Dans le cadre des communications numériques sans fil, la vitesse d'échange de données (débit) reste toujours une des caractéristiques qui limite la performance du système. Une diminution des temps d¿échange est donc nécessaire pour l'amélioration de la performance et l'introduction des nouvelles applications. Des applications comme " Wireless HD " rendent possible la transmission sans fil de vidéo non-compressée " à haute définition (débit = 4 Gbps) " Kiosk Downloading " permettrait l'échange de données à haut débit (1-2 Gbps) sur une courte portée (1 -2 mts). Pour atteindre ce débit, la bande autour de 60 GHz est donc visée pour profiter de ses 7 GHz de bande passante disponibles. Dans le cadre du projet PANAMA, un intérêt spécial est aussi donné à l'efficacité du système transmetteur (Amplificateur de Puissance et Antenne) et ce sera donc un autre axe de notre recherche : l'étude des stratégies pour l'amélioration du rendement énergétique global. On se concentrera surtout sur la connexion PA ' Antenne qui donnera lieu aux stratégies de co-intégration et de co-conception. Plusieurs problématiques doivent être confrontées : la co-simulation (actif et passif) ainsi que la mesure des antennes dans cette bande millimétrique. Cette haute fréquence introduit des limitations, notamment sur les performances de l'antenne. Ainsi le but de cette thèse est de proposer des solutions d'antennes qui remplissent les besoins de l'application (solutions basée sur le résonateur diélectrique). La solution complète des systèmes intégrés doit comprendre également des solutions encapsulées ( "packaged " ), sujet aussi abordé dans ce travail.

Abilia utvecklar, tillverkar och säljer tekniska hjälpmedel till personer som antingen har en fysisk eller psykisk begränsning som påverkar deras vardag. För att dra ner på kostnaderna och få en bättre enhetlighet vill Abilia att ytterförpackningarna ska standardiseras samt att ett flexibelt inrede som ska kunna anpassas till många av företagets produkter utvecklas. En förstudie lade grunden för projektet där många olika områden och metoder undersöktes. De existerade förpackningarna utvärderades, deras och produkternas livscykel kartlades varpå det framgick vilka som var projektets huvudanvändare. Dessa intervjuades och en kravspecifikation kunde sedan fastställas. Förstudien resulterade i att det fanns två grupper av produkter som lösningen måste kunna anpassas till. Lösningen måste även vara flexibel både för produkterna och för dess tillbehör. Hjälpmedelscentralerna som visade sig vara projektets huvudanvändare hade krav att lösningen skulle vara hållbar och ge förpackningen en strukturerad insida. Koncept genererades med hjälp av en praktisk idégenerering som resulterade i olika former och konstruktioner. Konceptval genomfördes genom diskussion med personal från Abilia samt genom en viktad konceptvalsmatris. Projektet resulterade i ett flexibelt och hållbart inrede i två lösningar. En produktpresentationsdel som har en konstruktion med nedvikbara flikar som gör det möjligt att kila fast produkter oberoende av storlek samt en flexibel tillbehörsdel som både kan regleras i höjdled och sidled. Lösningen uppfyller kraven från kravspecifikationen och har verifierats av experter inom området att den fungerar i verkliga situationer. Materialet i lösningen är det bäst anpassade för funktionen och är även det material som har lägst miljöpåverkan av de som undersöktes i projektet. / Abilia develops, manufactures and sells aids for people who have either a physical or mental limitations that affect their everyday lives. In order to save money and get a better uniformity Abilia want to standardize the packaging and develop a flexible interior that can be adapted to many of the company’s products. A pilot study laid the foundation for the project where many different areas and methods were examined. The existing packages were evaluated, and their and the products lifecycles were identified and that made it clear who the projects user was. They were interviewed and a product specification could be established. The pilot study resulted that it was two groups of products and the solution must be able to adapt to both. The solution must also be flexible to the products and their accessories. The Hjälpmedelscentralerna turned out to be the users in this project and they had requirements that the solution must be sustainable and provide a more structured inside of the packaging. Concepts were generated with a practical idea generation that resulted in different forms and constructions. The concept selection was made after discussion with the staff from Abilia and through a balanced concept selection matrix. The project resulted in a flexible and durable interior in two parts. A product presentation part which has a design with folddown flaps that allows the product to get stuck no matter which size and a flexible accessory which can be adjusted both vertically and horizontally. The solution fulfills the requirements from the product specification and has been verified by expert that it would work in real situation. The material in the solution is the best suited for the function and it is also the material with the lowest environmental impact of those surveyed in the project.

Ontarians are producing more waste per capita than previous generations and consuming more bottled water. Using the product policy quadrangle developed by Oosternhuis (1996), the research examines four components of Ontario bottled water packaging policy— policy objectives, policy instruments, product groups and actors. Interviews with Ontario experts reveal stakeholder communication and Extended Producer Responsibility can promote packaging minimization. There was no agreement about whether Ontario has a waste policy framework to support bottled water waste reduction, reuse and recycling. Stakeholders did agree that a policy framework can help to promote packaging minimization. The discussion will examine the following: various concepts to support zero waste, eco-labelling, policy objectives, enforcement, use of language, focus on financial obligations, deposit-return systems, refillable containers, bottle standardization, waste minimization, how waste is measured, an evaluation of the waste hierarchy, reporting waste reduction and reuse, learning from history and alternative methods of encouraging the consumption of municipal water. The research recommends these changes be implemented with the development of the new Waste Diversion Act. The research recommends that Ontario implement Integrated Product Policy and Extended Producer Responsibility to support packaging minimization.

Submerge into the world of Sustainable design with this researchproject that offers a thorough analysis of the latest techniques and examplesof environmental friendly products, learn how a decision support model isable to assist in making important design choices and discover how simple itcan be to follow a design framework to find solutions to design problems inthe most unexpected places, while at the same time creating lean “fat free”environmental products.The latest examples of environmental products include the first concept zeroemissionocean transport vessel, the Wallenius Wilhelmsen E/S Orcelle, abalanced combination of esthetics, sustainability and function in the SonyEricsson’s Green Heart packaging, and finally a great example of materialengineering Billerud’s FibreForm which is an innovative and environmentallyfriendly material that can replace plastic.Biomimicry which is a new discipline that studies “nature’s way” and thenimitates this designs and processes to solve design problems when integratedin a design framework that considers; function form and lifecycle is able toguide designers to create products that achieve environmental, social andeconomical sustainability that can raise quality of life and that enablehumanity to increase innovations without sacrificing our future.

In today’s competitive global economy, the focus is on faster delivery of orders at lower total costs. In this paper we are interested in several aspects of order picking systems. We examine the influence of station layout, storage policy, picking policy and sorting solution on order picking system performance. On each of the analysis we consider a few solutions. We determine influence of different number of station in raw on picking system performance. We design the replenishment system supported by kanban philosophy with implemented economical order quantity (EOQ) and reorder point (ROP). The picking system is designed for assumed product’s demand values. The assessment of each of the solution is done through Arena simulation model. The results show that properly designed station with reasonable storage policy and implemented batching policy brings significant raise in order picking system productivity. In addition, we found that proper sortation system logic allows for more equal workload and reduction of maximum queue lengths. The results offer solutions to managers looking to implement improvements in order picking systems.

Ontarians are producing more waste per capita than previous generations and consuming more bottled water. Using the product policy quadrangle developed by Oosternhuis (1996), the research examines four components of Ontario bottled water packaging policy— policy objectives, policy instruments, product groups and actors. Interviews with Ontario experts reveal stakeholder communication and Extended Producer Responsibility can promote packaging minimization. There was no agreement about whether Ontario has a waste policy framework to support bottled water waste reduction, reuse and recycling. Stakeholders did agree that a policy framework can help to promote packaging minimization. The discussion will examine the following: various concepts to support zero waste, eco-labelling, policy objectives, enforcement, use of language, focus on financial obligations, deposit-return systems, refillable containers, bottle standardization, waste minimization, how waste is measured, an evaluation of the waste hierarchy, reporting waste reduction and reuse, learning from history and alternative methods of encouraging the consumption of municipal water. The research recommends these changes be implemented with the development of the new Waste Diversion Act. The research recommends that Ontario implement Integrated Product Policy and Extended Producer Responsibility to support packaging minimization.

This thesis presents the design and fabrication of coplanar waveguide to microstrip transitions and planar spiral inductors, and the design of metal-insulator-metal capacitors, a planar band-pass, and a low-pass filter structures as an application for the inductors and capacitors using the RF MEMS technology. This thesis also includes a packaging method for RF MEMS devices with the use of benzocyclobutene as bonding material. The transition structures are formed by four different methods between coplanar waveguide end and microstrip end, and they are analyzed in 1-20 GHz. Very low loss transitions are obtained by maintaining constant characteristic impedance which is the same as the port impedance through the transition structures. The planar inductors are formed by square microstrip spirals on a glass substrate. Using the self-inductance propery of a conductive strip and the mutual inductance between two conductor strips in a proper arrangement, the inductance value of each structure is defined. Inductors from 0.7 nH up to 20 nH have been designed and fabricated. The metal-insulator-metal capacitors are formed by two coplanar waveguide structures. In the intersection, one end of a coplanar waveguide is placed on top of the end of the other coplanar waveguide with a dielectric layer in between. Using the theory of parallel plate capacitors, the capacitance of each structure is adjusted by the dimensions of the coplanar waveguides, which obviously adjust the area of intersection. Capacitors from 0.3 pF up to 9.8 pF have been designed. A low-pass filter and a band-pass filter are designed using the capacitors and inductors developed in this thesis. In addition to lumped elements, the interconnecting transmission lines, junctions and input-output lines are added to filter topologies. The RF MEMS packaging is realized on a coplanar waveguide structure which stands on a silicon wafer and encapsulated by a silicon wafer. The capping chip stands on the BCB outer ring which promotes adhesion and provides semi hermeticity. Keywords: Transition between transmission lines, planar spiral inductor, metal-insulator-metal capacitor, RF MEMS packaging, surface micromachining.

Low noise, directional microphones are critical for hearing aid applications. This thesis is focused on further development of a biomimetic micromachined directional microphone based on the ear structure of the Ormia Ochracea, a parasitic fly able to locate sound sources in the audio frequency range with high accuracy. The development efforts have been on implementing a version of the microphone for a behind the ear (BTE) package while improving the overall optical efficiency and noise level, demonstrating pulsed laser operation for reduced power consumption, and electrostatic control of the microphone diaphragm position for stable operation over a long time. The new packaging method for the microphone addressed the need for tighter placement tolerances along with a redesigned diaphragm and integration of a microscale optical lens array to improve the optical efficiency of the device. The completed packages were characterized for sensitivity improvement and optical efficiency. The overall optical efficiency was significantly increased from less than 1% to the photo diode array collecting 50% of the emitted optical power from the Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Laser (VCSEL). This, coupled with the new diaphragm design, improved the acoustic performance of the microphones. Consequently, the noise levels recorded on the devices were about 31 dBA SPL, more than 15dB better than conventional directional microphones with nearly 10 times larger port spacing. Since the application for this technology is hearing aids, the power consumed by the working device needs to be at an acceptable level. The majority of the power used by the microphone is from continuously operating the VCSEL with 2mW optical output power. To reduce this power requirement, it was suggested to pulse the VCSEL at high enough frequency with low duty cycle so that the acoustic signals can be recovered from its samples. In this study, it was found that the VCSEL can be pulsed with little to no degradation in signal to noise ratio as long as the thermal mechanical noise dominated the noise spectrum. The results also indicated that a pulse train with a duty cycle of around 20% can be used without a major loss of performance in the device, meaning the device can effectively run at 1/5 of its original power under pulsed operation mode. Finally, a control technique to overcome some inherent problems of the microphone was demonstrated. Since the optical sensitivity of the microphone depends on the gap between the diaphragm grating and the integrated mirror, it is important to keep that bias gap constant during long term operation against environmental variations and charging effects. Using a simple electrostatic bias controller scheme, the sensitivity variation of the microphone was improved by a factor of 7.68 with bias control. Overall, this thesis has addressed several important aspects of a micromachined biomimetic microphone and further demonstrated its feasibility for hearing aid applications.

Traditional topics such as physics, chemistry and mathematics have immensely changed the world in the twentieth century, but the twenty-first century seems to be that of soft condensed matter physics, which has already shown its tremendous possibilities to influence the everyday human life through its technological manifestations such as biotechnology and soft nano technology. Unlike the traditional topics, soft condensed matter physics has an interdisciplinary nature. It studies systems that usually come under chemistry or biology, using the methods of physics and mathematics and hence, transcends the frontiers between the subjects. Soft matter may be classified into three main classes; colloidal dispersions, polymers and polymer melts and liquid crystals. Study of single polymer chains is a fascinating topic that provides insights to understand many processes occurring in biological systems. Here, we present analytical studies of a few such processes, involving single polymer chains. In fact, there are a number of biological processes, which involve the dynamics of a single polymer chain. Due to the importance of Brownian motion at the mesoscopic level, soft matter systems are always studied using the analytical as well as computational methods of statistical mechanics. The statistical mechanics of polymers has been developed into a fascinating topic due to the contributions from the theory of random walks and path integrals. The dynamical behavior of many-particle systems has been described traditionally by the so-called rate theories. Here, we use these classical approaches to study a few biological processes that involve single polymer chains. The kind of processes that we have investigated may be categorized into two, namely the processes that leads to conformational changes in a chain molecule and the processes involving spatial translocation of a polymer. In the first category, we have considered the dynamics of semiflexible polymer loops. Loop formation of chain molecules has a key role in biological processes like DNA replication, gene regulation and protein folding. Hence, the dynamics of a polymer closing to form a loop as well as opening of the loop are topics of considerable theoretical/experimental interest. For closing, results are available in the completely flexible limit. Wilemski and Fixman, (J. Chem. Phys.60, 878 (1974)) have studied the closing and opening reactions in a single flexible polymer chain and using their approach Doi found the closing time to vary with the length of the chain as L2 . Szabo, Schul-ten, and Schulten, (J. Chem. Phys. 72, 4350 (1980)) have used mean first passage time approach and they find that the closure time vary as L3/2. Both approaches have been compared with simulations (Pastor et.al, J. Chem. Phys., 105, 3878 (1996), Srinivas et. al,116,7276 (2002)). In the case of semiflexible chains, studies are fewer in comparison. However, real polymers such as DNA, RNA or proteins are not flexible and therefore, it is important to incorporate the intrinsic stiffness of the chain into account. In the worm-like chain model, the chain is described as a continuous, inextensible and differentiable space curve represented by the position vector r(s), where s is the arc length. Inextensibility of the chain requires that the tangent vector, u(s) = ∂r(s)/∂s, at any point on the curve must have unit magnitude, i.e, |u(s)| = 1. But incorporating this constraint has been a difficult problem in dealing with semiflexible polymers. Yamakawa and Stockmayer (J. Chem. Phys., 57, 2843 (1972)) and Shimada and Yamakawa (Macromolecules, 17, 689 (1984)) have calculated ring closure probabilities for worm-like chains and helical worm-like chains. Cherayil and Dua (J. Chem. Phys., 116, 399 (2002)) have calculated closure time for a semiflexible chain using the approximate model for semiflexible chains by Har-nau, Winkler and Reineker (J. Chem. Phys., 101, 8119 (1994)) and find that the closure time ~ Lν where ν is in the range 2.2 to 2.4. Physically, one expects that the closing time should decrease exponentially with length in the very short chain limit and then increase with length for longer chains. Hence, the closing time has a minimum at an intermediate length. The reason for this behavior is that, for short chains, the bending energy contributes significantly to the activation energy for the process. The activation energy ~ const./L and hence, the closing time τ ~ exp(const./L). For longer chains, the free energy barrier for closing is due to the configurational entropy and hence, τ obeys a power law. Recently, Jun et. al (Europhys. Lett., 64, 420 (2003)) have followed an approximate one dimensional Kramers approach to reproduce this behavior and obtained the minimum at a length Lmin = 3.4lp, where lp is the persistence length of the chain. Monte Carlo simulations by Chen et.al (Europhys. Lett., 65, 407 (2004)) lead Lmin = 2.85lp. We investigate (K. P. Santo and K. L. Sebastian, Phys. Rev. E, 73, 031923, (2006)) in detail the problem of loop opening for semiflexible polymers. The inextensibility constraint is incorporated rigorously by setting u(s) to be a unit vector in the angular direction (θ, φ) and the conformations of the polymer are then represented by Brownian motion over a unit sphere in the tangent vector space. We use the worm-like chain model, which takes into account the bending rigidity of the polymer. The bending energy can then be given in terms of the angle coordinates θ and φ. For the dynamics, we make use of a semiclassical approach, which is based on expanding the bending energy about a minimum energy path. For the sake of simplicity, we take the great circle on the unit sphere to be the minimum energy configuration of the loop and expand the bending energy up to second order in terms of fluctuations about this configuration. We find that, this is a very good approximation in the large stiffness limit, as this approach leads to a minimum energy value, which is very close to the exact calculations. The loop is unstable, unless the ends are bound to each other with a potential. Once the two ends have been brought together, they can separate from each other in any of the three directions in space. Considering the ring to be in the XY plane with the ends meeting in the Y-axis, we find that the separation in the X and Z directions are unstable as motion in these directions lead to decrease in bending energy. But the motion in the other direction, that is, the Y direction leads to increase in energy and is stable. Therefore, we choose the potential to be of Morse type in the X-direction and stable harmonic ones in the other two directions. With this, the potential energy surface for opening can be found and the rate of opening can be calculated using classical Transition State Theory. The effects of friction on the rate can also be incorporated using the standard coupling to a bath of harmonic oscillators . We find that for short chains, the rate is strongly length dependent and is well-described by the equation Aexp(B/x)/xν, with A and B constants, x = L/lp, L the length of the chain, lp the persistence length and ν ~ 1.2. However, for long chains, the rate is found to obey a power law. But in view of the fact that our approximations, while sensible for short semiflexible chains, are not expected to be valid for long flexible chains and therefore, this result is not expected to be correct. We also present results for the seemingly more biologically important reverse process, the closing of a semiflexible polymer, thus presenting a rather complete theory of dynamics of semiflexible polymer loops. In this work, we give a detailed multidimensional analysis of the closing dynamics of semiflexible chains by making use of the approximation scheme developed in the previous study of loop opening. We use the formalism of Wilemski and Fixman for the diffusion-controlled intra-chain reactions of polymers and their "closure" approximation for an arbitrary sink function. In this procedure, the closing time is expressed in terms of a sink-sink correlation function. We calculate this sink-sink correlation function through a normal mode analysis on the chain. The closing times, τclose for different lengths of the chain are then obtained. We find that τclose(L) ~ L4.5W(L), where W(L) was found to be described by B'exp(A'/L) with A' and B' constants. τclose(L) is found to have a minimum at Lmin = 2.4lp, which is to be compared with the values obtained through a one dimensional analysis (Europhys. Lett., 64, 420 (2003)) and simulations (Europhys. Lett., 65, 407 (2004)). We thus present a multidimensional analysis that give results that are physically expected. There does not seem to be any previous analysis which leads to these results shown through one-dimensional studies and simulations. In the category of translocation problems, we consider DNA packaging in viruses. DNA Packaging into the viral capsid is an essential step in any kind of viral infection. The mechanism of packaging in bacteriophage φ — 29 has recently been studied (Simpson et. al, Nature (London), 408, 745 (2000)). The study revealed the structure of the molecular motor that packages the DNA. In another experimental study, Smith et. Al (Nature (London), 408, 745 (2001)) have investigated the effect of applied external force on the packaging. Motivated by this study, we suggest (K. P. Santo and K. L. Sebastian, Phys. Rev. E, 65, 052902 (2002)) a simple model to explain the kinetics of packaging of DNA the external force, which tries to prevent it. The model suggests a Butler-Volmer kind of dependence of the rate of packaging on the pulling force. We find that our model explains the experimental data very well. Another very interesting situation that arises in biological contexts is the translocation of a polymer across a membrane through a pore. The uptake of DNA into the cell nucleus and the translocation of cytosolic protein into endoplasmic reticulum are examples. There have been two main classes of polymer translocation problems; translocation in presence of a field or driven by a molecular motor and the translocation assisted by the adsorption of molecules onto the chain in the region into which it is translocated. While the first class of problems is reasonably well understood, for the second class of problems a complete understanding still does not exist in the literature. The existing understanding of this kind of polymer translocation is mainly due to Simon, Peskin and Oster (Proc. Natl. Accad. Sci. USA, 89, 3770 (1992)), who describe the translocation as kind of biased Brownian motion, which is known as the Brownian Ratchet. But Brownian Ratchet is an idealization and can only be realized in certain limits and therefore, it does not account for the detailed dynamics of polymer and the binding particles. We present a simple statistical description of the problem. We find that in the regime where number of binding particles are larger than the number of adsorption sites on the chain, the translocation proceeds as if it is driven by a constant force and hence, seems to be governed by a mechanism similar to the kink mechanism (K. L. Sebastian and Alok. K. R. Paul, Phys. Rev. E, 62, 927 (2000), K. L. Sebastian, 61, 3245 (2000)) that has been suggested in the case translocation in presence of an external field. In the other regime, where the number of binding particles are less than the number of binding sites on the chain, the translocation was found to be predominantly diffusive.

<p>Background</p><p>Marketing spending has grown dramatically over the last decade but the traditional market-ing strategies such as advertising in TV, on billboards and posters might not be as effective as they used to be. The phenomena, how to work with marketing with the use of limited capital, has attracted attention in different contexts lately. It may sound hopeless to reach all the way through by the use of limited capital but it although exist examples of compa-nies that have succeeded with this; they are doing more with less.</p><p>Purpose</p><p>The main purpose of this thesis is to examine how firms, by the use of no or limited finan-cial resources, could market themselves successfully and how such a marketing process look like. The other purpose is to identify or map out the difference among traditional marketing and doing more with less.</p><p>Method</p><p>With a more inductive research approach and a qualitative research method the data was collected for this thesis. Four companies were carefully selected and interviewed over the phone. The chosen respondents are; Tomas Gustafsson representing Brämhults, Per Holk-nekt at Odd Molly, Jan Gustafsson at Saltå Kvarn and Hanna Lundgren at WeSC.</p><p>Conclusion</p><p>We have concluded that many strategies can be successful in doing more with less. The strategies found in this study are; Public Relations, Brand Management, Packaging, Product Placement, Event Marketing and Unique Selling Propositions. A coherent pattern or proc-ess could not be identified but it exist similarities in the way that companies make use of marketing strategies concerning doing more with less. Moreover we came up with the con-clusion that the difference between traditional marketing and the strategies identified as do-ing more with less, besides the obvious cost aspect, is the connection that they are often presented in a way which is not as easy for the potential consumer to perceive as commer-cial.</p>