The optimum ordering strategies for the coded V-BLAST system with capacity achieving temporal codes on each stream are studied in this thesis. Mathematical representations of the optimum detection ordering strategies for the coded V-BLAST under instantaneous rate allocation (IRA), uniform power/rate allocation (URA), instantaneous power allocation(IPA) and instantaneous power/rate allocation (IPRA) are derived. For two transmit antennas, it is shown that the optimum detection strategies are based on the per-stream before-processing channel gains. Based on approximations of the per-stream capacity equation, closed-form expressions of the optimal ordering strategy under the IRA at low and high signal to noise ratio (SNR) are derived. Necessary optimality conditions under the IRA are given. Thresholds for the low, intermediate and high SNR regimes in the 2-Tx-antenna system under the IPRA are determined, and the SNR gain of the ordering is studied for each regime. Performances of simple suboptimal ordering strategies are analysed, some of which perform very close to the optimum one.

Using an integrated dataset comprising outcrop, core, GPR and LiDAR data, this study targets a high-quality outcrop "window" of the upper Cretaceous Blackhawk Formation in the eastern Wasatch Plateau in central Utah, spanning a fairly large spatial (~30 km2 area comprising eight contiguous, and vertical cliff faces) and temporal (~4 my) range. This research provides field-validation and -calibration of a wider range of fluvial heterogeneity: 1) large-scale heterogeneity (10’s of m vertically and 100’s of m laterally), 2) intermediate-scale heterogeneity (1’s of m vertically and 10’s of m laterally), and 3) small-scale heterogeneity (10’s of cm vertically and 1’s of m laterally). These sandbody- to facies-scale heterogeneities generate potential for stratigraphic compartmentalization for analogous fluvial reservoirs and prospects. Moreover, these results specifically constitute an outcrop analog to the producing tight-gas fluvial reservoirs of the adjacent hydrocarbon-prolific Uinta and Piceance Basins of Utah and Colorado, including the giant Jonah Field of Wyoming. 3D virtual outcrop model generated from LiDAR-integration has helped in avulsion-scale (~1's-10's kyr) to basin-fill scale (~100's kyr-1's myr) fluvial sandbody organization analysis down to channel-storey level. This high-resolution analysis has brought several intriguing insights. single-storey sandbodies are preferentially attendant to clustering organization, whereas multi-lateral sandbodies (i.e. channel-belt) show compensational-prone behavior. Sandbody organization is broadly compensational for the lower Blackhawk Formation, where the floodplain facies diversity is the highest. In contrast, floodplain diversity decreases stratigraphically upward such that the upper Blackhawk Formation shows the least heterogeneous floodplain with clustering-prone sandbody organization. In the quest of differentiating autogenic from allogenic signal in dynamic systems where their interplay is complexly intertwined, this study presents two incised-valley examples, where resultant fluvial organization has been interpreted, contrary to conventional wisdom, to be preferentially modulated by a dominant controlling mechanism of autogenic forcing. In filling these incised valley deposits, each of which is up to ~15-20 m thick, the dominating behavior of substrate coal compaction as an autogenic mechanism supplanted allogenic forcing (i.e. sea-level fluctuation).

Les forêts ont un impact sur le climat mais cet effet est incertain, notamment dans les régions soumises à un climat tempéré. En effet, les processus biogéochimiques et biophysiques caractéristiques des forêts tempérées peuvent avoir un effet soit de refroidissement soit de réchauffement du climat. Une première étape dans l'amélioration de l'évaluation de l'effet climatique des forêts est d'avancer dans la modélisation de l'ensemble de leurs processus biogéochimiques et biophysiques dans les LSM (" Land Surface Model "), utilisés dans les modèles atmosphériques de prévision du temps et du climat. L'albédo de surface est identifié comme une variable clé pour l'étude de l'impact des forêts en termes de forçage radiatif. Pourtant, elle est représentée de façon très simplifiée dans la plupart des LSM, où elle est bien souvent non évolutive. Dans ce contexte, l'objectif de cette thèse est de contribuer à l'amélioration de la représentation de l'albédo de surface dans les LSM. Il s'est agi en particulier d'identifier à partir d'observations satellitaires les variables biophysiques qui pilotent l'albédo de surface des forêts dans l'espace et dans le temps. Un modèle prédictif de l'albédo des forêts aux échelles spatiales considérées par les LSM a été développé. La France métropolitaine a été choisie comme région d'étude et la période allant de 2001 à 2013 a été considérée. Il a été mis en évidence que, sur cette période, 94.4% de la surface occupée par les forêts présente un cycle saisonnier de l'albédo relativement stable d'une année à l'autre. Parmi les 5.6% restants, les changements ont été induits par des modifications soudaines du couvert végétal mais également par un "verdissement" de certaines forêts. Dans le but d'identifier les variables qui pilotent les variations saisonnières de l'albédo de surface des forêts, une nouvelle méthode permettant de désagréger les albédos de surface satellitaires, en albédo du sol nu et de la végétation, a été développée. Les albédos du sol obtenus présentent une dynamique temporelle inter- et intra-annuelle qui est corrélée avec celle de l'humidité superficielle du sol. La variabilité temporelle de l'albédo du sol moyen peut être caractérisée par son écart type, qui est de 0.016. La valeur obtenue par des méthodes pré-existantes est de 0 à 0.004. D'autre part, le cycle saisonnier de l'albédo du sol est cohérent avec le régime des pluies : les valeurs mensuelles moyennes maximales correspondent aux mois les moins pluvieux. C'est vrai dans 68 % des cas, contre 32 % pour l'albédo de surface. Les valeurs moyennes de l'albédo de la végétation (sol) ont été estimées avec une incertitude de 2 % (10 %). Ces albédos désagrégés dynamiques ont permis de construire des cycles annuels moyens. Ces derniers sont utilisés pour forcer le modèle prédictif de l'albédo des forêts fondé sur des variables pouvant être simulées par les LSM. Une validation par rapport à l'albédo de surface satellitaire MODIS a mis en évidence une erreur moyenne de 12% et 8 %, respectivement dans le VIS et dans le NIR (R de 0.63 dans le VIS), soit une amélioration par rapport aux autres méthodes (R de 0.45 dans le VIS). Cette désagrégation de l'albédo de surface a permis de mettre en évidence que l'effet des forêts tempérées sur le bilan d'énergie dépend de la saison, du type de forêt et du type de sol. Il est montré qu'en France métropolitaine, 77.3 % des forêts présentent un bilan radiatif pouvant entraîner un effet de réchauffement durant l'été. Si le verdissement de certaines forêts constaté dans cette thèse devait se généraliser, l'impact radiatif moyen durant l'été pourrait être de 0.187±0.04 W.m-2. La méthode de désagrégation développée durant cette thèse est en cours d'implémentation dans la chaîne opérationnelle du service LSA-SAF d'EUMETSAT. Elle pourra à terme permettre de développer une paramétrisation de ces albédos désagrégés dans les LSM. Cela permettra l'assimilation d'observations de l'albédo de surface dans les LSM. / The forests impact the climate but their effect is uncertain, in particular in the areas with temperate climate. In temperate forests, biogeochemical and biophysical processes can present either a cooling or a warming effect on climate. A first step to improve the evaluation of the climatic effect of forests is to go forward with the modeling of all biogeochemical and biophysical processes in LSMs ("Land Surface Models") used in the atmospheric models used for numerical weather forecast and climate predictions. Surface albedo is identified as a key variable of the impact of forests in terms of radiative forcing. However, surface albedo is represented in a simplified way in LSMs and is, more often than not, non-evolutive. In this context, the objective of this PhD work is to contribute to the improvement of surface albedo modeling in LSMs. A step forward was to identify the biophysical variables which drive the surface albedo of forests in space and time, using satellite observations. A predictive model of the forest albedo was developed considering the spatial resolution used in LSMs. Mainland France was selected as a study area from 2001 to 2013. It was shown that over this period, 94.4% of the forest area presented a relatively stable seasonal albedo cycle, from one year to another. Among the remaining 5.6%, changes in albedo were induced by sudden changes in the vegetation cover, but also in some forests by an increase in greenness. With the aim of identifying the variables which drive the seasonal variations of the surface albedo of forests, a new method was developed to split satellite-derived surface albedo into soil and vegetation albedo values. Soil albedo showed inter- and intra-annual temporal dynamics which are correlated with top soil moisture. The temporal variability of the average soil albedo can be described by its standard deviation, which is of 0.016. In comparison, the values obtained with preexisting methods range from 0 to 0.004. In addition, the seasonal cycle of soil albedo is consistent with the rainfall regime: the yearly maximum average monthly albedo matches the months with less precipitation. This was the case for 68% of forest pixels, against 32% using surface albedo instead of soil albedo. The median values of the vegetation (soil) albedo were estimated with an uncertainty of 2% (10%). These disaggregated albedo values (soil and vegetation) were used to produce average annual cycles. The latter are used to force the predictive model of the forest albedo which is based on LSMs' simulated variables. The validation was conducted using MODIS satellite-derived surface albedo observations. Average error values of 12% and 8% were obtained in the VIS and the NIR spectral domains, respectively (R of 0.63 in the VIS). This is an improvement with respect to pre-existing methods (R of 0.45 in the VIS). Disaggregating surface albedo showed that the effect of temperate forests on the radiative budget depends on season, forest type and soil type. Over mainland France, 77.3% of the forests present a radiative impact which can lead to a warming effect during the summer. If the increase in greenness detected in some forests were to spread to all French forests, the average radiative impact during the summer could be as large as 0.187± 0.04 W.m-2. The disaggregation method developed during this PhD work is under implementation in the operational chain of the EUMETSAT LSA-SAF service. Thanks to this implementation it could be eventually possible to parameterize disaggregated albedo values in LSMs. This will allow the assimilation of surface albedo observations in LSMs.

Radiative feedbacks associated with changes in water vapor, temperature, surface albedo and clouds remain a major source of uncertainty in our understanding of climate's response to anthropogenic forcing. In this dissertation climate model data is used to investigate variations in feedbacks that result from changing CO��� forcing and the time scales on which feedbacks operate, focusing on the applicability of one method in particular, the radiative kernel technique, to these problems. This computationally efficient technique uses a uniform, incremental change in feedback variables to infer top-of-atmosphere (TOA) radiative flux changes. The first chapters explore the suitability of the linear radiative kernel technique for large forcing scenarios. We show that kernels based on the present-day climate misestimate TOA flux changes for large perturbations, translating into biased feedback estimates. We address this issue by calculating additional kernels based on a large forcing climate state with eight times present day CO��� concentrations. Differences between these and the present-day kernels result from added absorption of radiation by CO��� and water vapor, and increased longwave emission due to higher temperatures. Combining present-day and 8xCO��� kernels leads to significant improvement in the approximation of TOA flux changes and accuracy of feedback estimates. While climate sensitivity remains constant with increasing CO��� forcing when the inaccurate present-day kernels are used, sensitivity increases significantly when new kernels are used. Comparison of feedbacks in climate models with observations is one way towards understanding the disagreement among models. However, climate change feedbacks operate on time scales that are too long to be evaluated from the observational record. Rather, short-term proxies for greenhouse-gas-driven warming are often used to compute feedbacks from observations. The third chapter of this dissertation examines links between the seasonal cycle and global warming using pattern correlations of spatial distribution of feedback variables and radiative flux changes. We find strong correlations between time scales for changes in surface temperature and climate variables, but not for TOA flux anomalies, reaffirming conclusions drawn in previous work. Finally, we investigate the fitness of the radiative kernel technique for evaluation of short-term feedbacks in a comparison with the more accurate, but more computationally expensive, partial radiative perturbations. / Graduation date: 2013

This thesis examines various signal processing techniques that are required for establishing efficient (near optimal) communications in multiuser multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) environments. The central part of this thesis is dedicated to acquisition of information about the MIMO channel state - at both the receiver and the transmitter. This information is required to organize a communication set up which utilizes all the available channel resources. Realistic channel model, i.e., the spatial channel model (SCM), has been used in this study, together with modern long-term evolution (LTE) standard. The work consists of three major themes: (a) estimation of the channel at the receiver, also known as tracking; (b) quantization of the channel information and its feedback from receiver to the transmitter (feedback quantization); and (c) reconstruction of the channel knowledge at the transmitter, and its use for data precoding during communication transmission. / Communications

La simulation numérique d'écoulements turbulents dans les systèmes de refroi- dissement de joints de pompes hydrauliques demande à considérer des domaines de calcul très étendus et des temps d'intégration très longs. La modélisation hybride RANS/LES zo- nale pourrait permettre de reproduire, dans un temps de calcul acceptable industriellement, l'ensemble des phénomènes thermiques et dynamiques en présence. L'approche consiste à faire interagir une simulation des grandes échelles (LES), représentant finement les phé- nomènes instationnaires de la turbulence dans certaines régions critiques de l'écoulement, avec l'approche statistique (RANS), moins coûteuse numériquement et dont la mise en oeuvre dans le reste du domaine permet de rendre compte des variations globales imposées à l'écoulement (injection d'eau froide dans de l'eau chaude, rotation de l'arbre et de la roue, etc...). Dans cette optique, une étude détaillée des modélisations adaptées aux écoulements en rotation est réalisée, suivant les deux approches RANS et LES. De nombreux modèles de turbulence sont comparés sur un cas test de canal en rotation. Le couplage zonal aux faces de bord par la méthode des structures turbulentes synthétiques (SEM) est étudié et une méthode innovante de couplage volumique par force de rappel (Forçage Linéaire Ani- sotrope) sur une zone de recouvrement RANS/LES est proposée. Ces deux méthodes sont étendues pour la première fois à la thermique. Les simulations hybrides RANS/LES zonales présentées, sur des cas test de canal fixe, en rotation ou en convection forcée, montrent la faisabilité de telles modélisations pour des applications industrielles.

This thesis deals with Large Eddy Simulation (LES) of impinging air jets. The impinging jet configuration features heated circular jets impinging onto a flat plate. The problem addressed here is of generic nature, with applications in many engineering devices, such as cooling of components in gas turbines, in cars and electronic devices. The flow is inherently unsteady and contains relatively slowly varying coherent structures. Therefore, LES is the method of choice when the Reynolds number is large enough to exclude Direct Numerical Simulations (DNS). The present LES model is a basic model without explicit Sub-Grid-Scale (SGS) modeling and without explicit filtering. Instead, the numerical scheme is used to account for the necessary amount of dissipation. By using the computational grid as a filter the cutoff wavenumber depends explicitly on the grid spacing. The underlying computational grid is staggered and constructed in a Cartesian coordinate system. Heat transfer is modeled by the transport equation for a passive scalar. This is possible due to the negligible influence of buoyancy which implies constant density throughout the flow field. The present method provides accurate results for simple geometries in an efficient manner. A great variety of inlet conditions have been considered in order to elucidate how the dynamics of the flow and heat transfer are affected. The considered studies include top-hat and mollified mean velocity profiles subjected to random and sinusoidal perturbations and top-hat profiles superimposed with solid body rotation. It has been found that the shape of the mean inlet velocity profile has a decisive influence on the development of the flow and scalar fields, whereas the characteristics of the imposed artificial disturbances (under consideration) have somewhat weaker effect. In order to obtain results unequivocally comparable to experimental data on turbulent impinging jets both space and time correlations of the inflow data must be considered, so also the spectral content. This is particularly important if the region of interest is close to the velocity inlet, i.e. for small nozzle-to-plate spacings. Within this work mainly small nozzle-toplate spacings are considered (within the range of 0.25 and 4 nozzle diameters), which emphasizes the importance of the inflow conditions. Thus, additional to the basic methods also turbulent inflow conditions, acquired from a precursor pipe simulation, have been examined. Both for swirling and non-swirling flows. This method emulates fully developed turbulent pipe flow conditions and is the best in the sense of being well defined, but it demands a great deal of computing power and is also rather inflexibility. In case of the basic randomly perturbed methods the top-hat approach has been found to produce results in closest agreement with those originating from turbulent inlet conditions. In the present simulations the growth of individual instability modes is clearly detected. The character of the instability is strongly influenced by the imposed boundary conditions. Due to the lack of correlation random superimposed fluctuations have only a weak influence on the developing flow field. The shape of the mean profile, on the other hand, influences both the growth rate and the frequency of the dominant modes. The top-hat profile yields a higher natural frequency than the mollified. Furthermore, for the top-hat profile coalescence of pairs of vortices takes place within the shear-layer of the axial jet, whereas for the mollified profile (for the considered degree of mollification) it takes place within the wall jet. This indicates that the transition process is delayed for smoother profiles. The amount of wall heat transfer is directly influenced by the character of the convective vortical structures. For the mollified cases wall heat transfer originates predominantly from the dynamics of discrete coherent structures. The influence from eddy structures is low and hence Reynolds analogy is applicable, at least in regions of attached flow. The top-hat and the turbulent inflow conditions yield a higher rate of incoherent small scale structures. This strongly affects the character of wall heat transfer. Also the applied level of swirl at the velocity inlet has significant influence on the rate of heat transfer. The turbulence level increases with swirl, which is positive for heat transfer, and so also the spreading of the jet. The latter effect has a negative influence on wall heat transfer, particularly in the center most regions. This however depends also on the details of the inflow data. / QC 20100831

The optimum ordering strategies for the coded V-BLAST system with capacity achieving temporal codes on each stream are studied in this thesis. Mathematical representations of the optimum detection ordering strategies for the coded V-BLAST under instantaneous rate allocation (IRA), uniform power/rate allocation (URA), instantaneous power allocation(IPA) and instantaneous power/rate allocation (IPRA) are derived. For two transmit antennas, it is shown that the optimum detection strategies are based on the per-stream before-processing channel gains. Based on approximations of the per-stream capacity equation, closed-form expressions of the optimal ordering strategy under the IRA at low and high signal to noise ratio (SNR) are derived. Necessary optimality conditions under the IRA are given. Thresholds for the low, intermediate and high SNR regimes in the 2-Tx-antenna system under the IPRA are determined, and the SNR gain of the ordering is studied for each regime. Performances of simple suboptimal ordering strategies are analysed, some of which perform very close to the optimum one.

Soot particles are a major absorber of shortwave radiation in the atmosphere. They exert a rather uncertain direct and semi-direct radiative effect, which causes a heating or in some cases a cooling of the atmosphere. The mass absorption coefficient is an essential quantity to describe this light absorption process. This work presents new experimental data on the mass absorption coefficient of soot particles in the troposphere over Central Europe. Mass absorption coefficients were derived as the ratio between the light absorption coefficient determined by multi angle absorption photometry (MAAP), and the soot mass concentration determined by Raman spectroscopy. The Raman method is sensitive to graphitic structures present in the particle samples, and was calibrated in the laboratory using Printex90 model particles. The mass absorption coefficients were determined for a number of seven observation sites, ranging between 3.9 and 7.4 m²/g depending on measurement site and observational period. The highest values were found in an continentally aged air mass in winter, where we presumed soot particles to be present mainly in internal mixture. The regional model WRF-Chem was used in conjunction with a high resolution soot emission inventory to simulate soot mass concentrations and absorption coefficients for the Central European Troposphere. The model was validated using soot mass concentrations from Raman measurements and absorption coefficients. Simulated soot mass concentrations were found to be too low by around 50 %, which could be improved by scaling the emissions by a factor of two. In contrast, the absorption coefficient was positively biased by around 20%. Adjusting the modeled mass absorption coefficient to measurements, the simulation of soot light absorption was improved. Finally, the positive direct radiative forcing at top of the atmosphere was found to be lowered by up to 70% for the model run with adjusted soot absorption behaviour, , indicating a decreased heating effect on the atmosphere.

Previous studies have demonstrated that many existing communication systems can be formulated within a unified multirate filterbank transceiver model. A redundant block transmission system implemented via this unified multirate filterbank transceiver model is usually known as a multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) system in literature. This dissertation devises an optimum linear block-based precoder and the corresponding equalizer for MIMO systems over perfect reconstruction (PR) channels by exploiting the proposed oblique projection framework. Particularly, two main criteria of interest in a digital communication link with limited transmission power are investigated, namely, average bit error rate (BER) minimization and mutual information rate maximization. The study framework is developed as follows. For a block-based precoder, a received signal model is formulated for the two redundancy schemes, viz., trailing-zeros (TZ) and cyclic-prefix (CP). By exploiting the property of oblique projection, a cascaded equalizer for block transmission systems (i.e., MIMO systems) is proposed and implemented with a scheme, in which the inter-block interference (IBI) is completely eliminated by the oblique projection and followed by a matrix degree of freedom for inter-symbol interference (ISI) equalization. With the available channel state information at the transmitter side, the matrix for ISI equalization of the cascaded equalizer is utilized to design an optimum linear block-based precoder, such that the BER is minimized (or the mutual information rate is maximized), subject to the ISI-free and the transmission power constraints. Accordingly, the cascaded equalizer with the ISI-free constraint yields a cascaded ZF equalizer. Theoretical derivations and simulation results confirm that the proposed framework not only retains identical BER and information rate performances to previous works for cases with sufficient redundancy, but also allows their results to be extended to the cases of insufficient redundancy.