Differentiating borderline personality disorder from bipolar disorder using the Rorschach Inkblot Test This report studies the routing and scheduling control strategy of a three-class fluid model. A numerical approximation under the [mathematical symbol] scheduling policy is used. Analytical rules are provided to narrow down the optimal strategy under the policy. Numerical results and sensitivity analyses are presented to show how different control strategies perform given different parameters. / text

This thesis investigates the dynamic scheduling of computer communication networks that can be periodically overloaded. Such networks are modelled as mutliclass queueing networks in a slowly changing environment. A hierarchy framework is established to search for a suitable scheduling policy for such networks through its connection with stochastic fluid models. In this work, the dynamic scheduling of a specific multiclass stochastic fluid model is studied first. Then, a bridge between the scheduling of stochastic fluid models and that of the queueing networks in a changing environment is established. In the multiclass stochastic fluid model, the focus is on a system with two fluid classes and a single server whose capacity can be shared arbitrarily among these two classes. The server may be overloaded transiently and it is under a quality of service contract which is indicated by a threshold value of each class. Whenever the fluid level of a certain class is above the designated threshold value, the penalty cost is incurred to the server. The optimal and asymptotically optimal resource allocation policies are specified for such a stochastic fluid model. Afterwards, a connection between the optimization of the queueing networks and that of the stochastic fluid models is established. This connection involves two steps. The first step is to approximate such networks by their corresponding stochastic fluid models with a proper scaling method. The second step is to construct a suitable policy for the queueing network through a successful interpretation of the stochastic fluid model solution, where the interpretation method is provided in this study. The results developed in this thesis facilitate the process of searching for a nearly optimal scheduling policy for queueing networks in a slowly changing environment.

Many computers and devices such as smart phones, laptops and tablet devices are now equipped with multiple network interfaces, enabling them to use multiple paths to access content over the network. If the resources could be used concurrently, end user experience can be greatly improved. The recent studies in MPTCP suggest that improved reliability, load balancing and mobility are feasible. The thesis presents a new multipath delay based algorithm, MPPERT (Multipath Probabilistic Early response TCP), which provides high throughput and efficient load balancing. In all-PERT environment, MPPERT suffers no packet loss and maintains much smaller queue sizes compared to existing MPTCP, making it suitable for real time data transfer. MP-PERT is suitable for incremental deployment in a heterogeneous environment. It also presents a parametrized approach to tune the amount of traffic shift off the congested path. Multipath approach is benefited from having multiple connections between end hosts. However, it is desired to keep the connection set minimal as increasing number of paths may not always provide significant increase in the performance. Moreover, higher number of paths unnecessarily increase computational requirement. Ideally, we should suppress paths with low throughputs and avoid paths with shared bottlenecks. In case of MPTCP, there is no efficient way to detect a common bottleneck between subflows. MPTCP applies a constraint of best single-path TCP throughput, to ensure fair share at a common bottleneck link. The best path throughput constraint along with traffic shift, from more congested to less congested paths, provide better opportunity for the competing flows to achieve higher throughput. However, the disadvantage is that even if there are no shared links, the same constraint would decrease the overall achievable throughput of a multipath flow. PERT, being a delay based TCP protocol, has continuous information about the state of the queue. This information is valuable in enabling MPPERT to detect subflows sharing a common bottleneck and obtain a smaller set of disjoint subflows. This information can even be used to switch from coupled (a set of subflows having interdependent increase/decrease of congestion windows) to uncoupled (independent increase/decrease of congestion windows) subflows, yielding higher throughput when best single-path TCP constraint is relaxed. The ns-2 simulations support MPPERT as a highly competitive multipath approach, suitable for real time data transfer, which is capable of offering higher throughput and improved reliability.

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / Prevailing astronomical and astrophysical observations suggest that we live in a spatially flat cold dark matter (CDM) universe - currently going through a period of accelerated expansion possibly driven by “dark energy” in form of a cosmological constant. Within the standard cosmological paradigm, dark energy and dark matter are the dual dominant sources in the evolution of the late-time universe contributing about 70% and 25% respectively to the total energy density in the Universe, but these are only currently detected via their gravitational interaction. There could be a non-gravitational interaction within the “dark sector” without violating current observational data, thus giving rise to changes in the dark equations of state and affecting the process of galaxy formation. In this thesis, we investigate two new interesting large-scale structure formation scenarios using interacting fluids. Firstly, in departure from the standard approach in which dark matter is treated as a single independent fluid, we split the dark matter fluid into two interacting components: a strongly clustered “halo” component and a weakly clustered “free” component- accreted by the halos. By defining the fraction of the matter inside CDM “halos” to the total matter as a time evolving function of the total matter density F (ρm), we derive the governing background and perturbation equations and the energy-momentum transfer four-vectors. We then perform numerical calculations for three models for F (ρm) that are in agreement with recently published results from halo theory of N-body simulations, and compare our results to the standard ΛCDM model. Our results show that, whereas there’s a good agreement between our model and the ΛCDM model, the perturbations are much more sensitive to the interaction and can deviate strongly from the standard case for large interaction strengths. Secondly, motivated by our current poor knowledge on the underlying “dark- sector” physics and the need to understand the nature of the two most dominant components of our universe: dark energy and dark matter; we investigate a new scenario in which the two dark components interact via an energy-momentum exchange. By re-writing the evolution equations in a more suitable form, we eliminate previously reported singularities in interacting dark energy models in which dark energy is tested to be vacuum energy with w → −1. This makes it possible to numerically integrate the resulting background and perturbation equations, comparing our results to the standard model. We show that this treatment, yields a simple model that provides a good natural extension to the standard ΛCDM model. We go further to explore in detail the cosmological implications of the interaction strength and the direction of the energy-momentum transfer in vacuum interacting dark energy. This thesis provides useful insights on the possible significance of a dark sector interaction in structure formation and shows that such an interaction provides a good natural explanation for the high value of the Hubble parameters measured by BOSS and SDSS surveys. Indeed a small and positive coupling is shown to alleviate the well-known cosmological coincidence problem.

Luge is an Olympic sport in which athletes ride feet-first on sleds down an ice-covered track. Competitors spring from the starting position and accelerate their sled by paddling with spiked gloves against the ice surface. Once the Luger leaves the starting section, their downhill motion is solely propelled by the effects of gravity. Athletes compete, one after the other, for the fastest time. Runs can differ by as little as a thousandth of a second, meaning that every minor sled adjustment, change of line choice, and shift of body position is critical. In the past, the sport of Luge has progressed through a series of steps involving trial and error, where changes to the sled and strategy rely more on intuition and race results, rather than in-depth, mathematical analysis. In an effort to try and improve track times for the US Olympic Luge team, a track and driver model is in development in order to simulate a sled going down the track. By doing this, the hope is to be able to pinpoint areas of possible improvement to the sled and see how adjustments can affect the optimum line down the track. A part of this model, which is the focus of the following paper, is the inclusion of an analysis to identify the frictional relationship between the ice surface and the steels of the sled. The model created of the ice-steel interaction was put in the form of a function file, which includes inputs of down force, ice temperature, sled velocity, and steel geometry. Creation of this model and completion of a set of parametric studies allowed for further understanding the interaction between the sled steels and ice surface, specifically applying to the sport of Luge. The model predicts for lower temperatures that at slower sled velocities the coefficient of friction is greater compared to faster sled velocities. This relationship inverts as the ice temperature moves closer to the melting temperature. A sharper steel edge radius was found to be beneficial in lowering the coefficient of friction at lower sled velocities. The sharp edge radius friction benefit decreases as the sled speed increases and is predicted to actually increase friction slightly compared to duller blades at greater velocities. A flat as possible rocker radius lowers friction at all sled velocities, as well as in banked turns where two contact patches are possible. On curves, the pressure on the steel is increased due to the effects of centripetal accelerations. A 1 g versus 5 g normal loading, experienced on the last turns of the track, increases the coefficient of friction on the blade, but also increases the allowable lateral force on the sled before side slip occurs. Understanding the relationships of these parameters, along with the information that may be gained from the driver model, may prove to be useful in choosing optimum sled characteristics and line choice.

The microscopic traffic simulation program VISSIM is a powerful tool that has been used by transportation engineers and urban planners around the world. A VISSIM simulation is meant to depict the performance of the physical road network through the use of modeling tools and behavioral parameters. The process which gets the model to the point of matching real world conditions is called calibration and requires a means of relating the real world to the simulated world. The topic of this thesis discusses a new means of calibration using the two-fluid model. The two-fluid model is a macroscopic modeling technique which provides quantitative characteristics of the performance of traffic flow on an urban road network. The model does this by generating a relationship between the travel time, stopped time, and running time per mile. The two-fluid model has been used to evaluate the performance of road networks for decades but now it is possible to use it to calibrate a VISSIM model. For this thesis, the two-fluid model to be used for calibration was generated from data collected on the Orlando, Florida, downtown network in February, 2008, during three traffic peaks for three typical weekdays. The network was then modeled in VISSIM which required a large amount of data regarding network geometry, signal timings, signal coordination schemes, and turning movement volumes. A similar data collection exercise was conducted during November, 2008, to capture the effects of changes that took place in the network during the ten month period. Another VISSIM network was also made to match the conditions of the November network. The February field data was used to successfully calibrate the VISSIM model and the November data was used to validate the calibrated network. The validation proved that the two-fluid models from the November field data and VISSIM data are statistically similar. With the network calibrated and validated, it could be used to perform scenario tests to see how the network performance would be affected by changes to the network. The two-fluid model has often been used to compare two different physical networks or explore how the performance of a single physical network has changed over time. A similar comparison can be done with the two-fluid models from a calibrated, simulated network. By using the original calibrated models as base cases, scenarios ranging from lane closures due to traffic incidents to the addition of a whole new signalized corridor on the network can be modeled in VISSIM and compared with the corresponding base case. This would allow a governing agency to preview the effects of proposed changes.

A mathematical model for a consolidation process of a highlyconcentrated, flocculated suspension is developed.Thesuspension is treated as a mixture of a fluid and solidparticles by an Eulerian two-phase fluid model.W e characterizethe suspension by constitutive relations correlating thestresses, interaction forces, and inter-particle forces toconcentration and velocity gradients.This results in threeempirically determined material functions: a hystereticpermeability, a non-Newtonian viscosity and a non-reversibleparticle interaction pressure.P arameters in the models arefitted to experimental data. A simulation program using finite difference methods both intime and space is applied to one and two dimensional testcases.Numer ical experiments are performed to study the effectof different viscosity and permeability models. The effect ofshear on consolidation rate is studied and it is significantwhen the permeability hysteresis model is employed.

The prediction of two-phase fluid-solid (gas-solid and liquid-solid) flow remains a major challenge in many engineering and industrial applications. Numerical modeling of these flows is complicated and various studies have been conducted to improve the model performance. In the present work, the two-fluid model of Bolio et al. (1995), developed for dilute turbulent gas-solid flows, is employed to investigate turbulent two-phase liquid-solid flows in both a vertical pipe and a horizontal channel. <p>Fully developed turbulent gas-solid and liquid-solid flows in a vertical pipe and liquid-solid (slurry) flow in a horizontal channel are numerically simulated. The momentum equations for the fluid and solid phases were solved using the finite volume technique developed by Patankar (1980). Mean and fluctuating velocities for both phases, solids concentration, and pressure drop were predicted and compared with the available experimental data. In general, the mean velocity predictions for both phases were in good agreement with the experimental data for vertical flow cases, considered in this work. <p>For dilute gas-solid vertical flows, the predictions were compared with the experimental data of Tsuji et al. (1984). The gas-phase fluctuating velocity in the axial direction was significantly under-predicted while the results for the solids fluctuating velocity were mixed. There was no data to compare the solids concentration but the profiles looked realistic. The pressure drop was observed to increase with increasing Reynolds number and mass loading when compared with the data of Henthorn et al. (2005). The pressure drop first decreased as particle size increased and then started increasing. This behaviour was shown by both experimental data and model predictions. <p>For the liquid-solid flow simulations the mean velocity profiles for both phases, and the liquid-phase turbulence kinetic energy predictions (for dilute flow case), were in excellent agreement with the experimental data of Alejbegovic et al. (1995) and Sumner et al. (1990). The solids concentration profiles were poorly predicted, especially for the lighter particles. The granular temperature profiles, accounting for the solids velocity fluctuations, for the dilute flow case failed to agree with the data, although they captured the overall trend. The liquid-solid pressure drop predictions, using the present model, were only successful for some particles. <p>The solids concentration predictions for the horizontal flow case were similar to the experimental measurements of Salomon (1965), except for a sharp peak at the bottom wall and the opposite curvature. The mixture velocity profiles were asymmetric, due to the addition of particles, and were similar to the experimental data, though only a partial agreement was observed between the predictions and the data.<p>A conclusion from this work is that the present model, which was developed for dilute gas-solid flows, is inadequate when liquid-solid flows are considered. Further improvements, such as including the interstitial fluid effects while computing the liquid-phase stress, are needed to improve the predictive capability of this two-fluid model.

Turbulent gas-solid flows are readily encountered in many industrial and environmental processes. The development of a generic modeling technique for gas-solid turbulent flows remains a significant challenge in the field of mechanical engineering. Eulerian models are typically used to model large systems of particles. In this dissertation, a numerical analysis was carried out to assess a current state-of-the-art Eulerian two-fluid model for fully-developed turbulent gas-solid upward flow in a vertical pipe. The two-fluid formulation of Bolio et al. (1995) was adopted for the current study and the drag force was considered as the dominant interfacial force between the solids and fluid phase. In the first part of the thesis, a two-equation low Reynolds number k-ε model was used to predict the fluctuating velocities of the gas-phase which uses an eddy viscosity model. The stresses developed in the solids-phase were modeled using kinetic theory and the concept of granular temperature was used for the prediction of the solids velocity fluctuation. The fluctuating drag, i.e., turbulence modulation term in the transport equation of the turbulence kinetic energy and granular temperature was used to capture the effect of the presence of the dispersed solid particles on the gas-phase turbulence. The current study documents the performance of two popular turbulence modulation models of Crowe (2000) and Rao et al. (2011). Both models were capable of predicting the mean velocities of both the phases which were generally in good agreement with the experimental data. However, the phenomena that small particles cause turbulence suppression and large particles cause turbulence enhancement was better captured by the model of Rao et al. (2011); conversely, the model of Crowe (2000) produced turbulence enhancement in all cases. Rao et al. (2011) used a modified wake model originally proposed by Lun (2000) which is activated when the particle Reynolds number reaches 150. This enables the overall model to produce turbulence suppression and augmentation that follows the experimental trend. The granular temperature predictions of both models show good agreement with the limited experimental data of Jones (2001). The model of Rao et al. (2011) was also able to capture the effect of gas-phase turbulence on the solids velocity fluctuation for three-way coupled systems. However, the prediction of the solids volume fraction which depends on the value of the granular temperature shows noticeable deviations with the experimental data of Sheen et al. (1993) in the near-wall region. Both turbulence modulation models predict a flat profile for the solids volume fraction whereas the measurements of Sheen et al. (1993) show a significant decrease near the wall and even a particle-free region for flows with large particles. The two-fluid model typically uses a low Reynolds number k-ε model to capture the near-wall behavior of a turbulent gas-solid flow. An alternative near-wall turbulence model, i.e., the two-layer model of Durbin et al. (2001) was also implemented and its performance was assessed. The two-layer model is especially attractive because of its ability to include the effect of surface roughness. The current study compares the predictions of the two-layer model for both clear gas and gas-solid flows to the results of a conventional low Reynolds number model. The effects of surface roughness on the turbulence kinetic energy and granular temperature were also documented for gas-particle flows in both smooth and rough pipes.

The prediction of two-phase fluid-solid (gas-solid and liquid-solid) flow remains a major challenge in many engineering and industrial applications. Numerical modeling of these flows is complicated and various studies have been conducted to improve the model performance. In the present work, the two-fluid model of Bolio et al. (1995), developed for dilute turbulent gas-solid flows, is employed to investigate turbulent two-phase liquid-solid flows in both a vertical pipe and a horizontal channel. <p>Fully developed turbulent gas-solid and liquid-solid flows in a vertical pipe and liquid-solid (slurry) flow in a horizontal channel are numerically simulated. The momentum equations for the fluid and solid phases were solved using the finite volume technique developed by Patankar (1980). Mean and fluctuating velocities for both phases, solids concentration, and pressure drop were predicted and compared with the available experimental data. In general, the mean velocity predictions for both phases were in good agreement with the experimental data for vertical flow cases, considered in this work. <p>For dilute gas-solid vertical flows, the predictions were compared with the experimental data of Tsuji et al. (1984). The gas-phase fluctuating velocity in the axial direction was significantly under-predicted while the results for the solids fluctuating velocity were mixed. There was no data to compare the solids concentration but the profiles looked realistic. The pressure drop was observed to increase with increasing Reynolds number and mass loading when compared with the data of Henthorn et al. (2005). The pressure drop first decreased as particle size increased and then started increasing. This behaviour was shown by both experimental data and model predictions. <p>For the liquid-solid flow simulations the mean velocity profiles for both phases, and the liquid-phase turbulence kinetic energy predictions (for dilute flow case), were in excellent agreement with the experimental data of Alejbegovic et al. (1995) and Sumner et al. (1990). The solids concentration profiles were poorly predicted, especially for the lighter particles. The granular temperature profiles, accounting for the solids velocity fluctuations, for the dilute flow case failed to agree with the data, although they captured the overall trend. The liquid-solid pressure drop predictions, using the present model, were only successful for some particles. <p>The solids concentration predictions for the horizontal flow case were similar to the experimental measurements of Salomon (1965), except for a sharp peak at the bottom wall and the opposite curvature. The mixture velocity profiles were asymmetric, due to the addition of particles, and were similar to the experimental data, though only a partial agreement was observed between the predictions and the data.<p>A conclusion from this work is that the present model, which was developed for dilute gas-solid flows, is inadequate when liquid-solid flows are considered. Further improvements, such as including the interstitial fluid effects while computing the liquid-phase stress, are needed to improve the predictive capability of this two-fluid model.