This thesis explains and tests a wavelet based implicit numerical method for the solving of partial differential equations. Intended for problems with localized small-scale interactions, the method exploits the form of the wavelet decomposition to divide the implicit system created by the time discretization into multiple, smaller, systems that can be solved sequentially. Included are tests of this method on linear and non-linear problems, with both its results and the time required to calculate them compared to basic models. It was found that the method requires less computational effort than the high resolution control results. Furthermore, the method showed convergence towards high resolution control results.

The shape of bridge deck sections used for long-span suspension bridges has evolved through the years, from the compact box deck girders, to twin box and multi-box decks sections, which proved to have better aerodynamic behaviour, and to bring economic advantages on the construction material usage side. This thesis presents a study of a new type of multi-box bridge deck for the Megane Bridge, consisting of two side decks for traffic lanes, and two middle decks for railway traffic, connected using stabilizing beams. Aerodynamic static force coefficient measurements were performed on a section model with a scale of 1:80, for Reynolds numbers up to 5.1 × 105 under angles of attack from -10° to 10°. Also there-dimensional CFD simulations were performed by employing a Large Eddy Simulation (LES) algorithm with a standard Smagorinsky subgrid-scale model, for Re = 9.3 × 107 and angles of attack 𝛼= -4°, -2°, 0°, 2° and 4°. The experimental and numerical results were compared with respect to accuracy, sensitivity, and practical suitability. Furthermore, the aerodynamic character for each individual decks including static coefficients, wind flow pattern and pressure distribution were studied through CFD simulation. ILS (Iterative Least Squares) method was applied to extract the flutter derivatives of Megane section model based on the results obtained from free vibration tests for evaluating the flutter stability. A comparison of the flutter derivatives was carried out between bridges with different deck configurations and the results are included in this thesis.

This study entails an investigation of a novel moment closure, originally constructed for rarefied-gas prediction, to the modelling of inert, dilute, disperse, particle flows. Such flows are important in many engineering situations. As one example, in internal-combustion engines, fuel is often injected as a spray of tiny droplets and, during combustion, a cloud of tiny soot particles can be formed. These particle phases are often difficult to model, especially when particles display a range of velocities at each location in space. Lagrangian methods are often too costly and many Eulerian field-based methods suffer from model deficiencies and mathematical artifacts. Often, Eulerian formulations assume that all particles at a location and time have the same velocity. This assumption leads to nonphysical results, including an inability to predict particle paths crossing and a limited number of boundary conditions that can be applied. The typical multi-phase situation of many particles is, in many ways, similar to that of a gas compressed of a huge number of atoms or molecules. It is therefore expected that powerful techniques from the kinetic theory of gases could be applied. This work explores the advantages of using a modern fourteen-moment model, originally derived for rarefied gases, to predict multi-phase flows. Details regarding the derivation, the mathematical structure, and physical behaviour of the resulting model are explained. Finally, a numerical implementation is presented and results for several flow problems that are designed to demonstrate the fundamental behaviour of the models are presented. Comparisons are made with other classical models.

Ce travail de thèse a consisté en une étude de la conversion catalytique du glycérol en acrylonitrile par une voie indirecte, c.à.d. via l’acroléine comme intermédiaire. Cette route implique d’abord une étape de déshydratation du glycérol en acroléine suivie par l’ammoxydation de l’acroléine obtenue en acrylonitrile en présence d’oxygène, d’ammoniac et d’eau sur un catalyseur oxyde mixte multi-composant. L’étape de déshydratation du glycérol ayant été déjà très étudiée, ce travail a été focalisé sur le développement de catalyseurs pour l’ammoxydation de l’acroléine en acrylonitrile en presence d’eau. Différents catalyseurs à base de Mo et de Bi ont était synthetisés et caracterisés par BET, DRX, UV-VIS, FT-IR, EDX, ICP et XPS. L’activité catalytique pour l’ammoxydation de l’acroléine a été mesurée dans un lit fixe en phase gaz. Finalement, les conditions opératoires de mise en oeuvre du meilleur catalyseur ont été optimisées par l’utilisation d’un plan d’expérience afin de maximiser le rendement en acrylonitrile. / The aim of this work is to study the conversion of glycerol to acrylonitrile through the indirect route via acrolein as an intermediate. In the indirect route, glycerol is first dehydrated to acrolein over an acidic catalyst and then the as-formed acrolein is ammoxidized to acrylonitrile over a multicomponent catalyst in the presence of oxygen and ammonia. The glycerol dehydration to acrolein process is widely studied and lot of research efforts have been devoted to the development of catalysts and process technologies. For the moment, the major problem remains the rapid catalyst deactivation. In this work we focused on the development of catalysts for the second step, namely the ammoxidation of acrolein to acrylonitrile in presence of water. Various multicomponent oxide catalysts were synthesized by a coprecipitation method. The corresponding catalysts were characterized by BET, XRD, UV-DRS, FTIR, EDX, ICP-OES and XPS techniques. Their activity in acrolein ammoxidation reaction was studied in a fixed bed reactor in the gaseous phase in presence of water. The effect of the addition of different elements in the catalyst composition on the catalyst performance is also studied. Furthermore, an optimization of the reaction parameters using a design of experiment has been carried out in order to obtain a high yield of acrylonitrile.

L'utilisation des canaux multiples améliore significativement les performances globales des réseaux de capteurs sans fil (RCSF) en permettant des transmissions parallèles sur plusieurs canaux. Cependant, la mise en place d’un protocole MAC multi-canal dans un réseau multisauts nécessite une méthode efficace d’allocation des canaux pour permettre une coordination entre les nœuds afin de partager les canaux disponibles. Dans cette thèse, nous nous intéressons à la conception d’un protocole MAC multi-canal qui répond aux exigences des applications de collecte de données à haut débit dans un réseau multi-saut. Pour ce faire, nous abordons d’abord les principales façons d’utiliser plusieurs canaux pour réaliser le partage du médium. Ensuite, nous proposons un protocole MAC multi-canal, répondant aux exigences des RCSF à haut débit, qui combine les trois techniques TDMA, CSMA et FDMA. En effet, nous utilisons une nouvelle méthode d’allocation des canaux qui permet aux nœuds de choisir le canal de réception le plus convenable dans leurs voisinages jusqu’à 3-sauts d’une façon distribuée afin de minimiser les effets des interférences et des collisions. Enfin, nous évaluons par simulation les performances de notre protocole et nous le comparons à d’autres protocoles proposés dans la littérature. Les résultats obtenus montrent l’efficacité de notre proposition dans les différents scénarios étudiés. / The use of multi-channel significantly improves the overall network performance of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) by allowing parallel transmissions over multiple channels. However, the design of a multi-channel MAC protocol in a multi-hop network requires an efficient channel allocation method that allows the coordination between the nodes in order to share available channels. In this thesis, we focus on the conception of a multi-channel MAC protocol that meets the requirements of high data collection applications in a multi-hop network. In order to achieve this goal, we first present the main techniques to use multiple channels to realize medium access sharing. Then, we propose a multi-channel MAC protocol that meets the requirements of high data rate WSNs, which combines three techniques TDMA, FDMA and CSMA. Indeed, we use a new channel assignment method that enables nodes to choose the most convenient channel in their 3-hop neighborhood in a distributed manner in order to minimize the effects of interferences and collisions. Finally, we evaluate by simulation the performance of our protocol and we compare it to other protocols proposed in the literature. The results show the efficiency of our proposition in the different studied scenarios.

Les systèmes agricoles sont en constante évolution sous les effets conjugués d'innovations techniques et organisationnelles et de changements du contexte socio-économique. A l'échelle d'un territoire, des acteurs locaux peuvent encourager et accompagner des changements de ce type s'ils ont une vision claire de leurs impacts potentiels. L'objectif de cette thèse est d'élaborer et d'appliquer une démarche permettant d'assister agriculteurs et autres acteurs locaux d'un territoire dans la construction et l'évaluation de scénarios d'évolutions des systèmes agricoles. Une démarche basée sur des approches permettant une analyse prospective, multicritères, multi-échelles et participative d'évaluation des systèmes agricoles a été développée. Elle a été mise en œuvre en Camargue (sud-est de la France), avec des exploitants céréaliers et des acteurs de la production agricole et de la gestion du territoire.Des scénarios portant sur la réforme de la politique agricole commune (PAC) en 2012-2014, ainsi que sur des objectifs nationaux de réduction de la consommation de pesticides et de développement de l'agriculture biologique ont été développés. Ces perspectives d'évolution des systèmes agricoles camarguais ont été évaluées, via la formalisation de nombreuses données et connaissances. Deux outils de modélisation ont été utilisés : un modèle multi-agent a permis la mise en place de séances de simulation interactives avec des agriculteurs, et un modèle bioéconomique a été développé et utilisé avec des acteurs locaux tels que le syndicat des riziculteurs et le parc naturel régional.Les scénarios portant sur la réforme de la PAC ont confirmé la dépendance des exploitations rizicoles aux subventions. Des agriculteurs ont testé différentes stratégies d'adaptation de leurs exploitations à la suppression de l'aide couplée à la production rizicole. Ces stratégies, souvent basées sur la diversification des activités ou sur la conversion à l'agriculture biologique, ne permettaient pas de compenser les pertes économiques liées à la disparition de l'aide couplée. A l'échelle du territoire, ces stratégies réduiraient fortement la surface cultivée en riz, avec des impacts importants sur d'autres activités en lien avec la production agricole. Cependant ces stratégies vont dans le sens des objectifs gouvernementaux de réduction des impacts de l'agriculture sur l'environnement. Des scénarios portant spécifiquement sur ces objectifs ont permis d'identifier des marges de manœuvre importantes au niveau des exploitations céréalières camarguaises.Cette thèse propose un cadre pour la mise en œuvre de démarches d'évaluation des systèmes agricoles dans un territoire, qui associe les agriculteurs et les acteurs locaux à différentes étapes, depuis leur engagement pour le choix des scénarios, l'acquisition et l'analyse des données, la construction des outils de simulation et l'évaluation de scénarios. La combinaison de différents outils de modélisation pour la réalisation de réflexions collectives, pourrait contribuer à la mise en place d'actions pour un développement durable de l'agriculture / Agricultural systems are constantly evolving driven by technical and organizational innovations and changes in their socio-economical context. At regional scale local stakeholders can encourage and accompany foreseen changes if they can have clear visions of their potential impacts. The objective of the PhD thesis was to develop and test a framework to assist farmers and local stakeholders of a region in the building and assessment of scenarios related to agricultural systems. This framework is based on different modeling approaches for a participative, integrated, multi-scale and prospective assessment of agricultural systems. It was implemented in the Camargue region, South-East of France, with cereal farmers and local stakeholders involved in agricultural production and territorial management.Scenarios assessed were related to the reform of the common agricultural policy (CAP) of the European Union in 2012-2014, and to national objectives of reduction in pesticide use and extension of organic farming (OF). Several data and expert knowledge have been formalized and used in these simulations of scenarios. Two modeling tools have been used for scenario assessment with stakeholders: an agent-based model allowed interactive simulation sessions with farmers, and a bio-economic model was co-developed and used with local stakeholders such as the French Union of Rice Producer and Industry and the Regional Natural Park, both important stakeholders influencing local agricultural systems. Assessing scenarios related to the CAP reform showed the strong dependency of rice farms to EU subsidies. Farmers involved in the sessions tested several adaptation strategies for their farms in response to the disappearance of the rice coupled payment. These strategies often implied a diversification of production and/or the conversion to OF, but they did not allowed to compensate the economic loss due to the suppression of the rice coupled payment. At the regional level, these strategies would lead to an important decrease on the area cultivated with rice, and therefore have an impact on other related activities in the region. Diversification of production is also a key strategy in scenarios related to governmental objectives of reducing pesticide use and conversion to OF. Therefore, in Camargue, there is room for maneuver for conciliating environmental and economic objectives related to agricultural production.This thesis proposed and applied a framework for participatory integrated assessment of agricultural systems. This framework associates closely farmers and other stakeholders in all phases of scenario assessment (scenario definition, data gathering and analysis, the building and use of models). The way different modeling tools are used in this framework could contribute for collective assessment of future farming systems and support collective actions for sustainable agricultural development.

With its growing popularity, most church leaders believe the multisite church is not going anywhere. Regardless of one’s belief about whether a multisite church meets the definition of “one church” or “multiple churches,” all multisite churches must deal with the fact that their senior leaders will eventually depart. While numerous examples of single-site pastoral succession exist, there are few examples of multisite pastoral succession from which to learn. The ultimate purpose of this research was to help multisite churches (or churches that are considering multisite) better understand and implement pastoral succession from the first generation of pastoral leadership to the second. To accomplish this goal, a two-phase sequential mixed-methods study was developed. Phase 1 of the research built a survey to better understand multisite succession, which was administered to 21 of 35 churches that were discovered through snowball sampling. Phase 2 built upon the survey information and utilized a Delphi Panel in order to project best practices for multisite churches undergoing pastoral succession. This phase had 76 practices gain consensus after three rounds of expert feedback. The results included practices for first generation pastors, practices for second generation pastors, and practices for the organization as a whole.

La communauté de Calcul Haute Performance est constamment confrontée à de nouveaux défis en raison de la demande toujours croissante de la puissance de traitement provenant dapplications scientifiques diverses. Les systèmes parallèles et distribués sont la clé pour accélérer lexécution de ces applications, et atteindre les défis associés car de nombreux processus peuvent être exécutés simultanément. Ces systèmes sont partagés par de nombreux utilisateurs qui soumettent des tâches sur de longues périodes au fil du temps et qui attendent un traitement équitable par lordonnanceur. Le travail effectué dans cette thèse se situe dans ce contexte: analyser et développer des algorithmes équitables et efficaces pour la gestion des ressources informatiques partagés entre plusieurs utilisateurs. Nous analysons les scénarios avec de nombreux soumissions issues de plusieurs utilisateurs. Ces soumissions contiennent un ou plusieurs processus et lensemble des soumissions sont organisées dans des campagnes successives. Dans ce que nous appelons le modèle dordonnancement des campagnes les processus dune campagne ne commencent pas avant que tous les processus de la campagne précédente soient terminés. Chaque utilisateur est intéressé à minimiser la somme des temps dexécution de ses campagnes. Cela est motivé par le comportement de lutilisateur tandis que lexécution dune campagne peut être réglé par les résultats de la campagne précédente. Dans la première partie de ce travail, nous définissons un modèle théorique pour lordonnancement des campagnes sous des hypothèses restrictives et nous montrons que, dans le cas général, il est NP-difficile. Pour le cas mono-utilisateur, nous montrons que lalgorithme dapproximation pour le problème (classique) dordonnancement de processus parallèles fournit également le même rapport dapproximation pour lordonnancement des campagnes. Pour le cas général avec plusieurs utilisateurs, nous établissons un critère déquité inspiré par une situation idéalisée de partage des ressources. Ensuite, nous proposons un algorithme dordonnancement appelé FairCamp qui impose des dates limite pour les campagnes pour assurer léquité entre les utilisateurs entre les campagnes successives. La deuxième partie de ce travail explore un modèle dordonnancement de campagnes plus relâché et réaliste, avec des caractéristiques dynamiques. Pour gérer ce cadre, nous proposons un nouveau algorithme appelé OStrich dont le principe est de maintenir un ordonnancement partagé virtuel dans lequel le même nombre de processeurs est assigné à chaque utilisateur. Les temps dachèvement dans lordonnancement virtuel déterminent lordre dexécution sur le processeurs physiques. Ensuite, les campagnes sont entrelacées de manière équitable. Pour des travaux indépendants séquentiels, nous montrons que OStrich garantit le stretch dune campagne en étant proportionnel à la taille de la campagne et le nombre total dutilisateurs. Le stretch est utilisé pour mesurer le ralentissement par rapport au temps quil prendrait dans un système dédié. Enfin, la troisième partie de ce travail étend les capacités dOStrich pour gérer des tâches parallèles rigides. Cette nouvelle version exécute les campagnes utilisant une approche gourmande et se sert aussi dun mécanisme de redimensionnement basé sur les événements pour mettre à jour lordonnancement virtuel selon le ratio dutilisation du système. / The High Performance Computing community is constantly facing new challenges due to the ever growing demand for processing power from scientific applications that represent diverse areas of human knowledge. Parallel and distributed systems are the key to speed up the execution of these applications as many jobs can be executed concurrently. These systems are shared by many users who submit their jobs over time and expect a fair treatment by the scheduler. The work done in this thesis lies in this context: to analyze and develop fair and efficient algorithms for managing computing resources shared among multiple users. We analyze scenarios with many submissions issued from multiple users over time. These submissions contain several jobs and the set of submissions are organized in successive campaigns. In what we define as the Campaign Scheduling model, the jobs of a campaign do not start until all the jobs from the previous campaign are completed. Each user is interested in minimizing the flow times of their own campaigns. This is motivated by the user submission behavior whereas the execution of a new campaign can be tuned by the results of the previous campaign. In the first part of this work, we define a theoretical model for Campaign Scheduling under restrictive assumptions and we show that, in the general case, it is NP-hard. For the single-user case, we show that an approximation scheduling algorithm for the (classic) parallel job scheduling problem also delivers the same approximation ratio for the Campaign Scheduling problem. For the general case with multiple users, we establish a fairness criteria inspired by time sharing. Then, we propose a scheduling algorithm called FairCamp which uses campaign deadlines to achieve fairness among users between consecutive campaigns. The second part of this work explores a more relaxed and realistic Campaign Scheduling model, provided with dynamic features. To handle this setting, we propose a new algorithm called OStrich whose principle is to maintain a virtual time-sharing schedule in which the same amount of processors is assigned to each user. The completion times in the virtual schedule determine the execution order on the physical processors. Then, the campaigns are interleaved in a fair way. For independent sequential jobs, we show that OStrich guarantees the stretch of a campaign to be proportional to campaigns size and to the total number of users. The stretch is used for measuring by what factor a workload is slowed down relatively to the time it takes to be executed on an unloaded system. Finally, the third part of this work extends the capabilities of OStrich to handle parallel jobs. This new version executes campaigns using a greedy approach and uses an event-based resizing mechanism to shape the virtual time-sharing schedule according to the system utilization ratio.

abstract: This work describes an approach for distance computation between agents in a multi-agent swarm. Unlike other approaches, this work relies solely on signal Angleof- Arrival (AoA) data and local trajectory data. Each agent in the swarm is able to discretely determine distance and bearing to every other neighbor agent in the swarm. From this information, I propose a lightweight method for sensor coverage of an unknown area based on the work of Sameera Poduri. I also show that this technique performs well with limited calibration distances. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Mechanical Engineering 2020

A dissertation submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in the Department of English at the University of Zululand, 2002. / Before the emergence of democracy in South Africa, the apartheid regime had brought linguistic imbalance. In 1994 the new government of South Africa set out to address the imbalances created by the apartheid government. Prior to 1994, English and Afrikaans were the only official languages in South Africa. In order to address this situation the new government elevated nine of the South African languages to the same status with English and Afrikaans. The government then introduced the new languages in education policy, which aims at promoting multilingualism in education. Therefore the main focus of this research is on the implementation of the new language in education policy taking into consideration the sociolinguistic situation of the country. The empirical study was conducted in 1999 and 2000. Questionnaires were distributed to respondents. Non-scheduled interview and observation data was collected from five black African high schools in Eshowe district. In addition data was collected from one Superintendent of Education Management in Eshowe district. The main findings indicated that Afrikaans had been phased out in most schools that were studied. Hence, English and Isizulu were the remaining languages that were taught and learned. Moreover, the sociolinguistic situation indicated that IsiZulu was the predominant languages spoken largely in schools and in communities where schools are situated. Having considered the main findings it was evident that there is still a tremendous challenge on the actual implementation of the new language in education policy, which emphasises promotion of multilingualism. However, the sociolinguistic situation suggested that bilingualism involving IsiZulu would be more appropriate. The research looked at the theoretical understanding of the concepts of bilingualism and multilingualism. The concepts are defined in the research to bring more understanding on individual multilingualism and societal multilingualism or bilingualism. This research further concentrates on literature review which discusses the new language in education policy, kinds of bilingualism or multilingualism, the current debate on the language in education policy and the language policy implementation plans. Furthermore, it was important in the literature review to look at the theories of second language acquisition. The theories that were reviewed and evaluated are; Krashen's monitor model, interlanguage theory, linguistic universals, acculturation / pidginisation theory and cognitive theory. After reviewing these theories language teaching theories or approaches are also discussed. The language teaching theories that were reviewed and evaluated are; the structural approach, the functional approach and the interactional approach. In addition, the research discussed the research methodology after which the data that was collected was presented. The findings were then interpreted followed by the conclusion and recommendations.