abstract: There is increasing interest in the medical and behavioral health communities towards developing effective strategies for the treatment of chronic diseases. Among these lie adaptive interventions, which consider adjusting treatment dosages over time based on participant response. Control engineering offers a broad-based solution framework for optimizing the effectiveness of such interventions. In this thesis, an approach is proposed to develop dynamical models and subsequently, hybrid model predictive control schemes for assigning optimal dosages of naltrexone, an opioid antagonist, as treatment for a chronic pain condition known as fibromyalgia. System identification techniques are employed to model the dynamics from the daily diary reports completed by participants of a blind naltrexone intervention trial. These self-reports include assessments of outcomes of interest (e.g., general pain symptoms, sleep quality) and additional external variables (disturbances) that affect these outcomes (e.g., stress, anxiety, and mood). Using prediction-error methods, a multi-input model describing the effect of drug, placebo and other disturbances on outcomes of interest is developed. This discrete time model is approximated by a continuous second order model with zero, which was found to be adequate to capture the dynamics of this intervention. Data from 40 participants in two clinical trials were analyzed and participants were classified as responders and non-responders based on the models obtained from system identification. The dynamical models can be used by a model predictive controller for automated dosage selection of naltrexone using feedback/feedforward control actions in the presence of external disturbances. The clinical requirement for categorical (i.e., discrete-valued) drug dosage levels creates a need for hybrid model predictive control (HMPC). The controller features a multiple degree-of-freedom formulation that enables the user to adjust the speed of setpoint tracking, measured disturbance rejection and unmeasured disturbance rejection independently in the closed loop system. The nominal and robust performance of the proposed control scheme is examined via simulation using system identification models from a representative participant in the naltrexone intervention trial. The controller evaluation described in this thesis gives credibility to the promise and applicability of control engineering principles for optimizing adaptive interventions. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.S. Electrical Engineering 2011

Orientador: Eduardo Carlos Bianchi / Banca: Manoel Cleber de Sampaio Alves / Banca: Reginaldo Teixeira Coelho / O programa de Pós Graduação em Ciência e Tecnologia de Materiais PosMat, tem carater institucional e integra as atividades de pesquisa em materiais de diversos campi da Unesp / Resumo: Os materiais compósitos estão se tornando essenciais e amplamente utilizados na indústria moderna, principalmente nas indústrias aeronáuticas e aeroespacial. Essa notável demanda por este tipo de material, proveniente da junção entre dois ou mais materiais distintos, pode ser explicada pelo resultado alcançado com essa combinação: propriedades específicas e otimizadas para cada aplicação. Devido à anisotropia do material, há a tendência de aparecimento de tensões residuais ou distorções estruturais, após o seu processamento. Para o devido controle destas distorções, é imperativo o processo de usinagem denominado retificação. Nesse processo de usinagem, há a necessidade da utilização de grande quantidade de fluido de corte (refrigeração convencional). Referente a preocupações ambientais, surgem métodos que visam reduzir a utilização abundante de fluidos de corte, como: a refrigeração otimizada, a técnica de mínima quantidade de lubrificação (MQL) e a retificação a seco. O presente trabalho analisou os métodos de lubri-refrigeração citados, na retificação plana de compósitos plásticos reforçados com fibras de carbono (PRFC'S), como alternativas à retificação convencional, buscando mitigar o uso de fluidos de corte no meio industrial. Essa análise através da coleta de dados sobre a eficiência do processo e a qualidade superficial das peças, através das seguintes variáveis de saída: o comportamento de força tangencial de corte, rugosidade, energia específica, relação G (volume de material removido/volume de rebolo desgastado) e microscopia eletrônica de varredura (MEV). Com os resultados obtidos, verificou-se que a técnica de MQL gerou valores mais baixos de força tangencial de corte e energia específica de retificação. Já os métodos convencional e otimizado proporcionaram um menor desgaste da ferramenta de corte, bem como um melhor acabamento superficial / Abstract: Composite materials are becoming essential and largely used in modern industry, mainly is aeronautics and aerospace industries. This notable demand for these materials, generated from the combination of two or more distinct materials, can be explained by some results obtained: unique and optimized properties specific for each application. One of the main reasons for its large use it is their structural composition, which comes from the fusion of two different materials, resulting into excellent structural properties. Due to the material anisotropy, there is a trend of appering residual stresses and structural distortions, after its processing. For the adequade control of these distortions, it is necessary a machining process called grinding. When grinding these materials, there is a need of a great quantity of cutting fluids (conventional lubrication). In relation to the environmental concerns, new methodologies arise, which intend to reduce this large quantity of cutting fluid, like optimized cooling, the minimum quantity lubrification (MQL) technique and dry grinding. The present work analyzed the aforementioned lubri-cooling methods, on surface grinding of carbon fiber reinforced plastic composities (CFRP's), as alternatives to conventional cooling, in order to mitigate the deleterious effects of cutting fluids. This analysis was conducted through data gathering concerning the process efficiency and the the workpiece surface quality, using the following output variables: bahavior of the tangential force, surface roughness, specific grinding energy, G relation and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). With the results obtained, it can be verified that the MQL technique generated the lowest values of tangential cutting force and griding specific energy. The optimized and conventional methods provided the lowest wear of the grinding wheel, as well as the better surface finishing / Mestre

Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-11T19:30:20Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 0 Previous issue date: 2011-02-10Bitstream added on 2014-06-13T18:47:32Z : No. of bitstreams: 1 varasquim_fmfa_me_bauru.pdf: 3736893 bytes, checksum: d77b1a71d89e0f0dfcd0ffcd80e0ad43 (MD5) / Os materiais compósitos estão se tornando essenciais e amplamente utilizados na indústria moderna, principalmente nas indústrias aeronáuticas e aeroespacial. Essa notável demanda por este tipo de material, proveniente da junção entre dois ou mais materiais distintos, pode ser explicada pelo resultado alcançado com essa combinação: propriedades específicas e otimizadas para cada aplicação. Devido à anisotropia do material, há a tendência de aparecimento de tensões residuais ou distorções estruturais, após o seu processamento. Para o devido controle destas distorções, é imperativo o processo de usinagem denominado retificação. Nesse processo de usinagem, há a necessidade da utilização de grande quantidade de fluido de corte (refrigeração convencional). Referente a preocupações ambientais, surgem métodos que visam reduzir a utilização abundante de fluidos de corte, como: a refrigeração otimizada, a técnica de mínima quantidade de lubrificação (MQL) e a retificação a seco. O presente trabalho analisou os métodos de lubri-refrigeração citados, na retificação plana de compósitos plásticos reforçados com fibras de carbono (PRFC'S), como alternativas à retificação convencional, buscando mitigar o uso de fluidos de corte no meio industrial. Essa análise através da coleta de dados sobre a eficiência do processo e a qualidade superficial das peças, através das seguintes variáveis de saída: o comportamento de força tangencial de corte, rugosidade, energia específica, relação G (volume de material removido/volume de rebolo desgastado) e microscopia eletrônica de varredura (MEV). Com os resultados obtidos, verificou-se que a técnica de MQL gerou valores mais baixos de força tangencial de corte e energia específica de retificação. Já os métodos convencional e otimizado proporcionaram um menor desgaste da ferramenta de corte, bem como um melhor acabamento superficial / Composite materials are becoming essential and largely used in modern industry, mainly is aeronautics and aerospace industries. This notable demand for these materials, generated from the combination of two or more distinct materials, can be explained by some results obtained: unique and optimized properties specific for each application. One of the main reasons for its large use it is their structural composition, which comes from the fusion of two different materials, resulting into excellent structural properties. Due to the material anisotropy, there is a trend of appering residual stresses and structural distortions, after its processing. For the adequade control of these distortions, it is necessary a machining process called grinding. When grinding these materials, there is a need of a great quantity of cutting fluids (conventional lubrication). In relation to the environmental concerns, new methodologies arise, which intend to reduce this large quantity of cutting fluid, like optimized cooling, the minimum quantity lubrification (MQL) technique and dry grinding. The present work analyzed the aforementioned lubri-cooling methods, on surface grinding of carbon fiber reinforced plastic composities (CFRP's), as alternatives to conventional cooling, in order to mitigate the deleterious effects of cutting fluids. This analysis was conducted through data gathering concerning the process efficiency and the the workpiece surface quality, using the following output variables: bahavior of the tangential force, surface roughness, specific grinding energy, G relation and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). With the results obtained, it can be verified that the MQL technique generated the lowest values of tangential cutting force and griding specific energy. The optimized and conventional methods provided the lowest wear of the grinding wheel, as well as the better surface finishing

Os problemas de escassez hídrica enfrentados pela região Nordeste do Brasil ocorrem, principalmente, devido às condições climáticas, caracterizadas pela má distribuição das chuvas tanto temporalmente - a maior parte da precipitação anual se concentra em poucos meses - quanto espacialmente. A alta taxa de evaporação da região e a estrutura geológica do solo, predominantemente cristalino, são fatores que contribuem para agravar o problema. Fica evidenciada, portanto, a necessidade de a operação dos sistemas de recursos hídricos ser otimizada, propiciando assim, o seu melhor aproveitamento, com o menor custo para a sociedade. O presente trabalho estuda a operação otimizada dos reservatórios que abastecem a região metropolitana de Fortaleza, no Estado do Ceará, considerando a evaporação. O problema foi tratado através de um procedimento híbrido, proposto recentemente, de algoritmo genético e programação linear. O método permitiu que regras operacionais fossem extraídas sem a necessidade de fixá-las a priori, considerando diferentes condições de importe hídrico e possibilidades hidrológicas para evidenciar a robustez do método. / The problems of water shortage in the Northeast area of Brazil, are mainly due to the weather conditions, characterized by scattered rainfall depending upon the time of the year - the highest annual precipitation is concentrated in a few months - as well as the location. Very high evaporation rates in the region and the geological structure of the soil, mainly of crystalline origin, are factors that worsen shortage of water. Thus, there need for optimal operation of water resources systems, so as to obtain highest benefit at low costs for the society. The present study performs optimized operation of the Fortaleza (Ceará) metropolitan area water supply reservoirs with special attention to water losses by evaporation. The problem has been handled through a recently proposed hybrid procedure, genetic algorithm and linear programming. The method permitted extraction of operational rules without having to hypothesize their structure \"a priori\". Further, it was applied to Fortaleza water supply under different hydrologic conditions and those of inter-basin water transfers to verify the strength of the method employed.

This paper describes the basic concepts of our solution to improve the performance of Ethernet Communication on a Linux Cluster environment by introducing Reliable Low Latency Ethernet Sockets. We show that about 25% of the socket latency can be saved by using our simplified protocol. Especially, we put emphasis on demonstrating that this performance benefit is able to speed up the MPI level communication. Therefore we have developed a new BTL component for Open MPI, an open source MPI-2 implementation which offers with its Modular Component Architecture a nearly ideal environment to implement our changes. Microbenchmarks of MPI collective and Point-to-Point operations were performed. We see a performance improvement of 8% to 16% for LU and SP implementations of the NAS parallel benchmark suite which spends a significant amount of time in the MPI. Practical application tests with Abinit, an electronic structure calculation program, show that the runtime of be nearly halved on a 4 node system. Thus we show evidence that our new Ethernet communication protocol is able to increase the speedup of parallel applications considerably.

Near-field Acoustical Holography is a tool that is conventionally used to visualize sound fields through an inverse process in a three-dimensional space so that either sound field projections or sound source localization can be performed. The visualization is conducted by using sound pressure measurements taken in the near-field region close to the surface of the unknown sound source. Traditional Fourier-based Near-field Acoustical Holography requires a large number of measurement inputs to avoid spatial truncation effects. However, the use of a large number of measurements is usually not feasible since having a large number of microphones is costly, and usually the array is limited in size by the physical environment, thus limiting the practicality of this method. In the present work, because of the desire to reduce the number of microphones required to conduct acoustical holography, a method known as Statistically Optimized Near-field Acoustical Holography initially proposed by Steiner and Hald was analyzed. The main difference between the present work and the concept mentioned by Steiner and Hald is the cylindrical coordinate system employed here for the purpose of experimenting on a bladeless fan, which resembles a cylindrical structure and which could be assumed to be a cylindrical source. The algorithm was first verified <i>via</i> simulations and measurements, and was then applied to experimental data obtained <i>via</i> pressure measurements made with a cylindrical microphone array. Finally, suggestions for noise control strategies for the bladeless fan are described, based on the measurement results.<br>

No description available.

No description available.

Die Reduktion klimaschädlicher Emissionen ist ein wesentliches Ziel im modernen Luftverkehr. Dafür geeignete Ansätze stellen unter anderem emissionsoptimierte Flugprofile sowie der Einsatz hybrid-elektrischer Antriebstechnologien dar. Um damit verbundene Vorteile identifizieren und quantifizieren zu können, wurde am Lehrstuhl für Turbomaschinen und Flugantriebe der TU Dresden ein modularisiertes 1D-Triebwerksmodell entwickelt, welches die Leistungsrechnung und die Emissionen thermischer Flugantriebe im Auslegungspunkt sowie Off-Design (quasi-stationär) abbilden kann. Im Rahmen dieser Forschungsarbeit wird zunächst die Validierung des bestehenden Modells vertieft und dieses um ausgewählte thermische Triebwerksarchitekturen erweitert. Dabei stehen die Emissionsberechnung und der Off-Design-Betrieb aller Triebwerkskomponenten im Fokus. Von besonderer Bedeutung und Hauptteil der Arbeit ist die Integration hybrider Antriebskonzepte am Triebwerk selbst sowie hinsichtlich notwendiger Komponenten wie bspw. E-Maschinen und Batterie. Teil dessen ist die Literaturrecherche der Funktionsweise und die Ausarbeitung von Modellierungsansätzen zur Umsetzung hybrid-elektrischer Teilkomponenten und deren Verknüpfung zu Triebwerksarchitekturen. Die Implementierung und Validierung für stationäre On- und Off-Design-Berechnungen ist wesentlicher Bestandteil der Arbeit. Das entwickelte Triebwerksmodell kann für die vergleichende Betrachtung ausgewählter Triebwerksarchitekturen und Flugzyklen angewendet werden und liefert somit eine Grundlage für de-ren Optimierung. Der Brennstoffverbrauch und entstehende Emissionen können für verschiedene Triebwerke und Flugmissionen konkret ausgerechnet und abgeschätzt werden. Die Ergebnisse dienen als Grundlage für die Entwicklung neuer hocheffizienter Triebwerke. Dies ermöglicht die gezielte Reduzierung von Emissionen im Luftverkehr für konventionelle sowie für revolutionäre, fortschrittliche und noch in der Entwicklung befindliche Triebwerke.:Problem Zielstellung Methodik Ergebnisse Zusammenfassung

Asynchronous iterative algorithms are parallel iterative algorithms in which communications and iterations are not synchronized among processors. Thus, as soon as a processing unit finishes its own calculations, it starts the next cycle with the latest data received during a previous cycle, without waiting for any other processing unit to complete its own calculation. These algorithms increase the number of updates in some processors (as compared to the synchronous case) but suppress most idle times. This usually results in a reduction of the (execution) time to achieve convergence. Optimized Schwarz methods (OSM) are domain decomposition methods in which the transmission conditions between subdomains contain operators of the form \linebreak $\partial/\partial \nu +\Lambda$, where $\partial/\partial \nu$ is the outward normal derivative and $\Lambda$ is an optimized local approximation of the global Steklov-Poincar\'e operator. There is more than one family of transmission conditions that can be used for a given partial differential equation (e.g., the $OO0$ and $OO2$ families), each of these families containing a particular approximation of the Steklov-Poincar\'e operator. These transmission conditions have some parameters that are tuned to obtain a fast convergence rate. Optimized Schwarz methods are fast in terms of iteration count and can be implemented asynchronously. In this thesis we analyze the convergence behavior of the synchronous and asynchronous implementation of OSM applied to solve partial differential equations with a shifted Laplacian operator in bounded rectangular domains. We analyze two cases. In the first case we have a shift that can be either positive, negative or zero, a one-way domain decomposition and transmission conditions of the $OO2$ family. In the second case we have Poisson's equation, a domain decomposition with cross-points and $OO0$ transmission conditions. In both cases we reformulate the equations defining the problem into a fixed point iteration that is suitable for our analysis, then derive convergence proofs and analyze how the convergence rate varies with the number of subdomains, the amount of overlap, and the values of the parameters introduced in the transmission conditions. Additionally, we find the optimal values of the parameters and present some numerical experiments for the second case illustrating our theoretical results. To our knowledge this is the first time that a convergence analysis of optimized Schwarz is presented for bounded subdomains with multiple subdomains and arbitrary overlap. The analysis presented in this thesis also applies to problems with more general domains which can be decomposed as a union of rectangles. / Mathematics