Studying protein interaction networks using functional and topological information is important for understanding cellular organization and functionality. This study deals with identifying important proteins in protein interaction networks using SWEMODE (Lubovac, et al, 2006) and analyzing topological and functional properties of these proteins with the help of information derived from modular organization in protein interaction networks as well as information available in public resources, in this case, annotation sources describing the functionality of proteins. Multi-modular proteins are short-listed from the modules generated by SWEMODE. Properties of these short-listed proteins are then analyzed using functional information from SGD Gene Ontology(GO) (Dwight, et al., 2002) and MIPS functional categories (Ruepp, et al., 2004). Topological features such as lethality and centrality of these proteins are also investigated, using graph theoretic properties and information on lethal genes from Yeast Hub (Kei-Hoi, et al., 2005). The findings of the study based on GO terms reveal that these important proteins are mostly involved in the biological process of “organelle organization and biogenesis” and a majority of these proteins belong to MIPS “cellular organization” and “transcription” functional categories. A study of lethality reveals that multi-modular proteins are more likely to be lethal than proteins present only in a single module. An examination of centrality (degree of connectivity of proteins) in the network reveals that the ratio of number of important proteins to number of hubs at different hub sizes increases with the hub size (degree).

<p>Studying protein interaction networks using functional and topological information is important for understanding cellular organization and functionality. This study deals with identifying important proteins in protein interaction networks using SWEMODE (Lubovac, et al, 2006) and analyzing topological and functional properties of these proteins with the help of information derived from modular organization in protein interaction networks as well as information available in public resources, in this case, annotation sources describing the functionality of proteins. Multi-modular proteins are short-listed from the modules generated by SWEMODE. Properties of these short-listed proteins are then analyzed using functional information from SGD Gene Ontology(GO) (Dwight, et al., 2002) and MIPS functional categories (Ruepp, et al., 2004). Topological features such as lethality and centrality of these proteins are also investigated, using graph theoretic properties and information on lethal genes from Yeast Hub (Kei-Hoi, et al., 2005). The findings of the study based on GO terms reveal that these important proteins are mostly involved in the biological process of “organelle organization and biogenesis” and a majority of these proteins belong to MIPS “cellular organization” and “transcription” functional categories. A study of lethality reveals that multi-modular proteins are more likely to be lethal than proteins present only in a single module. An examination of centrality (degree of connectivity of proteins) in the network reveals that the ratio of number of important proteins to number of hubs at different hub sizes increases with the hub size (degree).</p>

This reports describes a master thesis project in Industrial Design Engineering at Lulea University of Technology in collaboration with Clas Ohlson.The master thesis was performed during 2015/2016 and is part of a product development project at Clas Ohlson aiming to develop a new kind of solar powered out door light. Clas Ohlson have limited experience with in house product development, and this project could be a pilot project to evaluate future in house product development.This projects main focus is the creative parts of the product development process and the detail development.The product developed resulted in a product with high customisation potential in many aspects including aesthetic, mounting, electronic and packaging.The resulting material, such as CAD-files, is handed over to Clas Ohlson for them to adjust if necessary in order to take the result in to production. The starting point is the company ́s desire to comply with one of their main objectives: provide sustainable products.The desire was for me to develop a solar powered outdoor light.The result is a module based system which can be expanded in multiple ways, from changing the function, to changing the appearance. In the chapter results you also find a suggested launch plan showing the width of the presented solution and the many opportunities the end user would have to upgrade their product without generating excessive waste.

On the assumption that leadership involves individuals with distinct qualities who take much ingenuity, energy and skills to trigger greater capacity in the organization for moving people towards organizational vision and goal achievement, the aim of this study is to identify and describe the leadership shown by managers and lecturers for the successful implementation of academic programme change at National University of Rwanda. That includes investigating the improvement of academic practice in the higher education institution while implementing change, i.e. introduction of the Module-Based Teaching and Learning (MBTL) methodology which is a new approach to schooling, as well as defining an appropriate leadership style needed for the management of this implementation. The research was carried out at National University of Rwanda as a case study and supported by the aid of interviews with faculty managers and lecturers as they are the main developers and users of teaching and learning programmes. Next, data collected were complemented by means of textual analysis. The findings revealed that the MBTL introduced at NUR as an innovation in academic practice was a top-down decision made by the policy makers without consultation with academic staffs and implemented without adequate preparation whereas they are the main actors in the implementation. Coupled with the change in the language of instruction from French to English and the lack of educational material required by the MBTL approach, the situation had an unenthusiastic impact on the engagement of NUR academics for accurate successful implementation. The overall conclusion is that inadequate management of the introduction of an educational change programme leads to misadoption and reluctance at best and resistance by the implementers at worst.

Partial reconfiguration is a unique capability provided by several Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) vendors recently, which involves altering part of the programmed design within an SRAM-based FPGA at run-time. In this dissertation, a Multilayer Runtime Reconfiguration Architecture (MRRA) is developed, evaluated, and refined for Autonomous Runtime Partial Reconfiguration of FPGA devices. Under the proposed MRRA paradigm, FPGA configurations can be manipulated at runtime using on-chip resources. Operations are partitioned into Logic, Translation, and Reconfiguration layers along with a standardized set of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). At each level, resource details are encapsulated and managed for efficiency and portability during operation. An MRRA mapping theory is developed to link the general logic function and area allocation information to the device related physical configuration level data by using mathematical data structure and physical constraints. In certain scenarios, configuration bit stream data can be read and modified directly for fast operations, relying on the use of similar logic functions and common interconnection resources for communication. A corresponding logic control flow is also developed to make the entire process autonomous. Several prototype MRRA systems are developed on a Xilinx Virtex II Pro platform. The Virtex II Pro on-chip PowerPC core and block RAM are employed to manage control operations while multiple physical interfaces establish and supplement autonomous reconfiguration capabilities. Area, speed and power optimization techniques are developed based on the developed Xilinx prototype. Evaluations and analysis of these prototype and techniques are performed on a number of benchmark and hashing algorithm case studies. The results indicate that based on a variety of test benches, up to 70% reduction in the resource utilization, up to 50% improvement in power consumption, and up to 10 times increase in run-time performance are achieved using the developed architecture and approaches compared with Xilinx baseline reconfiguration flow. Finally, a Genetic Algorithm (GA) for a FPGA fault tolerance case study is evaluated as a ultimate high-level application running on this architecture. It demonstrated that this is a hardware and software infrastructure that enables an FPGA to dynamically reconfigure itself efficiently under the control of a soft microprocessor core that is instantiated within the FPGA fabric. Such a system contributes to the observed benefits of intelligent control, fast reconfiguration, and low overhead.

Modularity has the possibility to fulfil a wide range of customer requirements by using relatively few input components. The benefits of modularization from an engineering perspective have been confirmed repeatedly by multiple researchers, but less attention has been drawn to the question of how to effectively price the large number of variants of top-level configurations. In terms of pricing, a common approach is to add a contribution margin to the production cost, but there are problems associated with this method. In general, there should be possibilities to: i) base price on value, not cost (i.e., price structure); ii) ensure consistency in pricing between configurations (i.e., pricing policy); and iii) maintain the prices over time (i.e., price maintenance). Contribution margin on production cost approach does not effectively fulfill these three criteria. This thesis aims to contribute to filling this research gap by introducing the concept of module-based pricing: a top-level configuration’s list price should be the sum of the prices of its modules. The model, MBPN, developed in this thesis minimizes the difference in the outcome of any existing and a new, modular based model as a neutral starting point. The model uses applied least squares method with an option to set variable limits on the module prices to achieve e.g., value-based module pricing. The results present a case of a successful transition from a contribution margin on production cost approach to module-based pricing for a configurable product. / Modularisering har möjligheten att uppfylla ett stort antal kundkrav med utgångspunkt i relativt få komponentvariationer. De ingenjörsmässiga fördelarna med detta tillvägagångssätt har bekräftats upprepade gånger i olika studier, men mindre uppmärksamhet har riktats mot hur man effektivt kan prissätta de olika varianter av konfigureringar som uppkommer med modulariseringsstrategier. Gällande prissättning av konfigurerade produkter är det vanligt att använda en bidragsmarginal på produktionskostnaden, men det finns problem associerade med denna metod. Generellt bör det finnasmöjligheter att: i) basera pris på värde, inte kostnad (dvs. prisstruktur); ii) säkerställa enhetlighet i prissättningen mellan konfigurationer (dvs. prissättningspolicy); och iii) upprätthålla priserna över tid (dvs. prisunderhåll). Bidragsmarginal på produktionskostnaden uppfyller inte dessa tre kriterier. Detta examensarbete introducerar därför konceptet modulbaserad prissättning: konfigureringens listpris utgörs av summan av dess modulers priser. Modellen, MBPN, utvecklad i detta examensarbete minimerar skillnaden i utfallet av en befintlig och en ny, modulbaserad modell som en neutral utgångspunkt. Modellen är en tillämpad minsta kvadratmetod med möjligheter att applicera variabelgränser för att uppnå t.ex. värdebaserad modulprissättning. Resultatet visar på en framgångsrik övergång från en prissättningsmodell baserad på bidragsmarginal på produktionskostnad till modulbaserad prissättning för en konfigurerbar produkt.

Dieser Beitrag zeigt, dass sich neue Möglichkeiten und Entwicklungsfelder beim Einsatz der domänenübergreifenden Simulationsumgebung SimulationX in der Getriebesynthese ergeben. Der Ansatz, jegliche nichtlineare Bewegungsaufgaben mathematisch in Form von Unterstützungsmodulen in einer Programmoberfläche zu komplexen Modellen zu verbinden, ermöglicht nun auch die Umsetzung einer ganzheitlichen Getriebesynthese mit einem kontinuierlichen Analyse-Synthese-Parameter-Abgleich (ASPA). Der Anwender kann somit in nur einer Programmoberfläche sowohl Mechanismen-Synthese als auch -Analyse durchführen und beispielsweise durch entsprechende Optimierung den getriebedynamisch günstigsten Mechanismus ermitteln. / This report shows that new opportunities and areas of development arise from using the domain spanning system simulation software SimulationX for the analysis and synthesis of nonlinear mechanisms. The idea to mathematically combine arbitrary motion demands to complex models in the form of support modules within a unique program interface now allows for a holistic mechanism synthesis with a continuous analysis-synthesis-parameter-adjustment (ASPA). Hence, the user may perform both mechanism analysis and synthesis employing one single program interface (e.g. to identify the ideal mechanism in terms of dynamics during an optimization process).

Die Entwicklung ebener Koppelgetriebe als nichtlinear übersetzende Antriebe in Verarbeitungsmaschinen stellt bis heute ein domänenübergreifendes Fachgebiet des Maschinenbaus dar. Auf der einen Seite gilt es, die Koppelgetriebe möglichst effizient in einer sich stetig wandelnden Softwarelandschaft zu synthetisieren (geometrische Maßfindung der Getriebeglieder) und auf der anderen Seite steigen die mechanischen Anforderungen. Aus diesem Grund besteht der Wunsch nach einer Vereinigung von Synthese und Analyse (kinematisch sowie kinetisch) in möglichst einer Programmumgebung. Basierend auf dem zum 18. ITI Symposium im Jahr 2015 vorgestellten modulbasierten Analyse-Synthese-Parameter-Abgleich (ASPA) ist in den vergangenen Jahren eine umfangreiche Bibliothek zur modulbasierten Synthese ebener Koppelgetriebe in SimulationX entstanden. Der Beitrag zeigt am Beispiel eines 14-gliedrigen Pressenantriebes, welche neuen Möglichkeiten im Kontext von ASPA innerhalb von SimulationX durch diese Bibliothek entstanden sind. Basierend auf vorausgegangenen Arbeiten wurde erstmals die Möglichkeit der Synthese des Getriebes mittels Maßsynthese bei einer gleichzeitigen Beeinflussung der Gelenkkräfte und Bewegungsverläufe nachgewiesen. Dabei kam der Variantenassistent in SimulationX für die Ermittlung der Parametersensitivitäten zum Einsatz. Das Einbinden von parametrisierten Trägheitskenngrößen auf Basis vereinfachter Volumenkörper ermöglichte hierbei die Berücksichtigung der Bauteilmassen während der Synthese. Die Möglichkeit der gleichzeitigen Beurteilung kinematischer und kinetischer Kenngrößen während der Synthese ist an dieser Stelle ein besonderes Merkmal des Konzeptes ASPA. / Developing nonlinear transmitting planar coupler linkages represents a domain enclosing field in mechanical engineering. On the one hand, there is a demand for an efficient layer synthesis (geometrical sizing of the links) and on the other hand, it is necessary to adapt to a constantly changing software environment. Thus, it is desired to crosslink the kinematical and kinetical synthesis and analysis of linkages within one software environment. Based on a paper about the Analysis-Synthesis-Parameter-Adjustment (ASPA), published at the 18th ITI Symposium in 2015, an extensive synthesis library has been developed in SimulationX. By the example of a 14 bar deep drawing press this paper reveals new opportunities that arise from the application of ASPA on the basis of the new library in SimulationX. Compared to prior papers on this particular press this paper, for the first time, presents a complete layer synthesis of this linkage regarding kinetic boundary conditions. In order to meet conditions, such as motion demands and joint forces, parameter sensitivities have been determined by applying the variants-wizard in SimulationX. Using parameterized mass properties on the basis of simplified solids has allowed the specification of link masses during the synthesis. The opportunity of simultaneously taking kinematic and kinetic characteristics during the layer synthesis into account defines the concept of ASPA.

Die Entwicklung mechanischer Antriebskonzepte für nichtlineare Bewegungsaufgaben stellt bis heute ein komplexes und domänenübergreifendes Fachgebiet des Maschinenbaus dar. Auf dem Gebiet der ebenen Koppelgetriebe gibt es dabei seit vielen Jahren Versuche, die optimale Lösung für eine Aufgabe unter Berücksichtigung kinetischer Kenngrößen zu finden. Die vorliegende Arbeit stellt eine Methodik vor, die sowohl den klassischen Verfahren der Getriebetechnik als auch den Ansätzen der Mechanik zum Ausgleich der Massenwirkungen im Getriebe gerecht wird. Der entwickelte Ansatz des modulbasierten Analyse-Synthese-Parameter-Abgleiches (ASPA) erlaubt erstmals eine domänenübergreifende Simulation komplexer Antriebskonzepte auf Basis einer neuartigen modularen Synthesebibliothek. Diese lässt sich dank umfangreicher Dokumentation und der dargestellten Programmablaufpläne in beliebige Software implementieren. Die exemplarisch im Systemsimulator SimulationX implementierte Bibliothek ermöglicht somit unter anderem die Anwendung der klassischen Drei- und Vierlagensynthese im bewegten oder ruhenden Bezugssystem für Dreh- und Schubgelenkketten. Neben der Ausgabe gerundeter Getriebeabmessungen eröffnet der beschriebene Ansatz somit die Berücksichtigung kinetischer Kenngrößen wie den Pendelschwingungen in spielbehafteten Gelenken oder der Änderung der Trägheitskenngrößen während der Synthese. Weiterführend kann eine multikriterielle Optimierung der noch freien Syntheseparameter erfolgen. / Developing nonlinear transmitting planar coupler linkages represents a domain spanning area in mechanical engineering. In recent years many efforts have been made to determine the optimal planar linkage regarding kinetic characteristics. This thesis introduces a method linking classical synthesis procedures with mechanical approaches for a dynamically balanced mechanism. For the first time, the module based analysis-synthesis-parameter-adjustment (ASPA) allows for a domain spanning simulation of complex drive assemblies based on a novel modular synthesis library. Due to an extensive documentation and detailed program flow charts it is possible to implement the library in arbitrary software environments. The exemplarily implemented library in SimulationX allows to apply the classical three- and four-position synthesis within a steady or moving reference frame of revolute or prismatic joint chains. Further, the modules return rounded link dimensions. By applying this library according to ASPA it is now possible to account for kinetic boundaries such as pendulum oscillations of joints with joint clearance or the change of mass properties during the position synthesis. Thus, a multi-criteria optimization of the remaining free synthesis parameters can be applied.