Mentor/protégé programs are popular corporate tools, often used to identify and nurture emerging leaders internally, as part of senior management succession planning. This paper provides an analysis of the 2008 Mentor/Protégé program at Analog Devices, Inc from the Human Capital Framework (HCF) perspective. The HCF analysis specifically focuses on identifying implementation “levers” (e.g., human capital) which create or increase capabilities of the organization, to realize strategic goals. This analysis identifies implementation levers from the Mentor/Protégé training program which create new capabilities in the organization, with focus on a Protégé team initiative which developed a new lever to communicate corporate strategy to the organization. / text

This research project develops a low-cost high-cycle fatigue (HCF) testing system comprised of an AC motor, variable frequency drive (VFD), eccentric cam, and feedback controller. The system acts as a forced harmonic oscillator leveraging mechanical resonance to vibrate a specimen at a frequency required to induce the testing's strain amplitudes. This system depends highly on the material being tested. As such, the controller incorporates material characteristics. A frequency sweep measures the strain amplitude to characterize the specimen. Additionally, other measurements such as acceleration can be used as a proxy control variables for strain. A function converts the control variable to frequency. This function tunes a proportional integral derivative (PID) controller to emphasize stable control. This function, coupled with a tuned PID controller, converts the correction update into a voltage signal that commands a motor speed to reach the desired strain amplitude. Testing showed that a longer feedback loop time of 5 seconds was necessary to adequately control the system since the control variables are oscillatory by nature and need to be averaged over time to estimate accurate updates. Also, specimens with low damping are more subject to transient effects; consequently, rapid updates degrade system performance. Overall, the system tested over 250,000 cycles and various specimens. The main limitation of the system is a maximum strain amplitude limited by the specific specimen resonant peak. However, adjusting the system's fixed displacement enables transferring more force to the specimen, changing the shape of the resonant peak.

A new method for predicting forced vibratory blade response to total pressure distortion has been developed using modal and harmonic analysis. Total pressure distortions occur in gas turbine engines when the incoming airflow is partially blocked or disturbed. Distorted inlet conditions can have varying effects on engine performance and engine life. Short-term effects are often in the form of performance degradation where the distorted airflow causes a loss in pressure rise, and a reduction in mass flow and stall margin. Long-term effects are a result of vibratory blade response that can ultimately lead to high cycle fatigue (HCF), which in turn can quickly cause partial damage to a single blade or complete destruction of an entire compressor blade row, leading to catastrophic failure of the gas turbine engine. A better understanding and prediction of vibratory blade response is critical to extending engine life and reducing HCF-induced engine failures. This work covers the use of finite element modeling coupled with computational fluid dynamics-generated pressure fields to create a generalized forcing function. The first three modes of a low-aspect-ratio, transonic, first stage blade of a two-stage fan were examined. The generalized forcing function was decomposed to the frequency domain to identify the dominant harmonic magnitude present, as well as other contributing harmonics. An attempt to define the relationship between modal force with varying total pressure distortion levels produced a sensitivity factor that describes the relationship in the form of a simple multiplier. A generalized force was applied to the blade and varied harmonically across a frequency range known to contain the first natural frequency. The mean rotor stress variation was recorded and compared to experimental results to validate the accuracy of the model and verify its ability to predict vibratory blade response accurately. / Master of Science

A new method and mechanism for generating non-uniform, or distorted, aircraft engine inlet flow is being developed in order to account for dynamic changes during the creation and propagation of the distortion. Total pressure distortions occur in gas turbine engines when the incoming flow is disturbed. Dynamic total pressure changes may happen slowly, or may occur very rapidly. The disturbance of the incoming flow can change engine operating characteristics, including lowering the surge limit and creating High Cycle Fatigue incidents. In order to create a distorted flow with dynamic characteristics, a mechanism must be developed that when actuated, can change the distortion pattern and intensity with respect to time. This work covers the initial design of both the distorting and actuating device. The design chosen is a low force design that is practically independent of flow forces. This allows the system to be easily sized for all flow conditions. The study also includes developing the working design into an overall prototype. Testing is also performed to validate the design as the most advantageous choice. / Master of Science

Les réseaux sans fil sont en plein développement du fait de la flexibilité de leur interface, qui permet aux utilisateurs de se communiquer directement entre eux ou de se connecter facilement à Internet en onde radio sans mettre en place préalablement d'infrastructures lourdes, telles que des câbles filaires. Parmi les différentes technologies de réseaux sans fil, l'IEEE 802.11/Wi-Fi est devenu une technologie plus connue et plus utilisée pour construire des réseaux sans fil à haut débit dans une zone à forte concentration d'utilisateurs, telle que les aéroports, les campus ou les sites industriels. L'engouement pour les réseaux sans fil et notamment pour les réseaux Wi-Fi a fait émerger de nouvelles nécessités, tel que se déplace dans les réseaux sans fil tout en restant connecté à Internet. Dans les réseaux sans fil, le déplacement d’un utilisateur implique parfois un changement de Point d’accès (AP) au réseau. On désigne généralement ce fait un handover de niveau 2, du fait que le changement d'AP n’implique que les deux premières couches du modèle OSI. Si les deux APs se situent dans des réseaux différents, le changement d'AP implique aussi le changement de réseau pour cet utilisateur. On dénomme généralement cette situation un handover de niveau 3, par le fait que cet utilisateur devrait changer son réseau d’attachement et son adresse IP pour maintenir la connexion à Internet et que ce changement intervient sur la couche réseau du model OSI. La procédure du handover de niveau 2 dans les réseaux Wi-Fi est gérée par la norme IEEE 802.11 et celle de niveau 3 est gérée par le protocole IP Mobile. Le protocole IP Mobile est un protocole standardisé par l'IETF qui permet à l'utilisateur de maintenir ses communications en cours et de rester connecté à Internet tout en masquant d'une manière transparente le changement de réseau. Ainsi, l'utilisateur peut se déplace dans les réseaux Wi-Fi tout en maintenant les communications en cours et restant connecté à Internet grâce à la norme IEEE 802.11 et au protocole IP Mobile. Cependant, le délai introduit par ces deux procédures du handover est trop long, les communications en cours sont interrompus pendant ces procédures, naturellement, cela ne peut pas répondre aux exigences qualitatives des applications temps réel comme la vidéo conférence ou la voix sur IP. Diverses propositions qui ont été faites pour réduire le délai de ces procédures du handover et améliorer leur performance. Cependant, ces propositions sont soit imparfaites, soit non-implémentables à cause de leur complexité. En partant du principe que les réseaux Wi-Fi et les routeurs d'accès sont déjà massivement implantés dans le monde universitaire et dans les entreprises, nous proposons d'ajouter une nouvelle fonctionnalité, appelé E-HCF (Extended Handover Control Function) dans un routeur sans modifier les autres équipements du réseau. Le routeur pourvu de cette fonctionnalité est dénommé le routeur E-HCF. Pour réduire le délai des procédures du handover, la fonctionnalité E-HCF permet au routeur de générer une topologie des APs en utilisant la théorie des graphes de voisinage et de maintenir un pool d'adresses IP disponibles dans sa base de données. Quand le Nœud mobile (MN) a besoin de changer son AP, le routeur E-HCF peut proposer au MN une liste des APs potentiellement utilisables qui sont choisis et classés par un algorithme de sélection et de classement que nous avons élaboré dans la thèse. Si le changement d'AP implique un changement de réseau, le MN doit changer d'adresse IP. Dans ce cas, le routeur E-HCF peut attribuer une adresse IP unique à ce MN. Le MN peut donc utiliser cette adresse sans exécuter la phase d'Auto-configuration d'adresses ni exécuter la procédure de Détection d'adresse dupliquée. Avec cette nouvelle fonctionnalité E-HCF, nous pouvons réduire le délai des procédures du handover de quelques secondes à une centaine de millisecondes. / Wireless networks are in full development because of the flexibility of their interfaces, which allow users to be easily connected to the Internet. Among various technologies of wireless networks, IEEE 802.11/Wi-Fi technology is becoming better known and more used to construct high speed wireless networks in areas with high concentration of users, such as airports, campuses or industrial sites. The passion for wireless networks and in particular for Wi-Fi networks has given rise to new uses of the Internet, such as moving in wireless networks while still being connected. In Wi-Fi networks, the user's movement may sometimes lead to a change of Access Points (APs) to the network. This fact is generally named the handover of layer 2 because this change involves only the first two layers of the OSI model. If the two APs are located in different networks, the change of AP would entail a change of network for the user. This situation is generally termed, the handover of layer 3 because the user should change his network and his IP address to maintain connection to the Internet. Therefore, this change intervenes on the network layer of the OSI model. The process of the handover of layer 2 is handled by the IEEE 802.11 standard and that of layer 3 is controlled by the Mobile IP protocol. The Mobile IP protocol is a protocol standardized by IETF, which allows users to change network, while maintaining their actual connection to the Internet. Consequently, users can connect to the Internet, while keep moving in Wi-Fi networks in control of the IEEE 802.11 standard and the Mobile IP protocol. However, the delay induced by these procedures of handover is too long. As such, this generally leads to the cut-off of current communications, hence impacting adversely on the qualitative requirements of real-time applications, such as video conferencing or voice over IP. Various proposals have been made to reduce the delay of handover procedures and to improve their performances. However, these proposals are either imperfect, or non-implementable because of their complexity. Based on the premise that Wi-Fi networks and access routers are already massively implanted in academia and in industry, we propose to add a new functionality, called E-HCF (Extended Handover Control Function) in routers, without modifying other network equipments. A router equipped with this functionality is called an E-HCF router. To reduce the delay of handover procedures, the E-HCF functionality allows a router to generate a topology of APs by using the neighbourhood graph theory and to maintain a pool of available IP addresses in its database. When a Mobile Node (MN) needs to change its AP, the E-HCF router may propose to the latter a list of potentially usable APs, which are selected and classified by an algorithm of selection and classification that we developed in the thesis. If the change of APs involves a change of network, the MN must change its IP address. In this case, the E-HCF router can assign a unique IP address to this MN. The MN can thus use this address without engaging in the process of Stateless Address Autoconfiguration or the procedure of Duplicate Address Detection. With this new E-HCF functionality, we can reduce the delay of handover procedures from a few seconds to one hundred milliseconds.

<p>IEEE 802.11 [1]is the standard that has emerged as a prevailing technology for the wireless local area networks. It can be considered the wireless version of Ethernet, which supports best-effortservice. IEEE is developing a new standard called 802.11e to be able to provide quality of service (QoS) in WLANs. Two possible methods have been proposed in [3]in order to improve the performance of service differentiation in the MAC layer. They are called PCWA (Practical Contention Window Adjustment) and AIPM (Adaptive Initiative Polling Machine). In this thesis, I will analyse both methods and propose new ideas to improve their performance, simulating the ideas concerning PCWA. Simulations show better general performance, especially for highest priorities flows, although the behaviour of the lowest priority one is reduced.</p>

<p>Nowadays Wireless LAN is playing a more and more important role in network systems. After 1999, in which the IEEE organization published its Wireless Local Network standard 802.11[1], many people saw the advantages of the standard but also the lack of support for multimedia streaming. A lot of research work has been done on the proposed IEEE 802.11e standard draft during the past 4 years. It is supposed to be able to fully support Quality of Service. The final version will be published early in 2004. In my thesis, I propose two possible methods to improve the performance of service differentiation in the MAC layer. The first one is calledPCWA (Practical Contention Window Adjustment). It is a method with which the station finds a best size of its contention window when running the EDCF (Enhanced Distributed Coordination Function) access method. It helps to improve the total system throughput, the jitter and the delay of traffics with different priorities. The second method is called AIPM (Adaptive Initiative Polling Machine). It uses the polling mechanism for differential service, intelligently arranging the polling time to reduce the delay as much as possible, achieving large improvement in performance. This method significantly increases the total system throughput, while the delay and jitter of the traffics are very much small in comparison to EDCF.</p>

Despite of their costs, titanium alloys are often used for structural applications due to their high performance to density ratio that allows the manufacturers to reach the aimed mechanical properties. Users are more and more inclined to turn towards the ƓÒ-metastable alloys since they provide a wider range of processing conditions, very attractive corrosion resistance and higher strength levels in comparison to the ƓÑƓyƓÒ alloys. Nevertheless, these alloys present a high sensitivity to the variation in the applied heat- or thermomechanical treatment influencing the final mechanical properties. That is why the understanding of the relationships existing between these heat- or thermomechanical treatments and the corresponding modifications of the microstructures, as well as the influence of several characteristics of the microstructure on the mechanical properties under static and cycling loading conditions is of primary importance. This research allows to characterise and to better understand the precipitation and growth sequences of the ƓÑ phase in the Ti-LCB alloy during classical heat- and thermomechanical treatments in order to be able to predict the microstructure resulting from a defined treatment. Furthermore, to improve the understanding of the relationships existing between the manufacturing process, the corresponding microstructures modifications, and the mechanical properties, tensile tests are performed on the different microstructures and microstructural parameters playing an important role on the static properties are identified. Microstructural features governing the static fracture process in two different microstructures are determined by using a micromechanical model based on a physical understanding of the mechanisms of damage. Finally, the crack initiation and the first stage of crack propagation under high cycle fatigue conditions are investigated at a local scale on two different microstructures.

Despite of their costs, titanium alloys are often used for structural applications due to their high performance to density ratio that allows the manufacturers to reach the aimed mechanical properties. Users are more and more inclined to turn towards the ƓÒ-metastable alloys since they provide a wider range of processing conditions, very attractive corrosion resistance and higher strength levels in comparison to the ƓÑƓyƓÒ alloys. Nevertheless, these alloys present a high sensitivity to the variation in the applied heat- or thermomechanical treatment influencing the final mechanical properties. That is why the understanding of the relationships existing between these heat- or thermomechanical treatments and the corresponding modifications of the microstructures, as well as the influence of several characteristics of the microstructure on the mechanical properties under static and cycling loading conditions is of primary importance. This research allows to characterise and to better understand the precipitation and growth sequences of the ƓÑ phase in the Ti-LCB alloy during classical heat- and thermomechanical treatments in order to be able to predict the microstructure resulting from a defined treatment. Furthermore, to improve the understanding of the relationships existing between the manufacturing process, the corresponding microstructures modifications, and the mechanical properties, tensile tests are performed on the different microstructures and microstructural parameters playing an important role on the static properties are identified. Microstructural features governing the static fracture process in two different microstructures are determined by using a micromechanical model based on a physical understanding of the mechanisms of damage. Finally, the crack initiation and the first stage of crack propagation under high cycle fatigue conditions are investigated at a local scale on two different microstructures.

Herpes simplex viruses (HSV) establish latent infections in sensory neurons of their host and are maintained in this state by little understood mechanisms that, at least in part, are regulated by signalling through nerve growth factor (NGF) and its receptor tropomyosin related kinase, trkA. Previous studies have demonstrated that Zhangfei is a transcriptional factor that is expressed in differentiated neurons and is thought to influence HSV replication and latency. Zhangfei, like the HSV trans-activator VP16 and Luman, binds the ubiquitous nuclear protein host cell factor (HCF) inhibiting the ability of VP16 and Luman to initiate HSV replication. <p>Recently, Brn3a, another neuronal factor thought to influence HSV latency and reactivation was found to possess an HCF-binding domain and could potentially require HCF for activity. The neuronal POU IV domain protein, Brn3a, among its many regulatory functions has been described as an enhancer of the NGF receptor trkA, during development in mouse. I therefore investigated the possible link between Brn3a, TrkA, NGF signaling, HCF, Zhangfei and HSV-1 latency and reactivation. I hypothesized that Zhangfei would also suppress the ability of Brn3a to activate the expression of TrkA and that this would have an impact on NGF-TrkA signaling and, consequently on HSV-1 reactivation from latency.<p>My first study determined which Brn3a/trkA promoter interactions were important for trkA transcription. I constructed a plasmid that contains 1043 base pairs of genomic sequences that extend from 30 nucleotides upstream of trkA coding region. In contrast to previous data, a short 190 bp region that lies proximal to the trkA initiation codon was sufficient for Brn3a trans-activation in NGF-differentiated PC12, Vero and human medulloblastoma cells. At least two portions of the 190 bp fragment bind to Brn3a. In addition, Brn3a increased endogenous levels of trkA transcripts in PC12 cells and initiated trkA expression in medulloblastoma cells, which normally do not express trkA. <p>The second step was to determine the effects of HCF and Zhangfei association with Brn3a on trkA trans-activation. I found that Brn3a required HCF for activating the trkA promoter and that Zhangfei has a suppressive effect over Brn3a-trkA activation in non-neuronal cells. In sympathetic neuron-like NGF-treated PC12 cells, Zhangfei did not suppress the ability of Brn3a to activate the TrkA promoter, however, Zhangfei was able capable of inducing the expression of TrkA in the absence of Brn3a. Both Brn3a and Zhangfei induced the expression of endogenous trkA in PC12 cells.<p>Since Vero and PC12 cells are not from human origin I wanted to examine the ability of Zhangfei to induce trkA transcription in medulloblastoma cells, that because of its tumor nature do not express trkA. TrkA transfections in these cells have shown to drive them to cell arrest or apoptosis. Since Zhangfei is not express in medulloblastoma tumors I then used ONS-76 medulloblastoma cells as a model to determine Zhangfeis envolvement in the NGF-trkA signaling pathway.<p> I show herein that in ONS-76 medulloblastoma cells resveratrol, an inducer of apoptosis and differentiation, increased the expression of Zhangfei and trkA as well as Early Growth Response Gene 1 (Egr1), a gene normally activated by NGF-trkA signalling. ONS-76 cells stop growing soon after treatment with resveratrol and a portion of the cell undergo apoptosis. While the induction of Zhangfei in resveratrol-treated cells was modest albeit consistent, the infection of actively growing medulloblastoma cells with an adenovirus vector expressing Zhangfei mimicked the effects of resveratrol. Zhangfei activated the expression of trkA and Egr1 and caused these cells to display markers of apoptosis. The phosphorylation of Erk1, an intermediate kinase in the NGF-trkA signaling critical for differentiation, was observed in Zhangfei infected cells, supporting the hypothesis that Zhangfei is a mediator of trkA-NGF signaling in theses cells leading either to differentiation or apoptosis. Binding of HCF by Zhangfei did not appear to be required for this effect as a mutant of Zhangfei incapable of binding HCF was also able to induce the expression of trkA and Egr1. <p>In in vivo and in vitro models of HSV-1 latency, the virus reactivates when NGF supply to the neuron is interrupted. Based on the above evidence Zhangfei, in HSV-1 latently infected neurons, would have the ability to prolong a state of latency by inducing trkA expression allowing the activation of NGF-trkA signaling pathway. Since NGF is produced by many cell types it is possible that reactivation is triggered not by a decrease in NGF but by a down-regulation of TrkA expression.Therefore, if Zhangfei expression is suppress the trkA signaling could be interrupted or shifted towards apoptosis signaling, this would allow neuronal HCF-binding proteins like Luman, which can activate HSV IE expression, to initiate HSV IE expression and subsequently viral replication.