable range of trap motion, trap stiffness, and trap position stability.

No description available.

Maximum Subarray Problem (MSP) is to find the consecutive array portion that maximizes the sum of array elements in it. The goal is to locate the most useful and informative array segment that associates two parameters involved in data in a 2D array. It's an efficient data mining method which gives us an accurate pattern or trend of data with respect to some associated parameters. Distance Matrix Multiplication (DMM) is at the core of MSP. Also DMM and MSP have the worst-case complexity of the same order. So if we improve the algorithm for DMM that would also trigger the improvement of MSP. The complexity of Conventional DMM is O(n³). In the average case, All Pairs Shortest Path (APSP) Problem can be modified as a fast engine for DMM and can be solved in O(n² log n) expected time. Using this result, MSP can be solved in O(n² log² n) expected time. MSP can be extended to K-MSP. To incorporate DMM into K-MSP, DMM needs to be extended to K-DMM as well. In this research we show how DMM can be extended to K-DMM using K-Tuple Approach to solve K-MSP in O(Kn² log² n log K) time complexity when K ≤ n/log n. We also present Tournament Approach which solves K-MSP in O(n² log² n + Kn²) time complexity and outperforms the K-Tuple

No description available.