O presente trabalho reúne elementos teóricos e experimentais envolvendo os principais fenômenos hidráulicos causadores de danos em bombas hidráulicas de fluxo radial de grande porte. A preocupação do texto está centrada em proporcionar um aprofundamento técnico acerca destes fenômenos hidráulicos de cavitação, a fim de contribuir na análise e solução de problemas em sistemas de bombeamento. Além disso, este trabalho tem a pretensão de transmitir alguma experiência prática fornecida por um evento em que foi detectada a ocorrência de dois destes fenômenos hidráulicos simultâneos em um sistema de bombeamento e a partir disso, realizou-se a análise completa deste evento, incluindo as propostas de solução aos problemas encontrados, as análises técnica e econômica das alternativas de solução e a análise após a implantação da proposta escolhida. O texto apresenta também uma grande quantidade de gráficos e figuras que buscam facilitar a compreensão das definições e das análises dos fenômenos hidráulicos, além de exemplificar os danos típicos dos fenômenos pela visualização direta destes danos nas bombas. / This work presents theoretical and experimental data on the principal hydraulic phenomena responsible for damage in high loaded radial flow hydraulic pumps. The main objective is to provide a technical overview in order to contribute for the analysis and solution on these cavitation pumping systems problems. In addition this work intends to transmit practical experience through a “study of case" where two simultaneous of these hydraulic phenomena were detected. The complete analysis of technical and economical aspects of the alternatives solutions is presented including a great amount of graphs and illustrations that better explain the phenomena of cavitation in hydraulic pumps.

The desire for high performance on scalable parallel systems is increasing the complexity and the need to tune MPI implementations. The MPI Tools Information Interface (MPI T) introduced in the MPI 3.0 standard provides an opportunity for performance tools and external software to introspect and understand MPI runtime behavior at a deeper level to detect scalability issues. The interface also provides a mechanism to fine-tune the performance of the MPI library dynamically at runtime. This thesis describes the motivation, design, and challenges involved in developing an MPI performance engineering infrastructure using MPI T for two performance toolkits — the TAU Performance System, and Caliper. I validate the design of the infrastructure for TAU by developing optimizations for production and synthetic applications. I show that the MPI T runtime introspection mechanism in Caliper enables a meaningful analysis of performance data. This thesis includes previously published co-authored material.

Asynchronous message passing systems are fast becoming a common means for communication between devices. Two problems existing in message passing programs are difficult to solve. The first problem, intended or otherwise, is message-race where a receive may match with more than one send in the runtime system. This non-determinism often leads to intermittent and unexpected behavior depending on the resolution of the race. Another problem is deadlock, which is a situation in that each member process of the group is waiting for some member process to communicate with it, but no member is attempting to communicate with it. Detecting if message-race and/or deadlocks exist in a message passing program are both NP-complete. The difficulty of solving the two problems also comes from three factors that complicate the semantics: asynchronous communication, synchronous barrier, and buffering settings including infinite buffering (the system can buffer messages) and zero buffering (the system has no internal buffering). To solve the above problems with complicating factors, this research provides a novel predictive analysis that initializes a concrete execution and then predicts the behavior of other executions that arise from the initial execution. This research starts with Satisfiability Modulo Theories (SMT) based model checking that provides precise analysis for the program behavior. Unfortunately, a precise analysis using SMT does not scale to large programs. As such, the SMT based model checking is combined with heuristic search for witnessing program properties. The heuristic search is efficient in identifying how sends may match with receives in the runtime as it only looks for the match relations for sends and receives in a small searching space initially; the space is increased only if the program property is not witnessed, until all possible match relations for sends and receives reflected in message non-determinism are found. This research also gives a static analysis approach that is scalable as it does not need to analyze the full set of program behaviors; rather, the static analysis only uses polynomial-time algorithms to identify all potential deadlocks in a send-receive templates given a set of pre-defined deadlock patterns. Given the predictive analysis consisting of SMT based model checking with heuristic search and static analysis, this research is able to solve the two problems above. The work in this dissertation also demonstrates that the predictive analysis is more efficient than the existing tools for verifying message passing programs.

This paper presents a concurrent interpreter for a general-purpose concurrent logic programming language, Guarded Horn Clauses (GHC). Unlike typical implementations of GHC in logic programming languages, the interpreter is implemented in the Actor language Acore. The primary motivation for this work was to probe the strengths and weaknesses of Acore as a platform for developing sophisticated programs. The GHC interpreter provided a rich testbed for exploring Actor programming methodology. The interpreter is a pedagogical investigation of the mapping of GHC constructs onto the Actor model. Since we opted for simplicity over optimization, the interpreter is somewhat inefficient.

The objective of this thesis is the development of cooperative localization and tracking algorithms using nonparametric message passing techniques. In contrast to the most well-known techniques, the goal is to estimate the posterior probability density function (PDF) of the position of each sensor. This problem can be solved using Bayesian approach, but it is intractable in general case. Nevertheless, the particle-based approximation (via nonparametric representation), and an appropriate factorization of the joint PDFs (using message passing methods), make Bayesian approach acceptable for inference in sensor networks. The well-known method for this problem, nonparametric belief propagation (NBP), can lead to inaccurate beliefs and possible non-convergence in loopy networks. Therefore, we propose four novel algorithms which alleviate these problems: nonparametric generalized belief propagation (NGBP) based on junction tree (NGBP-JT), NGBP based on pseudo-junction tree (NGBP-PJT), NBP based on spanning trees (NBP-ST), and uniformly-reweighted NBP (URW-NBP). We also extend NBP for cooperative localization in mobile networks. In contrast to the previous methods, we use an optional smoothing, provide a novel communication protocol, and increase the efficiency of the sampling techniques. Moreover, we propose novel algorithms for distributed tracking, in which the goal is to track the passive object which cannot locate itself. In particular, we develop distributed particle filtering (DPF) based on three asynchronous belief consensus (BC) algorithms: standard belief consensus (SBC), broadcast gossip (BG), and belief propagation (BP). Finally, the last part of this thesis includes the experimental analysis of some of the proposed algorithms, in which we found that the results based on real measurements are very similar with the results based on theoretical models.

Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) consist of a large number of sensor nodes, capable of on-board sensing and data processing, that are employed to observe some phenomenon of interest. With their desirable properties of flexible deployment, resistance to harsh environment and lower implementation cost, WSNs envisage a plethora of applications in diverse areas such as industrial process control, battle- field surveillance, health monitoring, and target localization and tracking. Much of the sensing and communication paradigm in WSNs involves ensuring power efficient transmission and finding scalable algorithms that can deliver the desired performance objectives while minimizing overall energy utilization. Since power is primarily consumed in radio transmissions delivering timing information, clock synchronization represents an indispensable requirement to boost network lifetime. This dissertation focuses on deriving efficient estimators and performance bounds for the clock parameters in a classical frequentist inference approach as well as in a Bayesian estimation framework. A unified approach to the maximum likelihood (ML) estimation of clock offset is presented for different network delay distributions. This constitutes an analytical alternative to prior works which rely on a graphical maximization of the likelihood function. In order to capture the imperfections in node oscillators, which may render a time-varying nature to the clock offset, a novel Bayesian approach to the clock offset estimation is proposed by using factor graphs. Message passing using the max-product algorithm yields an exact expression for the Bayesian inference problem. This extends the current literature to cases where the clock offset is not deterministic, but is in fact a random process. A natural extension of pairwise synchronization is to develop algorithms for the more challenging case of network-wide synchronization. Assuming exponentially distributed random delays, a network-wide clock synchronization algorithm is proposed using a factor graph representation of the network. Message passing using the max- product algorithm is adopted to derive the update rules for the proposed iterative procedure. A closed form solution is obtained for each node's belief about its clock offset at each iteration. Identifying the close connections between the problems of node localization and clock synchronization, we also address in this dissertation the problem of joint estimation of an unknown node's location and clock parameters by incorporating the effect of imperfections in node oscillators. In order to alleviate the computational complexity associated with the optimal maximum a-posteriori estimator, two iterative approaches are proposed as simpler alternatives. The first approach utilizes an Expectation-Maximization (EM) based algorithm which iteratively estimates the clock parameters and the location of the unknown node. The EM algorithm is further simplified by a non-linear processing of the data to obtain a closed form solution of the location estimation problem using the least squares (LS) approach. The performance of the estimation algorithms is benchmarked by deriving the Hybrid Cramer-Rao lower bound (HCRB) on the mean square error (MSE) of the estimators. We also derive theoretical lower bounds on the MSE of an estimator in a classical frequentist inference approach as well as in a Bayesian estimation framework when the likelihood function is an arbitrary member of the exponential family. The lower bounds not only serve to compare various estimators in our work, but can also be useful in their own right in parameter estimation theory.

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As one of the most powerful error-correcting codes, Low-density parity check codes are widely used in digital communications. Because of the performance of LDPC codes are capable to close the shannon limited extraordinarily, LDPC codes are to be used in the new Digital Video Broadcast-Satellite-Second Generation(DVB-S2) and it is the first time that LDPC codes are included in the broadcast standard in 2003. In this thesis, a restructured parity-check matrices which can be divided into sub-matrices for LDPC code in DVB-S2 is provided. Corresponded to this restructured parity-check matrix, a reconstructed decoding table is invented. The encoding table of DVB-S2 standard only could obtain the unknown check nodes from known variable nodes, while the decoding table this thesis provided could obtain the unknown variable nodes from known check nodes what is exactly the Layered-massage passing algorithm needed. Layered-message passing algorithm which also known as "Turbo-decoding message passing" is used to reduce the decoding iterations and memory storage for messages. The thesis also investigate Bp algorithm, lambda-min algorithm, Min-sum algorithm and SISO-s algorithm, meanwhile, simulation results of these algorithms and schedules are also presented.

We develop a novel framework for optimized composition of explicitly parallel software components with different implementation variants given the problem size, data distribution scheme and processor group size on a Linux cluster. We consider two approaches (or two cases of the framework).  In the first approach, dispatch tables are built using measurement data obtained offline by executions for some (sample) points in the ranges of the context properties. Inter-/extrapolation is then used to do actual variant-selection for a given execution context at run-time. In the second approach, a cost function of each component variant is provided by the component writer for variant-selection. These cost functions can internally lookup measurements' tables built, either offline or at deployment time, for computation- and communication-specific primitives. In both approaches, the call to an explicitly parallel software component (with different implementation variants) is made via a dispatcher instead of calling a variant directly. As a case study, we apply both approaches on a parallel component for matrix multiplication with multiple implementation variants. We implemented our variants using Message Passing Interface (MPI). The results show the reduction in execution time for the optimally composed applications compared to applications with hard-coded composition. In addition, the results show the comparison of estimated and measured times for each variant using different data distributions, processor group and problem sizes.

The research in this thesis was conducted to investigate the initial stage of passing maneuvers on a rural, two-lane, two-way (RTLTW) highway with centerline rumble strips (CRSs). Four measures of effectiveness were used: (1) number and type of erratic movements by a passing vehicle, (2) number of and time between centerline encroachments of a passing vehicle, (3) gap distance of a passing vehicle, and (4) centerline crossing time. Data were collected for a before-and-after analysis at one site, in Comanche County, Texas. The test section was on US 67 from Comanche, Texas to the county line south of Dublin, Texas. The posted speed limit for this RTLTW highway was 70 mph during the day. CRSs were installed along approximately 15 miles of US 67. Only one test design for CRSs was installed. The design specification was for a CRS to be milled to a 0.5-inch depth, 7-inch length, and 16-inch width. This specification was developed from current state practices throughout the United States. CRSs were installed continuously through passing and no-passing zones, and they were spaced at 24 inches on-centers. Pavement markings were striped over the CRSs. Data were collected using an innovative data collection system developed by the author through the Texas Transportation Institute (TTI). This system was mounted to a four-door sedan, and it consisted of four concealed cameras that recorded the entire passing maneuver around the data collection vehicle. Data were collected at three different speeds during the daytime. The speeds were 55, 60, and 65 mph (15, 10, and 5 mph, respectively, under the posted speed limit). Based on the assessment of the four MOEs, the overall finding of this thesis was that driver performance during the initial phase of passing maneuvers was not negatively impacted after the installation of CRSs on US 67. The caveat is that differences in the weather conditions may have influenced the results. The weather was dry with clear skies at the study site during data collection prior to the installation of CRSs; however, the weather consisted of intermittent rain during the data collection after the installation of CRSs.