Wuhan China and Borlänge Sweden collaborate to promote sustainable business growths. This thesis, being part of sustainable business project, aims to understand how business can contribute to sustainable development and explore mechanisms of social life cycle assessment. In an effort to answer research questions and further to achieve the general purpose, a BOD online monitor case study is described and analyzed by applying both qualitative and quantitative approaches. Data collection is based on interviews and documents. In the case of BOD online monitor, the thesis identifies Boffin and Universtar companies’ CSR levels. It also observes that SLCA method is able to discover Boffin and Universtar’s social performances at life cycle impact assessment stage and disclose online monitor’s social impacts at interpretation stage. The thesis finally concludes that business’ CSR level can be evaluated from three dimensions: companies’ goals on conducting business, business operation performances and resolved problems. SLCA method is able to disclose enterprises’ social performances, discover underlying factors that might hinder corporations’ ability to contribute to sustainable development and improve product’s social at the same time.

In this thesis / Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) of Electric Power Quality Monitor developed within the scope of National Power Quality Project has been investigated according to EN 61326 standard. Both immunity and emission tests have been carried out in EMC laboratories of ELDAS and ASELSAN for the device under test. Necessary counter measures such as using electromagnetic interference (EMI) filters and transient voltage suppressors, shielding the case of device with EMI protective materials have been taken to satisfy the immunity and emission limits defined in the standard for the device, and their success have been verified by laboratory tests. This research work has been fully supported by Public Research Grant Committee (KAMAG) of T&Uuml / B&amp / #272 / TAK within the scope of National Power Quality Project (105G129).

Electronic waste has become a growing concern in the world among governments, businesses, and consumers. These concerns are well founded as electronics waste presents economic, social, and environmental challenges. Economically, discarding electronic waste into landfills represents inefficient use of valuable materials and energy resources. Socially, improperly recycled electronic waste that takes place in third world countries with poor labor standards represents a moral dilemma for developed countries. Environmentally, electronic waste is a threat to all living organisms as it contains proportionally high levels of poisonous and toxic materials. To deal with these growing challenges a strong response needs to be made by all the stakeholders in the life-cycle of electronic devices. However, despite the apparent need, compared to the rapid increases in electronic technology that make it faster, more available, and more affordable, the technology to process electronic waste has not kept pace. This fact alone points to the inadequate funding, attention, and research that has been invested in the problem. Though it also points to an opportunity; the opportunity to build an efficient system to deal with the problem using what is already known about the lifecycle of electronic devices. Therefore, the goal of this work is to create a modeling tool to help stakeholders in the lifecycle of electronic devices understand the consequences of their choices as they affect the use of material and energy resources. To focus the research, LCD computer monitors are chosen as a case study. LCD computer monitors provide a level of sophistication high enough to be interesting in terms of the stakeholders involved, yet simple enough to provide a reasonable scope for this research that is still accessible to the layman As a corollary to this modeling effort, the relatively new systems modeling language SysML and ParaMagic, a program that integrates analysis modeling capability into SysML, will be evaluated. SysML was designed with Model Based Systems Engineering principles in mind thus it seems that it is a natural fit to the problem domain. Furthermore, testing SysML will provide insight into the advantages and disadvantages of the new language. The findings with respect to LCD computer monitors show that increasing the number of end of life options and the amount of monitors flowing into those options could result in substantial network wide material and energy savings. The findings with respect to SysML and ParaMagic are mixed. Although SysML provides tremendous modeling freedom, this freedom can result in increased upfront costs for developing executable models. Similarly, ParaMagic was found to be an effective tool for creating small executable models, but as the size of models increase its effectiveness tends to zero.

<p>Debugging applications that are running in embedded systems is becoming harder and harder due to the growing complexity of the systems. This is especially true for embedded systems that are developed for the automotive market.</p><p>To aid the debugging there are tools called debuggers. Historically, debuggers have been implemented by using a debug port to connect a software debugger running at the developer machine to dedicated on-chip debugging hardware. The problem with this approach is that it is expensive and that it is not possible to use it if the debug port on the system is not available.Therefore there is a demand for user-friendly debuggers that are not as expensive and require no extra hardware.</p><p>This report presents alternatives to debugging embedded systems. From these alternatives a completely software based debugger solution called monitor-based debugging is selected and acts as a foundation for an implementation that is described in the report. The implementation uses GNU Debugger (GDB) and its remote debugging capabilities to perform debugging.</p><p>The implemented debugger is evaluated by using it to debug applications that are running in a powertrain control unit in a modern truck. It is also compared to two commercial hardware based debuggers. In the evaluation it is found that the debugger functionalities and user-friendliness are on par with the commercial alternatives, but that it lacks some in its non-intrusive capabilities when comparing it with the high-end alternatives on the market.</p>

PCM test structures are commonly used to check the produced wafers from the standpoint of the technologist. In general these structures are managed inside the FAB and are focused on standard device properties. Hence their development and analysis is not driven by analog circuit blocks, which are sensitive or often used. Especially for DFM/Y of analog circuits the correlation between design and technology has to be defined. The knowledge of electrical behavior of test structures helps to improve the designer's sensitivity to technological questions. This paper presents a method to bring the PCM methodology into the analog circuit design to improve design performance, yield estimation and technology correlation. We show how both analog circuit and PCM blocks can be simulated and analyzed in the design phase.

The nuclides present in spent nuclear fuel are categorized according to their capacity for detection by Compton suppression or gamma-gamma coincidence methods. The fifty nuclides with the highest activities in spent fuel are identified, their decay schemes analyzed, and the best detection scheme for each is recommended. / text

Web services are autonomic software applications that provide specific services on the Web and are accessible through standards-based protocols and interfaces in order to ensure interoperability. Web services have gained immense popularity due to the potential of dynamically composing multiple Web services over the Internet into complex multi-organizational Business-to-Business and Business-to-Consumer processes. The management of such composite processes, however, poses a non-trivial problem in terms of cost and complexity due to technology growth, increasing consumer demands for service quality, and the varying Internet workload. Based on a study of the state-of-the-art and a critical assessment of the limitations of the existing solutions, we present the Comprehensive Service Management Middleware (CSMM) framework to facilitate execution of the four major tasks of client-side process management namely, service selection, negotiation of Service Level Agreement (SLA), composition and execution of the process, and monitoring and validation of SLAs. We also propose the Negotiation Broker (NB) framework for automated intelligent agent-based negotiation of Service Level Agreements (SLAs), and the Performance Monitor (PM) framework for distributed client-side monitoring and verification of SLAs. The NB expedites bilateral bargaining of SLAs in a trusted broker framework with enhanced decision algorithms to enable consumer feedback during negotiation. The PM presents a flexible and extensible trusted monitoring solution, which enables faster error detection and recovery and automatic creation of a reputation knowledge base. We explain a scenario of autonomic process management using the CSMM. We describe experiments using agent simulations on a prototype of the NB to validate our proposed policy model for business level specification of negotiation preferences, the mathematical policy mapping model, and the decision algorithms for different consumer preferences. The optimality of the negotiation results are illustrated by combined utility value of the negotiation outcomes for both parties. The experiments conducted on the proof of concept prototype of the PM show its viability, efficiency, and accuracy in distributed SLA monitoring and verification because it does not include network performance. The CSMM enables partial or complete automation of all the client-side management tasks to leverage use of Web services in business processes. / Thesis (Ph.D, Computing) -- Queen's University, 2009-04-20 02:01:50.8

The overall aim of this thesis was to assess measurement properties of methods suitable for screening or monitoring of physical capacity and physical activity in subjects with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and to explore factors associated with physical activity levels. Methods: Four observational studies were conducted. Participants in studies I-III (sample sizes) (n=49, n=15, n=73) were recruited from specialist clinics, and in study IV from a population-based cohort (COPD n=470 and Non-COPD n=659). Psychometric properties of methods assessing physical capacity (study I) and physical activity (study II) were investigated in laboratory settings. Daily physical activity and clinical characteristics were assessed with objective methods (study III) and with subjective methods (study IV). Results: Physical capacity as measured by walking speed during a 30-metre walk test displayed high test-retest correlations (ICC&gt;0.87) and small measurement error. The accuracy for step count and body positions differed between activity monitors and direct observations. In study III 92% of subjects had an activity level below what is recommended in guidelines. Forty five percent of subjects’ activity could be accounted for by clinical characteristics with lung function (22.5%), walking speed (10.1%), quadriceps strength (7.0%) and fat-free mass index (3.0%) being significant predictors. In study IV, low physical activity was significantly more prevalent in COPD subjects from GOLD grade ≥II than among Non-COPD subjects (22.4 vs. 14.6%, p = 0.016). The strongest factors associated with low activity in COPD subjects were a history of heart disease, OR (CI 95%) 2.11 (1.10-4.08) and fatigue, OR 2.33 (1.31-4.13) while obesity was the only significant factor in Non-COPD subjects, OR 2.26 (1.17-4.35). Conclusion: The 30 meter walk test and activity monitors are useful when assessing physical capacity and physical activity, respectively in patients with COPD. Impaired physical activity in severe COPD is related to low lung function, low walking speed, low muscle strength and altered body composition, whereas comorbidities and fatigue are linked to insufficient physical activity in patients with moderately severe COPD.

La masse fissile dans les fûts de déchets radioactifs remplis de résidus métalliques compactés (coques et embouts des combustibles usés) produits à l'usine de retraitement de La Hague est mesurée par interrogation neutronique active, sut l'atelier de compactage de coques et embouts (ACC). Dans le futur, des déchets anciens de cette nature mélangés à des résines échangeuses d'ions seront traités dans cette installation. Ces résines ont pour effet d'augmenter la propriété de modération des neutrons dans la matrice du fût, en comparaison des déchets mesurés actuellement. Dans ce contexte, une méthode de correction des effets de matrice basée sur l'utilisation de la mesure associée d'un moniteur de fût (compteur proportionnel à 3He) a été étudiée. La faisabilité de la méthode a dans un premier temps été étudiée sur la maquette R&D PROMETHEE 6, permettant de mettre en évidence d'une part une bonne corrélation entre le signal du moniteur et les effets de matrice et d'autre part une capacité du code de transport de particule MCNP a reproduire les performances expérimentales de la méthode. Par la suite, les performances finales de l'implantation de cette méthode sur le poste industriel 0-2 en entrée d'ACC ont été évaluées par simulation numérique. Les résultats des calculs concluent à une estimation de la masse fissile résiduelle avec une erreur d'environ un facteur 2, alors que celle-ci pourrait atteindre 2 décades sans la méthode de correction. Par ailleurs, l'analyse des résultats expérimentaux sur la mesure des fûts de la production courante en présence d'un moniteur de fût, établit une corrélation satisfaisante entre des propriétés physiques connues de la matrice pour ce type de déchets (modération et absorption) et le signal du moniteur, démontrant ainsi la fiabilité de l'approche proposée. En conséquence, cette méthode de correction sera implantée sur le poste industriel peut être préconisée pour d'autres dispositifs d'interrogation neutronique active. / The fissile mass in radioactive waste drums filled with compacted metallic residues (spent fuel hulls and nozzles) produced at AREVA La Hague reprocessing plant is measured by neutron interrogation with the Differential Die-away measurement Technique, on the waste compaction facility (ACC). In the future, old hulls and nozzles mixed with ion-exchange resins will be measured. The ion-exchange resins increase neutron moderation in the matrix, compared to the waste measured in the current process. In this context, a matrix effect correction method based on a drum monitor (3He proportional counter) has been studied. The feasibility of the method was first performed with the R&D measurement cell PROMETHEE 6, showing a good correlation between the monitor signal and the matrix effect correction, and the capability of MCNP simulations to reproduce experiments and to estimate the performances of the proposed correction. Therefore, the industrial implementation of the method and the assessment of its final performances have been studied by numerical simulation. Calculations demonstrate that the method allows keeping the highest error on the measured fissile mass below roughly a factor of 2, while the matrix effect without correction ranges on 2 orders of magnitude. In addition, the analysis of experimental data from the current process shows a good correlation between known physical properties of the matrix (moderation and absorption) and the monitor signal, demonstrating the reliability of the proposed approach. According to these satisfactory results, this correction method will be implemented on the industrial station. More generally, this method could be applied to similar waste measurement systems.

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico / Precision Farming (PF) has been studied mainly in soybean, corn and wheat crops, and its use has been increasing in commercial fields. However, in irrigated rice crop, the use of this technology has not yet been fully evaluated, as well as its tools, machinery and equipment such as yield mapping systems. This study aimed to evaluate the precision and accuracy of the response to variations in grain flow of a yield mapping system equipped with an optical sensor in irrigated rice crop both in leveled or non leveled fields. The evaluations were carried out during the 2008/2009 agricultural season on a commercial farm located in the city of Cachoeira do Sul-RS. This evaluation analyzed the behavior of the system when submitted to increased and decreased variations of flow as well as abrupt changes in grain flow using plots that simulated the innumerous situations that occur in a field. To evaluate the behavior of the system, parallel instrumentation was installed on the same harvester, which served as reference. Under the evaluated conditions, the system, presented distortions in accuracy, not responding adequately to all the variations it was submitted to. In the accumulated weight evaluation of each plot, the percentage difference was greater than 3% in almost all the treatments. The results indicate that the evaluated yield monitor did not have satisfactory performance in most of the treatments applied. The Yield data had its quality reduced by the inaccuracy of the speed data provided by the GPS receiver, which makes it unsuitable tool for PF in irrigated rice.crop. / A Agricultura de Precisão (AP) tem sido estudada principalmente nas culturas da soja, milho e trigo, sendo que seu uso tem sido crescente em lavouras comerciais. No entanto, na cultura do arroz irrigado, o uso dessa tecnologia ainda não foi devidamente avaliado, nem tampouco suas ferramentas, máquinas e equipamentos como sistemas para mapeamento da produtividade. Este trabalho teve por objetivo avaliar a precisão e a acurácia da resposta a variações de fluxo de grãos de um sistema de mapeamento de produtividade dotado de sensor volumétrico ótico na cultura do arroz irrigado, em terreno sistematizado e não sistematizado. As avaliações foram realizadas na safra 2008/2009 em uma lavoura comercial localizada no município de Cachoeira do Sul, RS. Foi analisada a resposta do sistema quando submetido a variações de aumento e diminuição de fluxo e, também, a mudanças abruptas no fluxo de grãos, por meio de parcelas que simularam as inúmeras situações que ocorrem numa lavoura. Para avaliar o comportamento do sistema foi instalada uma instrumentação paralela na mesma colhedora, que serviu como referência. Nas condições avaliadas, o sistema apresentou distorções em sua acurácia, não respondendo adequadamente a todas as variações a que foi submetido. Na avaliação de totalização da massa de grãos colhida em cada parcela, a diferença percentual foi superior a 3% em quase todos os tratamentos. Os resultados indicam que o monitor de produtividade avaliado não obteve um desempenho satisfatório na maioria dos tratamentos aplicados. Os dados de produtividade tiveram diminuída a sua qualidade pela imprecisão dos dados de velocidade fornecidos pelo receptor GPS, o que não torna adequada a sua utilização como uma ferramenta da AP na cultura do arroz irrigado.