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O estudo do comportamento do concreto nas primeiras idades está se tornando cada vez mais importante, pois os efeitos térmicos e de retração do concreto, neste período inicial, geram fissuras, aumentando a permeabilidade das estruturas e podendo induzir problemas de durabilidade e funcionalidade das mesmas. Um detalhado estudo da evolução das tensões durante as primeiras idades pode ser decisivo para manter baixos os níveis de fissuração. Neste trabalho foi implementado um modelo computacional, baseado no método dos elementos finitos, para a simulação do comportamento de peças de concreto nas primeiras idades, tendo, em especial, o propósito de avaliar o potencial risco de fissuração. A análise por elementos finitos abrange a modelagem computacional dos fenômenos químicos, térmicos, de difusão de umidade e mecânicos que ocorrem nos primeiros dias após o lançamento do concreto. Na análise química é determinado o calor gerado pelas reações exotérmicas de hidratação do cimento. Na análise térmica o programa considera ainda o fluxo de calor devido à diferença de temperatura entre o corpo e o ambiente. Em função das propriedades térmicas e geométricas do corpo em estudo são determinadas as temperaturas nodais. Na seqüência, realiza-se a análise de difusão de umidade. Aproveitando a semelhança entre as equações que regem os fenômenos de transferência de calor e difusão de umidade, empregam-se os mesmos procedimentos da análise térmica para a determinação do valor nodal da umidade relativa dos poros. Na análise mecânica, por sua vez, são calculados os estados de tensões decorrentes das variações de temperatura e umidade determinadas nas etapas anteriores e dos fenômenos de retração e fluência do concreto. Quando o estado de tensão de determinado ponto de integração atinge a superfície de ruptura, o ponto passa a ser considerado fissurado. O programa considera a fissuração através de um modelo de fissuras distribuídas com fisssura fixa. Os resultados desta modelagem computacional foram comparados com valores experimentais encontrados na literatura, demonstrando excelente aproximação em todas as etapas de solução implementadas. / The study of the early age properties of concrete is becoming more important, because the thermal effects and the shrinkage, even in the first hours, could generate cracks, increasing the permeability of the structure and being able to induce problems of durability and functionality. The detailed study of the stresses development during the construction process can be decisive to keep low the cracking levels. In this work a computational model, based on the finite element method was implemented, to simulate the early age concrete behavior, having as a special feature, the evaluation of the cracking risk. The finite element analysis encloses the computational modeling of the following phenomena: chemical, thermal, diffusion and mechanical which occur at the first days after the concrete cast. In the chemical analysis, the heat generated by the exothermic reactions of cement hydration is evaluated. In the thermal analysis the program still considers the heat flow due to differences in temperatures between the body and the environment. Considering the thermal and geometric properties of the body, the nodal temperatures are determined. The following analysis is the humidity diffusion. Using the similarity between the equations that describe the phenomena of heat transfer and humidity diffusion, the same thermal analysis procedures are used to evaluate the pore relative humiditys nodal values. In the last analysis, mechanical, the stress states due to temperature and humidity variations, evaluated in the previous steps, and also due to shrinkage and creep are calculated. When the stress state in a determined sample point reaches the rupture surface, the point is considered cracked. The program evaluates cracking through a smeared fixed crack model. The developed software results were compared with experimental values found in the literature, demonstrating an excellent agreement for all the implemented analysis.

The deployment of renewable energy (RE) technologies for electricity generation is a central element of the European energy and climate strategy and was laid down in binding targets on EU-level. The actual RE technology diffusion is, however, shaped by the framework conditions and support measures implemented in the individual EU Member States. This dissertation aims at contributing to a more integrated view of the influencing factors (determinants) for the deployment of RE technologies. To this end, a conceptual framework is drawn up to assess the boundary conditions for RE diffusion from the RE developer’s perspective. The framework is operationalised using a composite indicator (CI) approach and applied in a diffusion model to allow the anticipation of possible future technology deployment. The thesis concentrates on two mainstream RE technologies, namely onshore wind and non-residential PV, and focuses on European countries. Within the analysis, particular emphasis is placed on providing a holistic assessment of the impact of economic and non-economic determinants on the diffusion of RE technologies at national level. The assessment aims at understanding RE developers’ preferences and rationalities regarding the overall framework conditions for RE deployment in order to identify the drivers for and barriers to technological change and to facilitate efficient policy design and regulatory transformation. The most relevant diffusion determinants from the viewpoint of RE project developers are identified through literature research and moderated expert workshops. The relative relevance of the determinants in the diffusion process is then assessed based on an EU-wide questionnaire that resulted in the collection of >200 datasets. Building on this broad empirical basis, a composite indicator (CI) is developed for the diffusion of non-residential PV and wind onshore. The CI provides a transparent framework for the quantification of the diffusion determinants and allows an evaluation and benchmarking of national RE frameworks. In a further step, the CI is integrated in a diffusion model which enables projections of possible future market developments under different configurations of the national RE framework. This modelling approach applies and further develops established logistic models of technology diffusion. The overall approach is validated by applying it to three case study countries: Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom. Data collection in these case study countries involved, among others, semi-structured interviews with 31 RE experts. The different regulatory framework conditions in the three countries lead to 3 different CI results and projected technology diffusion. The results verify the robustness of the approach and the applicability of the concept to different national contexts. The findings of this thesis contribute to the methodological and empirical basis for understanding and modelling technology diffusion processes in general and RE technology diffusion in particular. The approach developed in this thesis further improves the scientific basis for the evaluation of RE support policies and can contribute to RE targets being achieved in an efficient and sustainable way.

O estudo do comportamento do concreto nas primeiras idades está se tornando cada vez mais importante, pois os efeitos térmicos e de retração do concreto, neste período inicial, geram fissuras, aumentando a permeabilidade das estruturas e podendo induzir problemas de durabilidade e funcionalidade das mesmas. Um detalhado estudo da evolução das tensões durante as primeiras idades pode ser decisivo para manter baixos os níveis de fissuração. Neste trabalho foi implementado um modelo computacional, baseado no método dos elementos finitos, para a simulação do comportamento de peças de concreto nas primeiras idades, tendo, em especial, o propósito de avaliar o potencial risco de fissuração. A análise por elementos finitos abrange a modelagem computacional dos fenômenos químicos, térmicos, de difusão de umidade e mecânicos que ocorrem nos primeiros dias após o lançamento do concreto. Na análise química é determinado o calor gerado pelas reações exotérmicas de hidratação do cimento. Na análise térmica o programa considera ainda o fluxo de calor devido à diferença de temperatura entre o corpo e o ambiente. Em função das propriedades térmicas e geométricas do corpo em estudo são determinadas as temperaturas nodais. Na seqüência, realiza-se a análise de difusão de umidade. Aproveitando a semelhança entre as equações que regem os fenômenos de transferência de calor e difusão de umidade, empregam-se os mesmos procedimentos da análise térmica para a determinação do valor nodal da umidade relativa dos poros. Na análise mecânica, por sua vez, são calculados os estados de tensões decorrentes das variações de temperatura e umidade determinadas nas etapas anteriores e dos fenômenos de retração e fluência do concreto. Quando o estado de tensão de determinado ponto de integração atinge a superfície de ruptura, o ponto passa a ser considerado fissurado. O programa considera a fissuração através de um modelo de fissuras distribuídas com fisssura fixa. Os resultados desta modelagem computacional foram comparados com valores experimentais encontrados na literatura, demonstrando excelente aproximação em todas as etapas de solução implementadas. / The study of the early age properties of concrete is becoming more important, because the thermal effects and the shrinkage, even in the first hours, could generate cracks, increasing the permeability of the structure and being able to induce problems of durability and functionality. The detailed study of the stresses development during the construction process can be decisive to keep low the cracking levels. In this work a computational model, based on the finite element method was implemented, to simulate the early age concrete behavior, having as a special feature, the evaluation of the cracking risk. The finite element analysis encloses the computational modeling of the following phenomena: chemical, thermal, diffusion and mechanical which occur at the first days after the concrete cast. In the chemical analysis, the heat generated by the exothermic reactions of cement hydration is evaluated. In the thermal analysis the program still considers the heat flow due to differences in temperatures between the body and the environment. Considering the thermal and geometric properties of the body, the nodal temperatures are determined. The following analysis is the humidity diffusion. Using the similarity between the equations that describe the phenomena of heat transfer and humidity diffusion, the same thermal analysis procedures are used to evaluate the pore relative humiditys nodal values. In the last analysis, mechanical, the stress states due to temperature and humidity variations, evaluated in the previous steps, and also due to shrinkage and creep are calculated. When the stress state in a determined sample point reaches the rupture surface, the point is considered cracked. The program evaluates cracking through a smeared fixed crack model. The developed software results were compared with experimental values found in the literature, demonstrating an excellent agreement for all the implemented analysis.

Many animals are social foragers. Foraging with others may confer a number of advantages, but is also likely to present a number of challenges that are not encountered by solitary foragers. For instance, whilst feeding in a group may interfere with an animal's ability to learn new foraging skills or the location of new foraging patches by itself, it may simultaneously provide it with the opportunity to acquire new skills or knowledge by means of social learning. This thesis addresses a number of questions relating to the interaction between social foraging and social learning using small groups of captive budgerigars, Melopsittacus undulatus, as a test species. In particular, it investigates the spread of novel foraging behaviour through groups of birds under conditions that either permit or restrict a high degree of ‘scrounging' (food stealing) by naïve birds from skilled ‘producers' in their group (Chapter Three). Scrounging is found to inhibit naïve budgerigars' performance of new foraging skills, but appears to facilitate their underlying acquisition, or motivation to acquire these skills, when the need arises – for instance, when producers are lost from their group. In addition, the thesis assesses the importance of a number of different individual-level characteristics, such as age, sex, and competitive rank, in predicting birds' propensity to behave as producers rather than scroungers when foraging in a group (Chapter Four). The thesis also examines budgerigars' relative use of social and personal information when selecting foraging locations (Chapter Five), and assesses the importance of group social networks in predicting individual birds' order and latency to arrive at foraging patches (Chapter Six). Budgerigars are found to rely on social information when they lack any personal information about foraging locations. When equipped with both social information and personal information, some, but not all birds appear still to utilise social information. Birds' social networks appear to have little bearing on individuals' foraging patch visitation times.

This thesis focuses on the formulation and numerical implementation of a fully coupled continuum model for deformation-diffusion in linearized elastic solids. The mathematical model takes into account the affect of the deformation on the diffusion process, and the effect of the transport of an inert chemical species on the deformation of the solid. A robust computational framework is presented for solving the proposed mathematical model, which consists of coupled non-linear partial differential equations. It should be noted that many popular numerical formulations may produce unphysical negative values for the concentration, particularly, when the diffusion process is anisotropic. The violation of the non-negative constraint by these numerical formulations is not mere numerical noise. In the proposed computational framework we employ a novel numerical formulation that will ensure that the concentration of the diffusant be always non-negative, which is one of the main contributions of this thesis. Representative numerical examples are presented to show the robustness, convergence, and performance of the proposed computational framework. Another contribution is to systematically study the affect of transport of the diffusant on the deformation of the solid and vice-versa, and their implication in modeling degradation/healing of materials. It is shown that the coupled response is both qualitatively and quantitatively different from the uncoupled response.

The Rijndael cryptosystem uses a particular polynomial to create its constants. All calculations within the encryption and decryption layers are based on this polynomial. This arouse the curiosity to see what happens if the polynomial is substituted by other polynomials. This paper’s main area of study is to investigate the consequences of using different polynomials to construct the Rijndael cryptosystem. To do so, as a phase of this study, a Mathematica package has been created to ease the investigations. As the second phase, using the aforementioned package, some kind of diffusion analysis has been done on the newly constructed Rijndael-like cryptosystems. The fundamental challenge was to figure out the reason of having the particular polynomial chosen. By the end of the experiment, we concluded that choosing other polynomials with the same characteristics as an ingredient of the Rijndael algorithm, does not have any perceptible effects on the diffusion level.

Fiber-deployment of telecommunications networks is currently a great challenge for sector-specific regulators, national governments, as well as for investing operators. One of the most controversial regulatory issues in Europe (and elsewhere) is whether the emerging next generation access (NGA) infrastructure should be subjected to cost-based access regulation or whether at least a temporary removal of ex ante obligations ("regulatory holidays") should be granted. In answering this question we examine the current and foreseeable EU regulatory framework and show that it does not provide positive incentives for NGA deployment and increasing penetration rates. On the basis of an international comparison with the most recent data on NGA deployment and penetration, it appears, in turn, that deregulatory and/or state aid driven approaches targeted at the demand (subscribers) and supply side (coverage) are more promising. (author's abstract) / Series: Working Papers / Research Institute for Regulatory Economics

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No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertação - Renata da Costa Barbosa - 2014.pdf: 2041466 bytes, checksum: b05943f80e79bca8b9f3398d1706e187 (MD5) license_rdf: 23148 bytes, checksum: 9da0b6dfac957114c6a7714714b86306 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-11-28 / Understanding how the postural control system is impaired with aging can help identify elderly at risk of falling. In order to study the postural control, center of pressure (CP) behavior can be analyzed. Classical descriptors are commonly used for the CP analysis, however, modern descriptors have been developed aiming to provide more information about the underlying processes involved in the postural control. Aims: Analyze and compare classical and modern descriptors used to analyze the postural control in elderly subjects in quiet standing posture, using data acquired from a force platform in horizontal and inclined surfaces. Methods: The study sample consisted of 17 elderly subjects who remained on a force platform in the upright posture for 70 seconds. The data acquisition was performed with the platform on a horizontal surface and again on a surface inclined at 14 degrees with dorsiflexion and later with plantar flexion of the ankle. For each slope, the procedure was repeated three times with eyes open (EO ) and three times with eyes closed (EC). The initial 10 seconds were discarded and then, CP times series were analyzed in the anteroposterior (AP) and mediolateral (ML) directions. The classical descriptors used were in the time in the frequency domain and the modern descriptors were: Detrended Fluctuations Analysis (DFA), Stabilogram Diffusion Analysis (SDA) and the Sway Density Curve (SDC). Results: In the classical analysis, the results showed significant differences in all comparisons made and, in the modern analysis, the variables provided by the SDA and SDC also showed significant differences between comparisons, however, the DFA did not provide any difference between the conditions. Conclusion: Results provided by the classical variables and by the SDA and the SDC suggest a lower stability of elderly subjects in the inclined surface with dorsiflexion followed by plantar flexion and the eyes closed condition. More studies with the modern descriptors are necessary to better understand their results. / Entender como o sistema de controle postural é comprometido com o processo de envelhecimento pode contribuir na identificação de idosos com risco de quedas. Para estudar o controle postural pode-se analisar o comportamento do Centro de Pressão (CP). Descritores clássicos comumente são utilizados para a análise do CP, no entanto, descritores modernos têm sido desenvolvidos, com o intuito de fornecer mais informações sobre os processos subjacentes ao controle postural. Objetivos: Analisar e comparar descritores clássicos e modernos para análise do controle postural em sujeitos idosos na postura ereta quieta, utilizando dados adquiridos na plataforma de força no plano e com inclinação. Métodos: A amostra do estudo foi composta por 17 indivíduos idosos que permaneceram sobre uma plataforma de força na postura ortostática por 70 segundos. A aquisição dos dados foi realizada com uma plataforma sobre uma superfície horizontal e depois sobre uma superfície inclinada a 14 graus nas posições de flexão dorsal e flexão plantar do tornozelo. Para cada inclinação, o procedimento foi repetido três vezes com os olhos abertos (OA) e três vezes com os olhos fechados (OF). Depois de descartados os 10 s iniciais, foram analisadas as séries temporais do CP na direção anteroposterior (AP) e mediolateral (ML). Foram utilizados alguns descritores clássicos no domínio do tempo e da frequência e os descritores modernos: Detrended Fluctuation Analysis (DFA), Stabilogram Diffusion Analysis (SDA) e pela Sway Density Curve (SDC). Resultados: Na análise clássica os resultados indicaram diferenças significativas em todas as comparações realizadas, na análise moderna, as variáveis fornecidas pela SDA e pela SDC também apresentaram diferenças significativas entre as comparações, porém, a DFA não conseguiu apontar tais diferenças. Conclusão: Os resultados fornecidos pelas variáveis clássicas, SDA e a SDC sugerem uma menor estabilidade de sujeitos idosos na superfície inclinada com flexão dorsal seguida da flexão plantar e na condição de olho fechado. Ainda são necessários a realização de mais estudos utilizando tais descritores para uma melhor compreensão de seus resultados.

La contribution relative des différentes entrées sensorielles dans le contrôle postural a souvent été étudiée dans le cadre de la posture érigée fondamentale. L’objectif de nos travaux a été de déterminer cette contribution dans deux postures relativement proches dans leur configuration : l’appui tendu renversé (ATR) et la verticale inversée (VI) en milieu aquatique. Si la vision est souvent considérée comme information principale dans le contrôle postural de la station érigée, la configuration structurelle (champ visuel restreint en ATR, immersion de l’œil en VI) de ces deux postures laisse imaginer un fonctionnement différent. La perturbation des différents capteurs sensoriels impliqués dans le contrôle postural a permis d’observer la réorganisation mise en place par le système nerveux central (SNC) pour y remédier. De plus la prise en compte d’un facteur perceptif comme la dépendance au champ visuel nous a paru être un élément pertinent pour tenter d’observer d’éventuelles différences interindividuelles dans les comportements des sujets. La perturbation du contrôle postural a été évaluée au travers d’une analyse cinématique et d’une analyse stabilométrique de l’ATR (analyse classique et non-linéaire). Les résultats de ces analyses laissent entrevoir des différences de stratégie entre les sujets dépendants et indépendants au champ visuel dans le contrôle de l’appui tendu renversé, ce qui ne semble pas être le cas en verticale inversée / The relative contribution of the different sensory inputs in erect postural control has often been studied. The aim of this work is to determine this contribution in two positions relatively close in their configuration: the handstand and the upside-down posture in water. If vision is often considered as the main information in postural control, the structural configuration (restricted visual field in handstand, eye’s immersion in upside-down posture) of these two postures lets imagine a different operation. Disruption of sensory receptors involved in postural control has allowed observing the reorganization implemented by the central nervous system (CNS). In addition, the visual field dependence appeared to be a relevant factor to observe interindividual behavioral differences. Disturbance of postural control was assessed through a kinematic analysis and a stabilometric analysis of the handstand (classical analysis and non-linear analysis). Results of these analyzes suggest different strategy according to visual field dependence in the control of the handstand, which does not seem to be the case in upside-down posture