In the later years the scientist community has bin investigating the possibility of using zoo plankton as a commercial resource. It is therefore of interest to investigate the size distribution and abundance of zoo plankton. NTNU has for this purpose developed an Acoustical plankton recorder or APR, for determination of the size distribution and abundance of plankton. The system utilizes three frequencies namely 200 kHz, 710 kHz and 1 MHz for the task. A specific kind of plankton called Callanus finmarchicus which has primarily a size range from 1-3 mm is considered the most interesting one since it has a large population in the Norwegian Sea. In this report the signal processing from the “raw” measured values with the APR to the calculated distribution of plankton is described. The following steps has bin carried out in the signal processing: • First of the measured values are processed with an exact “Time Varied Gain Function” or TVG. This function will compensate for the range from the APR to the target by information about the absorption, the range, the pulse-length and the band-width of the receiver. The exact TVG function has bin used since the ordinary TVG function will give a positive bias for ranges below 10 meters • After the TVG function the Echo Integrator equation with noise subtraction is used. This will reduce the effect of noise in the measurements and improve the linearity principle. • At the end inversion is carried out. Two different algorithms are used in the purpose of the inversion, namely the “Least Square non Negative” and the GA algorithm. The inversion will try to find the best fit between the measured data and the mathematically modelled plankton distribution and thereby calculating the size distribution and abundance of plankton. The echo integration with noise subtraction works by calculating the energy in the measurement over a series of samples contributing to a distance in the measurement in active mode. The samples contributing to the same distance is then used to calculate the energy in passive mode and this value is then subtracted from the energy in active mode. The accuracy of the method is dependent on the number of samples used giving better results with an increasing number of samples. Therefore the method has to be used with consideration to the resolution needed in the measurements. The “Least Square non Negative” and the GA algorithm are compared by testing them one the same synthetic data. The result is that in some cases the “Least Square non Negative” seems to work better but in other cases the GA algorithm gives the best results. Both methods has got problems in determining the abundance of smaller plankton when large plankton or potentially air bubbles are present.

This study will focus on strain induced by thermal history and thickness on antiferromagnetic epitaxial LaFeO3(110) thin films grown on Nb:SrTiO3(001) substrates. Lattice mismatching between film and substrate induce strain in the film lattice during growth of the film. This strain can be relaxed by thermal treatment after growth and may show tendencies in the domain size, shape and distribution related to strain. Thin films are grown in different thicknesses by rf magnetron sputtering and selected films are relaxed by thermal anneal treatment. The samples are investigated in room temperature and in heating experiments to obtain images of antiferromagnetic domain contrast along the L2 and L3 absorbtion egde of Fe by XMLD spectromicroscopy. Size of domains areas and contrast level are measured and related to the strain in the thin films. Averaged spectra of L2 absorbtion edge antiferromagnetic contrast showed a clearly observable domain contrast with consistently shaped energy spectrums. No difference in antiferromagnetic contrast due to lattice strain caused by lattice mismatching was observed. All as-grown samples showed comparable size, distribution and shape of antiferromagnetic domains on both polished and etched substrates. Relaxation of prepared samples in 1000±C for 12 hours in a 1 atm atmosphere of oxygen gave a distinct increase in size for the domains. Area calculation show a increase from typically 0.2 ¹m2 for as-grown films to 2 ¹m2 for relaxed films. Heating experiments estimate a Néel temperature of 625oK for as-grown films and 740oK for relaxed samples. The thermal anneal thus has a significant effect on LaFeO3 thin films as the domains increase in size and the Néel temperature in which the film is no longer antiferromagnetic increases to the Neel temperature of bulk LaFeO3. This preparation approach may be useful for further investigations of the exchange-bias effect.

Video streamed over packet-switched networks such as the Internet are vulnerable to packet loss, which result in a degradation of quality. This degradation can be measured subjectively or by objective measures. The Internet is a best-effort media-unaware environment where all packets receive equal quality of service (QoS), disregarding the fact that some packets are more essential in streaming multimedia applications. Using the differentiated services (DiffServ) model, unequal degrees of QoS are offered, resulting in essential packets being prioritized through the network. The main objective of this thesis is to conduct an informal subjective evaluation experiment, where the test material used consists of high-definition video distorted by various packet loss rates, using both the best effort Internet and DiffServ as underlying channel models. The results from the subjective evaluation experiment are compared to those of the objective video quality estimation to see how well the objective models perform. The video sequences are encoded by using the H.264/AVC video compression standard, and further transmitted in RTP packets. Packet loss is introduced by using a DiffServ simulator, where decoded distorted sequences are assessed. Results show that the NTIA and SSIM were the video quality models with respectively the highest and the lowest performance regarding PLCC, SRCC and RMSE. The NTIA model had statistically significant higher performance than SSIM using PLCC and SRCC with a 95% confidence interval. When comparing packet loss rate versus objective measures, the performance of best effort degrades more rapidly than the performance of DiffServ. However, the results from the subjective evaluations did not show any statistically significant differences between the two channel models using a 90% confidence interval. The DMOS values were categorized into low, medium and high packet loss rates. Studying the high (5%-10%) packet loss rate category, the DiffServ model achieved a higher mean DMOS value compared to the Best Effort model. For low (0%-2.5%) and medium (2.5%-4%) packet loss rates categories the Best Effort model achieved a higher mean DMOS value compared to the DiffServ model.

This master thesis presents the design of a high IIP2 direct-conversion receiver front-end, consisting of a LNA and I- and Q-channel mixers. The front-end is implemented in a 0.18 μm technology with 1.8V supply voltage. Problems that are especially severe for direct-conversion receivers are presented; 1/f-noise, DC offset, and second-order nonlinearity, with particular attention to the latter. Methods to improve the IIP2 are presented and explored in the design of the front-end. The complete front-end has -19.7 dBm IIP3, 4 dB noise figure, and consume 7.4mA of current from a 1.8V supply. Through mixer load tuning an IIP2 of more than +48 dBm is achieved for the front-end.

This project was worked on during the autumn 2005 at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Department of Electronics and Telecommunications. The assignment was to write a new LabVIEW programme that is to run the measurement procedure of a laser probe setup. The setup is used in characterization of surface acoustic waves(SAW). A programme was written that contained the necessary functionality and proved to operate satisfactorily. Several measurements were made on a SAW transducer, accurately picturing the wave. Fourier analysis were performed on the collected data in order to separate the propagation directions. An absolute amplitude measurement was made on a heterodyne interferometer, and the result was compared to a similar scan made using the laser probe. The work shows that the setup is ready for calibration against the heterodyne interferometer, in order to enable the laser probe to measure absolute amplitude by itself.

Two different processors from two FPGA vendors and an OpenCore-processor have been investigated. For this work two different boards were used, the first was the Cyclone II FPGA Altera Board, in which the Nios II Altera microprocessor and the free processor Leon2 were tested. The second board was a SUZAKU-S board, in which the Microblaze Xilinx microprocessor and the free processor Leon2 were tested. We performed two different benchmarks in these boards, the Dhrystone and the Whetstone, to compare the different velocities between the free and not free processors. Also the documentation and ease of use of the processors is considered.

The candidate shall study different methods for dynamic spectral management in DSL systems, with main emphasis on autonomeous methods like iterative waterfilling. The methods shall be implemented in Matlab.

Study of the Polarization Dependent Loss caused by the combined effect of orthogonality degradation and dynamic power fluctuations in a hybrid network, which combines circuit switching with packet switching to transmit applications with very different quality requirements on the same wavelength channel.

This thesis describes the work on designing and testing an antenna solution for communications between cars. The antenna that is to be used is a so called ESPAR antenna or Electronically Steerable Passive Array Radiator using monopoles over a circular ground plane. Simulations were made on the following variations of the antenna: •The number of passive monopoles and the angle between them •The radius and height of the active and passive monopoles •The height of the skirt and the radius of the ground plane •Matching schemes The antenna that was decided to be the best for this application had these characteristics: -Ground plane radius 75 mm or half a wavelength -Skirt height of 37.5 mm or a quarter wavelengths -Six parasitic monopoles with a height of 39 mm equally spaced around an active monopole of 35 mm -Distance from active monopole to parasitic monopoles of a quarter wavelengths -Half power beam width of about 90 degrees and a front to back ratio of 16 dB -Gain of about 7.5 dB and an elevation angle of 25 degrees From these results a prototype of the antenna was constructed with different heights of the active and parasitic monopoles. The measurements showed less variation between the different configurations of the antenna than the simulations indicated. The largest difference was the elevation angle of the antenna. This was found to be about 0 degrees for all configurations which is an improvement of about 25 degrees from the simulated results. The best results was found to be with an antenna that has the same configurations as the simulated one described above but with a parasitic monopole height of 37 mm. The measurements showed the following specifications: -Gain of about 9.5 dB -HPBW of 80 degrees -FTBR of about 12 dB Because of certain elements in the construction of the antenna the measurements of the matching were inconclusive, and were not weighed heavily in this thesis.

Non-intrusive testing of pipelines has become a growing industry, and is expected to keep growing as the demands on quality control and safety keep increasing. In order to meet the oil industry’s demands for pipe monitoring of sub sea pipelines, the SmartPipe project was initiated by SINTEF in Trondheim, Norway. One of the primary objectives of the SmartPipe project is develop a system for in-service monitoring of the pipelines that are placed on the seabed by the offshore oil industry. This thesis presents a very early step in the research required for the development of such a system. The purpose of the presented work was to carry out introductory experimental work in order to find out whether it is possible to develop relatively simple techniques for in-service testing of sub sea steel pipes. A so-called pitch-catch setup and various wedges was used in order to test the area between a pair of 5 MHz ultrasound transducers. Measuring over a distance of 1.00 m, rather than just single points on the pipe, could provide more general information about the condition of the pipe. Tests with over 4 m distance between transducers were also carried out. Measurement stability and mechanical coupling are of crucial importance in ultrasonic test systems, and useful knowledge on the subjects has been gained and are documented in this thesis. Results from measurements indicate that comprehensible results can be attained even with very simple measurement setups. Especially when using special wedges for introduction of Rayleigh waves, the received signals had high amplitudes and the signal envelope had a simple shape. The effect that the damage to the pipe had on the Rayleigh waves, was found to be equally simple and predictable. Shear waves and longitudinal waves that are less sensitive to the surrounding medium, were also shown to be applicable in flaw detection. Results and discussion include both time domain, frequency domain and energy considerations.