The transportation of oil and gas and their products through the pipelines is a safe and economically efficient way, when compared with other methods of transportation, such as tankers, railroad, trucks, etc. Although pipelines are usually well-designed, during construction and later in service, pipelines are subjected to a variety of risks. Eventually, some sections may experience corrosion which can affect the integrity of pipeline, which poses a risk in high-pressure operations. Specifically, in pipelines with long history of operation, the size and location of the corrosion defects need to be determined so that pressure levels can be kept at safe levels, or alternatively, a decision to repair or replace the pipe section can be made. To make this decision, there are several assessment techniques available to engineers, such as ASME B31G, MB31G, DNV-RP, software code called RSTRENG. These assessment techniques help engineers predict the remaining strength of the wall in a pipe section with a corrosion defect. The corrosion assessment codes in the United States, Canada and Europe are based on ASME-B31G criterion for the evaluation of corrosion defects, established based on full-scale burst experiments on pipes containing longitudinal machined grooves, initially conducted in 1960s. Because actual corrosion defects have more complex geometries than machined grooves, an in-depth study to validate the effectiveness of these techniques is necessary. This study is motivated by this need. The current study was conducted in several stages, starting with the deformation behavior of pipe steels. In Phase 1, true-stress-true plastic strain data from the literature for X42 and X60 steel specimens were used to evaluate how well four commonly used constitutive equations, namely, those developed by Hollomon, Swift, Ludwik and Voce, fit the experimental data. Results showed that all equations provided acceptable fits. For simplicity, the Hollomon equation was selected to be used in the rest of the study. In Phase 2, a preliminary finite element modeling (FEM) study was conducted to compare two failure criteria, stress-based or strain-based, performed better. By using data from the literature for X42 and X60 pipe steels, experimental burst pressure data were compared with predicted burst pressure data, estimated based on the two failure criteria. Based on this preliminary analysis, the stress-based criterion was chosen for further FEM studies. In Phase 3, failure data from real corrosion pits in X52 pipe steels with detailed profiles were used to develop a FEM scheme, which included a simplified representation of the defect. Comparison of actual and predicted burst pressures indicated a good fit, with a coefficient of determination (R2) level of 0.959. In Phase 4, burst pressure levels were estimated for real corrosion pits for the experiments from the same study as in Phase 3, but only with corrosion pit depths and length and without corrosion widths. Widths were estimated from the data used in Phase 3, by using an empirical equation as a function of pit length. There was significant error between experimental and predicted burst pressure. Errors in Phases 3 and 4 were compared statistically. Results showed that there is a statistically significant difference in the error when the width of the corrosion pit is unknown. This finding is significant because none of the assessment techniques in the literature takes width into consideration. Subsequently, a parametric study was performed on three defect geometries from the same study in Phase 3. The pit depths and lengths were held constant but widths were changed systematically. In all cases, the effect of the pit width on burst pressure was confirmed. In Phase 5, the three assessment techniques, ASME B31G, MB31-G and DNV-RP were evaluated by using experimental test results for X52 pipe. Synthetic data for deeper pits were developed by FEM and used along with experimental data in this phase. Two types of the error were distinguished to classify defects. Type I errors (α) and Type II errors (β) were defined using Level 0 evaluation method. Results showed that although ASME B31G is the most conservative technique, it is more reliable for short defects than MB31G and DNV-RP. The least conservative technique was DNV-RP but it yielded β error, i.e., the method predicted a safe operating pressure and pipe section would fail. Therefore, DNV-RP is not recommended for assessment of steel pipes, specifically for X52 pipes.

Målet med undersökningen har varit att undersöka möjligheten att ta fram en kostnadseffektiv lösning för att mäta flöden i slutna rörsystem. Anledningen till att kontaktlösa metoder valts för arbetet är dess egen-skaper att kunna installeras utan att göra ingrepp i ledningarna eller på något sätt påverka det flödande mediet i dessa. Utrustning skall inhand-las och testas i fält. I underökningen ingår det även att ta fram en lämplig metod för att trådlöst överföra insamlat mätdata till valfri IT-miljö och där kunna presentera mätdata på ett översiktligt sätt i ett övervaknings-system samt använda mätdatat till olika statistiska beräkningar. Det hu-vudsakliga applikationsområdet som undersöks är läckageindikering i dricksvattenledningsnät. Anledningen till detta är att många kommuner inte har råd att investera i dyr mätutrustning för övervakning och för dem kan det vara intressant med ett billigt system som är relativt enkelt att installera och implementera i deras befintliga övervakningssystem. Re-sultat av en enkätundersökning som gjorts i samband med undersök-ningen har visat att intresset är stort hos kommunerna, men den visar även att övervakning av vattenledningsnäten med vissa traditionella me-toder kommer att bli svårare i framtiden i och med den stigande andelen plaströr i ledningsnäten. Fälttester av inköpt mätutrustning visar att den skulle kunna implementeras och fungera som flödesövervakning i led-ningsnät. Även fast dess mätnoggrannhet var under det förväntade så vi-sade utrustningen på god linjäritet. / The aim of the survey has been to investigate the possibilities of using a cost-effective solution for measuring flows in closed pipes. Non-intrusive measuring methods are chosen because it’s able to install them without interfering the flow in- or alter- the pipe in any way. Equipment will be purchased and field tested during the time of the survey. The survey also includes investigating suitable methods for wirelessly transmitting col-lected data to an IT-environment, and using measurement data for sur-veillance purposes and various statistical calculations. The main applica-tion area investigated is leakage indication in drinking water pipeline net-works, the reason being that many municipalities can’t afford to invest in expensive measuring equipment and they may be interested in an inex-pensive system that is relatively easy to install and implement in their existing monitoring system. The results of a poll conducted in connection with the survey have shown that there is considerable interest among the municipalities, but it also shows that monitoring of the water supply net-works with traditional methods may become more difficult in the future, the main reason for this seems to be the increasing amount of plastic pipe-lines in the pipeline networks. Field tests of the purchased equipment show that it may be suitable to implement as flow measuring device with the purpose of leakage monitoring, even though its measurement accu-racy was below expected it still shows good linearity.

L'analyse des changements morphologiques du cerveau dans des séries temporelles d'images est un sujet important en neuroimagerie. Bien que le développement des bases de données longitudinales ait aidé à réduire la variabilité inter-individu, il reste encore de nombreux biais qui doivent être évités lors de l'estimation des évolutions longitudinales. De plus, lorsque les changements intra-sujet sont très faibles par rapport à la variabilité inter-sujet, il est crucial de savoir si les méthodes existantes peuvent capturer sans biais les changements longitudinaux. Dans la plupart des études, les changements longitudinaux sont limités à leur composante volumétrique scalaire afin d'en faciliter l'analyse. Cependant, les changements cérébraux ne sont généralement pas uniquement volumétriques et dans ce cas multivarié, l'interprétation est alors plus difficile. Cette thèse adresse ces problèmes en suivant trois axes principaux. Premièrement, nous proposons une chaîne de traitement longitudinale reposant sur la morphométrie à partir de déformations et ayant pour but d'estimer de manière robuste les changements longitudinaux. Afin d’éviter de rajouter du biais, nous détaillons tout l'enchaînement des étapes de traitement. En plus de cette contribution, nous intégrons une modification de l'algorithme de recalage non-linéaire qui consiste à masquer le terme de similarité tout en conservant la symétrie de la formulation. Cette contribution augmente la robustesse des résultats vis-à-vis des artefacts d'intensité situés en bordure du cerveau et augmente ainsi la sensibilité de l'étude statistique réalisée sur les déformations longitudinales / Analysing the progression of brain morphological changes in time series of images is an important topic in neuroimaging. Although the development of longitudinal databases has helped reducing the inter-individual variability, there still exist numerous biases that need to be avoided when capturing longitudinal evolutions. Moreover, when the intra-subject changes are very small with respect to the inter-subject variability it is crucial to know if the available methods can capture the longitudinal change with no bias. In most of the studies, these longitudinal changes are limited to scalar volumetric changes in order to ease their analysis. However, one can observe that brain changes are not limited to volumetry. In this multivariate case, the interpretation is more difficult. This thesis addresses these problems along three main axes. First, we propose a longitudinal Deformation-based Morphometry processing pipeline to robustly estimate the longitudinal changes. We detail the whole sequencing of the processing steps as they are key to avoid adding bias. In addition to this contribution we integrate a modification to the non-linear registration algorithm by masking the similarity term while keeping the symmetry of the formulation. This change increases the robustness of the results with respect to intensity artifacts located in the brain boundaries and leads to increased sensitivity of the statistical study on the longitudinal deformations. The proposed processing pipeline is based on freely available software and tools so that it is fully reproducible

We present a set of easy-to-use methods and tools to analyze human attention, behaviour, and physiological responses. A potential application of our work is evaluating user interfaces being used in a natural manner. Our approach is designed to be scalable and to work remotely on regular personal computers using expensive and noninvasive equipment. The data sources our tool processes are nonintrusive, and captured from video; i.e. eye tracking, and facial expressions. For video data retrieval, we use a basic webcam. We investigate combinations of observation modalities to detect and extract affective and mental states. Our tool provides a pipeline-based approach that 1) collects observational, data 2) incorporates and synchronizes the signal modality mentioned above, 3) detects users' affective and mental state, 4) records user interaction with applications and pinpoints the parts of the screen users are looking at, 5) analyzes and visualizes results. We describe the design, implementation, and validation of a novel multimodal signal fusion engine, Deep Temporal Credence Network (DTCN). The engine uses Deep Neural Networks to provide 1) a generative and probabilistic inference model, and 2) to handle multimodal data such that its performance does not degrade due to the absence of some modalities. We report on the recognition accuracy of basic emotions for each modality. Then, we evaluate our engine in terms of effectiveness of recognizing basic six emotions and six mental states, which are agreeing, concentrating, disagreeing, interested, thinking, and unsure. Our principal contributions include the implementation of a 1) multimodal signal fusion engine, 2) real time recognition of affective and primary mental states from nonintrusive and inexpensive modality, 3) novel mental state-based visualization techniques, 3D heatmaps, 3D scanpaths, and widget heatmaps that find parts of the user interface where users are perhaps unsure, annoyed, frustrated, or satisfied.

En todo el mundo, las explotaciones petroleras por lo general están ubicadas en espacios alejados de las ciudades o centros de procesamiento. Esa condición plantea un problema muy interesante referente al transporte del crudo de los centros de extracción a los centros de refinamiento o comercialización y el Perú no escapa a esta problemática. Por otro lado, se encuentran desafíos para la utilización del oleoducto de manera eficiente donde se permita mejorar la competitividad del sector hidrocarburos. Por ello, en la presente investigación estudiaremos los desafíos que enfrenta el Oleoducto Norperuano (ONP) como parte de la cadena logística del crudo de petróleo de los campos de la Amazonía Peruana. El objetivo de la investigación es conocer si el ONP sigue siendo la mejor alternativa logística para el transporte de crudo de petróleo de los campos petrolíferos ubicados en la Amazonía peruana. A tal efecto se ha realizado una investigación cualitativa, en la cual se han utilizado las opiniones de expertos en el área petrolera, mediante la realización de entrevistas personalizadas y a profundidad. Los resultados obtenidos del trabajo de investigación se presentan de la siguiente manera: el ONP es la mejor y más importante alternativa para el transporte del crudo de la Amazonía a los centros de refinación, comercialización y posterior exportación. También se hace necesario implementar programas de mantenimiento preventivo y correctivo con el fin de garantizar su funcionalidad. / Around the world, oil fields are usually located in spaces far from cities or remote areas. This condition generated a very interesting problem regarding the transportation of oil crude from the extraction centers to the refining or commercialization centers, and Peru does not escape of this problem. On the other hand, there are challenges for the efficient use of the pipeline where it is possible to improve the competitiveness of the hydrocarbon sector. Therefore, in this research we will study the challenges faced by the North Peruvian Pipeline (ONP) as part of the oil crude logistics chain from the fields of the Peruvian Amazon. The objective of the research is to know if the ONP can be consider the best logistical alternative for the transportation of crude oil from the oil fields located in the Peruvian Amazon. To this end, a qualitative investigation has been carried out, in which the opinions of experts in the oil field have been used, through personalized and in-depth interviews. The results obtained from the research work are presented as follows: the ONP is the best and most important alternative for transporting crude from the Amazon to refining, marketing and subsequent export centers. It is also necessary to implement preventive and corrective maintenance programs in order to guarantee its functionality. / Tesis

<div><div>In the forensic science community, there is a vast need for tools to help assist investigations when standard DNA profiling methods are uninformative. Methods such as Forensic DNA Phenotyping (FDP) and proteomics aims to help this problem and provide aid in investigations when other methods have been exhausted. FDP is useful by providing physical appearance information, while proteomics allows for the examination of difficult samples, such as hair, to infer human identity and ancestry. To create a “biological eye witness” or develop informative probability of identity match statistics through proteomically inferred genetic profiles, it is necessary to constantly strive to improve these methods. </div><div><br></div><div>Currently, two developmentally validated FDP prediction assays, ‘HIrisPlex’ and ‘HIrisplex-S’, are used on the capillary electrophoresis to develop a phenotypic prediction for eye, hair, and skin color based on 41 variants. Although highly useful, these assays are limited in their ability when used on the CE due to a 25 variant per assay cap. To overcome these limitations and expand the capacities of FDP, we successfully designed and validated a massive parallel sequencing (MPS) assay for use on both the ThermoFisher Scientific Ion Torrent and Illumina MiSeq systems that incorporates all HIrisPlex-S variants into one sensitive assay. With the migration of this assay to an MPS platform, we were able to create a semi-automated pipeline to extract SNP-specific sequencing data that can then be easily uploaded to the freely accessible online phenotypic prediction tool (found at https://hirisplex.erasmusmc.nl) and a mixture deconvolution tool with built-in read count thresholds. Based on sequencing reads counts, this tool can be used to assist in the separation of difficult two-person mixture samples and outline the confidence in each genotype call.<br></div><div><br></div><div>In addition to FDP, proteomic methods, specifically in hair protein analysis, opens doors and possibilities for forensic investigations when standard DNA profiling methods come up short. Here, we analyzed 233 genetically variant peptides (GVPs) within hair-associated proteins and genes for 66 individuals. We assessed the proteomic methods ability to accurately infer and detect genotypes at each of the 233 SNPs and generated statistics for the probability of identity (PID). Of these markers, 32 passed all quality control and population genetics criteria and displayed an average PID of 3.58 x 10-4. A population genetics assessment was also conducted to identify any SNP that could be used to infer ancestry and/or identity. Providing this information is valuable for the future use of this set of markers for human identification in forensic science settings. </div></div><div><br></div>

This master's thesis addresses processing of flow monitoring records from a point of view of an IPFIX collector. It analysis the current solution of the modular collector, which went through considerable historical development, and focuses on revealing its strengths and weaknesses. Based on acquired knowledge, a new collector is designed. The new solution, which significantly modifies individual components for processing of flow records, focuses on high throughput and adds missing functionalities. The document also compares performance of both generations and the new collector clearly dominates.

Diploma thesis deals with sanitation installations and gas installations in polyfunctional building in Miroslav. Polyfunctional building has four overground floors and one basement. The apartments are located on all overground floors and the offices are located on first over-ground floors. In the theoretical part discusses about the recycling of water and its use.

Předmětem dizertační práce je návrh nových technik pro verifikaci hardwaru, které jsou optimalizovány pro použití v procesu souběžného vývoje hardwaru a softwaru. V rámci tohoto typu vývoje je hardware spolu se software vyvíjen paralelně s cílem urychlit vývoj nových systémů. Současné nástroje pro tvorbu mikroprocesorů stavějící na tomto stylu vývoje obvykle umožňují vývojářům ověřit jejich návrh využitím různých simulačních technik a/nebo za pomoci tzv. funkční verifikace. Společnou nevýhodou těchto přístupů je, že se zaměřují pouze na hledání chyb. Výsledný produkt tedy může stále obsahovat nenalezené netriviální defekty. Z tohoto důvodu se v posledních letech stává stále více žádané nasazení formálních metod. Na rozdíl od výše uvedených přístupů založených na hledání chyb, se formální verifikace zaměřuje na dodání rigorózního důkazu, že daný systém skutečně splňuje požadované vlastnosti. I když bylo v uplynulých letech v této oblasti dosaženo značného pokroku, tak aktuální formální přístupy nemají zdaleka schopnost plně automaticky prověřit všechny relevantní vlastnosti verifikovaného návrhu bez výrazného a často nákladného zapojení lidí v rámci verifikačního procesu. Tato práce se snaží řešit problém s automatizací verifikačního procesu jejím zaměřením na verifikační techniky, ve kterých je záměrně kladen menší důraz na jejich přesnost a obecnost, za cenu dosažení plné automatizace (např. vyloučením potřeby ručně vytvářet modely prostředí). Dále se práce také zaměřuje na efektivitu navrhovaných technik a jejich schopnost poskytovat nepřetržitou zpětnou vazbu o verifikačním procesu (např. v podobě podání informace o aktuálním stavu pokrytí). Zvláštní pozornost je pak věnována vývoji formálních metod ověřujících ekvivalenci návrhů mikroprocesorů na různých úrovních abstrakce. Tyto návrhy se mohou lišit ve způsobu, jakým jsou vnitřně zpracovány programové instrukce, nicméně z vnějšího pohledu (daného např. obsahem registrů viditelných z pozice programátora) musí být jejich chování při provádění stejného vstupního programu shodné. Kromě těchto témat se práce také zabývá problematikou návrhu metod pro verifikaci správnosti mechanismů zabraňujících výskytu datových a řídících hazardů v rámci linky zřetězeného zpracování instrukcí. Veškeré metody popsané v této práci byly implementovány ve formě několika nástrojů. Aplikací těchto nástrojů pro verifikaci návrhů netriviálních procesorů bylo dosaženo slibných experimentálních výsledků.

This master thesis deals with the construction design of two different pipeline drag chain conveyors for transport of wheat and sewage sludge. The first part describes the operation principle and the main parts of this conveyor. The examples of designs from several manufacturers follow. Next part is devoted to determining the resistance to movement in individual sections of the transport route. Thesis continues with design proposals of both variants of conveyors, including suitable technological and strength calculations. The outputs of this work are also assembly drawings of these two conveyors.