Today, production companies are being asked to create scenes that are almost impossible to render. To create these impossible shots with speed and quality, the industry has created render passes. In this research project, the aim is to learn and understand the fastest and most efficient methods to create 3D Medical Sciences Visualization. A deeper understanding of Render Passes using Nuke compositing software in an industry based pipeline will answer the above statement. This project was developed in collaboration with the Uppsala Biomedical Center (BMC) and the Special Effects company Oddville. The final animation will also be used for BMC medical conferences. The results revealed that the render passes did allowed for the animation in postproduction and also saved a great deal of time.

The American Revolution brought with it a crisis of identification. The political divisions that fragmented American society did not distinguish adherents of the two sides in any outward way. Yet the new American governments had to identify their citizens; potential citizens themselves had to choose and prove their identities; and both sides of the war had to distinguish friend from foe. Subordinated groups who were notionally excluded from but deeply affected by the Revolutionary contest found in the same crisis new opportunity to seize control over their own identities. Those who claimed mastership over these groups struggled to maintain control amid civil war and revolution. / History

The purposes of this study were to evaluate the effects touches per play, post touches per play, and dribbles to end a play (DEP) have on points per play, field goal percentage, turnovers, and fouls. This was done to provide empirical evidence on anecdotal theories held by coaches concerning ball movement, dribbles, and post touches. The data collected were statistically analyzed using Bayesian hierarchical models. This study reports some intriguing trends. First, exceeding nine passes and three dribbles to end a play results in a decrease in points per play and field goal percentage. Second, up to three dribbles into a shot was more productive and efficient than shooting with no dribbles. Third, post play does not have as big an effect on offensive basketball as previously expected. Lastly, offensive rebounds seem to universally have a positive effect upon offensive basketball. This study supported some anecdotal beliefs about basketball, while not others, supporting the idea for statistically based studies to be conducted on anecdotal beliefs held about basketball.

A 3-D numerical model of the Head of Passes and Bird’s Foot Delta of the Mississippi River- was developed. The model was based on Delft3D and simulates the hydrodynamics and salinity transport for Head of Passes area from RM 6.5 to Gulf of Mexico. The model was calibrated, validated, and used to predict the response of the river to certain stimuli, such as - channel closures, channel modifications and diversions. The model includes West Bay, Southwest Pass, South Pass, Pass-A-Loutre and Main Pass. Three basic cases were developed: existing conditions, closure of Southwest Pass with a levee of 1.5m with dredging of Pass-A-Loutre to 13.7 meter depth, and closure of Southwest Pass and South Pass with dredging of Pass-A-Loutre to 13.7 meter (45 ft) depth. Salinity has been added to the model. It has been proved that salinity intrusion has a significant impact on the model instantaneous discharge. For all passes except Southwest Pass instantaneous discharge decreases almost in half. Closure of Southwest Pass and dredging of Pass-A-Loutre leads to changes in flow speed and distribution. As a result Pass-A-Loutre becomes a main River channel.

The purpose of this thesis is non-destructive determination of residual stress state in the multi-pass welded steel plates by Magnetic Barkhausen Noise (MBN) technique. To control the effectiveness of the developed procedure, continuous MBN measurements on the heat affected zone and parent metal of the welded plates were performed. In the experimental part, various steel plates were welded with different number of weld passes. Various series of samples were prepared for residual stress and for angular deflection measurements. Microstructural investigation and hardness measurements were also conducted. The results were discussed to evaluate the effectiveness of MBN measurements to monitor the changes in the residual stress state in the welded components as a function of weld pass number.

The Atlanta region will soon be faced with a choice as to how it will go about planning for and implementing its next regional fare collection system that will replace the current BREEZE system. In 2006, MARTA became the first transit agency in the United States to implement an all contactless smartcard for use on its services. However, there have been many advances in new technologies and the consumer payment preferences have evolved since the initial implementation. These developments, coupled with the rapid consumer adoption of smartphones and changing attitudes within the financial payments industry towards transit properties, have recently led four major transit agencies within North America to implement new fare collection systems based on open payments, the development of mobile ticketing applications, or a combination. This research uses a case study methodology to answer several questions related to the planning and implementation of regional fare collection systems in Chicago (CTA), Dallas (DART), Philadelphia (SEPTA) and Toronto (TTC). Based on the experience of the case study agencies, the implementation of Atlanta's next fare collection system is sure to be a long and arduous process. However, by utilizing the lessons learned from DART, CTA, SEPTA and TTC, MARTA and the other regional operators (Cobb Community Transit, Gwinnett County Transit and the Georgia Regional Transportation Authority) will be better poised to provide their patrons with additional means of paying fares while, at the same, minimizing the disruption to the existing fare collection system during the transition period.

The properties of training data set such as size, distribution and the number of attributes significantly contribute to the generalization error of a learning machine. A not well-distributed data set is prone to lead to a partial overfitting model. Two approaches proposed in this dissertation for the binary classification enhance useful data information by mining negative data. First, an error driven compensating hypothesis approach is based on Support Vector Machines (SVMs) with (1+k)-iteration learning, where the base learning hypothesis is iteratively compensated k times. This approach produces a new hypothesis on the new data set in which each label is a transformation of the label from the negative data set, further producing the positive and negative child data subsets in subsequent iterations. This procedure refines the base hypothesis by the k child hypotheses created in k iterations. A prediction method is also proposed to trace the relationship between negative subsets and testing data set by a vector similarity technique. Second, a statistical negative example learning approach based on theoretical analysis improves the performance of the base learning algorithm learner by creating one or two additional hypotheses audit and booster to mine the negative examples output from the learner. The learner employs a regular Support Vector Machine to classify main examples and recognize which examples are negative. The audit works on the negative training data created by learner to predict whether an instance is negative. However, the boosting learning booster is applied when audit does not have enough accuracy to judge learner correctly. Booster works on training data subsets with which learner and audit do not agree. The classifier for testing is the combination of learner, audit and booster. The classifier for testing a specific instance returns the learner's result if audit acknowledges learner's result or learner agrees with audit's judgment, otherwise returns the booster's result. The error of the classifier is decreased to O(e^2) comparing to the error O(e) of a base learning algorithm.

The increasing demand for energy and the effect on climate change are some of the big drivers in support of the nuclear renaissance. A great amount of energy is spent on studies to determine the contribution of nuclear power to the future energy supply. Many countries are investing in generation III and IV reactors such as the Westinghouse AP1000 because of its passive cooling system, which makes it attractive for its safety. The pebble bed high temperature gas cooled reactors are designed to be intrinsically safe, which is one of the main drivers for developing these reactors. A pebble bed reactor is a high temperature reactor which is helium–cooled and graphitemoderated using spherical fuel elements that contain triple–coated isotropic fuel particles (TRISO). The success of its intrinsic safety lies in the design of the fuel elements that remain intact at very high temperatures. When temperatures significantly higher than 1600 °C are reached during accidents, the fuel elements with their inherent safety features may be challenged. A pebble bed reactor has an online fuelling concept, where fuel is circulated through the core. The fuel is loaded at the top of the core and through gravity, moves down to the bottom where it is unloaded to either be discarded or to be re–circulated. This is determined by the burnup measuring system. By circulating the fuel spheres more than once through the reactor a flattened axial power profile with lower power peaking and therefore lower maximum fuel temperatures can be achieved. This is an attractive approach to increase the core performance by lowering the important fuel operating parameters. However, the circulation has an economic impact, as it increases the design requirements on the burnup measuring system (faster measuring times and increased circulation). By adopting a multi–pass recycling scheme of the pebble fuel elements it is shown that the axial power peaking can be reduced The primary objective for this study is the investigation of the influences on the core design with regards to the number of fuel passes. The general behaviour of the two concepts, multi–pass refuelling and a once–through circulation, are to be evaluated with regards to flux and power and the maximum fuel temperature profiles. The relative effects of the HTR–Modul with its cylindrical core design and the PBMR 400 MW with its annular core design are also compared to verify the differences and trends as well as the influences of the control rods on core behaviour. This is important as it has a direct impact on the safety of the plant (that the fuel temperatures need to remain under 1600 °C in normal and accident conditions). The work is required at an early stage of reactor design since it influences design decisions needed on the fuel handling system design and defuel chute decay time, and has a direct impact on the fuel burnup–level qualification. The analysis showed that in most cases the increase in number of fuel passes not only flattens the power profile, but improves the overall results. The improvement in results decreases exponentially and from ten passes the advantage of having more passes becomes insignificant. The effect of the flattened power profile is more visible on the PBMR 400 MW than on the HTR–Modul. The 15–pass HTR–Modul design is at its limit with regards to the measuring time of a single burnup measuring system. However, by having less passes through the core, e.g. tenpasses, more time will be available for burnup measurement. The PBMR 400 MW has three defuel chutes allowing longer decay time which improves measurement accuracy, and, as a result could benefit from more than six passes without increasing the fuel handling system costs. The secondary objective of performing a sensitivity analysis on the control rod insertion positions and the effect of higher fuel enrichment has also been achieved. Control rod efficiency is improved when increasing the excess reactivity by means of control rod insertion. However, this is done at lower discharge burnup and shut down margins. Higher enrichment causes an increase in power peaking and more fuel–passes will be required to maintain the peaking and temperature margins than before. / Thesis (M.Ing. (Nuclear Engineering))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2011.

The increasing demand for energy and the effect on climate change are some of the big drivers in support of the nuclear renaissance. A great amount of energy is spent on studies to determine the contribution of nuclear power to the future energy supply. Many countries are investing in generation III and IV reactors such as the Westinghouse AP1000 because of its passive cooling system, which makes it attractive for its safety. The pebble bed high temperature gas cooled reactors are designed to be intrinsically safe, which is one of the main drivers for developing these reactors. A pebble bed reactor is a high temperature reactor which is helium–cooled and graphitemoderated using spherical fuel elements that contain triple–coated isotropic fuel particles (TRISO). The success of its intrinsic safety lies in the design of the fuel elements that remain intact at very high temperatures. When temperatures significantly higher than 1600 °C are reached during accidents, the fuel elements with their inherent safety features may be challenged. A pebble bed reactor has an online fuelling concept, where fuel is circulated through the core. The fuel is loaded at the top of the core and through gravity, moves down to the bottom where it is unloaded to either be discarded or to be re–circulated. This is determined by the burnup measuring system. By circulating the fuel spheres more than once through the reactor a flattened axial power profile with lower power peaking and therefore lower maximum fuel temperatures can be achieved. This is an attractive approach to increase the core performance by lowering the important fuel operating parameters. However, the circulation has an economic impact, as it increases the design requirements on the burnup measuring system (faster measuring times and increased circulation). By adopting a multi–pass recycling scheme of the pebble fuel elements it is shown that the axial power peaking can be reduced The primary objective for this study is the investigation of the influences on the core design with regards to the number of fuel passes. The general behaviour of the two concepts, multi–pass refuelling and a once–through circulation, are to be evaluated with regards to flux and power and the maximum fuel temperature profiles. The relative effects of the HTR–Modul with its cylindrical core design and the PBMR 400 MW with its annular core design are also compared to verify the differences and trends as well as the influences of the control rods on core behaviour. This is important as it has a direct impact on the safety of the plant (that the fuel temperatures need to remain under 1600 °C in normal and accident conditions). The work is required at an early stage of reactor design since it influences design decisions needed on the fuel handling system design and defuel chute decay time, and has a direct impact on the fuel burnup–level qualification. The analysis showed that in most cases the increase in number of fuel passes not only flattens the power profile, but improves the overall results. The improvement in results decreases exponentially and from ten passes the advantage of having more passes becomes insignificant. The effect of the flattened power profile is more visible on the PBMR 400 MW than on the HTR–Modul. The 15–pass HTR–Modul design is at its limit with regards to the measuring time of a single burnup measuring system. However, by having less passes through the core, e.g. tenpasses, more time will be available for burnup measurement. The PBMR 400 MW has three defuel chutes allowing longer decay time which improves measurement accuracy, and, as a result could benefit from more than six passes without increasing the fuel handling system costs. The secondary objective of performing a sensitivity analysis on the control rod insertion positions and the effect of higher fuel enrichment has also been achieved. Control rod efficiency is improved when increasing the excess reactivity by means of control rod insertion. However, this is done at lower discharge burnup and shut down margins. Higher enrichment causes an increase in power peaking and more fuel–passes will be required to maintain the peaking and temperature margins than before. / Thesis (M.Ing. (Nuclear Engineering))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2011.

Cette thèse est une partie du projet ONEMA pour le dimensionnement des passes à poissons et pour l’amélioration de la continuité écologique des cours d’eau. Ce travail s’est concentré sur les passes à poissons naturelles qui présentent des avantages de coût et paysager. Il s’agit d’un écoulement à forte pente autour des blocs (macro-rugosités) régulièrement repartis en quinconce avec des grands nombres de Froude. Les conditions hydrodynamiques sont alors très diverses, et peuvent être franchissables par un nombre élargi d’espèces de poisson. Ce mémoire présente les travaux réalisés à l’Institut de Mécanique des Fluides de Toulouse (IMFT). Afin d’étudier l’écoulement dans ces passes, on va mener des expériences sur des canaux réduits ainsi que des simulations numériques à l’aide du modèle Telemac 2D. L’objectif est de mieux connaître la structure de l’écoulement en fonction des conditions hydrauliques et géométriques comme le nombre, la forme et la taille des macro-rugosités. Plus particulièrement, la compréhension de l’interaction de phénomènes physiques généralement étudiés séparément, tels que le passage en régime torrentiel, l’interaction de sillage ou l’écoulement autour de macro-rugosités, a été recherchée. Des relations hauteur-débit ont été établies permettant une aider au dimensionnement des passes naturelles. Elles fournissent des critères de franchissement comme les vitesses maximales, la puissance dissipée ou la hauteur d’eau minimale. Pour atteindre une description plus locale de l’écoulement, des mesures de Vélocimétrie Acoustiques Doppler ont été conduites. Elles ont aussi permis de définir la plage de validité du modèle numérique 2D (Telemac). Ce modèle a alors était utilisé pour extrapoler les critères de franchissement pour des configurations non testées expérimentalement. Finalement, les connaissances sur l’écoulement ont été synthétisées pour définir des préconisations générales de dimensionnement. La précision des relations établies en laboratoire a pu aussi être vérifiée sur des passes réelles. L’hydrodynamique de ces passes est maintenant suffisamment connue pour savoir si un poisson peut remonter le courant et se reposer. Il restera à s’assurer que leur attractivité soit bonne et que des phénomènes liés aux échelles de longueurs de la turbulence ne présentent un obstacle au franchissement. / This thesis is supported by an ONEMA project for the design of fishways and improve ecological continuity of rivers. This work focused on nature-like fish passes that have cost and landscaped appearance advantages. There is a steep flow around the blocks (macro-roughness) regularly distributed in a staggered configuration with large Froude numbers. The hydrodynamic conditions are sufficiently different to be passable by an expanded number of fish species. This thesis presents the work carried out at the Institute of Fluid Mechanics of Toulouse (IMFT). To study the flow in these passes, experiments are conducted on physical models and numerical simulations using the Telemac 2D model. The goal is to better understand the flow structure based on hydraulic and geometric conditions such as the number, shape and size of macro-roughness. In particular, we considered the interaction of physical phenomena usually studied separately such that the passage in supercritical regime, the interaction of wake or flow around macro-roughness. The stage-discharge relationships were established to assist in the design of nature-like passes. They provide criteria useful for passability such as maximum speeds, power dissipation or minimal water height. To reach a local description of the flow measurements with an Acoustic Doppler Velocimeter were conducted. They also helped to define the valid range of the 2D model. This model was then used to extrapolate passability criteria for untested experimental configurations. Finally, the knowledge on flow has been synthesized to define general recommendations sizing. It has also been able to verify on real scale passes, the accuracy of the relations established in the laboratory. The hydrodynamics of these passes is now sufficiently described to know if a fish can swim upstream and rest. It will remain to ensure that their attractiveness is good and that phenomena related to the turbulence length scales do not present an obstacle to the fish passage.