A model is presented to use normalized multi-linear tension and compression material characteristics of strain-hardening textile reinforced concrete and derive closed form expressions for predicting moment-curvature capacity. A set of design equations are derived and simplified for use in spreadsheet based applications. The model is applicable for both strain-softening and strainhardening materials. The predictability of the simplified model is checked by model calibration and development of design charts for moment capacity and stress developed throughout the cross section of a flexural member. Model is calibrated by predicting the results of Alkali Resistant Glass and Polyethylene fabrics. A case for the flexural design of Glass Fiber Reinforced Concrete (GFRC) specimen as a simply supported beam subjected to distributed load is used to demonstrate the design procedure.

As the title implies, the chief goal of the present work is the improvement of the barrier effects of textile fabrics in the medical sector, in particular, in the operating room, which would be an effective safeguard against the causative pathogens allowing the health workers to work in and around hostile atmospheres and to accomplish useful tasks. To overcome the inherent drawbacks of surgical gown from classical fibers of both natural and synthetic origins, polyester micro filament fabric, down to 0.62 dtex per filament, was used to substitute them. Two major pathways have been chosen to render the surface hydrophobic: - Wet-chemical treatment - Plasma modification For the maximum efficiency of a specific wet-chemical, the following application formulations were found to be best effective: pH =4-5 Drying temperature and time=100°C / 90s Pick-up = 80% Curing temperature and time= 160°C / 120s A range of physical and chemical parameters have been found exerting significant influence on the extent of modification of the material: - Wetting agent - Amount of fluorine content in the chemical - Subsequent heat treatment of the finished material after washing - Ironing of the fabric For the plasma enhanced surface fluorination the following plasma gases were used: - Saturated fluorine compounds: CF4 and C2F6 - Reducing agent: H2 and C2H4 The exposure of the substrate to a pure C2F6 discharge resulted in higher hydrophobicity than the substrates exposed to CF4 plasma. Stepwise increased mixture of H2 or C2H4 to a proportionally decreased amount of C2F6 plasma showed a gradual decrease in contact angle and a substantial increase in sliding angle values. In addition to the treatments with gas mixtures a two-step technique, i.e., treatment with C2H4 prior to C2F6 plasma, was applied that appeared to be very promising in modifying the surface characteristics. Both, the contact angles and the sliding angles remaining almost constant on a very high level with increasing amount of C2H4 in the feed composition. An essentially vital concern of the work was the characterization of the treatment effect comprising both physical and chemical aspects. By washing the materials for 20 times no significant impairment of hydrophobic character has been noticed in case of fluorocarbon finishing agents as well as by the surface treated with C2H4 followed by C2F6 plasma (i.e., a two-step technique), wherein a complete loss of hydrophobic effect washing the silicone-treated materials for 10 times was observed. In breathability aspect, the plasma modification was found to be the best-suited technique with zero reduction of air permeability in comparison to wet-chemical finishing. The barrier test as a measure of dye absorption was conducted using protein solution, synthetic and human blood and the efficiency were verified by colorimetric technique. In contrast to pure plasma treatments, modification of the fabric with plasma in two-step treatment as well as with wet-finishing method using fluorocarbon compounds were completely impervious to artificial and real blood. The most striking feature was the zero uptake of the protein solution by all treated surfaces.

Moore's Law has helped Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) scale continuously in speed, capacity and energy efficiency, allowing the integration of ever-larger systems into a single FPGA chip. This brings challenges to the productivity of developers in leveraging the sea of FPGA resources. Higher level of design abstractions and programming models are needed to improve the design productivity, which in turn require memory architectural supports on FPGAs. While previous efforts focus on computation-centric applications, we take a bandwidth-centric approach in designing memory systems. In particular, we investigate the scheduling, buffered switching and searching problems, which are common to a wide range of FPGA applications. Despite that the bandwidth problem has been extensively studied for general-purpose computing and application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) designs, the proposed techniques are often not applicable to FPGAs. In order to achieve optimized design implementations, designers need to take into consideration both the underlying FPGA physical characteristics as well as the requirements from applications. We therefore extract design requirements from four driving applications for the selected problems, and address them by exploiting the physical architectures and available resources of FPGAs. Towards solving the selected problems, we manage to advance state-of-the-art with a scheduling algorithm, a switch organization and a cache analytical model. These lead to performance improvements, resource savings and feasibilities of new approaches for well-known problems.

No description available.

Moore's Law has helped Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) scale continuously in speed, capacity and energy efficiency, allowing the integration of ever-larger systems into a single FPGA chip. This brings challenges to the productivity of developers in leveraging the sea of FPGA resources. Higher level of design abstractions and programming models are needed to improve the design productivity, which in turn require memory architectural supports on FPGAs. While previous efforts focus on computation-centric applications, we take a bandwidth-centric approach in designing memory systems. In particular, we investigate the scheduling, buffered switching and searching problems, which are common to a wide range of FPGA applications. Despite that the bandwidth problem has been extensively studied for general-purpose computing and application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) designs, the proposed techniques are often not applicable to FPGAs. In order to achieve optimized design implementations, designers need to take into consideration both the underlying FPGA physical characteristics as well as the requirements from applications. We therefore extract design requirements from four driving applications for the selected problems, and address them by exploiting the physical architectures and available resources of FPGAs. Towards solving the selected problems, we manage to advance state-of-the-art with a scheduling algorithm, a switch organization and a cache analytical model. These lead to performance improvements, resource savings and feasibilities of new approaches for well-known problems.

Depuis quelques années, l’urbanisme tend à considérer de plus en plus la question patrimoniale. Au Québec, c’est suite à l’adoption, en 1980, de la Loi sur l’aménagement et l’urbanisme que fut formellement introduite la donne patrimoniale dans la pratique urbanistique. Bien que cette pratique tente aujourd’hui de poser la conservation du patrimoine bâti comme l’une de ses préoccupations, elle ne parvient pas à l’assumer complètement. En nous basant sur la définition du patrimoine urbain telle que proposée par Gustavo Giovannoni, nous voulons, par cette étude, amorcer une réflexion sur les enjeux d’une approche urbanistique du patrimoine urbain. Nous proposons dans un premier temps un survol de l’évolution de la notion de patrimoine urbain. Cette évolution est mise en relation avec la constitution d’un regard sur le patrimoine bâti québécois. Nous analysons, par la suite, trois moments clés dans la constitution d’un tel regard. La mise en contexte de la naissance de l’urbanisme québécois constitue, quant à elle, le troisième et avant-dernier volet de notre réflexion. À la lumière de cette analyse, nous considérons que le regard de l’urbaniste, posé sur le patrimoine bâti, témoigne encore aujourd’hui d’un désintérêt pour la forme. L’abandon du domaine du physico-spatial au profit d’une gestion rationnelle de la ville a engendré une méconnaissance des processus de constitution des ensembles bâtis et du rôle des formes spécialisées polarisantes. Une véritable approche urbanistique du patrimoine bâti ne saurait passer que par la reconnaissance des processus morphogénétiques des ensembles urbains anciens et de leur inscription dans la ville contemporaine. / For a few decades now, urban planners have tried to include the conservation of built environment in their practices. In Quebec, the first introduction of this consideration takes place in 1980 by the adoption of the Act respecting land use planning and development. Unfortunately, this new consideration was never fully included in the practice, even if urban planning tried to considerer conservation of built environment as one of his main interest. Regarding the definition of built heritage by Gustavo Giovannoni, this study is concerned with the consideration of built heritage in an urban planning’s point of view. In the first part, we will go through an overview of the evolution of the term built heritage. Secondly, we will review three different moments in the constitution of a specific point of view of Quebec’s built heritage. Finally, we will dedicate the third part of our thesis to the birth of urban planning in the province of Quebec. The results of our study show that the modern urban planner’s point of view on built heritage is still characterized by a disinterest in the urban and architectural forms. The focus made by urban planners on the rational management of the twentieth century’s city caused a misunderstanding of its evolution process. What we will demonstrate is that a real urban planning’s point of view on built heritage must consider these processes as well as the inclusion of the old city within the new agglomeration.

The incorporation of inflatable structures into aerospace systems can produce significant advantages in stowed volume to mechanical effectiveness and overall weight. Many applications of these ultra-lightweight systems are designed to precisely control internal or external surfaces, or both, to achieve desired performance. The modeling of these structures becomes complex due to the material nonlinearities inherent to the majority of construction materials used in inflatable structures. Furthermore, accurately modeling the response and behavior of the interfacing boundaries that are common to many inflatable systems will lead to better understanding of the entire class of structures. The research presented involved using nonlinear finite element simulations correlated with photogrammetry testing to develop a procedure for defining material properties for commercially available polyurethane-coated woven nylon fabric, which is representative of coated materials that have been proven materials for use in many inflatable systems. Further, the new material model was used to design and develop an inflatable pathfinder system which employs only internal pressure to control an assembly of internal membranes. This canonical inflatable system will be used for exploration and development of general understanding of efficient design methodology and analysis of future systems. Canonical structures are incorporated into the design of the phased pathfinder system to allow for more universal insight. Nonlinear finite element simulations were performed to evaluate the effect of various boundary conditions, loading configurations, and material orientations on the geometric precision of geometries representing typical internal/external surfaces commonly incorporated into inflatable pathfinder system. The response of the inflatable system to possible damage was also studied using nonlinear finite element simulations. Development of a correlated material model for analysis of the inflatable pathfinder system has improved the efficiency of design and analysis techniques of future inflatable structures.

The energy crisis together with greater environmental awareness, has increased interest in the construction of low energy buildings. Fabric thermal storage systems provide a promising approach for reducing building energy use and cost, and consequently, the emission of environmental pollutants. Hollow core ventilated slab systems are a form of fabric thermal storage system that, through the coupling of the ventilation air with the mass of the slab, are effective in utilizing the building fabric as a thermal store. However, the benefit of such systems can only be realized through the effective control of the thermal storage. This thesis investigates an optimum control strategy for the hollow core ventilated slab systems, that reduces the energy cost of the system without prejudicing the building occupants thermal comfort. The controller uses the predicted ambient temperature and solar radiation, together with a model of the building, to predict the energy costs of the system and the thermal comfort conditions in the occupied space. The optimum control strategy is identified by exercising the model with a numerical optimization method, such that the energy costs are minimized without violating the building occupant's thermal comfort. The thesis describes the use of an Auto Regressive Moving Average model to predict the ambient conditions for the next 24 hours. A building dynamic lumped parameter thermal network model, is also described, together with its validation. The implementation of a Genetic Algorithm search method for optimizing the control strategy is described, and its performance in finding an optimum solution analysed. The characteristics of the optimum schedule of control setpoints are investigated for each season, from which a simplified time-stage control strategy is derived. The effects of weather prediction errors on the optimum control strategy are investigated and the performance of the optimum controller is analysed and compared to a conventional rule-based control strategy. The on-line implementation of the optimal predictive controller would require the accurate estimation of parameters for modelling the building, which could form part of future work.

La parròquia, poc valorada per la historiografia medieval, fou una la institució fonamental per a l'ordenació de la societat rural del bisbat de Girona entre els segles X i XIV. Constituïa un territori ben delimitat, els habitants del qual rebien els sagraments eclesiàstics dels clergues que regien l'església i, a través de l'obreria i dels obrers, participaven en la gestió del temple i de la seva economia. La parròquia va incidir directament en l'ordenació del poblament rural a través tant dels nuclis eclesials o "celleres" com dels masos dispersos pel terme d'una parròquia. A més, la parròquia era una important font de rendes: a través de la documentació generada pel bisbe de Girona, el delme era una renda en mans, sobretot, de senyors feudals, cavallers i importants institucions eclesiàstiques; els clergues parroquials només rebien les primícies i altres drets de menor valor. Finalment, la parròquia contribuí enormement a la configuració de les comunitats rurals de bona part del bisbat de Girona. / The parish, undervalued by the medieval historiography, was a fundamental institution for the arrangement of the rural society of the diocese of Girona between the 10th and the 13th centuries. It was a well delimited territory, whose inhabitants received the ecclesiastic sacraments of the clergymen who ruled the church and, across the fabric fund and the churchwardens, they took part in the management of the parish and of its economy. The parish influenced directly in the organisation of the rural settlement not only through the ecclesiastical villages, or "celleres", but also through the isolated manses into the boundaries of the parish. Besides, the parish was an important source of revenues: through the documentation generated by the bishop of Girona, the tithe appears as a revenue mainly in hands of feudal lords, gentlemen and important ecclesiastic institutions; the parochial clergymen only were receiving the first fruits, or "primícies", and other rights of minor value. Finally, the parish contributed significantly in the rural communities configuration of most of the diocese of Girona.

Submitted by Claudia Rocha (claudia.rocha@udesc.br) on 2017-12-13T13:00:43Z No. of bitstreams: 1 PGEF17MA075.pdf: 2618024 bytes, checksum: d2a8781e299067e8fc5f0691bd03b8a5 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-12-13T13:00:43Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 PGEF17MA075.pdf: 2618024 bytes, checksum: d2a8781e299067e8fc5f0691bd03b8a5 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-02-17 / Capes / The objective of this study was to determine method to the rescue of vegetative material of adult plants of P. willdenovii and evaluate the spread of this material, via tissue culture. The work was conducted with 20 P. willdenovii matrices located in Urupema / SC (28°17'38 ''S, 49°55'54''W). In the vegetative rescue, the following techniques were tested: trunk annealing (100%), semianelation at 75% of the trunk circumference, semianelation at 50% trunk and the induction of shoots from pruned branches. The shoots were harvested at 90, 120, 150, 180, 210 and 240 days after application of the treatments. Sprouts were used in the in vitro culture technique. In the establishment of shoots, asepsis methods were tested: 15 and 20 minutes of contact with sodium hypochlorite (NaClO) (2% v v-1) and the presence / absence of the PPM® biocide (1,5mL L-1) In the culture medium. For in vitro multiplication, two culture media (MS and WPM) and BAP concentration (0, 2, 4 and 6 mg L-1) were tested. Also, the induction of calogenesis by foliar explant was tested in the treatments: position of contact of the foliar face with the culture medium (up and down) and the combination of the BAP and ANA phytoregulators in different concentrations (0 to 12 mg L-1). All vegetative material rescue techniques emitted new shoots, with emphasis on the pruned branches method, which presented the best results for sprouting percentage, number and length of shoots. In vitro culture, asepsis of explants with NaClO for 20 minutes and addition of PPM® in the medium resulted in lower rates of fungal (50%), bacterial (5%), oxidation (23%) and higher survival (76%) of the explants. In vitro multiplication, explants in MS medium had higher oxidation (48%) and lower survival (52%) when compared to WPM medium (26% and 74%, respectively). For the average number of shoots and leaves, the concentration of 3 mg L-1 BAP reached the highest technical efficiency (MET) (1.22 and 1.75 mg L-1, respectively). Foliar segments were not responsive in inducing calogenesis after 120 days of in vitro culture. In this way, it is indicated for the vegetative rescue of P. willdenovii the method of pruned branches. While for in vitro propagation, the use of NaClO (2% v v-1) for 20 minutes and the PPM® biocide (1.5 ml L-1) in the culture medium is recommended in the establishment phase and The use of WPM medium plus 3 mg L-1 of BAP in the multiplication phase. / O objetivo deste trabalho foi determinar método para o resgate de material vegetativo de plantas adultas de P. willdenovii e avaliar a propagação deste material, via cultura de tecidos. Foram utilizadas 20 árvores matrizes de P. willdenovii localizadas no município de Urupema/SC (28°17'38''S; 49°55'54''W). No resgate vegetativo, foram testadas as seguintes técnicas: anelamento do tronco, semianelamento em 75% da circunferência do tronco, semianelamento em 50% e galhos podados. As coletas das brotações foram realizadas aos 90, 120, 150, 180, 210 e 240 dias após a aplicação dos tratamentos. As brotações foram utilizadas na técnica de cultivo in vitro. No estabelecimento testaram-se métodos de assepsia: 15 e 20 minutos de contato com hipoclorito de sódio (NaClO) (2% v v-1) e a presença/ausência do biocida PPM® (1,5mL L-1) no meio de cultura. Para a multiplicação in vitro, foram testados meios de cultura (MS e WPM) e doses de BAP (0, 2, 4 e 6 mg L-1). Também, foi testada a indução de calogênese via explante foliar, nos tratamentos: posição de contato da face foliar com o meio de cultivo (abaxial e adaxial) e a combinação dos fitorreguladores BAP e ANA em diferentes concentrações (de 0 a 12 mg L-1). Todas as técnicas de resgate de material vegetativo emitiram novos brotos, com destaque para o método via galhos podados que apresentou os melhores resultados para porcentagem de brotação, número e comprimento de brotos. No cultivo in vitro, a assepsia dos explantes com NaClO por 20 minutos e a adição do PPM® no meio resultou em menores índices de contaminação fúngica (50%), bacteriana (5%), oxidação (23%) e maior sobrevivência (76%) dos explantes. Na multiplicação in vitro, os explantes em meio MS tiveram maior oxidação (48%) e menor sobrevivência (52%) quando comparado ao meio WPM (26% e 74%, respectivamente). Para o número médio de brotos e de folhas, a concentração de 3 mg L-1 BAP atingiu a máxima eficiência técnica (MET) (1,22 e 1,75 mg L-1, respectivamente). Os segmentos foliares não foram responsivos na indução de calogênese após 120 dias de cultivo in vitro. Desta forma, indica-se para o resgate vegetativo de P. willdenovii o método de galhos podados. Enquanto que, para a propagação in vitro, recomenda-se o uso de NaClO (2% v v-1) durante 20 minutos e do biocida PPM® (1,5 ml L-1) no meio de cultura na fase de estabelecimento e a utilização do meio WPM acrescido de 3 mg L-1 de BAP na fase de multiplicação