Made available in DSpace on 2014-10-09T12:43:40Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 / Made available in DSpace on 2014-10-09T14:09:49Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 06653.pdf: 2692311 bytes, checksum: 9cf9c14400638383aed081e15b1227b7 (MD5) / Dissertacao (Mestrado) / IPEN/D / Instituto de Pesquisas Energeticas e Nucleares - IPEN/CNEN-SP

Material handling and logistics are fundamental parts of today’s global societyand forklifts are a crucial part of the material handling process. Making these asefficient and reliable as possible are therefore of great interest. In this master thesis, an effort has been made to improve the control of the hydraulic lowering function of a specific forklift. Today the lowering function iscontrolled through an open-loop control scheme making the control performancesensitive to disturbances and system changes. One disturbance of special interestis the temperature of the hydraulic fluid. The goal of this thesis was therefore todesign a controller with improved robustness as well as improved performance. To solve this a model-based control design approach was used and a nonlineargrey-box model was derived, implemented and validated. The model parameterswere estimated using a nonlinear least-squares optimisation problem. The resulting model captures most of the system dynamics and the model fit is higher than 70% which was deemed good enough to use for control design. A PID controller was designed based on the estimated model and the controllerparameters were optimised. Furthermore, the controller was evaluated in simulations and implemented in a real forklift. The proposed controller was compared to the original controller for various scenarios. The results reveal improvedsteady state behaviour with enhanced temperature robustness compared to theoriginal controller. / Materialhantering och logistik är viktigt för att dagens globala samhälle ska fungera. En grundläggande del i materialhanteringsprocessen är gaffeltruckar, därför är det av intresse att göra gaffeltruckar så effektiva och pålitliga som möjligt. I det här examensarbetet har ett försök gjorts till att förbättra styrningen av den hydrauliska sänkningsfunktionen hos en specifik gaffeltruck. Dagens lösning använder sig av öppen styrning vilket gör reglerprestandan känslig för störningar och systemförändringar. En störning av extra intresse är temperaturen av hydraulvätskan. Målet med detta arbete var därför att designa en regulator med ökad robusthet och prestanda. För att lösa detta har en modellbaserad metod för regulatordesign använts där en olinjär gray-box modell härleddes, implementerades och validerades. Modellparametrarna skattades genom att ställa upp och lösa ett ickelinjärt minsta-kvadrat optimeringsproblem. Den resulterande modellen fångar det mesta av systemdynamiken och modellpassningen till uppmätt data var högre än 70\% vilket ansågs bra nog för att kunna använda modellen som en bas för regulatordesign. En PID regulator designades och regulatorparametrarna optimerades med hjälp av modellen. Regulatorn utvärderades i simuleringar och för att sedan implementeras den på en riktig gaffeltruck. Den föreslagna regulatorn jämfördes med den ursprungliga regulatorn i flera olika testfall. Resultaten visade ett bättre steady-state beteende och ökad robusthet mot temperaturförändringar för den designade regulatorn jämfört med den ursprungliga regulatorn.

The main topic of my master thesis is the economy of facultative reinsurance from the point of view of a reinsurance company. First, the thesis briefly deals with the general structure of reinsurance and then is focused only on the facultative part. The thesis puts emphasis on the specific characteristics of facultative reinsurance and the creation of reinsurance slip and then uses this knowledge in a case study. The case study shows the risk from the insurance company and reinsurance company side and its aim is to create proper reinsurance structure for a power plant in Bulgaria. The thesis finishes with a chapter about the development of several reinsurance companies in the market.

Nous nous intéressons à des processus empiriques particuliers pour l'inférence dans le modèle à risques non proportionnels. Ce modèle permet au coefficient de régression de varier avec le temps et généralise le modèle à risques proportionnels très utilisé pour modéliser des données de survie. Le processus du score standardisé que nous étudions est une somme séquentielle des résidus standardisés du modèle. Le processus est considéré en présence d'une covariable dans le modèle, avant d'être étendu au cas de multiples covariables pouvant être corrélées. Le plan du manuscrit se décompose en trois parties. Dans un premier temps, nous établissons les propriétés limites du processus sous le modèle et sous un modèle mal spécifié. Dans une deuxième partie, nous utilisons les résultats de convergence du processus pour dériver des tests de la valeur du paramètre du modèle. Nous montrons qu'un des tests proposés est asymptotiquement équivalent au test de référence du log-rank pour comparer les fonctions de survie de plusieurs groupes de patients. Nous construisons des tests plus puissants que le test du log-rank sous certaines alternatives. Enfin, dans la dernière partie, nous étudions comment lier prédiction et adéquation dans le modèle à risques non proportionnels. Nous proposons une méthode de construction d'un modèle bien ajusté en maximisant sa capacité prédictive. Aussi, nous introduisons un test d'adéquation du modèle à risques proportionnels. Les performances des méthodes proposées, qu'il s'agisse des tests sur le paramètre ou de l'adéquation du modèle, sont comparées à des méthodes de référence par des simulations. Les méthodes sont illustrées sur des données réelles. / In this thesis, we focus on particular empirical processes on which we can base inference in the non-proportional hazards model. This time-varying coefficient model generalizes the widely used proportional hazards model in the field of survival analysis. Our focus is on the standardized score process that is a sequential sum of standardized model-based residuals. We consider first the process with one covariate in the model, before looking at its extension for multiple and possibly correlated covariates. The outline of the manuscript is composed of three parts. In the first part, we establish the limit properties of the process under the model as well as under a misspecified model. In the second part, we use these convergence results to derive tests for the value of the model parameter. We show that one proposed test is asymptotically equivalent to the log-rank test, which is a benchmark for comparing survival experience of two or more groups. We construct more powerful tests under some alternatives. Finally, in the last part, we propose a methodology linking prediction and goodness of fit in order to construct models. The resulting models will have a good fit and will optimize predictive ability. We also introduce a goodness-of-fit test of the proportional hazards model. The performances of our methods, either tests for the parameter value or goodness-of-fit tests, are compared to standard methods via simulations. The methods are illustrated on real life datasets.

La thèse s'intéresse à l'application et l'extension des méthodes SAT et SMT pour la biologie des systèmes. Plus particulièrement sont visées les problématiques issues de l'étude des réseaux métaboliques. L'état de l'art dans l'étude des réseaux métaboliques utilise de la programmation linéaire qui est extrêmement efficace pour lister toutes les solutions. Afin de pouvoir concurrencer la programmation linéaire nous nous orientons non pas vers l'énumération de toutes les voies mais vers l'énumération de voies satisfaisant des contraintes spécifiées par l'utilisateur. L'utilisation de SMT et les contraintes supplémentaires nous permettent d'utiliser des optimisations inaccessibles à la programmation linéaire. / The thesis focuses on the application and extension SAT and SMT methods for systems biology. In particular, will be targeted issues from the study of metabolic networks . The state of the art in the study of metabolic networks use linear programming that is extremely effective to list all the solutions. In order to compete with linear programming we do not try to list all pathway but enumerate pathway satisfying constraints specified by the user. The use of SMT and the additional constraints allow us to use inaccessible optimization for linear programming.

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(工学) / 甲第22441号 / 工博第4702号 / 新制||工||1734(附属図書館) / 京都大学大学院工学研究科原子核工学専攻 / (主査)教授 神野 郁夫, 教授 斉藤 学, 准教授 櫻井 良憲 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Philosophy (Engineering) / Kyoto University / DFAM

Cílem této práce je seznámení se s problematikou detekce ionizujícího záření a jeho detekcí zejména pomocí proporcionálních detektorů a navrhnutí algoritmu pro jejich klasifikaci a jeho následná implementace do FPGA. V první části práce je obecně popsáno, jak jednotlivé typy plynem plněných detektorů fungují. V druhé části je věnován prostor algoritmům pro klasifikaci pulzů, které se objevují v literatuře. Následuje návrh vlastního algoritmu, jeho rozbor a rozebrání výsledků. Ve třetí části následuje popis samotné realizace navrhnutého řešení na platformě RedPitaya. Je zde rozebrána celková architektura navrhnutého systému, detailně popsány jak jednotlivé bloky v logice FPGA, tak i ostatní skripty zajišťující zpracování naměřených výsledků a jejich vizualizaci.

This study examines the pattern of unemployment duration of African immigrants in Sweden as well as the effect of emigration origin, age, gender, level of education and family characteristics on the probability of getting a job upon arrival. The study is based on PLACE-database; the dataset is restricted to individuals born in Africa who immigrated to Sweden during the period of 1994-2008. Results from the Kaplan–Meier estimators and Proportional Hazard Models indicate that unemployment duration and the relative risk of getting a job upon arrival vary according to emigration origin and gender differences. In fact, immigrants from Somalia experience longer unemployment duration than Sub Saharan and North African immigrants. Additionally, African women are more likely to experience longer unemployment duration in comparison to men. Women from Sub Saharan Africa experience shorter unemployment duration in comparison to Somalis and North African ones. On the contrary, there are North African men who experience shorter unemployment duration than men from Sub- Saharan African and Somalia. The results also indicate that the relative risk of leaving unemployment upon arrival also differ by gender and region of emigration. In fact, men experience higher relative risk of leaving unemployment in comparison to women. In addition, the gender gap is found to be much more remarkable among the North African immigrants in comparison to Somalis and Sub Saharan ones. Furthermore, the possibility of leaving unemployment upon arrival decreases with age and childbearing, moreover holding university education increases the relative risk of leaving unemployment upon arrival.

Background: Investigators are often interested in using population-level health administrative data in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) patients to study disease outcomes, risk factors and treatment effects to enhance knowledge, shape clinical practice and influence health care policy. A major limitation of using health administrative data for these purposes is the lack of detailed clinical data to adjust for the confounding effects of differential disease severity on observed associations. Methods to account for disease severity using administrative variables would offer a major advance to population-level studies in IBD patients. Thus, in this study we aimed to use a cohort of IBD patients from The Ottawa Hospital (TOH) to validate a model that was originally developed in Manitoba for estimating clinical disease course in IBD patients through healthcare utilization measures. Objectives: The objectives of this thesis are: 1) To identify and characterize a reference cohort of IBD patients in the ambulatory clinics of four gastroenterologists from TOH on clinical disease course in the preceding year (reference cohort), based on a Manitoba definition of clinical disease course; 2) To fit a partial proportional odds (PPO) model for predicting IBD course, derived using Manitoba health administrative data, to the reference cohort of IBD patients using Ontario health administrative data; 3) To derive new PPO models of IBD disease course for the reference cohort using Ontario administrative variables and compare model performance; and 4) To apply the models to the Ontario Crohn’s and Colitis cohort (OCCC) to estimate IBD course in Ontario, and compare the distribution to that of the Manitoba IBD population.Methods: We first identified a reference cohort of IBD patients in Ontario from the outpatient clinics at TOH during fiscal year 2015. Through chart review, we classified these patients into one of four clinical disease categories (remission, mild, moderate, or severe) using the Manitoba definition. We linked these patients to Ontario health administrative datasets. Given slight differences in data structure and coding between Manitoba and Ontario, we were unable to directly test the Manitoba model and instead fit a PPO model to the Ontario cohort using analogous administrative variables to those used in the final Manitoba model (“adapted model”). We subsequently derived new PPO models using unique Ontario administrative variables under three strategies: 1) Stepwise variable selection (“stepwise model”); 2) Forced fitting of all variables (“all-variables model”); and 3) Using a two-step modelling algorithm that considered IBD-related hospitalizations separate from other administrative variables (“two-step model”). We then compared model performance from the four strategies. Finally, we applied the models to the Ontario IBD population from 2004 to 2016 and compared model estimates to those from Manitoba. Results: We identified 963 patients with IBD from TOH outpatient clinics, of which 52.3% (n=504) were males, 64.6% (n=622) had Crohn's Disease, and 89.2% (n=859) resided in an urban setting. Based on the Manitoba definition, 64.9% of patients within our reference cohort were classified as remission, while 11.4%, 14.1%, and 9.6% were classified as mild, moderate, and severe disease course, respectively. The adapted model (c-statistic 0.77, goodness-fit p-value 0.28) performed comparably to the other models: the stepwise model (c-statistic 0.77, goodness-fit p-value 0.50), the all-variables model (c-statistic 0.77, goodness-fit p-value 0.53), and the two-step model (c-statistic 0.78, goodness-fit p-value 0.75). The adapted model also resulted in overall similar estimates with regards to the disease course distribution among the Ontario IBD population. However, on closer inspection, our two-step model, in which individuals who had been hospitalized for an IBD-related indication within the past year were assumed to have severe disease, performed better with respect to accurately classifying individuals with moderate or severe disease, without sacrificing discriminative ability. Based on the two-step model, from 2004 to 2016, 89.2-91.2% of the Ontario IBD population was in remission, 0% had mild disease, 2.4-3.2% had moderate disease, and 5.9-8.4% had severe disease. Distribution of disease course among IBD patients in Ontario differed considerably than that in Manitoba. Conclusion: In the absence of clinical information within health administrative data, we present and compare four different models that can be used to partially account for the confounding effect of disease course among IBD patients in future population-based studies using Ontario health administrative data. Given that our models did not perform as originally expected, especially with regards to accurately identifying individuals with more active disease states, we advise researchers to use these models at their own discretion.

Most commercially available valves are able to produce a large flow rate or a fast response, but are incapable of producing both simultaneously. Commercially available valves that can achieve both are expensive as they require multiple stages of actuation and piloting pressures to deliver large flow rates quickly, preventing them from being broadly used in fluid power applications. This work investigates the design of an Energy Coupling Actuated Valve (ECAV) that is capable of solving this trade-off between large flow and fast switching times through the use of an innovative, high performance actuation system. The ECAV is a new development in valve technology in the area of hydraulic, high speed, proportional and digital on/off valves. High speed actuation is produced through the intermittent coupling of a kinetic energy source with a translational poppet or spool. This coupling process occurs through the use of magnetorheological fluid and a controlled magnetic flux through the fluid in the energy coupler. The ECAV has several design advantages including proportional force control and a large (7mm) stroke capability. Early results predict a nominal flow rate of 100 L/min at a 5 bar pressure drop can be achieved with a 3 ms on/off response time.