Le marché des convertisseurs analogique-numérique peut être segmenté en deux catégories de circuits. Nous distinguons d’une part, les blocs de propriété intellectuelle (IP) qui sont généralement optimisés pour une application spécifique. Et d’autre part, les circuits intégrés discrets qui sont conçus pour répondre aux besoins d’une plus large gamme d’applications. Ce travail de thèse concerne la deuxième catégorie de composants. Il s’inscrit dans le cadre d'un programme de recherche et développement initié en 2010 dans le projet européen FP7 SACRA et dont le but était d'étudier la faisabilité d'un convertisseur analogique-numérique Delta-Sigma (DS) qui pourrait rivaliser avec l'architecture pipeline pour des applications nécessitant une large bande passante (≥10MHz) et une haute résolution (>10-bit) comme l’imagerie médicale, les communications numériques sans fils ou câblées, la vidéo ou encore l’instrumentation. Ce manuscrit synthétise les travaux de conception, fabrication et mesure d’un modulateur DS Passe-bas à temps continu avec une bande passante de 40MHz, et visant une résolution effective de 12-bit tout en consommant moins de 100mW. / The market of A/D converters can be segmented in two categories. From one side we distinguish the Intellectual Property (IP) blocks that are generally optimized for a specific application. On the other side, the general-purpose discrete Integrated Circuits (ICs) that are designed such as they could be used in different applications. This thesis work deals with the second category. It is part of a research and development program initiated in 2010 in the European project FP7 SACRA, whose purpose was to study the feasibility of a delta-sigma (DS) analog-to-digital converter that could compete with the pipeline architecture for applications that require high bandwidth (≥10MHz) and high resolution (>10-bit) such as medical imaging, wireless and wireline communications, video or instrumentation. Currently, the pipeline is still largely predominant for such applications and the few commercial wideband solutions based on a DS architecture have a signal bandwidth limited to 10 MHz or 25 MHz while consuming respectively 100mW and 20mW for an ENOB around 12-bit. This manuscript summarizes the design, fabrication and measurement of a low-pass CT DS modulator with a signal bandwidth of 40MHz, while targeting an effective resolution of 12-bit and a power consumption of less than 100mW.

Large scale production of accessible media above and beyond DAISY Talking Books requires management of the workflow from the initial scan to the output of the media production. DAISY Producer was created to help manage this process. It tracks the transformation of hard copy or electronic content to DTBook XML at any stage of the workflow and interfaces to existing order processing systems. Making use of DAISY Pipeline and Liblouis, DAISY Producer fully automates the generation of on-demand, user-specific DAISY Talking Books, Large Print and Braille. This paper introduces DAISY Producer and shows how creators of accessible media can benefit from this open source tool.

Vatten- och avloppssystem har stor betydelse i moderna samhällen där dag-, spill- och dricksvatten måste hanteras. En del av vatten- och avloppssystemen är ledningar förlagda i marken vars syfte är att försörja bostäder och verksamheter med vatten samt att avleda dag- och spillvatten. Stockholm Vatten och Avfall äger och förvaltar totalt över 200 mil vattenledningar och 300 mil avloppsledningar i Stockholm. Att nylägga ledningar och omlägga det befintliga ledningsnätet kräver att hållbara investeringsbeslut tas i ett tidigt skede av projekt. Vid uppskattning av kostnader för ett ledningsarbete måste flera olika kostnader beaktas, framförallt kostnader för schaktmassor, maskiner och material. För att göra detta har Stockholm Vatten och Avfall tidigare använt sig av ett kalkylverktyg som uppskattar kostnaden för ett ledningsarbete i schaktad rörgrav. Detta kalkylverktyg baseras på á-priser som inte är aktuella för dagens läge. För att göra kalkylverktyget användbart med dagens priser har referensprojekt insamlats och delats upp i kategorierna extern entreprenör och egen regi och därefter innerstad och ytterstad med tillhörande indata och ekonomiska fakta. Utifrån uppdelningarna har faktorer beräknats som utdata från kalkylverktyget multiplicerats med och därefter jämförts med kalkylverktyget när verktygets á-priser blivit uppdaterade. En regressions – och korrelationsanalys gjordes därefter för att bestämma vilken av metoderna som beskriver referensprojekten bäst och den största korrelationen visade sig vara hos kalkylverktyget med uppdaterade á-priser. / Water- and waste water systems plays a huge role in today’s management of storm-, waste and drinking water. Part of the water- and waste water systems are pipelines located below ground level whose purpose is to supply homes, schools and companies with water and to drain storm – and waste water. Stockholm Vatten och Avfall manages over 200 Swedish miles of water pipelines and 300 Swedish miles of waste water pipelines in Stockholm. Adding new pipelines to the system and change the existing pipelines requires sustainable investment decisions to be taken at early stages of projects. When estimating the costs of a pipeline construction project, many different costs has to be taken into account, especially the excavation costs and machinery and materials costs. In order to do this, Stockholm Vatten och Avfall has previously been using a calculation tool that estimates the cost of a pipeline construction project in an excavated pipeline trench. This calculation tool is based on prices that are not current for current conditions. In order to make the calculation tool useful with today’s prices, reference projects have been collected and divided into inner city and suburban areas along with inputs and economic facts. Based on these inputs, factors have been calculated which the output from the calculation tool has been multiplied with and then been compared t o the calculation tool after the tool’s prices have been updated. A regression – and correlation analysis was then made to determine which of the methods best describe the reference projects and the largest correlation was found in the calculation tool with updated prices.

The ever-increasing growth of data demands reliable data-base system with high-throughput and low-latency. Main memory-based column store database systems are state-of-the-art on this perspective, whereby data (values) in relational tables are organized by columns rather than by rows. In such systems, a full column scan is a fundamental key operation and thus, the optimization of the key operation is very crucial. This leads to have compact storage layout based fast column scan techniques through intra-value parallelism. For this reason, we investigated on different well-known fast column scan techniques using SIMD (Single Instruction Multiple Data) vectorization as well as using Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA). Moreover, we present selective results of our exhaustive evaluation. Based on this evaluation, we find out the best column scan technique as per implementation mechanism–FPGA and SIMD. Finally, we conclude this paper via mentioning some lessons learned for our ongoing research activities.

Цель работы – создание математической модели технологического процесса энергопотребления здания, создание набора данных, создание нейросети для прогнозирования энергопотребления здания, выявление закономерностей и аномалий. Объект исследования – энергопотребление здания. Рассматриваются различные факторы, такие как работа системы кондиционирования, системы подачи воды, бытовые приборы, освещение помещения. Детально рассмотрена система кондиционирования. Построена математическая модель в итераторе OpenModelica, учитывающая факторы внешней и внутренней среды здания. Собран набор данных в формате .csv. Проведён анализ результатов, выявлены взаимодействия признаков системы, аномалии влияющие на энергопотребление здания. Написана нейросеть прогнозирующая энергопотребление здания, создан pipeline для выявления и визуализации аномалий. Результаты представлены на графиках, сделаны выводы. В ходе полученных результатов были предложены методы оптимизации работы системы, которые привели к экономическому и экологическому эффекту. / The purpose of the work is to create a mathematical model of the technological process of energy consumption of a building, create a data set, create a neural network to predict the energy consumption of a building, identify patterns and anomalies. The object of study is the energy consumption of the building. Various factors are considered, such as the operation of the air conditioning system, water supply system, household appliances, and room lighting. The air conditioning system is examined in detail. A mathematical model was built in the OpenModelica iterator, considering the factors of the external and internal environment of the building. Collected data set in .csv format. An analysis of the results was carried out, interactions of system characteristics and anomalies affecting the energy consumption of the building were identified. A neural network was written to predict the energy consumption of a building, and a pipeline was created to identify and visualize anomalies. The results are presented in graphs and conclusions are drawn. As a result of the results obtained, methods were proposed to optimize the operation of the system, which led to economic and environmental benefits.

Centrosomes are microtubule-based organelles composed of two centrioles and peri-centriolar material, involved in the formation and organization of the mitotic spindle, serving as microtubule-organizing center and involved in ciliogenesis. Supernumerary centrosomes are detrimental for cell physiology and activate the PIDDosome, a multi-protein complex that serves as a platform for the activation of Caspase-2, composed of: PIDD1, RAIDD and Caspase-2 itself. Caspase-2’s preferred cleavage site based on peptide screening is VDVAD, however Caspase-2, when activated via the PIDDosome, cleaves its bona fide substrate MDM2 (negative p53 regulator) in the FDVPD sequence. Here, I present evidence for VDVADase activity in apoptotic cells lacking Caspase-2, which suggests that this cleavage site is not Caspase-2 specific when the Caspase-2 activation occurs via the PIDDosome. In order to investigate if the mode of activation of Caspase-2 determines its substrate specificities I performed a Caspase-2 rescue experiment and introduced several mutations affecting the Caspase-2 autoproteolytic-processing. Furthermore, I present evidence that exogenous Caspase-2 is able to form the PIDDosome and cleaves MDM2 but when key autoproteolytic sites are mutated no MDM2 cleavage is detectable. Supernumerary centrosomes also accumulate upon overexpression of PLK4 (a kinase regulator of the centriole duplication). Immunofluorescence images of cells overexpressing PLK4 were taken following the centrioles quantification over time. Consequently, a large amount of image data was accumulated, which necessitated the development of a semi-automated pipeline for centrioles counting. This pipeline was generated using the image processing and analysis tool ImageJ and the deep learning segmentation tool MitoS together with the pretrained MitoSegNet model, which was finetuned to count centrioles stained against different centrosomal epitopes, namely Centrin 1, γ-Tubulin and ANKRD26. This semi-automated method of centrioles quantification is easy to use, reproducible and faster than manual quantification. Using this pipeline to quantify centrioles in p53, SCLT1 or ANKRD26 lacking cells we demonstrate accumulation of supernumerary centrosomes in these cells similar to parental cells. / I centrosomi sono organelli cellulari a base di microtubuli, composti da due centrioli e dal materiale pericentriolare che li circonda. I centrosomi sono coinvolti nell'organizzazione dei microtubuli, nella formazione del fuso mitotico e nella ciliogenesi. I centrosomi soprannumerari sono dannosi per la fisiologia cellulare e attivano il PIDDosoma, un complesso multiproteico, composto da PIDD1, RAIDD e Caspasi-2, che funge da piattaforma per l'attivazione della caspasi stessa. Il sito preferenziale di proteolisi di Caspasi-2 è stato individuato tramite screening peptidico nella sequenza VDVAD. Nonostante ciò, quando attivata tramite il PIDDosoma, Caspasi-2 scinde il suo substrato di elezione MDM2 (regolatore negativo di p53) a livello della sequenza FDVPD. In questa tesi presento evidenze di attività VDVAD-asica in cellule apoptotiche prive di Caspasi-2, suggerendo che questo sito di taglio non sia specifico di Caspasi-2 quando la sua attivazione avviene tramite il PIDDosoma. Al fine di indagare se la modalità di attivazione della proteasi determina le sue specificità di substrato, ho eseguito esperimenti di complementazione di Caspasi-2 facendo uso di diversi mutanti che influenzano il suo processamento autoproteolitico. Inoltre, presento prove che Caspasi-2 esogena è in grado di assemblare il PIDDosoma e proteolizzare MDM2 ma quando i suoi siti chiave di autoproteolisi sono mutati non è rilevabile il taglio di MDM2. I centrosomi soprannumerari si accumulano anche in caso di sovraespressione di PLK4 (chinasi regolatrice della duplicazione dei centrioli). Immagini di immunofluorescenza di cellule che sovraesprimono PLK4 sono state acquisite seguendo la cinetica di accumulo dei centrioli nel tempo. Di conseguenza, l’ingente mole di dati generati ha reso necessario lo sviluppo di una procedura semiautomatica per la conta dei centrioli. Questa pipeline è stata generata utilizzando il programma di elaborazione e analisi di immagini ImageJ e il programma di segmentazione basato su deep learning MitoS, insieme al modello MitoSegNet, che è stato affinato per la conta dei centrioli evidenziati tramite immunofluorescenza diretta contro diversi epitopi centrosomiali, ossia: Centrin 1, γ-Tubulina e ANKRD26. Questo metodo semiautomatico di quantificazione dei centrioli è facile da usare, riproducibile e più veloce della quantificazione manuale. Utilizzando questa procedura per quantificare i centrioli nelle cellule prive di p53, SCLT1 o ANKRD26, dimostriamo che l'accumulo di centrosomi soprannumerari in queste cellule è simile a quello riscontrato nelle cellule parentali.

Multiphase flow is the simultaneous flow of two or several phases through a system such as a pipe. This common phenomenon can be found in the petroleum and chemical engineering industrial fields. Transport of sand particles in multiphase production has attracted considerable attention given sand production is a common problem especially to the oil and gas industry. The sand production causes loss of pipe wall thickness which can lead to expensive failures and loss of production time. Build-up of sand in the system can result in blockage and further hamper production. Monitoring of multiphase flow is a process that has been established over several decades. This thesis reports an assessment of the application of Acoustic Emission (AE) technology as an alternative online technique to monitoring of sand particles under multiphase flow conditions in a horizontal pipe. The research was conducted on a purpose built test rig with the purpose of establishing a relation between AE activity and sand concentration under different multiphase flow conditions. The investigation consisted of five experimental tests. The initial experiment was performed to provide a basis for the application of AE technology to detect sand particle impact prior to performing tests in multiphase flow conditions. Further investigations are reported on two phase air-sand, water-sand and air- water-sand three-phase flows in a horizontal pipe for different superficial gas velocities (VSG), superficial liquid velocities (VSL) and sand concentrations (SC). The experimental findings clearly showed a correlation exists between AE energy levels and multiphase flow parameters, such as superficial liquid velocity (VSL), superficial gas velocity (VSG), sand concentration and sand minimum transport condition (MTC).

Identifying new potential customers and developing opportunities until converted to sales is a critical function of a sales organization. In most industrial business contexts, opportunities are monitored within a sales pipeline or funnel, to track the status and progress from the initial stage until the sale is completed, often using sales force automation tools, such as customer relationship management (CRM) systems to manage the process. While much is written about the adoption, usage, and failures of CRM, little empirical research exists to fully examine the levers to improve the conversion performance of sales leads, particularly in a business-to-business (B2B) industrial context. The research based view (RBV) of the firm suggests that competitive advantage is gained from a company’s distinct resources, and that in technology and other fast-paced markets, success is further determined by fast adaptation, in what is know as dynamic capability theory. This research examined certain key sales capabilities, within the high technology industrial B2B sector, to understand the impact of sales effort, sales ability and lead source, on sales lead conversion yield and cycle time. By studying the extensive CRM data base of a large semiconductor company, along with various human resource records, a quantitative study was performed to address this research, while providing useful value to sales managers seeking to improve the lead conversion performance of their organizations. Sales effort, as measured by number of sales calls made per week, and percent of time spent on selling activities was shown to modestly accelerate sales cycle times, but have no effect on the percentage of opportunities that result in wins. Sales ability, measured by annual performance ratings, prior year quota attainment and years of experience showed no effect on cycle time, nor win percentage. The most notable contribution of this research is the illumination of sales effort effects on cycle time, as previous studies of sales cycle time influences have been inconclusive. Against the backdrop of a general lengthening of industrial sales cycle times, understanding that salesperson effort can reduce the time that it takes to win an opportunity can drive meaningful improvements in salesforce efficiency and productivity.

The purpose of this report is to focus on the school-to-prison pipeline and the need to intervene with school discipline that pushes students out of the classroom and into the criminal justice system. It showcases services and programs in Austin, Texas, including Southwest Keys, Webb Youth Court, and Council on At-Risk Youth as examples for solutions. The report also incorporates research and expert advice on the safety and wellbeing of students while advocating a need to change the policies and culture surrounding schools. / text

The general aim of the study was to determine the influence of entrepreneurial orientation on the perceived success of the pipeline gas company. This type of study has not been conducted previously for such a pipeline gas company and as such, a valuable contribution could be made to a more effective entrepreneurial orientation in the business environment. Two questionnaires were administered, which focused on entrepreneurial orientation and perceived success of business respectively. A response rate of 87.63% was obtained from a sample of 97 employees at management level in the pipeline gas company concerned. The results showed a statistically significant positive relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and business development as variable of business success. The data also revealed correlations among the dimensions of entrepreneurial orientation, some with significant differences for various demographic groups and their level of entrepreneurial skills. Limitations within the study were discussed and recommendations were made for future research. / MBA, North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2014