The objective of this study is to address some important questions associated with stomach cancer patients using the data from the Surveillance Epidemiology and End Results (SEER) program of the United States. To better understand the behavior of stomach cancer, we first perform parametric analysis for each patient group (white male, white female, African American male, African American female, other male and female) to identify the probability distribution function which can best characterize the behavior of the malignant stomach tumor sizes. We evaluate the effects of patients’ age, gender and race on the malignant stomach tumor sizes by developing quantile regression models, which gives us a better understanding of the behavior of the malignant stomach tumors. We also proposed statistical models with respect to patients’ malignant stomach tumor size as a function of age for different races and gender group, respectively. The proposed models were evaluated to attest their prediction quality. Furthermore, we have identified the rate of change of the malignant tumor size as a function of age, for gender and race. We evaluated the routine treatment of stomach cancer using parametric and nonparametric survival analysis. We have found that stomach cancer patients who receive surgery with radiation together have a better survival probability than the patients who receive only radiation. We performed decision tree analysis to assist the physician in recommending to his patients the most effective treatment that is a function of their characteristics.

Nous abordons l'étude de deux problèmes inverses, le problème des moments de Hausdorff et celui de la déconvolution sur la sphère ainsi qu'un problème de régression en design aléatoire. Le problème des moments de Hausdorff consiste à estimer une densité de probabilité à partir d'une séquence de moments bruités. Nous établissons une borne supérieure pour notre estimateur ainsi qu'une borne inférieure pour la vitesse de convergence, démontrant ainsi que notre estimateur converge à la vitesse optimale pour les classes de régularité de type Sobolev. Quant au problème de déconvolution sur la sphère, nous proposons un nouvel algorithme qui combine la méthode SVD traditionnelle et une procédure de seuillage dans la base des Needlets sphériques. Nous donnons une borne supérieure en perte Lp et menons une étude numérique qui montre des résultats fort prometteurs. Le problème de la régression en design aléatoire est abordé sous le prisme bayésien et sur la base des ondelettes déformées. Nous considérons deux scenarios de modèles a priori faisant intervenir des gaussiennes à faible et à grande variance et fournissons des bornes supérieures pour l'estimateur de la médiane a posteriori. Nous menons aussi une étude numérique qui révèle de bonnes performances numériques.

<p>Scania has a policy to attain a high crashworthiness standard and their trucks have to conform to Swedish cab safety standards. The main objective of this thesis is to clarify which parameter variations, present during the second part of the Swedish cab crashworthiness test on a Scania R-series cab, that have significance on the intrusion response. An LS-DYNA FE-model of the test case is analysed where parameter variations are introduced through the use of the probabilistic analysis tool LS-OPT.</p><p>Example of analysed variations are the sheet thickness variation as well as the material variations such as stress-strain curve of the structural components, but also variations in the test setup such as the pendulum velocity and angle of approach on impact are taken into account. The effect of including the component forming in the analysis is investigated, where the variations on the material parameters are implemented prior to the forming. An additional objective is to analyse the influence of simulation and model dependent variations and weigh their respective effect on intrusion with the above stated physical variations.</p><p>A submodel is created due to the necessity to speed up the simulations since the numerous parameter variations yield a large number of different designs, resulting in multiple analyses.</p><p>Important structural component sensitivities are taken from the results and should be used as a pointer where to focus the attention when trying to increase the robustness of the cab. Also, the results show that the placement of the pendulum in the y direction (sideways seen from the driver perspective) is the most significant physical parameter variation during the Swedish pendulum test. It is concluded that to be able to achieve a fair comparison of the structural performance from repeated crash testing, this pendulum variation must be kept to a minimum. </p><p>Simulation and model dependent parameters in general showed to have large effects on the intrusion. It is concluded that further investigations on individual simulation or model dependent parameters should be performed to establish which description to use. </p><p>Mapping material effects from the forming simulation into the crash model gave a slight stiffer response compared to the mean pre-stretch approximations currently used by Scania. This is still however a significant result considering that Scanias approximations also included bake hardening effects from the painting process. </p>

<p>The main contributions in this thesis are advances in parametric programming. The thesis is divided into three parts; theoretical advances, application areas and constrained control allocation. The first part deals with continuity properties and the structure of solutions to convex parametric quadratic and linear programs. The second part focuses on applications of parametric quadratic and linear programming in control theory. The third part deals with constrained control allocation and how parametric programming can be used to obtain explicit solutions to this problem.</p>

<p>Today, micro- and nano-electronic devices are becoming more complex and advanced as the dimensions are shrinking. It is therefore a very challenging task to develop new device technologies with performance that can be predicted. This thesis focuses on advanced measurement techniques and TCAD simulations in order to characterize and understand the device physics of advanced semiconductor devices. </p><p>TCAD simulations were made on a novel MOSFET device with asymmetric source and drain structures. The results showed that there exists an optimum range of implantation doses where the device has a significantly higher figure-of-merit regarding speed and voltage capability, compared to a symmetric MOSFET. Furthermore, both 2D and 3D simulations were used to develop a resistive model of the substrate noise coupling. </p><p>Of particular interest to this thesis is the random dopant fluctuation (RDF). The result of RDF can be characterized using very advance and reliable measurement techniques. In the thesis an ultra-high precision parametric mismatch measurement system was designed and implemented. The best ever reported performance on short-term repeatability of the measurements was demonstrated. A new bipolar parametric mismatch phenomenon was also revealed using the measurement system.</p><p>A complete simulation platform, called SiSPET (Simulated Statistical Parameter Extraction Tool), was developed and integrated into the framework of a commercial TCAD environment. A special program for randomization of the doping was developed and proven to provide RDF effects in agreement measurement. The SiSPET system was used to investigate how different device models were able to take RDF effects into account. The RDF effects were translated in to parameter fluctuations using the developed extraction routines. It was shown that the basic MOSFET fluctuation model could be improved by including the field dependenent mobility. However, if a precise description of the fluctuations is required an advanced compact-model, such as MOS Model 11 should be used.</p>

The recent development of DNA microarray technology is creating a wealth of gene expression data. Typically these datasets have high dimensionality and a lot of varieties. Analysis of DNA microarray expression data is a fast growing research area that interfaces various disciplines such as biology, biochemistry, computer science and statistics. It is concluded that clustering and classification techniques can be successfully employed to group genes based on the similarity of their expression patterns. In this paper, a hierarchical multi-bottleneck classification method is proposed, and it is applied to classify a publicly available gene microarray expression data of budding yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. / Singapore-MIT Alliance (SMA)

The coastal zone of Belize is home to the largest recorded number of the threatened Antillean manatee (Trichechus manatus manatus) within the species' Caribbean range. The objectives of my study were: (1) to determine long-term trends in aerial survey counts and indices of the manatee population in the coastal zone of Belize; and (2) to examine the seasonal change in manatee distribution among habitats in the coastal zone. Standardized extended-area aerial surveys were conducted along the entire coastline of Belize in the dry and wet seasons of 1997, and 1999 - 2002. Manatees were counted in five habitat categories: cay, coast, estuary, lagoon, and river. Total sightings per survey ranged from 90 to 338; the greatest number was counted in the 2002 wet season. Calf percentage ranged from 5 to 13. A slight negative trend in total counts was significant for dry-season, not wet-season surveys, indicating an interactive effect of season and year. Based on analysis of variance, the Abundance Index (transformed manatee sightings per hour) did not differ significantly among years, although it varied significantly within year by season and habitat by season. In applying a spatial approach, the general survey route was buffered 1 km on both sides, and 1 km grids were overlaid and classified by habitat type. The presence or absence of each cell for each survey was used in likelihood ratio tests of the single and interactive effect of season and habitat. The Index for river habitat was higher in the dry season, while cay habitat was higher in the wet season. Overall, near-shore habitat (estuary, lagoon, and river) showed a higher Index than did the offshore habitat (cay and coast) although the total number of sightings was higher offshore. Considering the interactive effect of year, season, and habitat, long-term studies are needed, in both seasons, and among all habitats to account for variation. Continued broad-scale surveys, along with metapopulation analysis would fine-tune the understanding of specific sites, enhancing integrated coastal zone management for protected species and their habitat systems.

This work explores the effects of weak nonlinearity on harmonic oscillators.Two particular systems are studied experimentally: A superconductingresonator formed from a coplanar waveguide that oscillates at microwave frequencies,and the cantilever of an atomic force microscope (AFM) vibratingat ultrasonic frequencies. Both of these systems are described in the introduction,followed by a theory chapter giving a general theoretical framework for nonlinear oscillators. Basic properties of nonlinear oscillators, such asbifurcation and intermodulation, are explained using simple models. Experimental methods, including cryogenic and microwave measurement techniques,are described in some detail. The nonlinear superconducting resonator is studied for use as a parametric amplifier. A strong drive tone, called the pump, drives the oscillator nearthe point of bifurcation. A second, much weaker drive signal that is slightlydetuned from the pump, will cause energy to move from the pump to the signal, giving signal amplification. We have measured a signal gain greaterthan 22 dB in a bandwidth of 30 kHz, for a resonator pumped at 7.6 GHz.This type of amplifier is phase-sensitive, meaning that signals in phase withthe pump will be amplified, but signals in quadrature phase of the pump will be deamplified. Phase-sensitivity has important implications on the amplifier’snoise properties. With a parametric amplifier, a signal can be amplified without any additional noise being added by the amplifier, something that is fundamentally impossible for a standard amplifier. The vibrating AFM cantilever becomes a nonlinear oscillator when it is interacting with a surface. When driven with two frequencies, the amplitudeand phase of the cantilever’s response will develop mixing products, or intermodulation products, that are very sensitive to the exact form of the nonlinearity. Very small changes in the surface properties will be detectable when measuring the intermodulation products. Simultaneously measuring many intermodulation products, or acquiring an intermodulation spectrum,allows one to reconstruct the tip-surface interaction. Intermodulation AFM increases the sensitivity of the measurement or the contrast of the acquiredimages, and provides a means of rapidly measuring the nonlinear tip-surface interaction. The method promises to enhance the functionality of the AFM beyond simple topography measurement, towards quantitative analysis of the chemical or material properties of the surface. / <p>QC 20100812</p>

Today, micro- and nano-electronic devices are becoming more complex and advanced as the dimensions are shrinking. It is therefore a very challenging task to develop new device technologies with performance that can be predicted. This thesis focuses on advanced measurement techniques and TCAD simulations in order to characterize and understand the device physics of advanced semiconductor devices. TCAD simulations were made on a novel MOSFET device with asymmetric source and drain structures. The results showed that there exists an optimum range of implantation doses where the device has a significantly higher figure-of-merit regarding speed and voltage capability, compared to a symmetric MOSFET. Furthermore, both 2D and 3D simulations were used to develop a resistive model of the substrate noise coupling. Of particular interest to this thesis is the random dopant fluctuation (RDF). The result of RDF can be characterized using very advance and reliable measurement techniques. In the thesis an ultra-high precision parametric mismatch measurement system was designed and implemented. The best ever reported performance on short-term repeatability of the measurements was demonstrated. A new bipolar parametric mismatch phenomenon was also revealed using the measurement system. A complete simulation platform, called SiSPET (Simulated Statistical Parameter Extraction Tool), was developed and integrated into the framework of a commercial TCAD environment. A special program for randomization of the doping was developed and proven to provide RDF effects in agreement measurement. The SiSPET system was used to investigate how different device models were able to take RDF effects into account. The RDF effects were translated in to parameter fluctuations using the developed extraction routines. It was shown that the basic MOSFET fluctuation model could be improved by including the field dependenent mobility. However, if a precise description of the fluctuations is required an advanced compact-model, such as MOS Model 11 should be used.

The main contributions in this thesis are advances in parametric programming. The thesis is divided into three parts; theoretical advances, application areas and constrained control allocation. The first part deals with continuity properties and the structure of solutions to convex parametric quadratic and linear programs. The second part focuses on applications of parametric quadratic and linear programming in control theory. The third part deals with constrained control allocation and how parametric programming can be used to obtain explicit solutions to this problem.