Embedded systems based on FPGAs frequently incorporate soft processors. The prevalence of soft processors in embedded systems is due to their flexibility and adaptability to the application. However, soft processors provide moderate performance compared to hard cores and custom logic, hence faster performing soft processors are desirable. Many soft processor architectures have been studied in the past including Vector processors and VLIWs. These architectures focus on regular applications in which it is possible to extract data and/or instruction level parallelism offline. However, applications with irregular parallelism only benefit marginally from such architectures. Targeting such applications, we investigate superscalar, out-of-order, and Runahead execution on FPGAs. Although these architectures have been investigated in the ASIC world, they have not been studied thoroughly for FPGA implementations. We start by investigating the challenges of implementing a typical inorder pipeline on FPGAs and propose effective solutions to shorten the processor critical path. We then show that superscalar processing is undesirable on FPGAs as it leads to low clock frequency and high area cost due to wide datapaths. Accordingly, we focus on investigating and proposing FPGA-friendly OoO and Runahead soft processors. We propose FPGA-friendly alternatives for various mechanisms and components used in OoO execution. We introduce CFC, a novel copy-free checkpointing which exploits FPGA block RAMs for fast and dense storage. Using CFC, we propose an FPGA-friendly register renamer and investigate the design and implementation of instruction schedulers on FPGAs. We then investigate Runahead execution and introduce NCOR, an FPGA-friendly non-blocking cache tailored for FPGAs. NCOR removes CAM-based structures used in conventional designs and achieves the high clock frequency of 278 MHz. Finally, we introduce SPREX, a complete Runahead soft core incorporating CFC and NCOR. Compared to Nios~II, SPREX provides as much as 38% higher performance for applications with irregular data-level parallelism with minimal area overhead.

There have been many applications of cerium oxide in oxidation catalysis but the understanding of its role in catalysis is rather limited. This research is concerned with the use of nano-size cerium oxide in methane steam reforming reaction. It is found that addition of cerium oxide to the commercial supported Ni catalysts can dramatically reduce the undesirable carbon deposition (through surface oxidation), which is thermodynamically favorable under low steam conditions. In order to understanding the fundamental role of oxidation activity of the cerium oxide, different sizes of nano-crystallined cerium oxides have been carefully prepared by micro-emulsion technique. Their reactivity is clearly shown to be size dependent. We found that ceria particle sizes of lower than 5.1 nm are able to activate molecular oxygen, which accounts for the unprecedentedly reported critical size effect on oxidation. Characterizations by EPR, XPS, TPR suggest that a substantially large quantity of adsorbed oxygen species (O₂ ^-) is preferentially formed in the small size ceria from air. Also, it is found that the oxygen vacancies are formed in the interface of metal and oxide, and the strength of the metal oxide interaction may influence the formation of the efficient oxygen vacancies, which are responsible for the adsorbed surface oxygen.

This study centered on competencies needed by entry-level automotive technicians. Many students in automotive technician programs immediately seek employment upon program completion. This study is one step toward identifying areas in the automotive technician curriculum that need the most training emphasis.

The design of core/shell nanoparticles is of great interest for a wide range of applications. The primary focus of this dissertation is on the design and optimization of two synthetic routes. The first one is an aqueous reduction method using sodium borohydride and sodium citrate. This method was extended to design two types of core/shell nanoparticles, both of which have many applications in bio-sensing, magnetic resonance imaging, and magnetically guided SERS for the identification of environmental threats. The first, Fe/Ag core/shell nanoparticles were designed using a novel one-pot method by varying the AgNO3 addition time in the system. For example, if AgNO3 is added five minutes after the start of the reaction, the already formed Fe nanoparticles serve as seeds for heterogeneous nucleation and growth of Ag nanoparticles. The result of the synthesis was 50 nanometer spherical particles with a narrow size distribution. The second type, Fe/SiO2/Au core/shell nanoparticles were designed using a two-step method. First, 150 nanometer spherical Fe nanoparticles were synthesized followed by the addition of tetraethylorthosilicate (TEOS). This created a Fe/SiO2 core/shell nanoparticle to which HAuCl3 was added. In both cases, Fe/Ag and Fe/SiO2/Au, the formed nanoparticles were characterized and tested for the application as SERS active materials. The second part of this dissertation work was focused on using the polyol method to design bimetallic Cu/Ni, Fe/FeOx, and Co/C core/shell nanoparticles. In each case, the polyol method provided an easy one-pot reaction to synthesize these novel nanomaterials. The design of the Cu/Ni nanoparticles allowed for further insight into the polyol mechanism by independently investigating the factors that govern the formation of elemental Cu and Ni nanoparticles. By understanding the ability of the polyols to easily prepare metal and metal oxide nanoparticles, we were able to manipulate a one-pot reaction to design an aqueous ferrofluid consisting of Fe/FeOx nanoparticles. These spherical 15 nanometer particles were studied for their potential application as MRI contrast agents. In addition, the aqueous ferrofluid served as a precursor for the design of magnetic/luminescent core/shell nanoparticles. Finally, the polyol method was extended to create Co/C nanoparticles for permanent magnet applications.

KEY WORDS: leniency, hard-core cartel, whistleblowing, competition The EU/US Leniency policy is a thesis collecting and classifying huge amount of information and data from several legislations in relation to a relatively new phenomenon of leniency policy. Its additional value are not only commentaries on the de lege lata (currently existing) legislation, but mainly de lege ferandae presumptions emphasizing the trends which could be anticipated in the leniency policies in the future. Processing world data would not be in my capacities and therefore I decided to work with the most representative legislations - those of the European Union and of the United States, a minor insight is also given in case of Great Britain, Germany and France. The thesis helps the reader get familiar with the basic leniency concepts (terminology, principles, history) and subsequently starts explaining the core of the laws from the substantial as well as procedural point of view. Chapters enabling comparison of European and American law firstly set both legislative frameworks and then provide a comparative chapter at the end dealing with weaknesses and strengths of each program. The historical part deals with the circumstances which led to passing of the legislative predecessors of the current laws but also carefully...

Using data from the 2000 American National Election Study and the Uniform Crime Reports, this research studies the impact of core values and contextual effects on gun control policy preferences. The research seeks to produce a contextually sensitive model of gun control policy preferences that accounts for the nature of the elite message war regarding the issue of gun control and for both long and short-term contextual factors that might sway individual opinions at the point of stimulus (e.g., the survey question). While the analysis does find conditioning effects, the effects do not conform to the theoretical expectations, and they are generally weaker than expected. In contrast, the research demonstrates the strong connections that formed in the public’s mind between ideological, partisan and gender-based core values and gun control policy preferences. These results are consistent with research that found the effects of political messages often vary in counterintuitive ways due to variance in the strength of the message and political awareness (Zaller 1992). Replicating this research across various time periods permits the investigation of the decay rate of impacts on individual policy preferences created by substantial, one-time contextual effects. It may be that contextual effects have a substantial impact in the short-term, but these short-term impacts are mitigated over the longterm by continual reinforcement of the basic themes employed by elites in the message war surrounding the issue.

Les processeurs mono-coeurs traditionnels ne sont plus suffisants pour répondre aux besoins croissants en performance des fonctions avioniques. Les processeurs multi/many-coeurs ont emergé ces dernières années afin de pouvoir intégrer plusieurs fonctions et de bénéficier de la puissance par Watt disponible grâce aux partages de ressources. En revanche, tous les processeurs multi/many-coeurs ne répondent pas forcément aux besoins des fonctions avioniques. Nous préférons avoir plus de déterminisme que de puissance de calcul car la certification de ces processeurs passe par la maîtrise du déterminisme. L’objectif de cette thèse est d’évaluer le processeur many-coeur (MPPA-256) de Kalray dans un contexte industriel aéronautique. Nous avons choisi la fonction de maintenance HMS (Health Monitoring System) qui a un besoin important en bande passante et un besoin de temps de réponse borné.Par ailleurs, cette fonction est également dotée de propriétés de parallélisme car elle traite des données de vibration venant de capteurs qui sont fonctionnellement indépendants, et par conséquent leur traitement peut être parallélisé sur plusieurs coeurs. La particularité de cette étude est qu’elle s’intéresse au déploiement d’une fonction existante séquentielle sur une architecture many-coeurs en partant de l’acquisition des données jusqu’aux calculs des indicateurs de santé avec un fort accent sur le fluxd’entrées/sorties des données. Nos travaux de recherche ont conduit à 5 contributions:• Transformation des algorithmes existants en algorithmes incrémentaux capables de traiter les données au fur et mesure qu’elles arrivent des capteurs.• Gestion du flux d’entrées des échantillons de vibrations jusqu’aux calculs des indicateurs de santé,la disponibilité des données dans le cluster interne, le moment où elles sont consommées et enfinl’estimation de la charge de calcul.• Mesures de temps pas très intrusives directement sur le MPPA-256 en ajoutant des timestamps dans le flow de données.• Architecture logicielle qui respecte les contraintes temps-réel même dans les pires cas. Elle estbasée sur une pipeline à 3 étages.• Illustration des limites de la fonction existante: nos expériences ont montré que les paramètres contextuels de l’hélicoptère tels que la vitesse du rotor doivent être corrélés aux indicateurs de santé pour réduire les fausses alertes. / Traditional single-cores are no longer sufficient to meet the growing needs of performance in avionics domain. Multi-core and many-core processors have emerged in the recent years in order to integrate several functions thanks to the resource sharing. In contrast, all multi-core and many-core processorsdo not necessarily satisfy the avionic constraints. We prefer to have more determinism than computing power because the certification of such processors depends on mastering the determinism.The aim of this thesis is to evaluate the many-core processor (MPPA-256) from Kalray in avionic context. We choose the maintenance function HMS (Health Monitoring System) which requires an important bandwidth and a response time guarantee. In addition, this function has also parallelism properties. It computes data from sensors that are functionally independent and, therefore their processing can be parallelized in several cores. This study focuses on deploying the existing sequential HMS on a many-core processor from the data acquisition to the computation of the health indicators with a strongemphasis on the input flow.Our research led to five main contributions:• Transformation of the global existing algorithms into a real-time ones which can process data as soon as they are available.• Management of the input flow of vibration samples from the sensors to the computation of the health indicators, the availability of raw vibration data in the internal cluster, when they are consumed and finally the workload estimation.• Implementing a lightweight Timing measurements directly on the MPPA-256 by adding timestamps in the data flow.• Software architecture that respects real-time constraints even in the worst cases. The software architecture is based on three pipeline stages.• Illustration of the limits of the existing function: our experiments have shown that the contextual parameters of the helicopter such as the rotor speed must be correlated with the health indicators to reduce false alarms.

Submitted by Gizele Lima (gizele.lima@inpa.gov.br) on 2017-04-06T13:49:08Z No. of bitstreams: 2 Versão_FINAL_Erick_Oblitas_Tese_CFT_30_Agosto_2016.pdf: 2324664 bytes, checksum: af0011498c382832eb3b3dcc609c3bda (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-04-06T13:49:08Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 Versão_FINAL_Erick_Oblitas_Tese_CFT_30_Agosto_2016.pdf: 2324664 bytes, checksum: af0011498c382832eb3b3dcc609c3bda (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-08-30 / Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Amazonas - FAPEAM / Understanding the primary productivity in many ecosystems, including tropical forests is necessary due to the scarcity of information on many of its components, as well as its importance in the carbon cycle in terrestrial ecosystems. Most studies have focused on investigating the productivity of forests in their above-ground components, so that little is known yet about the dynamics of productivity and nutrient cycling made by the roots below ground, which is mainly linked to difficult to have to study this compartment in forest ecosystems. Moreover, the few studies on the productivity of existing roots in the Amazon, were made in a small number of plots and on short time, so that was given little attention to the spatial variability and temporal productivity of fine roots. In this context stocks and productivity of fine roots (Rp) were evaluated in 9 plots of 0,5 ha in upland forests located in the Forest Reserve Adolfo Ducke. The soils had their physical and chemical properties evaluated over time. Having been to Rp analyzed in relation to the role of controlling environmental factors and regional topographic position (plateaux, slope and valley bottoms). The areas of plateaux had a lower value of Rp (1,58±0,12 Mg C ha-1 yr-1) when compared with the valley bottoms (2,48±0,28 Mg C ha-1 yr-1). The slope areas behaved similarly to plateaux areas with 1,57±0.08 Mg C ha-1 yr-1. As to the residence time in the soil fine roots in the areas of valley bottoms have an average time of 5 months and the areas of plateaux 3 on average three months. The Rp was not sensitive to the availability of nutrients in the soil, but it seems to respond to the levels of water availability, but in a complex way. The forest structure has also strong influence on levels of Rp. Net primary productivity (NPP) was calculated with literature data of assistance to the same study plots in 8,34 Mg C ha-1 yr-1 to plateaux, 7,82 Mg C ha-1 yr-1 for slope area and 7,81 Mg C ha-1 yr-1 for the velley bottoms respectively. However allocation between above and below ground was different with valley bottoms average allocating the NPP 32% below ground, while plateaux + slope area allocated only 19,8%. The morphology of the fine roots of the slopes and valley bottoms showed no changes regarding the availability of water in as the plateaus in the dry season had higher mortality. The information presented here has the potential to contribute to the improvement of regional estimates of primary productivity in the Amazon, allowing modeling its dynamics from other variables more easily measurable, especially precipitation and forest biomass. / A compreensão da produtividade primária em muitos ecossistemas, incluindo florestas tropicais faz-se necessária, devido à escassez de informações em vários de seus componentes, assim como sua importância no ciclo do carbono em ecossistemas terrestres. A maior parte dos estudos tem enfocado em investigar a produtividade das florestas nos seus componentes acima do solo, de forma que pouco se conhece ainda sobre a dinâmica da produtividade e da ciclagem de nutrientes feitas pelas raízes abaixo do solo, o que está ligado principalmente à dificuldade de se tem em estudar esse compartimento em ecossistemas florestais. Além disso, os poucos estudos sobre produtividade de raízes existentes na Amazônia, foram feitos em um número pequeno de parcelas e sobre curto intervalo de tempo, de forma que foi dada pouca atenção à variabilidade espacial ou temporal da produtividade de raízes finas. Neste contexto os estoques e a produtividade de raízes finas (RP) foram avaliadas em 9 parcelas de 0,5 ha em florestas de terra firme localizadas na Reserva Florestal Adolfo Ducke. Os solos tiveram suas propriedades físicas e químicas avaliadas ao longo do tempo. Tendo sido a Rp analisadas em relação ao papel controlador dos fatores ambientais e da posição topográfica regional (platô, vertente e baixio). As áreas de platô tiveram um menor valor de RP (1,58±0,12 Mg C ha-1 ano- 1) quando comparada com os valores de baixio (2,48±0,28 Mg C ha-1 ano-1). As áreas de vertente se comportaram de forma semelhante às áreas do platô com 1,57±0,08 Mg C ha-1 ano -1. Em quanto ao tempo de residência no solo as raízes finas nas áreas de baixio têm em media um tempo de 5 meses e as áreas de platô 3 em media três meses. A RP não se mostrou sensível à disponibilidade de nutrientes no solo, mas parece responder aos níveis de disponibilidade de água, porém de forma complexa. A estrutura da floresta tem também forte influência nos níveis de Rp. A produtividade primária líquida (PPL) foi calculada, com auxilio de dados da literatura para as mesmas parcelas de estudo, em 8,34 Mg C ha-1 ano-1 para platô, 7,82 Mg C ha-1 ano-1 para a vertente e 7,81 Mg C ha-1 ano-1 para o baixio, respectivamente. Entretanto a alocação entre acima e abaixo do solo foi diferente, com baixios alocando em média 32% da PPL abaixo do solo enquanto platô+vertente alocaram apenas 19,8%. A morfologia das raízes finas das vertentes e baixios não apresentaram mudanças em relação a disponibilidade de agua, em quanto os platôs na estação seca tiveram maior mortalidade. As informações aqui apresentadas tem potencial para contribuir para o aperfeiçoamento das estimativas regionais de produtividade primária na Amazônia, permitindo modelar sua dinâmica a partir de outras variáveis mais facilmente mensuráveis, notadamente a precipitação e a biomassa florestal.

This thesis focuses on core/shell nanoparticle catalysts including preparation, characterization and testing performance using direct methanol fuel cell. Core/shell were prepared using noble and non-noble metals. Also some core/ shell nanoparticles supported on silica and different types of carbon were prepared as well in this thesis. Non-noble core/shell nanoparticles including novel Co/Ni, SiO2/Ni using three types of silica and novel SiO2/CoFe were prepared by a new modified sol-gel method using hydrazine in alkali media as the reducing agent to reduce metal chloride through two steps process. Parameters such as temperature, pH of solution and reducing agents, were seen to be of great importance in deciding the morphology of the final product as well as the structure of the core/shell catalyst. Core/shell nanoparticles have been successfully prepared for Co/Ni and SiO2/CoFe for first time by choosing the right parameters. This study presents the unique structure which has not been obtained previously for SiO2/Ni catalyst using commercial silica as core. A novel halo shaped structure was the common feature in the catalysts prepared as indicated by TEM. This study presents as well noble Ru/Pt core/shell nanoparticles supported on three types of carbon by a new modified polyol method for first time. The author of this work is not aware of any studies that have prepared Ru/Pt on carbon powder smaller or equal to 50 nm and Ru/Pt on CMWNT previously. This work presents special structure (crown- jewel shaped) for Ru/Pt on Vulcan XC-72 carbon which was not obtained previously for the same catalyst. Selected catalysts were tested using a direct methanol fuel cell. SiO2/Pt core/shell nanoparticles were prepared for the first time by two different methods, namely a new modified sol-gel and polyol methods with novelty structures halo and crown- jewel shaped respectively. Based on the particles size obtained from TEM images, the modified polyol method seems to have a much greater impact on the particles size than the modified sol-gel method. Based on these findings Ru/Pt, Ru/Pt supported on three different types of carbon and Pt supported on CMWNT were prepared using the new modified polyol method. Pt on CMWNT catalyst was synthesized for the first time successfully by a new modified polyol method and all the particles were found to be well dispersed with a narrow size distribution of an average particles size of 3nm. This catalyst gave promising results on DMFC. Pt supported on CMWNT and Ru/Pt supported on Vulcan and CMWNT were used for the first time as electro-catalysts in DMFC to study the effect of the support on the catalytic activity of catalysts. The results show that Ru/Pt on CMWNT gives better performance than the unsupported Ru/Pt and Ru/Pt on Vulcan XC-72. Using Ru/Pt on CMWNT with higher methanol concentration (anode feed) improved the fuel cell power density when compared with the RuPt commercial catalyst.

Agentes com propriedades antimicrobianas e antifúngicas são nanoencapsuladas em nanopartículas tendo em vista aumentar os efeitos contra as infecções microbiológicas causadas por Aspergillus ssp. e Staphylococcus aureus. Dentre os sistemas veiculares para entrega de fármacos as nanocápsulas de núcleo lipídico se destacam e tem sido largamente estudadas devido aos seus potenciais terapêuticos. Neste estudo desenvolvemos e caracterizamos as nanocápsulas de núcleo lipídico revestidas com quitosana para assim associar efeitos antimicrobianos, do fármaco e de material de revestimento das nanocápsulas. Para tanto, encapsulamos a dapsona nas nanocápsulas com o propósito obter sua dupla atividade antimicrobiana, associada à da quitosana, material de revestimento. Posteriormente, as nanocápsulas contendo dapsona e revestidas com quitosana foram secas pela técnica de spray-drying a fim de desenvolver uma plataforma tecnológica para a obtenção de produtos intermediários e finais, para futuras aplicações pulmonares ou tópicas dos pós de nanocápsulas. As formulações de nanocápsulas de núcleo lipídico e as com dapsona revestidas com fosfatidilcolina e polissorbato 80 e fosfatidilcolina, polissorbato 80 e quitosana apresentaram distribuição unimodal. Por meio da microscopia eletrônica de transmissão foi possível observar a coroa hidrofilica das nanocápsulas constituida de estruturas micelas. Os resultados demonstraram uma redução de até dez vezes na concentração de dapsona quando nanoencapsulada em sistema nanoestruturado revestidos com fosfatidilcolina, polissorbato 80 e quitosana em comparação com a administração da dapsona em solução para efeitos antibacterianos. As formulações de nanocápsulas de núcleo lipídico sem o fármaco revestidas com fosfatidilcolina, polissorbato 80 e quitosana também inibiram o crescimento bacteriano e fúngicos quando a quitosana foi administrada nas concentrações relativas. O efeito da quitosana demostrou elevado potencial para inibir o crescimento bacteriano e fúngico. Os pós das nanocápsulas contendo dapsona revestidas com quitosana e secas com leucina apresentaram produtos intermediários para futuras aplicações biológicas, tanto para via respiratória quanto para via tópica a fim coibir as infecções causadas pelos microorganismos. / Agents with antimicrobial and antifungal properties were encapsulated into nanoparticles in order to improve the effects against microbial infections caused by Aspergillus spp. and Staphylococcus aureus. Among the carriers for drug delivery systems of the lipid core nanocapsules have been widely studied because of their therapeutic potential. In this study we have developed and characterized the lipid core nanocapsules coated with chitosan thus to associate antimicrobial effects of the drug to nanocapsules of the coating material. To this end, dapsone was encapsulated into the nanocapsules in order to obtain a double antimicrobial activity, associated to the chitosan coating material. Subsequently, the nanocapsules containing dapsone and coated with chitosan were dried by spray-drying technique in order to develop a technological platform to obtain intermediates and final products for future pulmonary or topical application of nanocapsules powders. The lipid core nanocapsules with and without dapsone coat with phosphatidylcholine and phosphatidyl choline and polysorbate 80, polysorbate 80, and chitosan showed unimodal distribution. By transmission electron microscopy it was possible to observe the crown of hydrophilic nanocapsules consisting of micellar structures. The results showed a reduction of up to ten times the concentration of dapsone when nanocoated in nanostructured system coated with phosphatidylcholine, polysorbate 80 and chitosan compared to administration of dapsone in solution for antibacterial effects.The lipid core nanocapsule formulations without drug coated with phosphatidylcholine, polysorbate 80, chitosan also inhibit bacterial and fungal growth when chitosan was administered in relative concentrations. The effect of chitosan demonstrated high potential to inhibit bacterial and fungal growth.The powder of nanocapsules containing dapsone coated with chitosan and dried with leucine showed intermediate products for future biological applications, for both the airway and topically to prevent infections caused by microorganisms.