Ziel des Beitrags ist, einen Überblick über aktuelle Entwicklungen und Ausprägungen von MOOCs sowie die Erfahrungen und Ergebnisse aus der Untersuchung von zwei MOOCs vorzustellen, die 2011 und 2012 durchgeführt wurden. Besondere Schwerpunkte liegen dabei auf der Bedeutung und Ausprägung der Beteiligungsformen in den verschiedenen MOOC-Formaten, der Beteiligung in den beiden untersuchten MOOCs sowie auf deren Unterschiede auch aufgrund von Veränderungen des Kursdesigns.

Computational fluid dynamics simulations are advancing to correctly simulate highly complex fluid flow problems that can require weeks of computation on expensive high performance clusters. These simulations can generate terabytes of data and pose a severe challenge to a researcher analyzing the data. Presented in this document is a general method to extract computational fluid dynamics flow features concurrent with a simulation and as a post-processing step to drastically reduce researcher post-processing time. This general method uses software agents governed by subjective logic to make decisions about extracted features in converging and converged data sets. The software agents are designed to work inside the Concurrent Agent-enabled Feature Extraction concept and operate efficiently on massively parallel high performance computing clusters. Also presented is a specific application of the general feature extraction method to vortex core lines. Each agent's belief tuple is quantified using a pre-defined set of information. The information and functions necessary to set each component in each agent's belief tuple is given along with an explanation of the methods for setting the components. A simulation of a blunt fin is run showing convergence of the horseshoe vortex core to its final spatial location at 60% of the converged solution. Agents correctly select between two vortex core extraction algorithms and correctly identify the expected probabilities of vortex cores as the solution converges. A simulation of a delta wing is run showing coherently extracted primary vortex cores as early as 16% of the converged solution. Agents select primary vortex cores extracted by the Sujudi-Haimes algorithm as the most probable primary cores. These simulations show concurrent feature extraction is possible and that intelligent agents following the general feature extraction method are able to make appropriate decisions about converging and converged features based on pre-defined information.

This thesis presents a comparison of a GPU implementation of the Conjugate Residual method as a sequence of generic library kernels against implementations ofthe method with custom kernels to expose the performance gains of a keyoptimization strategy, kernel fusion, for memory-bound operations which is to makeefficient reuse of the processed data. For massive MIMO the iterative solver is to be employed at the linear detection stageto overcome the computational bottleneck of the matrix inversion required in theequalization process, which is 𝒪(𝑛3) for direct solvers. A detailed analysis of howone more of the Krylov subspace methods that is feasible for massive MIMO can beimplemented on a GPU as a unified kernel is given. Further, to show that kernel fusion can improve the execution performance not onlywhen the input data is large matrices-vectors as in scientific computing but also inthe case of massive MIMO and possibly similar cases where the input data is a largenumber of small matrices-vectors that must be processed in parallel.In more details, focusing on the small number of iterations required for the solver toachieve a close enough approximation of the exact solution in the case of massiveMIMO, and the case where the number of users matches the size of a warp, twodifferent approaches that allow to fully unroll the algorithm and gradually fuse allthe separate kernels into a single, until reaching a top-down hardcodedimplementation are proposed and tested. Targeting to overcome the algorithms computational burden which is the matrixvector product, further optimization techniques such as two ways to utilize the faston-chip memories, preloading the matrix in shared memory and preloading thevector in shared memory, are tested and proposed to achieve high efficiency andhigh parallelism.

[pt] Os modelos CAD de plantas industriais desempenham um papel importante no gerenciamento de projetos de engenharia. Apesar dos avanços do poder computacional nas últimas décadas, a renderização destes modelos continua sendo um desafio devido à sua complexidade e ao grande volume de dados. Diferentes áreas da computação obtiveram êxito ao adotar serviços na nuvem para processar dados massivos. Contudo, quando se trata de rendering na nuvem, ainda há uma deficiência destes serviços para modelos CAD. Neste trabalho, propomos uma arquitetura de rendering híbrido na nuvem para modelos CAD, dividindo a tarefa de renderização entre o cliente e servidor. Além da diminuição da sobrecarga do servidor, esta abordagem garante ao sistema maior resiliência a variações de latência da rede. Neste trabalho também é introduzido um algoritmo de seleção de carga de trabalho baseada em metaheurística para determinar o conjunto de objetos a ser desenhado no lado do cliente. Nossos resultados demonstram que a metodologia proposta permite a visualização eficiente de modelos CAD massivos mesmo em condições adversas, como clientes com dispositivos limitados e latência alta na conexão. Por fim, discutimos as oportunidades de pesquisa restantes para renderização em nuvem, abrindo caminhos para melhorias futuras. / [en] Industrial-plant CAD models play an important role in engineering project management. Despite the advances in computing power in past decades, rendering these models remains challenging due to their complexity and large data volume. Different areas of computing have succeeded in adopting cloud services to process massive data. However, when it comes to cloud rendering, there is still a lack of cloud rendering services for CAD models. In this paper, we propose a hybrid cloud rendering architecture for CAD models, dividing the rendering task between client and server. In addition to reducing server overhead, this approach affords greater resilience to the system against variations of network latency. Finally, this work also introduces a metaheuristic-based workload selection algorithm to determine the set of objects to be drawn on the client side. Our results demonstrate that the proposed methodology allows efficient visualization of massive CAD models even under adverse conditions such as clients with limited devices and high connection latency. Lastly, we discuss remaining research opportunities for cloud rendering, opening avenues for future improvements.

Concrete is one of the most used building materials in the world because of its good properties. However, cement which is one of the main components in concrete, produces a high amount of heat during the hydration process. The generated heat leads to temperature rise inside the structure. This temperature rise becomes an issue for massive concrete structures, such as hydropower plants and dams, since natural cooling is no longer sufficient. In combination with restrained boundary conditions, increasing temperatures result in tensile stresses causing thermal cracking of the structure. Reducing thermal cracking in a restrained massive concrete structure can be done by lowering or controlling the temperature rise. Several methods of cooling can be used to achieve this. These methods may be divided in pre-cooling and post-cooling methods. To pre-cool concrete the cement content can be reduced by replacing it with mineral additions such as limestone, fly ash, silica fume and ground granulated blast furnace slag. Another method is to increase the size of the aggregates or to pre-cool the aggregates. Ice can also be used to reduce the temperature at casting the concrete and reduce the amount of water that is needed in the mix. The main post-cooling method is cooling pipes, with cold water circulating in the pipes to cool the structure. This master thesis project focuses on comparing the possible methods to reduce the temperature in massive concrete structures. Simulations with the computer program HACON were performed to analyse the effect of these methods. The results from this study showed that cooling pipes gave the best reduction of the maximum temperature and the maximum temperature gradient by 42 % and 76 %, respectively. However, if cooling pipes were to be avoided, the best result of the studied mineral additions was with a replacement of 30 % fly ash resulting in almost the same reduction in maximum temperature but less than one third of the reduction in the gradient. The reduction obtained with fly ash was not as efficient as cooling pipes; therefore appropriate combinations of different pre-cooling methods were also studied. The results of the combination of fly ash, ice, and larger aggregates showed even better reduction of the maximum temperature reduction compared to cooling pipes. The results also showed that the obtained temperature reductions were almost independent from the thickness of the structure. This conclusion is however only valid for massive structures, where cases with 1.5 and 3.0 m were analysed. Further study may be on finding suitable combination of pre-cooling methods to avoid the use of cooling pipes, as well as analysing the cost for the different pre-cooling methods. / Betong är ett av de mest använda byggmaterialen i världen, tack vare dess goda egenskaper. Cement, som är en av huvudkomponenterna i betong, genererar en stor värmeutveckling under hydratationen. Värmeutveckling som genereras leder till temperaturhöjningar i strukturen. Denna temperaturhöjning blir således ett problem för massiva betong- konstruktioner, såsom vattenkraftverk och dammar, på grund av att den naturliga avkylningen inte längre är tillräcklig för att avlägsna värmen. I kombination med yttre och inre tvång resulterar högre temperaturer i dragspänningar som orsakar sprickor i strukturen. Minskningen av sprickbildning i en fastgjuten massiv betongstruktur kan ske genom att minska eller reglera temperaturhöjningen. För att göra det kan flera kylmetoder användas. Dessa metoder kan delas in i förberedande kylning och efterkylning. Med förberedande kylning kan cementhalten i betong reduceras genom ersättning med mineraltillsatser såsom kalksten, flygaska, silikastoft eller markgranulerad masugnsslagg. En annan metod är att öka ballastens storlek eller att kyla ballasten. Is kan användas både för att minska temperaturen vid gjutning av betong och reducera mängden vatten som behövs i blandningen. Den vanligaste efterkylningsmetoden är användning av kylrör med cirkulerande kallt vatten för att kyla strukturen, dvs. utan att ändra mängden värme som produceras av cementhydratationen. Denna uppsats ämnar jämföra olika metoder för att reducera temperaturen i massiva betongkonstruktioner. Simuleringar har genomförts med datorprogrammet HACON i syfte att analysera inverkan av olika metoder. Resultaten från studien visade att kylrör gav den bästa minskningen av den maximala temperaturen och den maximala reduktionen av temperaturgradienten med 42 % respektive 76 %. Om kylrör ska undvikas erhålls det bästa resultatet vid användning av 30 % flygaska, vilket resulterade i en snarlik minskning i maximal temperatur med mindre än en tredjedel av reduktionen av gradienten. Då reduceringen med flygaska inte var lika effektiv som med kylrör har lämpliga kombinationer av olika förberedande kylmetoder studerats. Resultatet av kombinationen med flygaska, is och större ballast visade en ännu effektivare minskning av den maximala temperaturreduceringen jämfört med kylrör. Vidare visade resultaten även att de erhållna temperaturreduceringarna nästan var oberoende av konstruktionens tjocklek. Denna slutsats kan endast tillämpas för massiva konstruktioner, där fall med en 1.5 och 3.0 m tjock vägg analyserades. Fortsatta studier kan vara att hitta fler lämpliga kombinationer av förberedande kylmetoder för att undvika användning av kylrör, liksom att analysera kostnaden för de olika förberedande kylmetoderna.

When going through relevant research, moisture safety guidelines and talking to builders, moisture experts and architects it is clear - and not surprising - that water and wood make no easy combination. The experiences from building with cross laminated timber (CLT) differ from building sites and there are good and bad examples building without weather protection. In this study the moisture influence on CLT is analyzed. CLT is a type of massive wood with glued lamellas, increasing usage worldwide as structural elements in buildings. The bulk of the work is performed in the hygrothermal calculation tool WUFI(™). Focus is on the wetting process and the evaluation of mould risk from rain loads during production in Nordic climates. Subsequent drying after built into walls and floors is also evaluated. A vast literature survey is performed in order to compare and select material data for modelling CLT. Following the simulation work, moisture content, mould growth and volumetric distortion are judged both with and without weather protection. Results are also compared to measurement data from field tests. It is found that short building times are crucial, some weather protection is required all year around and early planning and constructing for moisture safety are crucial. The benefits of prefabrication and short building times using CLT should be exploited. If there is a risk of rainfall exceeding 10-20 mm, arrangements to divert rain loads should be undertaken. If the expected rain loads are above 40 mm or if the building time exceeds 2 weeks, a roof cover will be required. At air humidities averaging 80% and yearly rain exceeding 1200 mm, a complete building cover is recommended. A controlled environment may be expensive, but it speeds up production and shortens drying time. / När man går igenom relevant forskning, riktlinjer för fuktsäkerhet och pratar med byggare, fuktexperter och arkitekter är det tydligt - och inte överraskande - att vatten och trä inte är någon enkel kombination. Erfarenheterna från att bygga med korslimmat trä (KL-trä) skiljer sig från byggarbetsplatser och det finns bra och dåliga exempel från byggande utan väderskydd. I denna studie analyseras fuktpåverkan på KL-trä. KL-trä är en typ av massivt trä med limmade lameller, som ökar i användningen över hela världen som strukturella element i byggnader. Huvuddelen av arbetet utförs i det hygrotermiska beräkningsverktyget WUFI (™). Fokus ligger på uppfuktning och utvärdering av mögelrisker från regnbelastning under produktion i nordiskt klimat. Efterföljande torkning efter inbyggnad i väggar och golv utvärderas också. En omfattande litteraturstudie utförs för att jämföra och välja materialdata för modellering av KL-trä. Efter simuleringsarbetet bedöms fuktinnehåll, mögeltillväxt och fuktrörelser både med och utan väderskydd. Resultaten jämförs också med mätdata från fältförsök. Det konstateras att korta byggtider är avgörande, någon form av väderskydd krävs året runt och tidig planering och konstruktion för fuktsäkerhet är avgörande. Fördelarna med prefabricering och korta byggtider med KL-trä bör utnyttjas. Om det finns risk för nederbörd över 10-20 mm bör åtgärder vidtas för att avleda regn. Om de förväntade regnbelastningarna är över 40 mm eller om byggtiden överstiger 2 veckor krävs ett regnskydd. Vid luftfuktigheter på i medeltal 80 % och årligt regn över 1200 mm rekommenderas ett väderskydd runt hela byggnaden. En kontrollerad miljö kan vara dyr, men det påskyndar produktionen och förkortar torkningstiden.

[pt] Essa dissertação apresenta diversas técnicas e tecnologias úteis na criação de ambientes virtuais distribuídos com milhares de jogadores conectados. Explicações sobre o uso adequado de TCP e UDP são fornecidas. São mostradas algumas técnicas de aceleração no uso de sockets. São explicadas tecnologias que permitem tratar de muitos sockets ao mesmo tempo como a poll e a kqueue do Unix e o IO Completion Ports do Windows. Técnicas específicas de ambientes virtuais distribuídos são mostradas. Uma ferramenta que faz uso de várias das técnicas apresentadas é proposta. / [en] This dissertation presents several techniques and technologies that are helpfull in the creation of distributed virtual environments with thousands of connected players. Explanations about the proper use of TCP and UDP are given. Some optimization techniques in the use of sockets are also given. Technologies that allow many sockets to be handled at once are explained, such as poll and kqueue from Unix and IO Completion Ports from Windows. Specific techniques for distributed virtual environments are presented. A tool that uses many of these techniques is proposed.

Line ratios in "fir" triplets of helium-like ions have proven to be a powerful diagnostic of conditions in X-ray emitting gas surrounding massive stars. Recent observations indicate that these ratios can be variable with time. The possible causes of variation in line ratios are limited: changes in the radiation field or changes in density, and changes in mass-loss or geometry. In this paper, we investigate the ability of changes in the radiation field to induce variability in the ratio R=f/i. To isolate the radiative effect, we use a heuristic model of temperature and radius changes in variable stars in the B and O range with low-density, steady-state winds. We model the changes in emissivity of X-ray emitting gas close to the star due to differences in level-pumping from available UV photons at the location of the gas. We find that under these conditions, variability in R is dominated by the stellar temperature. Although the relative amplitude of variability is roughly comparable for most lines at most temperatures, detectable variations are limited to a few lines for each spectral type. We predict that variable values in R due to stellar variability must follow predictable trends found in our simulations. Our model uses radial pulsations as a mode of stellar variability that maximizes the amplitude of variation in R. This model is robust enough to show which ions will provide the best opportunity for observing variability in the f/i ratio at different stellar temperatures, and the correlation of that variability with other observable parameters. In real systems, the effects would be more complex than in our model, with differences in phase and suppressed amplitude in the presence of non-radial pulsations. This suggests that changes in R across many lines concurrently are not likely to be produced by a variable radiation field.

The shortage of housing increases the demand for apartment buildings, while pressing climate change forces the construction sector to reduce its carbon footprint. In this context, solid wood and engineered wood products have been shown to be a more sustainable alternative to traditional building materials.  The present study investigates how living in wooden high-rise apartments impacts the wellbeing of its occupants. Nine people currently living in high-rise wooden buildings were interviewed using semi-structured interviews. The data was processed using a qualitative content analysis. The residents expressed having a “clear conscience” regarding their choice of housing and were proud to contribute to sustainability from an ecological perspective. In addition, the majority of the participants linked exposed wood in the indoor and outdoor living environment to feelings of comfort and wellbeing. In general, the touch of wood was perceived as softer, warmer and more alive than other materials such as stone. The conclusion points towards the outdoor and indoor environment of wooden high-rise buildings having a positive effect on the wellbeing of its residents.

This thesis considers the modulation division based on the concept of uniquely factorable constellation pair (UFCP) and uniquely decodable constellation group (UDCG) in multiuser wireless communication networks. We first consider a two-hop relay network consisting of two single-antenna users and a two-antenna relay node, for which a novel distributed concatenated Alamouti code is devised. This new design allows the source and relay nodes to transmit their own information to the destination node concurrently at the symbol level with the aid of the UFCP generated from both PSK and square QAM constellations as well as by jointly processing the noisy signals received at the relay node. Moreover, an asymptotic symbol error probability (SEP) formula is derived for the ML receiver, showing that the maximum diversity gain function is achieved, which is proportional to $\ln \mathtt{SNR}/\mathtt{SNR}^2$. Then, we concentrate on the point-to-point correlated multiple-input and multiple-output (MIMO) communication systems where full knowledge of channel state information (CSI) is available at the receiver and only the first- and second-order statistics of the channels are available at the transmitter. When the number of antenna elements of both ends goes to infinity while keeping their ratio constant, the asymptotic SEP analysis is carried out for either optimally precoded or uniformly precoded correlated large MIMO fading channels using the zero-forcing (ZF) detector with equally likely PAM, PSK or square QAM constellations. For such systems, we reveal some very nice structures which inspire us to explore two very useful mathematical tools (i.e., the Szego's theorem on large Hermitian Toeplitz matrices and the well-known limit: $\lim_{x\to\infty}(1+1/x)^x=e$), for the systematic study of asymptotic behaviors on their error performance. This new approach enables us to attain a very simple expression for the SEP limit as the number of the available antenna elements goes to infinity. In what follows, the problem of precoder design using a zero-forcing decision-feedback (ZF-DF) detector is also addressed. For such a MIMO system, our principal goal is to efficiently design an optimal precoder that minimizes the asymptotic SEP of the ZF-DF detector under a perfect decision feedback. By fully taking advantage of the product majorization relationship among eigenvalues, singular-values and Cholesky values of the precoded channel matrix parameters, a necessary condition for the optimal solution to satisfy is first developed and then the structure of the optimal solution is characterized. With these results, the original non-convex problem is reformulated into a convex one that can be efficiently solved by using an interior-point method. In addition, by scaling up the antenna array size of both terminals without bound for such a network, we propose a novel method as we did for the ZF receiver scenario to analyze the asymptotic SEP performance of an equal-diagonal QRS precoded large MIMO system when employing an abstract Toeplitz correlation model for the transmitter antenna array. This new approach has a simple expression with a fast convergence rate and thus, is efficient and effective for error performance evaluation. For multiuser communication networks, we first consider a discrete-time multiple-input single-output (MISO) Gaussian broadcast channel (BC) where perfect CSI is available at both the transmitter and all the receivers. We propose a flexible and explicit design of a uniquely decomposable constellation group (UDCG) based on PAM and rectangular QAM constellations. With this new concept, a modulation division (MD) transmission scheme is developed for the considered MISO BC. The proposed MD scheme enables each receiver to uniquely and efficiently recover their desired signals from the superposition of mutually interfering cochannel signals in the absence of noise. Using max-min fairness as a design criterion, the optimal transmitter beamforming problem is solved in a closed-form for two-user MISO BC. Then, for a general case with more than two receivers, a user-grouping based beamforming scheme is developed, where the grouping method, beamforming vector design and power allocation problems are addressed by employing weighted max-min fairness. Then, we consider an uplink massive single-input and multiple-output (SIMO) network consisting of a base station (BS) and several single-antenna users. To recover the transmitted signal matrix of all the users when the antenna array size is large, a novel multi-user space-time modulation (MUSTM) scheme is proposed for the considered network based on the explicit construction of QAM uniquely-decomposable constellation groups (QAM-UDCGs). In addition, we also develop a sub-constellation allocation method at the transmitter side to ensure the signal matrix is always invertible. In the meanwhile, an efficient training correlation receiver (TCR) is proposed which calculates the correlation between the received sum training signal vector and the sum information carrying vector. Moreover, the optimal power allocation problems are addressed by maximizing the coding gain or minimizing the average SEP of the received sum signal under both average and peak power constraints on each user. The proposed transmission scheme not only allows the transmitted signals with strong mutual interference to be decoded by a simple TCR but it also enables the CSI of all the users to be estimated within a minimum number of time slots equal to that of the users. Comprehensive computer simulations are carried out to verify the effectiveness of the proposed uniquely decomposable space-time modulation method in various network topologies and configurations. Our modulation division method will be one of the promising technologies for the fifth generation (5G) communication systems. / Dissertation / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)