A reliable scheme to reuse IP (Intellectual Property) cores became an important issue to accelerate the development of embedded systems. Unfortunately the diverse characteristic of embedded systems which deep the difficulty of IP reuse. This thesis proposed the OCP-AHB bus interface architecture by designing a standard and general interface. The IP cores with OCP interface can plug-an-play in bus quickly. It solve the environment problems of the diverse embedded systems and the compatibility issues between IP cores and on-chip interconnections, so the IP reuse ability are raised and the IP designer can focus only on their designs. There are four different versions of OCP-AHB bus interface according to the input and output interface designs. The porposed OCP-AHB bus interface has the better performance and small hardware area when IP transfer data each others through the bus. The result show the proposed architecture can reduce the system integration and verification time and the proposed architecture are actually use in three-dimensional graphics (3D Graphics) processor application.

Metallic additives, also known as anticorrosive pigments, can provide sacrificial cathodic protection and complement the barrier protection afforded by heterogeneous organic coatings to metallic substrates. The unique systematic study of the corrosion resistance of an epoxy coating reinforced with different sizes (80nm, 500nm, 10um) and continuous multiple pigment volume concentration (0, 2%, 10%, 20%, 45%) below global critical pigment volume concentration of zinc particles were studied. The thesis is developing the fundamental understanding to optimize corrosion protection and predicting the protection with time. The properties of these cathodic coatings were investigated by a single-frequency electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) and open circuit potential (OCP) measurements that can be used as to understand cathodic protective state. Finite Element Analysis (FEA) has been applied here for modeling and simulating part of actual experiments. This thesis will help understanding the sensitivity and efficiency to various size and loading of metallic additives for corrosion protection.

Les cyanobactéries sont des organismes procaryotes photosynthétiques. Si l’énergie leur est essentielle, elle peut également être délétère. Afin de se protéger, elles ont acquis plusieurs mécanismes de photoprotection. La thématique de ma thèse est l’étude de l’un d’entre eux par des approches combinées de biologie moléculaire, biochimie et biophysique.Les antennes collectrices de lumière des cyanobactéries sont des complexes extra-membranaires solubles appelés les phycobilisomes. Ils permettent de canaliser l'énergie vers les centres réactionnels des photosystèmes. Sous forte lumière, l'afflux d’énergie y parvenant crée notamment des espèces réactives de l’oxygène, ce qui est délétère pour la cellule. L’Orange Carotenoid Protein (OCP) est impliquée dans un mécanisme de photoprotection qui diminue l'énergie arrivant au niveau des centres réactionnels en augmentant la part d’énergie dissipée sous forme de chaleur. L’OCP est une caroténo-protéine composée de deux domaines globulaires N- et C-terminal qui lie un caroténoïde. Cette protéine photoactivable est à la fois le senseur, et l’acteur du mécanisme de photoprotection. Le mécanisme est désactivé par une seconde protéine, la FRP (Fluorescence Recovery Protein).Le premier chapitre de ce travail de thèse rapporte l’étude de la spécificité des OCPs isolées chez deux souches différentes pour différentes classes de phycobilisomes dont l’architecture du cœur diffère. Le second chapitre présente la méthode mise au point au laboratoire de production de l’OCP chez E.coli, ainsi que la caractérisation d’OCPs clonées depuis le génome de Synechocystis, A. variabilis et A. platensis et surexprimés chez E. coli. Le troisième présente la structure tridimensionnelle du domaine N-terminal, qui est le domaine effecteur de l’OCP. Dans ce chapitre, nous démontrons que le cofacteur caroténoïde se déplace de 12 angstrom au sein de l’OCP lors de la photoactivation. Le quatrième rapporte que le bras N-terminal de l’OCP est une structure singulière qui maintient la protéine fermée à l’obscurité, évitant que l’OCP ne s’active sous faible lumière, ou à l’obscurité. Le cinquième présente la résolution de la structure et l’identification du site actif de la FRP qui nous ont permis de prédire in silico le site d’attachement putatif de la FRP sur le domaine C-terminal de l’OCP. Dans le chapitre 6, je rapporte que deux résidus, l’aspartate 220 et la phénylalanine 299, sont requis pour que l’activité de la FRP soit maximale, confirmant le site d’interaction prédit. / Cyanobacteria, a photosynthetic prokaryote organism, harvest light for living. But harvesting too much light can be harmful. To protect themselves against this stress, cyanobacteria have developed several photoprotective mechanisms. This manuscript reports my work about one of them by combined technics of molecular biology, biochemistry and biophysics.Cyanobacterial light harvesting antennae are extra-membranous complexes called phycobilisomes. They funnel harvested energy into the photosynthetic reaction centers. Under high light, high energy input induces the formation of reactive oxygen species (ROS), which are harmful in excess. One of the existent photoprotective mechanisms helps to avoid ROS formation by decreasing the energy arriving at the reaction centers. The main actor of this mechanism is the photoactive Orange Carotenoid Protein (OCP) that binds to the phycobilisome, and induces an increase of the part of energy dissipated as heat. The OCP is a protein composed by two globular domains (called N- and C- terminal) and binds a carotenoid cofactor. High intensity of blue-green light triggers conformational changes in the inactive orange OCP, which turns red and is now able to binds the PBs. Under low light conditions, this mechanism is turned off by another protein, the Fluorescence Recovery Protein (FRP).The first chapter of this manuscript reports the study of the specificity of OCPs isolated from two strains for different classes of phycobilisomes with different core architecture. The second describe the development of a method to produce holoOCP in E. coli cells. Furthermore, it reports the characterization of the Synechocystis, A. variabilis and A. platensis OCPs isolated from E. coli. The third chapter presents the tridimensional structure of the active N-terminal domain of the OCP. In this chapter, we demonstrate that the carotenoid undergoes a 12anstrom movement upon photoactivation. The fourth chapter rapports that the N-terminal arm of the OCP helps to maintain closed the inactive orange OCP in darkness or low light, avoiding OCP activation and consequent unwanted PBs fluorescence quenching. The fifth presents the resolution of the structure and the identification of the active site of the FRP. These data allow to compute a predictionnal model of interaction between OCP and FRP. I assessed the validity of the model by isolating several modified OCPs. Results shown in chapter 6 report that the aspartate 220 end the phenylalanine 299 are required for effective FRP action.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-12T16:01:00Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 arquivo7128_1.pdf: 2072446 bytes, checksum: b6bc5386371d917bd7613b206ac8e92f (MD5) license.txt: 1748 bytes, checksum: 8a4605be74aa9ea9d79846c1fba20a33 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2005 / A demanda cada vez maior por produtos eletronicos e a crescente capacidade de integração dos chips direcionaram a metodologia de projeto de sistemas embarcados para sua completa integração em um único chip ( System-on-Chip, ou SoC). Essa metodologia baseia-se cada vez mais em componentes previamente projetados e verificados (IP-core ) como uma alternativa de disponibilizar os sistemas dentro dos prazos esperados, sem perder o time-to-market do mercado consumidor de eletrônicos. Neste trabalho, é proposto um processo de desenvolvimento de IP-cores baseado em técnicas de engenharia de software chamado ipPROCESS, como um mecanismo de facilitar e promover o desenvolvimento de IP-cores de alta qualidade. Tendo o foco na criação de componentes de qualidade, o ipPROCESS foi definido com base em técnicas de verificação funcional, de modelagem visual da arquitetura, de interface de comunicação e de documentação seguindo os padrões da indústria. O processo foi descrito utilizando o meta-modelo UML denominado SPEM com o objetivo de facilitar e acelerar o seu entendimento, assim como permitir alterações futuras e facilitar o gerenciamento de projetos baseados no processo proposto

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal.

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal

De fortes illuminations peuvent être dommageables voire même létales pour les organismes photosynthétiques. Une des stratégies utilisées pour se protéger de tels effets délétères consiste à augmenter la dissipation thermique de l’énergie absorbée en excès au niveau des antennes. Chez les cyanobactéries une protéine photo-active, l’Orange Carotenoid Protein (OCP), contrôle ce processus. Une fois photo-activée l’OCP interagit avec le coeur des phycobilisomes (PBs, les antennes collectrices majoritaires chez les cyanobactéries) et déclenche le mécanisme, entrainant à la fois une baisse de l’énergie parvenant aux photosystèmes et une diminution de la fluorescence des PBs. L’énergie absorbée en excès est dissipée sous forme de chaleur. Pour que les PBs regagnent leur pleine capacité de transfert, une autre protéine nommée Fluorescence Recovery Protein (FRP) est requise. La FRP accélère la désactivation de l’OCP. Dans ce manuscrit, je vais présenter ma contribution à la compréhension du mécanisme de photo-protection lié à l’OCP.J’ai continué la caractérisation de la FRP chez Synechocystis PCC 6803, organisme modèle utilisé dans nos études. J’ai montré que la FRP de Synechocystis est plus courte que ce qui est indiqué dans Cyanobase, commençant en fait à la méthionine 26. Mes résultats ont aussi révélé que la photo-protection n’a lieu que lorsque le ratio OCP/FRP est élevé.Le plus grand aboutissement de ma thèse a été la reconstitution in vitro du mécanisme de photo-protection lié à l’OCP en utilisant de l’OCP, de la FRP et des PBs isolés. J’ai montré que la lumière est requise uniquement pour la photo-activation de l’OCP et que l’attachement de l’OCP au PB ne demande aucune illumination. Ce n’est qu’une fois photo-activée que l’OCP peut interagir avec le PB et entrainer la diminution de fluorescence (quenching). En se basant sur les résultats obtenus in vitro nous avons proposé un modèle moléculaire pour le mécanisme de photo-protection lié à l’OCP. Le système de reconstitution in vitro a été utilisé pour évaluer l’importance d’un pont salin conservé (Arg155-Glu244) entre les deux domaines de l’OCP et a révélé que celui-ci stabilise la forme inactive de l’OCP. La photo-activation entraine rupture du pont salin, l’Arg155 étant ensuite impliquée dans l’interaction entre OCP et PB. Le site d’attachement de l’OCP au coeur du PB a aussi été étudié en utilisant le système in vitro. Nos résultats ont montré que les émetteurs terminaux du PB ne sont pas requis et que le site primaire de quenching est un trimère d’allophycocyanine émettant à 660nm. Enfin nous avons étudié les propriétés des états excités du caroténoïde dans l’OCP photo-activée, montrant qu’un de ces états a un caractère de transfert de charge très prononcé et peut avoir un rôle principal dans la dissipation de l’énergie. Nos résultats suggèrent fortement que non seulement l’OCP induit dissipation de l’énergie absorbée sous forme de chaleur mais aussi que l’OCP agit directement comme dissipateur d’énergie. / Strong light can cause damage and be lethal for photosynthetic organisms. An increase of thermal dissipation of excess absorbed energy at the level of photosynthetic antenna is one of the processes protecting against deleterious effects of light. In cyanobacteria, a soluble photoactive carotenoid binding protein, Orange Carotenoid Protein (OCP) mediates this process. The photoactivated OCP by interacting with the core of phycobilisome (PB; the major photosynthetic antenna of cyanobacteria) triggers the photoprotective mechanism, which decreases the energy arriving at the reaction centres and PSII fluorescence. The excess energy is dissipated as harmless heat. To regain full PB capacity in low light intensities, theFluorescence Recovery Protein (FRP) is required. FRP accelerates the deactivation of OCP.In this work, I present my input in the understanding of the mechanism underlying the OCPrelated photoprotection. I further characterized the FRP of Synechocystis PCC6803, the model organism in our studies. I established that the Synechocystis FRP is shorter than what it was proposed in Cyanobase and it begins at Met26. Our results also revealed the great importance of a high OCP to FRP ratio for existence of photoprotection. The most remarkable achievement of this thesis is the in vitro reconstitution of the OCPrelated mechanism using isolated OCP, PB and FRP. I demonstrated that light is only needed for OCP photoactivation but OCP binding to PB is light independent. Only the photoactivated OCP is able to bind the PB and quench all its fluorescence. Based on our in vitro experiments we proposed a molecular model of OCP-related photoprotection. The in vitro reconstituted system was applied to examine the importance of a conserved salt bridge (Arg155-Glu244) between the two domains of OCP and showed that this salt bridge stabilises the inactive form of OCP. During photoactivation this salt bridge is broken and Arg155 is involved in the interaction between the OCP and the PB. The site of OCP binding in the core of a PB wasalso investigated with the in vitro reconstituted system. Our results demonstrated that the terminal energy emitters of the PB are not needed and that the first site of fluorescence quenching is an APC trimer emitting at 660 nm. Finally, we characterised the properties of excited states of the carotenoid in the photoactivated OCP showing that one of these states presents a very pronounced charge transfer character that likely has a principal role in energy dissipation. Our results strongly suggested that the OCP not only induces thermal energy dissipation but also acts as the energy dissipator.

Nonphotochemical quenching and state transitions are an important photoprotective mechanism against excessive irradiation. In this work I studied changes in the size of the effective crosssection of photosystem II antennae in regard to the level of nonphotochemical quenching (state transitions) under different levels of light induced stress.

This PhD dissertation is concerned with highly skilled new Chinese migrants (HSNCMs) in the UK and their transnational (or trans-boundary) careers and business practice between China and Britain. The research subjects are those HSNCMs who have established careers and business connections between China and the UK since 1990. This research pays special attention to relationships between the transnational practice of HSNCMs, brain circulation (or their knowledge exchange with China) and China’s globalisation. Three main topics are discussed in this dissertation: First, it examines the states’ engagement which has a direct impact on transnational mobility of HSNCMs in the UK. Second, it analyzes transnational network building of OCP associations (professional associations of HSNCMs) linking between HSNCMs and China. Third, it discusses individual transnational career and business activities and identity construction of HSNCMs in order to understand China’s brain circulation in the UK context. The main theoretical object of this paper is to combine brain circulation studies with the theoretical framework of transnational migration studies. The findings of this research show that states’ policy engagement (especially China’s initiatives) is very powerful. Through transnational network building of OCP associations, HSNCMs integrate their personal development into the national projects of Mainland China. For individual HSNCMs, their transnational practice is diverse in terms of their different social backgrounds. For most HSNCMs with trans-boundary careers and business practice, their transnational identities are combined with Chinese consciousness. They have set up strategies to develop their careers and business between the sending country and receiving country. The multiple interactions between HSNCMs and China, therefore, have produced a significant impact on the brain circulation of HSNCMs and the globalisation of China.

Engineering : Chemical / M. Tech. (Chemical Engineering)