A significant problem with exploring for electrically conductive mineral deposits with airborne electromagnetic (AEM) methods is that many of the most valuable sulphide deposits are too conductive to be detected with conventional systems. High-grade sulphide deposits with bulk electrical conductivities on the order of 100,000 S/m can appear as “perfect conductors” to most EM systems because the decay of secondary fields (the “time constant” of the deposit) generated in the target by the system transmitter takes much longer than the short measuring time of EM systems. Their EM response is essentially undetectable with off-time measurements. One solution is to make measurements during the transmitter on-time when the secondary field of the target produced by magnetic flux exclusion is large. The difficulty is that the secondary field must be measured in the presence of a primary field which is orders of magnitude larger. The goal of this thesis is to advance the methodology of making AEM measurements during transmitter on-time by analysing experimental data from three different AEM systems. The first system analysed is a very large separation, two helicopter system where geometry is measured using GPS sensors. In order to calculate the primary field at the receiver with sufficient accuracy, the very large (nominally 400 m) separation requires geometry to be known to better than 1 m. Using the measured geometry to estimate and remove the primary field, I show that a very conductive target can be detected at depths of 200m using the total secondary field. I then used fluxgate magnetometers to correct for receiver rotation which allowed the component of the secondary field to be determined. The second system I examined was a large separation fixed-wing AEM system. Using a towed receiver bird with a smaller (˜ 135m) separation, the geometry must be known much more accurately. In the absence of direct measurement of this geometry, I used a least-squares prediction approach using measurements of aircraft manoeuvres which allowed primary field contamination to be estimated. Subtracting this estimate from the recorded signal increased the maximum time constant observed in a field survey for conductive targets by a factor of seven. Finally, a study of a nominally rigid helicopter EM system employing a bucking coil to cancel primary field showed that system geometry (specifically, the position of the receiver coil relative to the transmitter and bucking coils) must be known to better than 0.01 mm to detect deep targets. Again, direct measurements of system geometry were not available. A least-squares prediction filter using helicopter manoeuvre and system pitch and roll measurements was applied, but was not able to estimate primary field well enough to provide an accurate secondary on-time response. Direct measurements of relative motion of the system components might solve this problem.

In an attempt to provide a more secure and amiable living environment in our homes, there has been constant effort to develop more efficient and suitable intelligent sensor technology for household application. Wireless sensors provide an efficient means of sensing without the need for messy wiring, and are ideally suited for the household environment. Although many sensor products have been developed (e.g. temperature, humidity and smoke), automated detection and reporting of an incidence occurring in places hard to observe or reach, such as wetting of diapers or water seepage under carpets, are still not readily available at low cost. Most of the existing technologies consist of complex design architecture and follow specific communication protocols which can be overkill for many simple household applications. In this thesis, we present a new wireless sensor system which is based on the detection of just the ON or OFF state of a condition. This approach overcomes the need for complex architecture and design, but is still able to achieve the functionality that is required for many household applications such as water leakage, food rotting, diaper wetting etc. and thus can be made available very cheaply. The sensor system consisting of an interrogator and a sensor circuit is implemented using inductive coupling. A passive L-C circuit is used for the sensor design and the system is tested using diaper wetting as an example of a simple household application. The testing results shows that the sensor can detect an ON and OFF condition for sensor and tag separation of 10 cm which is enough for applications like water leakage behind walls and under carpets, diaper wetting, food rotting etc.

In the past decade, fast advancements have been made in the sequencing, digitalization and collection of the biological data. However the bottleneck remains at the point of analysis and extraction of patterns from the data. We have developed a method that is aimed at widening this bottleneck by automating the knowledge extraction from the biological data. Our approach is aimed at discovering patterns in a set of DNA sequences based on the location of transcription factor binding sites or any other biological markers with the emphasis of discovering relationships. A variety of statistical and computational methods exists to analyze such data. However, they either require an initial hypothesis, which is later tested, or classify the data based on its attributes. Our approach does not require an initial hypothesis and the classification it produces is based on the relationships between attributes. The value of such approach is that is is able to uncover new knowledge about the data by inducing a general theory based on basic known rules. The core of our approach lies in an inductive logic programming engine, which, based on positive and negative examples as well as background knowledge, is able to induce a descriptive, human-readable theory, describing the data. An application provides an end-to-end analysis of DNA sequences. A simple to use Web interface accepts a set of related sequences to be analyzed, set of negative example sequences to contrast the main set (optional), and a set of possible genetic markers as position-specific scoring matrices. A Java-based backend formats the sequences, determines the location of the genetic markers inside them and passes the information to the ILP engine, which induces the theory. The model, assumed in our background knowledge, is a set of basic interactions between biological markers in any DNA sequence. This makes our approach applicable to analyze a wide variety of biological problems, including detection of cis-regulatory modules and analysis of ChIP-Sequencing experiments. We have evaluated our method in the context of such applications on two real world datasets as well as a number of specially designed synthetic datasets. The approach has shown to have merit even in situations when no significant classification could be determined.

Reliable hydrological model simulations are the result of numerous complex interactions among hydrological inputs, landscape properties, and initial conditions. Determination of the effects of these factors is one of the main challenges in hydrological modelling. This situation becomes even more difficult in cold regions due to the ungauged nature of subarctic and arctic environments.<p> This research work is an attempt to apply a new approach for modelling snowcover ablation and snowmelt runoff in complex subarctic environments with limited data while retaining integrity in the process representations. The modelling strategy is based on the incorporation of both detailed process understanding and inputs along with information gained from observations of basin-wide streamflow phenomenon; essentially a combination of deductive and inductive approaches. The study was conducted in the Wolf Creek Research Basin, Yukon Territory, using three models, a small-scale physically based hydrological model, a land surface scheme, and a land surface hydrological model. The spatial representation was based on previous research studies and observations, and was accomplished by incorporating landscape units, defined according to topography and vegetation, as the spatial model elements.<p> Comparisons between distributed and aggregated modelling approaches showed that simulations incorporating distributed initial snowcover and corrected solar radiation were able to properly simulate snowcover ablation and snowmelt runoff whereas the aggregated modelling approaches were unable to represent the differential snowmelt rates and complex snowmelt runoff dynamics. Similarly, the inclusion of spatially distributed information in a land surface scheme clearly improved simulations of snowcover ablation. Application of the same modelling approach at a larger scale using the same landscape based parameterisation showed satisfactory results in simulating snowcover ablation and snowmelt runoff with minimal calibration. Verification of this approach in an arctic basin illustrated that landscape based parameters are a feasible regionalisation framework for distributed and physically based models. In summary, the proposed modelling philosophy, based on the combination of an inductive and deductive reasoning, is a suitable strategy for reliable predictions of snowcover ablation and snowmelt runoff in cold regions and complex environments.

Models of strategic behavior are usually too complex to conduct large scale analyses, and frequently rely on accurate descriptions of the strategic environment, or unrealistic assumptions which render empirical studies very sensitive to misspecification. This dissertation relates game-theoretic frameworks to models of causality inference and thus provides a reliable method to identify price leadership. Therefore, causal models can be used to study large sets of data without imposing strategic behavior a priori. A case study is provided by analyzing the supply chain relationship among Dominick's Finer Foods and its suppliers. Although our data required aggregation, this empirical analysis successfully determined causal patterns for 60 percent of our sample. Of these price leaderships, 70 percent elicit Manufacturer Stackelberg relationships which tend to be associated with manufacturers that hold big market shares, 25 percent elicit Retailer Stackelbergs which seem to be associated with the biggest retailer margin profits, and only 5 percent elicit a monopolistic retailer with vertical coordination. These results agree with observations made by other authors and the market structure of the 1990's. Moreover, the strategic relationship among the suppliers is also studied. Interestingly, the dominant firms tend to isolate themselves from the price leadership, whereas the second largest firms seem to become price leaders. Our studies agree with the market literature as well. In particular, we find price leadership in a firm which was identified as a low cost leader. Finally, we discovered that the private label does not lead any firm's price unless this firm is the provider of a generic brand.

This dissertation has been motivated by the increasing application of sensing technologies in structural health monitoring. Many wireless sensor techniques exist for structural health monitoring while a challenge faced is the finite lifetime of batteries. The objective of this dissertation is to develop passive wireless technology to provide early warning of conditions that damage the structure. In this dissertation, sensing mechanism is proposed based on time and frequency domain characteristics of magneto-inductive (MI) waves. Experimental results are also presented to demonstrate the sensing mechanism. MI waves are predominantly magnetic waves that are supported in periodic arrays of magnetically coupled resonators and propagate within a narrow frequency band around the resonant frequency. The array is to be embedded in a structure and different types of transducers can be integrated for different sensing applications. With the onset of structure defect, the transducer introduces an impedance discontinuity that generates reflected MI waves along the array, which are monitored and processed by Smoothed Wigner-Ville distribution (WVD) to extract time-of-flight for frequency components in the narrow passband. The transmission and reflection coefficients of MI waves are also investigated based on the lumped-element circuit model of the array. Based on MI waves travel time, amplitude and group velocity, the position and severity of structure defect are decided. The sensing mechanisms for different distribution of defects are proposed. The validity of the sensing mechanism is examined in experiments. The guided wave testing is implemented in one-dimensional square-shaped printed spiral resonators with Q-factor of 161 at 13.6 MHz. It demonstrates that low MI waves propagation loss is achieved with value of 0.098 dB per element at mid-band with center-to-center distance of half an inch. A pitch-catch measurement system is built to capture traveling MI signal in resonant element and extract group velocity, and a pulse-echo measurement system is designed to monitor reflected MI signal and locate structure discontinuity. In both measurement systems, MI waves are excited with wide bandwidth voltage pulse, and a digitizer is attached to sense the MI signal in a specific resonant element circuit. A baseline signal is obtained from the healthy state to use as reference and comparison with the test case using pitch-catch system. The test signal subtracted from baseline signal infers the structure damage information with time and frequency domain characteristics. It can offer an effective method to estimate the structure discontinuity location, severity and type of damage. The experimental results are consistent with the theoretical predictions. At the end, future directions for the research to integrate with other technologies are suggested. / text

In the past decade, fast advancements have been made in the sequencing, digitalization and collection of the biological data. However the bottleneck remains at the point of analysis and extraction of patterns from the data. We have developed a method that is aimed at widening this bottleneck by automating the knowledge extraction from the biological data. Our approach is aimed at discovering patterns in a set of DNA sequences based on the location of transcription factor binding sites or any other biological markers with the emphasis of discovering relationships. A variety of statistical and computational methods exists to analyze such data. However, they either require an initial hypothesis, which is later tested, or classify the data based on its attributes. Our approach does not require an initial hypothesis and the classification it produces is based on the relationships between attributes. The value of such approach is that is is able to uncover new knowledge about the data by inducing a general theory based on basic known rules. The core of our approach lies in an inductive logic programming engine, which, based on positive and negative examples as well as background knowledge, is able to induce a descriptive, human-readable theory, describing the data. An application provides an end-to-end analysis of DNA sequences. A simple to use Web interface accepts a set of related sequences to be analyzed, set of negative example sequences to contrast the main set (optional), and a set of possible genetic markers as position-specific scoring matrices. A Java-based backend formats the sequences, determines the location of the genetic markers inside them and passes the information to the ILP engine, which induces the theory. The model, assumed in our background knowledge, is a set of basic interactions between biological markers in any DNA sequence. This makes our approach applicable to analyze a wide variety of biological problems, including detection of cis-regulatory modules and analysis of ChIP-Sequencing experiments. We have evaluated our method in the context of such applications on two real world datasets as well as a number of specially designed synthetic datasets. The approach has shown to have merit even in situations when no significant classification could be determined.

Σε αυτήν την εργασία μελετάται ο Επαγωγικός Λογικός Προγραμματισμός μέσα απο το πρίσμα της μάθησης της Γραμματικής της αγγλικής γλώσσας. Ο λόγος που επιλέχθηκε αυτό το πρόβλημα είναι ότι εξομοιώνει, μέχρι ενός σγημείου, τον τρόπο που τα παιδιά μαθαίνουν να μιλούν κάποια γλώσσα, υπό την έννοια ότι μαθαίνουν να μιλάνε χωρίς να έρθουν σε επαφή με τους κανόνες – τη γραμματική – της γλώσσας, αλλά από την επαφή τους με τα με τα ερεθίσματα – τα παραδείγματα – που έχουν από τον περίγυρό τους. / This paper is about Inductive Logic Programming through the prism of a problem. In our case Grammar Learning.

Uma das finalidades do pré-aquecimento na soldagem é reduzir a taxa de resfriamento da junta a ser soldada, com consequente minimização da formação de fases frágeis. Esta prática é usualmente realizada em uma região relativamente extensa no entorno da junta, eventualmente causando alterações indevidas nas propriedades mecânicas e metalúrgicas do metal base, além de desperdiçar energia e tempo. Entretanto, o aquecimento localizado na junta também tem a função de auxiliar na fusão do metal base, fazendo com que este alcance temperaturas próximas à fusão do material. Esse pré-aquecimento pode favorecer o aumento da penetração do cordão de solda. Em juntas de chapas mais espessas, pode ser descartada a usinagem de chanfro em alguns casos, e podem ser alcançadas maiores velocidades do processo de soldagem. Desta forma, neste trabalho foi utilizado um equipamento de aquecimento indutivo para aquecer localmente a zona a ser soldada, visando avaliar a microestrutura formada e o perfil de durezas encontrado para os parâmetros variados. Os parâmetros de montagem e de operação foram avaliados quanto à sua influência na geometria do cordão de solda. A utilização do pré-aquecimento se mostrou efetiva na redução da taxa de resfriamento e consequentemente da proporção de fases frágeis e microdureza máxima das juntas. O trabalho mostra que a penetração e largura do cordão de solda foram aumentadas com o aumento do pré-aquecimento, e reduziram com o aumento da velocidade de soldagem, sendo a velocidade de soldagem o fator com maior influência nestas respostas. / One of the purposes of welding preheating is to decrease cooling rate of the joint to be welded, with consequent minimization of brittle phases formation. This practice is usually performed in a relatively large area around the joint, eventually causing undue changes in base metal mechanical and metallurgical properties, beyond to waste energy and time. However, the heat located in the joint also has the function of assisting in the melting of the base metal, so that it reaches temperatures close to the melting point of the material. This preheating may increase the penetration of the weld bead. In thicker plates may be discarded bevel machining in some cases and can be achieved higher welding speeds. Therefore, in this work an inductive heating equipment was used to locally heat the zone to be welded, aiming to evaluate the formed microstructure and the hardness profile found for the varied parameters. The assembly and operating parameters were evaluated for their influence on the geometry of the weld bead. The use of preheating was effective in reducing cooling rates and consequently in the proportion of brittle phases and maximum microhardness of the welded joint. The work shows that penetration and weld bead width increase with the increasing of the preheating, and reduces with the increase in welding speed, being the welding speed the factor with the greatest influence on this responses.

Uma das finalidades do pré-aquecimento na soldagem é reduzir a taxa de resfriamento da junta a ser soldada, com consequente minimização da formação de fases frágeis. Esta prática é usualmente realizada em uma região relativamente extensa no entorno da junta, eventualmente causando alterações indevidas nas propriedades mecânicas e metalúrgicas do metal base, além de desperdiçar energia e tempo. Entretanto, o aquecimento localizado na junta também tem a função de auxiliar na fusão do metal base, fazendo com que este alcance temperaturas próximas à fusão do material. Esse pré-aquecimento pode favorecer o aumento da penetração do cordão de solda. Em juntas de chapas mais espessas, pode ser descartada a usinagem de chanfro em alguns casos, e podem ser alcançadas maiores velocidades do processo de soldagem. Desta forma, neste trabalho foi utilizado um equipamento de aquecimento indutivo para aquecer localmente a zona a ser soldada, visando avaliar a microestrutura formada e o perfil de durezas encontrado para os parâmetros variados. Os parâmetros de montagem e de operação foram avaliados quanto à sua influência na geometria do cordão de solda. A utilização do pré-aquecimento se mostrou efetiva na redução da taxa de resfriamento e consequentemente da proporção de fases frágeis e microdureza máxima das juntas. O trabalho mostra que a penetração e largura do cordão de solda foram aumentadas com o aumento do pré-aquecimento, e reduziram com o aumento da velocidade de soldagem, sendo a velocidade de soldagem o fator com maior influência nestas respostas. / One of the purposes of welding preheating is to decrease cooling rate of the joint to be welded, with consequent minimization of brittle phases formation. This practice is usually performed in a relatively large area around the joint, eventually causing undue changes in base metal mechanical and metallurgical properties, beyond to waste energy and time. However, the heat located in the joint also has the function of assisting in the melting of the base metal, so that it reaches temperatures close to the melting point of the material. This preheating may increase the penetration of the weld bead. In thicker plates may be discarded bevel machining in some cases and can be achieved higher welding speeds. Therefore, in this work an inductive heating equipment was used to locally heat the zone to be welded, aiming to evaluate the formed microstructure and the hardness profile found for the varied parameters. The assembly and operating parameters were evaluated for their influence on the geometry of the weld bead. The use of preheating was effective in reducing cooling rates and consequently in the proportion of brittle phases and maximum microhardness of the welded joint. The work shows that penetration and weld bead width increase with the increasing of the preheating, and reduces with the increase in welding speed, being the welding speed the factor with the greatest influence on this responses.