Orientador: Joel Carneiro de Castro / Banca: Maria Rita Caetano Chang / Banca: Luiz Carlos Weinschütz / Resumo: Os membros Lontras (Formação Campo Mourão) e Rio Segredo (Formação Taciba) constituem uma sucessão marinha de folhelhos e arenitos turbidíticos, que está encaixada entre diamictitos glaciais daquelas formações. O folhelho Lontras tem uma centena de metros na faixa aflorante norte catarinense, contendo em sua porção superior a fácies "folhelho várvico", na verdade um estrato com gradação de siltito a folhelho (Tde) em escala milimétrica e que é considerado como sendo o turbidito distal da sucessão. O turbidito Rio Segredo tem de 15 a 25 m e consiste de estratos gradacionais portando sequência Bouma em diversas escalas: muito delgado (1 a 3 cm; Tde e Tcde), delgado (3 a 10 cm; Tcde e Tbcde), médio (10 a 30 cm; Tbcde e Tabcde), espesso (30 a 100 cm; Tabc) e muito espesso (acima de 1,0 m; Tabc). Há ainda uma divisão "superior" do Membro Rio Segredo normalmente com 10 a 20 m de espessura, que contém turbiditos areno-argilosos muito delgados (Tcde e Tde). Foram levantados sete perfis faciológicos de detalhe, escala 1:50, de modo a registrar turbiditos com até 5 cm de espessura (1 mm no perfil). Posteriormente, quatro desses perfis foram cronocorrelacionados em uma seção norte-sul: Forcação, Wiegand, Laeisz e Dona Emma, numa extensão de 28 km. A esta seção foi acrescido o perfil Taiózinho, localizado 30 km a oeste do Forcação, entre os dois últimos (semelhança faciológica com o Laeisz). Identificaram-se sete sistemas deposicionais, com uma média de 3 m de espessura por sistema e contidos em três sequências de alta frequência. Os sistemas deposicionais são formados por ciclos turbidíticos de origem marinha, encontrados principalmente nos perfis Laeisz e Taiózinho, com uma organização ascendente de adelgaçamento e granodecrescência. Outros ciclos turbidíticos... (Resumo completo, clicar acesso eletrônico abaixo) / Abstract: The Lontras shale and overlying Rio Segredo sandstone are members of Campo Mourão and Taciba formations, corresponding to shelf marine and turbidite deposits; they are encased in glacial diamictites of those formations. The Lontras shale is 100 m thick in northern Santa Catarina outcrop belt and it displays a "varved shale" facies in its upper portion. In reality, it represents many mm-scale beds with Bouma sequence Tde, and therefore distal, argillaceous turbidites. The Rio Segredo Member is 15 to 25 m thick and contain beds of different thicknesses: very thin (1 to 3 cm; Tde and Tcde), thin (3 to 10 cm; Tcde and Tbcde), and medium beds (10 to 30 cm; Tbcde and Tabcde). Also, thick (30 to 100 cm) and very thick beds (thicker than 1 m) displays massive or graded sandstones with disperse laminations and cross-laminations resembling Ta, Tb and Tc intervals of Bouma sequence. There is also a Rio Segredo "upper" division with 10 to 20 m thick, consisting of very thin turbidites (Tcde and Tde). Seven detailed facies logs were constructed at 1:50 scale, to represent even 5 cm thin beds (1 mm). Later, four of the logs were put in a north-south stratigraphic section (28 km in length): Forcação, Wiegand, Laeisz and Dona Emma, in a 28 km extension. A fifth log, Taiózinho (distant 30 km west of Forcação), was added to the section between the last two logs, because of its facies similarity with Laeisz log. Seven depositional systems are identified, averaging 3 m thick in, thickness, and they belong to high frequency sequences. The systems are composed of turbidite cycles of marine origin, found mainly in Laeisz and Taiózinho logs: they form thinning- and fining-upward cycles. Turbidite cycles of deltaic origin are observed in Forcação and Dona Emma logs as thickening-up and coarsening-up cycles. In the latter, are included... (Complete abstract click electronic access below) / Mestre

La quantité d'images disponible sur Internet ne fait que croître, engendrant un besoin d'algorithmes permettant de fouiller ces images et retrouver de l'information. Les systèmes de recherche d'images par le contenu ont été développées dans ce but. Mais les bases de données grandissant, de nouveaux défis sont apparus. Dans cette thèse, la classification à grain fin est étudiée en particulier. Elle consiste à séparer des images qui sont relativement semblables visuellement mais représentent différents concepts, et à regrouper des images qui sont différentes visuellement mais représentent le même concept. Il est montré dans un premier temps que les techniques classiques de recherche d'images par le contenu rencontrent des difficultés à effectuer cette tâche. Même les techniques utilisant les machines à vecteur de support (SVM), qui sont très performants pour la classification, n'y parviennent pas complètement. Ces techniques n'explorent souvent pas assez l'espace de recherche pour résoudre ce problème. D'autres méthodes, comme les algorithmes évolutionnaires sont également étudiées pour leur capacité à identifier des zones intéressantes de l'espace de recherche en un temps raisonnable. Toutefois, leurs performances restent encore limitées. Par conséquent, l'apport de la thèse consiste à proposer un système hybride combinant un algorithme évolutionnaire et un SVM a finalement été développé. L'algorithme évolutionnaire est utilisé pour construire itérativement un ensemble d'apprentissage pour le SVM. Ce système est évalué avec succès sur la base de données Caltech-256 contenant envieront 30000 images réparties en 256 catégories / Given the ever growing amount of visual content available on the Internet, the need for systems able to search through this content has grown. Content based image retrieval systems have been developed to address this need. But with the growing size of the databases, new challenges arise. In this thesis, the fine grained classification problem is studied in particular. It is first shown that existing techniques, and in particular the support vector machines which are one of the best image classification technique, have some difficulties in solving this problem. They often lack of exploration in their process. Then, evolutionary algorithms are considered to solve the problem, for their balance between exploration and exploitation. But their performances are not good enough either. Finally, an hybrid system combining an evolutionary algorithm and a support vector machine is proposed. This system uses the evolutionary algorithm to iteratively feed the support vector machine with training samples. The experiments conducted on Caltech-256, a state of the art database containing around 30000 images, show very encouraging results

Not all categories are created equal in object recognition. Fine-grained visual categorization (FGVC) is a branch of visual object recognition that aims to distinguish subordinate categories within a basic-level category. Examples include classifying an image of a bird into specific species like "Western Gull" or "California Gull". Such subordinate categories exhibit characteristics like small inter-category variation and large intra-class variation, making distinguishing them extremely difficult. To address such challenges, an algorithm should be able to focus on object parts and be invariant to object pose. Like many other computer vision tasks, FGVC has witnessed phenomenal advancement following the resurgence of deep neural networks. However, the proposed deep models are usually treated as black boxes. Network interpretation and understanding aims to unveil the features learned by neural networks and explain the reason behind network decisions. It is not only a necessary component for building trust between humans and algorithms, but also an essential step towards continuous improvement in this field. This dissertation is a collection of papers that contribute to FGVC and neural network interpretation and understanding. Our first contribution is an algorithm named Pose and Appearance Integration for Recognizing Subcategories (PAIRS) which performs pose estimation and generates a unified object representation as the concatenation of pose-aligned region features. As the second contribution, we propose the task of semantic network interpretation. For filter interpretation, we represent the concepts a filter detects using an attribute probability density function. We propose the task of semantic attribution using textual summarization that generates an explanatory sentence consisting of the most important visual attributes for decision-making, as found by a general Bayesian inference algorithm. Pooling has been a key component in convolutional neural networks and is of special interest in FGVC. Our third contribution is an empirical and experimental study towards a thorough yet intuitive understanding and extensive benchmark of popular pooling approaches. Our fourth contribution is a novel LMPNet for weakly-supervised keypoint discovery. A novel leaky max pooling layer is proposed to explicitly encourages sparse feature maps to be learned. A learnable clustering layer is proposed to group the keypoint proposals into final keypoint predictions. 2020 marks the 10th year since the beginning of fine-grained visual categorization. It is of great importance to summarize the representative works in this domain. Our last contribution is a comprehensive survey of FGVC containing nearly 200 relevant papers that cover 7 common themes.

Nous étudions la problématique de classification dite fine en se concentrant sur la détermination des espèces botaniques à partir d’images de feuilles. Nous nous intéressons aussi bien à la description et la représentation de l’objet qu’aux algorithmes de classification et des scénarios d’identification utiles à l’utilisateur. Nous nous inspirons du processus manuel des botanistes pour introduire une nouvelle représentation hiérarchique des feuilles. Nous proposons aussi un nouveau mécanisme permettant d’attirer l’attention au tour de certains points caractéristiques de l’objet et d’apprendre des signatures spécifiques à chaque catégorie.Nous adoptons une stratégie de classification hiérarchique utilisant une série de classifieurs locaux allant des plus grossiers vers les plus fins; la classification locale étant basée sur des rapports de vraisemblance. L’algorithme fournit une liste d’estimations ordonnées selon leurs rapports de vraisemblance. Motivés par les applications, nous introduisons un autre scénario proposant à l’utilisateur un ensemble de confiance contenant la bonne espèce avec une probabilité très élevée. Un nouveau critère de performance est donc considéré : la taille de l’ensemble retourné. Nous proposons un modèle probabiliste permettant de produire de tels ensembles de confiance. Toutes les méthodes sont illustrées sur plusieurs bases de feuilles ainsi que des comparaisons avec les méthodes existantes. / We introduce models for fine-grained categorization, focusing on determining botanical species from leaf images. Images with both uniform and cluttered background are considered and several identification scenarios are presented, including different levels of human participation. Both feature extraction and classification algorithms are investigated. We first leverage domain knowledge from botany to build a hierarchical representation of leaves based on IdKeys, which encode invariable characteristics, and refer to geometric properties (i.e., landmarks) and groups of species (e.g., taxonomic categories). The main idea is to sequentially refine the object description and thus narrow down the set of candidates during the identification task. We also introduce vantage feature frames as a more generic object representation and a mechanism for focusing attention around several vantage points (where to look) and learning dedicated features (what to compute). Based on an underlying coarse-to-fine hierarchy, categorization then proceeds from coarse-grained to fine-grained using local classifiers which are based on likelihood ratios. Motivated by applications, we also introduce on a new approach and performance criterion: report a subset of species whose expected size is minimized subject to containing the true species with high probability. The approach is model-based and outputs a confidence set in analogy with confidence intervals in classical statistics. All methods are illustrated on multiple leaf datasets with comparisons to existing methods.

V rámci této dizertační práce se zaměřuji na Inteligentní dopravní systémy a Počítačové vidění - především automatické měření rychlosti a rozpoznání automobilů podle typů.  Rozpoznání automobilů podle typů je úkol, ve kterém system má predikovat přesný typ (např. Škoda Octavia combi mk2) pro daný obrázek automobilu. Publikoval jsem dva články, které popisují navržený přístup k tomuto problému a tvoří jádro této dizertace. Prezentovaná metoda je založena na 3D obalových kvádrech postavených okolo automobilů, které jsou následně využity pro rozbalení obrázku automobilu do roviny a tudíž normalizaci vstupu neuronové sítě, která dělá následné rozpoznání. Přístup byl dále rozpracován v druhé publikaci, kde je navržena metoda pro určení tohoto 3D obalového kvádru z jediného obrázku - tudíž není nutné mít zkalibrovanou kameru. Experimentální výsledky ukazují, že navržená metoda zlepšuje úspěšnost rozpoznání o 12 procentních bodů - chyba rozpoznání je redukována o 50 procent.Při měření rychlosti má systém za úkol odhadnout rychlost projíždějících aut z videa. Cílem je také, ať měření probíhá plně automaticky bez jakékoli manuální kalibrace. Jelikož neexistoval žádný dataset, který by obsahoval velké množství průjezdů s přesně změřenou rychlostí, tak jsme nejprve takovýto dataset pořídili. Dále jsem navrhnul metodu pro plně automatickou kalibraci dopravní dohledové kamery což umožňuje měřit rychlost automobilů pozorovaných touto kamerou. Metoda je založena na odhadu kalibrace pomocí detekovaných úběžníků scény a následného zarovnání 3D modelů několika běžných typů automobilů. Experimentální výsledky ukazují, že navržená metoda dosahuje průměrné chyby měření rychlosti 1,10 km/h.

In this study I assess spatial and temporal patterns of sediment deposition in Pecausett Pond, located along the tidal extent of the Connecticut River, in order to assess the role of tides in the transport and storage of sediment and associated contaminants within floodplain tidal ponds. Findings reveal that tidal ponds have significantly higher rates of sedimentation compared to neighboring marshes due to the fact that these ponds have more accommodation space and receive uninterrupted tidal exchange with the main river. Tidal tie channels introduce a pulse of suspended sediment and contaminants from the main river into these ponds each flood tide, with sedimentation rates fast enough to allow settling before the subsequent ebb tide can transport these sediments back to the main river (i.e. tidal pumping). Some studies performed on the tidal floodplain of the Connecticut River show high deposition rates and have attributed periods of high accumulation to anomalously high river discharge events. However, this project shows that tides are more likely the major mechanism responsible for transporting and storing sediment and associated contaminants at backwater sites located along the tidal floodplain. Deposition rates in this 3-4 m deep pond exceed 2 cm/yr. These rates are far too high to maintain equilibrium morphology for much longer. However, ground penetrating radar surveys from the study site reveal truncated stratigraphy common to erosional unconformities, which suggest that mechanisms for sediment remobilization and removal may exist. Periods of episodic erosion therefore may be helping to maintain the morphology in this shallow environment, and allow for the high rates of short-term deposition. Further, a sudden increase in percent inorganic potentially associated with the opening or clearance of the tie-channel is observed at a sediment depth approximately between 1.9 to 2.2 m. A radiocarbon date obtained below this transition is consistent with a significant drop in sedimentation prior to this tie-channel development. High rates of sedimentation in Pecausett Pond are therefore likely relatively recent phenomena, transpiring over the last few centuries following early colonization.

Services relying on internet of things (IoTs) are increasing day by day. IoT makes use of internet services like network connectivity and computing capability to transform everyday objects into smart things that can interact with users, and the environment to achieve a purpose they are designed for. IoT nodes are memory, and energy constrained devices that acquire information from the surrounding environment, those nodes cannot handle complex data processing and heavy security tasks alone, thus, in most cases a framework is required for processing, storing, and securing data. The framework can be cloud-based, a publish/subscribe broker, or edge computing based. As services relying on IoT are increasing enormously nowadays, data security and privacy are becoming concerns. Security concerns arise from the fact that most IoT data are stored unencrypted on untrusted third-party clouds, which results in many issues like data theft, data manipulation, and unauthorized disclosure. While some of the solutions provide frameworks that store data in encrypted forms, coarse-grained encryption provides less specific access policies to the users accessing data. A more secure control method applies fine-grained access control, and is known as attribute-based encryption (ABE). This research aims to enhance the privacy and the security of the data stored in an IoT middleware named network smart objects (NOS) and extend its functionality by proposing a new IoT security architecture using an efficient ABE scheme known as key-policy attribute-based encryption (KP-ABE) along with an efficient key revocation mechanism based on proxy re-encryption (PRE). Design science research (DSR) was used to facilitate the solution. To establish the knowledge base, a previous case study was reviewed to explicate the problem and the requirements to the artefact were elicited from research documents. The artefact was designed and then demonstrated in a practical experiment by means of Ubuntu operating system (OS). Finally, the artefact’s requirements were evaluated by applying a computer simulation on the Ubuntu OS. The result of the research is a model artefact of an IoT security architecture which is based on ABE. The model prescribes the components and the architectural structure of the IoT system. The IoT system consists of four entities: data producers, data consumers, NOS, and the TA. The model prescribes the new components needed to implement KP-ABE and PRE modules. First, data is transferred from data producers to NOS through secure hypertext transfer protocol (HTTPS), then the data is periodically processed and analyzed to obtain a uniform representation and add useful metadata regarding security, privacy, and data-quality. After that, the data is encrypted by KP-ABE using users’ attributes. PRE takes place when a decryption key is compromised, then the ciphertext is re-encrypted to prevent it’s disclosure. The evaluation results show that the proposed model improved the data retrieval time of the previous middleware by 32% and the re-encryption time by 87%. Finally, the author discusses the limitations of the proposed model and highlights directions for future research.

Ο Κορινθιακός κόλπος αποτελεί ένα φυσικό εργαστήριο για την παρακολούθηση ιζηματολογικών διεργασιών μεταφοράς ιζημάτων από το περιβάλλον της υφαλοκρηπίδα σε αυτό της λεκάνης. Η μορφολογία και η δομή του Κορινθιακού κόλπου φέρουν τα χαρακτηριστικά ενός ενεργού ηπειρωτικού περιθωρίου με βάθη από 100 μέχρι ~850 m όπου αναπτύσσονται ένα πλήθος διεργασιών που δρουν μεταβάλλοντας το ανάγλυφο και διαμορφώνουν το ιζηματογενές κάλυμμα. Στο βόρειο περιθώριο του Κεντρικού Κορινθιακού Κόλπου πραγματοποιείται από το 1970, η υποθαλάσσια έκχυση μεταλλευτικών απόβλητων που σχηματίζονται κατά την επεξεργασίας βωξίτη για την παραγωγή αλουμίνας. Τα μεταλλευτικά απόβλητα, γνωστά και ως ερυθρά ιλύς, απορρίπτονται στην υφαλοκρηπίδα του κόλπου της Αντίκυρας, στην βόρια ακτή του Κορινθιακού Κόλπου. Η παρούσα διδακτορική διατριβή διαπραγματεύεται το σημαντικό, για τον ελληνικό θαλάσσιο χώρο, περιβαλλοντικό θέμα της εξάπλωσης της βωξιτικής ερυθράς ιλύος στον Κεντρικό Κορινθιακό κόλπο. Ιδιαίτερη έμφαση δόθηκε στις διεργασίες διασποράς και μεταφοράς της ερυθράς ιλύος στην περιοχή έρευνας. Η μελέτη του θέματος της διατριβής στηρίχθηκε σε ένα ευρύ φάσμα πρωτογενών δεδομένων που συλλέχθηκαν από το Εργαστήριο Θαλάσσιας Γεωλογίας & Φυσικής Ωκεανογραφίας του Τμήματος Γεωλογίας, Πανεπιστήμιο Πατρών. Η συλλογή των δεδομένων πραγματοποιήθηκε σε τέσσερις χρονικές περιόδους από το 1994-2007. Κατά την διάρκεια των ωκεανογραφικών αποστολών εκτελέσθηκαν θαλάσσιες γεωφυσικές έρευνες με χρήση τομογράφου υποδομής πυθμένα και ηχοβολιστή πλευρικής σάρωσης, οπτικές παρατηρήσεις του πυθμένα με χρήση κατευθυνόμενου υποβρύχιου οχήματος και συλλέχθηκε ένας μεγάλος αριθμός δειγμάτων ιζήματος. Κατά την εκπόνηση της παρούσας διδακτορικής διατριβής εκτελέστηκαν μία σειρά αναλύσεων για τις φυσικές, χημικές και ορυκτολογικές ιδιότητες των δειγμάτων. Η επεξεργασία των γεωφυσικών δεδομένων οδήγησε στην λεπτομερή αποτύπωση της βαθυμετρίας και μορφολογίας της περιοχής έρευνας. Η κατωφέρεια του βόρειου περιθωρίου του Κορινθιακού Κόλπου διασχίζεται από πολυάριθμες χαραδρώσεις. Συνολικά αναγνωρίστηκαν είκοσι οκτώ (28) χαραδρώσεις. Δεκαεφτά (17) από αυτές αναπτύσσονται στην κατωφέρεια του Κόλπου της Αντίκυρας. Η ερυθρά ιλύς εκχύνεται στην υφαλοκρηπίδα του Κόλπου της Αντίκυρας διαμέσου ενός συστήματος υποβρύχιων αγωγών οι οποίοι τερματίζουν σε βάθος νερού 100-120 m. Το μεταλλευτικά απόβλητα αποτελούν ένα μείγμα λεπτόκοκκων υποπροϊόντων (ιλύς και λεπτόκοκκη άμμος) με θαλασσινό νερό που απορρίπτεται σε μορφή λάσπης στον πυθμένα της υφαλοκρηπίδας. Στην περιοχή εξόδου των αγωγών, στην υφαλοκρηπίδα, η ερυθρά ιλύς σχημάτισε συγκεντρώσεις σημαντικού πάχους. Μέχρι το 1994 σχηματίστηκαν τρεις υποθαλάσσιοι λοβοί. Ο λοβός Α, στα δυτικά, έχει μέγιστο ύψος 14 m. Ο κεντρικός λοβός Β έχει μέγιστο ύψος 27 m. Ο ανατολικός λοβός Γ έχει μέγιστο ύψος 23 m. Οι τρεις λοβοί συνενώνονται σε μία ενιαία λοβοειδή κύρια απόθεση. Η ερυθρά ιλύς διασπείρεται από την κύρια λοβοειδή απόθεση. Η οπτική διασκόπηση του πυθμένα έδειξε ότι προς τα ανάντη των λοβών οι υποβρύχιοι αγωγοί έχουν θαφτεί από ερυθρά ιλύ σε βάθος νερού ~53 m. Προς τα κατάντη η ερυθρά ιλύς διασπείρεται σε Ν-ΝΔ διεύθυνση. Δημιουργείται έτσι ένα επιφανειακό στρώμα ερυθράς ιλύος πάχους 27 έως 1 m, το οποίο αποτελεί την ευρύτερη απόθεση ερυθράς ιλύος. Δείγματα ιζήματος από την υφαλοκρηπίδα παρουσίασαν ότι ο πυθμένας καλύπτεται από ένα επιφανειακό στρώμα ερυθράς ιλύος ελάχιστου πάχους ενός εκατοστού. Επιπλέον υποβρύχιες εικόνες επιβεβαίωσαν την κάλυψη του φυσικού πυθμένα της υφαλοκρηπίδας από ένα λεπτό επίχρισμα ερυθράς ιλύος σε βάθος νερού 265 m, στο υφαλόριο. Στην λεκάνη του κεντρικού Κορινθιακού Κόλπου η ερυθρά ιλύς σχημάτισε επάλληλα επιφανειακά και υπο-επιφανειακά στρώματα τα οποία εναλλάσσονται με φυσικά ιζήματα. Τη δεκαετία του 1990 η μέση ετήσια παραγωγή ερυθράς ιλύος ήταν 640,000 τόνοι. Μέχρι το 1994 οι αποθέσεις της ερυθράς ιλύος στον πυθμένα της υφαλοκρηπίδας εκτείνονται σε 36.5 km2, και ανέρχονται σε όγκο που εκτιμάται στους 40.8 εκατ. τόνους. Η οπτική διασκόπηση έδειξε ότι ένα λεπτό επιφανειακό στρώμα ερυθράς ιλύος να καλύπτει τον φυσικό πυθμένα της υφαλοκρηπίδας μέχρι το υφαλόριο, σε βάθος νερού 265 m. Στην κεντρική λεκάνη του Κορινθιακού κόλπου οι αποθέσεις της ερυθράς ιλύος συνολικά καλύπτουν 288 km2 του πυθμένα. O όγκος των αποθέσεων της ερυθράς ιλύος στη λεκάνη εκτιμήθηκε στους 1.96 εκατ. τόνους. Ο συνολικός όγκος της ερυθράς ιλύος που έχει απορριφθεί από το 1970-1994 στο βόρειο περιθώριο του Κορινθιακού Κόλπου αγγίζει τους 43 εκατ. τόνους. Από αυτό το υλικό μόλις το 4.5 % μεταφέρεται στην κεντρική λεκάνη του Κορινθιακού Κόλπου, ενώ το 95.5 % παραμένει στην υφαλοκρηπίδα του Κόλπου της Αντίκυρας. Δύο μηχανισμοί κυρίως ευθύνονται για τη διασπορά της ερυθράς ιλύος από την κύρια απόθεση στην υφαλοκρηπίδα. Ο υψηλός ρυθμός ιζηματογένεσης στους λοβούς εξαιτίας της μεγάλης ποσότητας υλικού που απορρίπτεται από τους αγωγούς, προκαλεί αύξηση στους πόρους των ιζημάτων και οδηγεί σε αστοχίες στα πρανή των λοβών. Ο έτερος μηχανισμός, οποίος είναι και ο πιο σημαντικός, αφορά στην έντονη σεισμικότητα της περιοχής έρευνας. Ένας αριθμός σεισμών που έχουν εκδηλωθεί στην ευρύτερη περιοχή του Κόλπου της Αντίκυρας, για την χρονική περίοδο που μελετήθηκε η ερυθρά ιλύς (1994-2007), είχαν μέγεθος (Ms>5) ικανό να προκαλέσει υποθαλάσσιες βαρυτικές μετακινήσεις μαζών. Επιπλέον το σεισμικό τους επίκεντρο βρισκόταν σε απόσταση μικρότερη των 60 km από την περιοχή της απόθεσης της ερυθράς ιλύος. Οι σεισμοί αυτοί δυνητικά έπληξαν τους λοβούς της ερυθράς ιλύος και πυροδότησαν υποθαλάσσιες κατολισθήσεις. Οι κατολισθήσεις από τα πρανή των λοβών μετασχηματίζονται σε ροή μάζας που διασπείρουν την ερυθρά ιλύ στον πυθμένα της υφαλοκρηπίδας, μέχρι το υφαλόριο. Στο υφαλόριο η αύξηση της κλίσης του πρανούς μετασχηματίζει τις ροές μάζας σε τουρβιδιτικά ρεύματα που μεταφέρουν την ερυθρά ιλύ στην κεντρική λεκάνη του Κορινθιακού Κόλπου. Στα ανώτερα 20 cm των επιφανειακών ιζημάτων της κεντρικής λεκάνης του Κορινθιακού Κόλπου, αναγνωρίστηκαν οκτώ (8) ιζηματολογικές ενότητες οι οποίες αποτελούν αποθέσεις λεπτόκοκκων τουρβιδιτών. Οι ενότητες σχηματίστηκαν από ισάριθμα τουρβιδιτικά ρεύματα που διέσχισαν την κατωφέρεια και μετάφεραν ερυθρά ιλύ, φυσικά ιζήματα ή και τα δύο. Διαπιστώθηκε μάλιστα ότι τα τουρβιδικά ρεύματα που σχημάτισαν τις επιφανειακές αποθέσεις της λεκάνης, διέσχισαν διαφορετικές χαραδρώσεις κάθε φορά, αλλά περισσότερες από μία χαράδρωση ενεργοποιήθηκαν σε κάθε τουρβιδιτικό γεγονός. Ο ρυθμός ιζηματογένεσης για τα ανώτερα 20 cm των ιζημάτων της κεντρικής λεκάνης υπολογίστηκε στην παρούσα εργασία και εκτιμάται από 0.8 έως 3.3 mm/yr. Είναι σημαντικά υψηλότερος από το ρυθμό ημιπελαγικής ιζηματογένεσης κατά τη διάρκεια του Ολοκαίνου στο Ιόνιο και το Αιγαίο αλλά κοντά στο μέσο ρυθμό ιζηματογένεσης που προέκυψε από τις πρόσφατες ενστρωμένες ακολουθίες τουρβιδιτών στη λεκάνη του Κορινθιακού Κόλπου, όπως αναφέρεται από προηγούμενες έρευνες. Η ερυθρά ιλύς εξαιτίας του μητρικού πετρώματος και της διεργασίας παραγωγής αποτελεί ένα ίζημα εμπλουτισμένο σε βαρέα μέταλλα καθώς χαρακτηρίζεται από υψηλές συγκεντρώσεις των βαρέων μετάλλων: Ag, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Hg, Ni, Pb, V, Al, Fe, Ti. Οι συγκεντρώσεις αυτές είναι πολύ υψηλότερες από τις αντίστοιχες του υποβάθρου (δείκτες εμπλουτισμού >>1). Παρατηρήθηκε ωστόσο αραίωση των συγκεντρώσεων των παραπάνω μετάλλων στις αποθέσεις της υφαλοκρηπίδας και της λεκάνης σε σχέση με την ερυθρά ιλύ στις επίγειες δεξαμενές στο εργοστάσιο επεξεργασίας (δείκτες αραίωσης <1). Πιθανώς η ανάμειξη της ερυθράς ιλύος με το θαλασσινό νερό κατά την απόρριψη από τους αγωγούς να προκαλεί μείωση των συγκεντρώσεων των μετάλλων. Οι βαρυτικές διεργασίες που λαμβάνουν χώρα στην περιοχή του Κορινθιακού Κόλπου και ευθύνονται για τη μεταφορά της ερυθράς ιλύος από τους λοβούς προς τα κατάντη επιδρούν στη σύσταση του μεταλλοφόρου ιζήματος. Κατά την μεταφορά προκαλείται ανάμειξη της ερυθράς ιλύος με το φυσικό ίζημα του πυθμένα. Αυτό έχει ως αποτέλεσμα να μειώνονται οι συγκεντρώσεις των βαρέων μετάλλων και η ερυθρά ιλύς να εμπλουτίζεται σε στοιχεία που αφθονούν στα φυσικά ιζήματα. / Corinth Gulf constitutes a natural laboratory for the study of sedimentary processes that control the sediment transport from the shelf to the deep basin floor. The gulf comprises an active continental margin which reaches a maximum depth of about 870 m and hosts a number of processes that alter the seafloor morphology and form the sedimentation regime. On the northern coast of the central Gulf of Corinth operates since 1970, a Submarine Tailings Disposal System. The tailings, also known as red mud, are the by-product of the bauxite processing for the aluminum production. Red mud is discharged on the shelf of the Antikyra Gulf. The present PhD research thesis studies the important environmental issue of the red mud tailings distribution and dispersion in the central Corinth Gulf. The study was based on a wide spectrum of primordial and original data collected by the Laboratory of Marine Geology & Physical Oceanography, in Department of Geology, University of Patras. Data collection was performed in four marine surveys from 1994 to 2007. The surveys comprised of marine geophysical exploration using Sub-bottom Profiler, Echo-sounder and Side Scan Sonar systems and visual inspection of the seafloor using an remotely operated vehicle (ROV). Furthermore, a dense grid of sediment samples using Day grab and also a gravity core, were collected. A series of laboratory analyses were performed for the physical, chemical and mineralogical characterization of the marine sample sediments. The geophysical dataset presented the detailed bathometry and morphology of the study area. The slope of the northern coast of the Corinth Gulf is incised by numerous of submarine canyons. Twenty eight canyons were identified and measured in terms of dimensions, dip of the walls and thickness of sediment cover. Seventeen of these are developed on the slope southwards from Antikyra Gulf. Red mud is being discharged on the shelf floor of Antikyra Gulf, at a water depth of 100-120 m through a submarine pipeline system. Red mud is a sludge which consists of fine-grained sediment particles (mud and sand) mixed with sea water. At the pipeline outfall site, on the shelf, red mud has formed a surface layer of significant thickness. By 1994 three submarine sediment lobes were formed. Lobe A, on the west, has maximum height of 14 m. Lobe B, in the center, rises 27 m above the seafloor. Lobe C, on the east has maximum elevation of 23 m. The three lobes merge into a common lobe-shape main red mud deposit. Red mud is dispersed from the main lobe-shape deposition. Visual inspection of the shelf seafloor has shown that the submarine pipelines are buried under a layer of red mud northwards from the lobes, in a water depth of about 53 m. Downhill from the lobes red mud disperse in a S-SW direction. Thus, a surface layer of red mud with minimum thickness of 1 m has formed and constitutes the wider red mud deposit, which encompass the main red mud deposit. Sediment samples presented that the shelf floor is covered by a thin surface layer of red mud with minimum thickness of few to 1 cm. Furthermore visual inspection showed a thin veneer of red mud covers the natural seafloor at the water depth of 265 m, at the shelf break. On the basin floor red mud has formed surface and sub-surface layers that intercalate with the natural sediments. During the '90s the mean annual red mud production was 640,000 tones. In 1994 the red mud deposits on the shelf floor cover 36.5 km2 and the total volume was estimated at 40.8 million tones. On the basin floor red mud layers cover 288 km2. The volume of the materials was estimated to be 1.96 million tones. The total volume of red mud that has been discharged from 1970 to 1994 is estimated to be 43 million tones. 4.5 % of the total volume of this material is being transported to the basin floor while the majority (95.5 %) lays on the shelf floor. The dispersion of red mud from the main deposition is attributed mainly to two processes. The high sedimentation rate at the lobes due to the ample supply of red mud from the pipelines, can cause excess sediment pore pressure and induce sediment failures from the lobes. The other process is associated with the high seismicity of the Corinth Gulf. During the period of the data collection (1994-2007) a number of earthquakes shocked the study area and had magnitudes (Ms>5) that were able to cause submarine sediment failures. Also the epicentral area laid in a distance of less than 60 km from the area of red mud deposits on the shelf. These earthquakes potentially stroke the lobe-shape deposit of the red mud and caused submarine sediment failures and landslides. The initial landslides at the lobes are transformed into mass flows that disperse the red mud on the shelf, floor as far as the shelf break. At the shelf break due to the dip increase, turbidity currents are triggered, cross the slope and carry the red mud at the central basin of the Corinth Gulf, where they finally deposit. In the upper 20 cm of the sedimentary cover of the basin floor were recognized eight discrete sedimentary units. These units bear characteristics of fine-grained turbidites and have been formed by different tourbidity currents that crossed the slope. The currents curried either red mud, or natural sediments or both. Each turbidity current that formed the sedimentary units on the basin floor, crossed more than one canyon on the slope each time. However each tourbiditic event crosses different canyons each time. The sedimentation rate for the upper sedimentary cover of the basin floor which consist of the red mud layers and the intercalating natural sediments, is estimated for the present study and ranges from 0.8 to 3.3 mm/y. This rate is higher than the hemipelagic sedimentation rate during the Holocene in Ionian and Aegean Sea. However is close to the mean sedimentation rate that has been estimated by the recent tourbiditic sequences in the central Corinth Gulf basin by previous works. Red mud due to the parental material and the production process is highly enriched in heavy metals such as Ag, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Hg, Ni, Pb, V, Al, Fe, Ti. The concentrations of these metals are extremely higher than the background values. However red mud deposits on the shelf and the basin floor are depleted in the heavy metal concentration comparing to the red mud in a onshore pool, prior to the submarine discharge. Mixing of red mud with seawater during the discharge from the pipelines decreases the levels of heavy metals. Also a depletion in metal concentration is observed in the basin floor red mud deposits comparing to the main red mud deposition at the lobes and this may be attributed to the gravitational processes that come about and transport the red mud from the source (lobes) to the sink (basin floor). During the transport takes place mixing between the red mud and the natural sediments. On the basin floor the red mud has decreased concentrations of metals and shows elevated concentrations in elements that abound in natural sediments.

"Because many software systems used for business today are considered legacy systems, the need for software evolution techniques has never been greater. We propose a novel evolution methodology for legacy systems that integrates the concepts of features, regression testing, and Component-Based Software Engineering (CBSE). Regression test suites are untapped resources that contain important information about the features of a software system. By exercising each feature with its associated test cases using code profilers and similar tools, code can be located and refactored to create components. The unique combination of Feature Engineering and CBSE makes it possible for a legacy system to be modernized quickly and affordably. We develop a new framework to evolve legacy software that maps the features to software components refactored from their feature implementation. In this dissertation, we make the following contributions: First, a new methodology to evolve legacy code is developed that improves the maintainability of evolved legacy systems. Second, the technique describes a clear understanding between features and functionality, and relationships among features using our feature model. Third, the methodology provides guidelines to construct feature-based reusable components using our fine-grained component model. Fourth, we bridge the complexity gap by identifying feature-based test cases and developing feature-based reusable components. We show how to reuse existing tools to aid the evolution of legacy systems rather than re-writing special purpose tools for program slicing and requirement management. We have validated our approach on the evolution of a real-world legacy system. By applying this methodology, American Financial Systems, Inc. (AFS), has successfully restructured its enterprise legacy system and reduced the costs of future maintenance. "

The principal objective of this work was to elucidate the effect of microstructural features on the intrinsic dislocation mechanisms in two FCC alloys. First alloy Al0.1CoCrFeNi was from a new class of material known as complex concentrated alloys, particularly high entropy alloys (HEA). The second was a conventional Al-Mg-Sc alloy in ultrafine-grained (UFG) condition. In the case of HEA, the lattice possess significant lattice strain due to the atomic size variation and cohesive energy differences. Moreover, both the lattice friction stress and the Peierls barrier height are significantly larger than the conventional FCC metals and alloys. The experimental evidences, so far, provide a distinctive identity to the nature and motion of dislocations in FCC HEA as compared to the conventional FCC metals and alloys. Hence, the thermally activated dislocation mechanisms and kinetics in HEA has been studied in detail. To achieve the aim of examining the dislocation kinetics, transient tests, both strain rate jump tests and stress relaxation tests, were conducted. Anomalous behavior in dislocation kinetics was observed. Surprisingly, a large rate sensitivity of the flow stress and low activation volume of dislocations were observed, which are unparalleled as compared to conventional CG FCC metals and alloys. The observed trend has been explained in terms of the lattice distortion and dislocation energy framework. As opposed to the constant dislocation line energy and Peierls potential energy (amplitude, ΔE) in conventional metals and alloys, both line energy and Peierls potential undergo continuous variation in the case of HEA. These energy fluctuations have greatly affected the dislocation mobility and can be distinctly noted from the activation volume of dislocations. The proposed hypothesis was tested by varying the grain size and also the test temperature. Activation volume of dislocations was a strong function of temperature and increased with temperature. And the reduction in grain size did not affect the dislocation mechanisms and kinetics. This further bolstered the hypothesis. The second part deals with deformation characteristics of Al-Mg-Sc alloy. The microstructure obtained from the severe plastic deformation (SPD) techniques differ in dislocation density, grain/cell size, and in the grain boundary character distribution. Therefore, it is vital to understand the deformation behavior of the UFG materials produced by various SPD techniques, as the microstructural features basically control the deformation mechanisms. In this study, a detailed analysis was made to understand the deformation mechanisms operative in various regimes of a stress-strain in UFG Al-Mg-Sc alloy produced via friction stir processing. The stress-strain curves exhibited serrations from the onset of yielding to the point of sample failure. The serration amplitude and frequency was higher in UFG material as compared to CG material. Furthermore, the microstructural features that result in the serrated flow were investigated along with the avalanche characteristics. The presence of both ultrafine grains and Al3Sc precipitates were the necessary conditions to reach the critical stress required to push the grain boundary into a critical state to set off an avalanche. The microstructural conditions that did not satisfy both the requirements did not exhibit deep serrations.