<p>The thesis purpose was to develop a framework for coordination of devices over mobile environment. The framework is specially designed for mobile devices due to constraints in mobiles of less memory and resources, enables zero configuration for communication. The purpose of study was to investigate existing tools and technologies for mobile communication. For this purpose UPnP (Universal Plug and Play) architecture is investigated over Prism-MW (Programming in the small and many - middleware) for android platform. We have developed the control point devices communicate with server devices. And also we have developed demonstrator application to show how devices will work.</p>

This thesis describes an experimental investigation into ignition systems, their effects on the combustion process, and how the discharge is affected by the prevailing pressure, temperature and flow. The work is divided into four main areas, a comprehensive literature review, engine testing for ignition system suitability, non-flow rig testing (including erosion) and flow rig testing. The literature review concluded that the most practical ignition system for lean burn gas engines will continue to be based on the spark plug, but in the medium to long term, laser ignition may become viable. The measurement of the HT voltage and current is not straightforward, and appropriate methods have been identified. Capacitive and inductive ignition system types were compared in lean and diluted conditions on a single cylinder research engine of modern design at different engine loads and speeds. It was found that the most beneficial ignition system was an inductive ignition system, although that for some conditions, capacitive systems induced better engine performance with a fraction of the stored energy of the inductive alternative. Non flow tests showed that the early part of the spark discharge is sensitive to pressure and temperature effects, and as a consequence, the latter stages of the discharge are also affected. A correlation has been developed, for use with conventional nickel electrode spark plugs, to predict breakdown voltage as a function of pressure, temperature and gap. Experiments were carried out at elevated pressures in a stream of flowing air with capacitive and inductive ignition systems. Different electrode designs and orientations were also compared. It was shown that when exposed to a flow field, the discharge can be stretched which results in a shortened spark duration; in some cases the electrode can shield the discharge from flow field effects. This work showed that flow through the spark gap is a hindrance to the spark process, especially for longer duration systems. However for flame kernel growth, the literature review identified that flow is beneficial, serving to convect the kernel away from the electrodes, reducing the heat transfer from the flame. Analysis of the glow voltage history in the pressurised flow rig has been used to develop a correlation relating the voltage, current, flow velocity, pressure and time. This correlation was used to analyse the velocity records from the spark plug in a firing engine. The predicted velocities and turbulence intensity were in agreement with independent measurements.

Supersonic micronozzles operate in the unique viscosupersonic flow regime, characterized by large Mach numbers (M>1) and low Reynolds numbers (Re<1000). Past research has primarily focused on the design and analysis of converging-diverging de Laval nozzles; however, plug (i.e. centerbody) designs also have some promising characteristics that might make them amenable to microscale operation. In this study, the effects of plug geometry on plug micronozzle performance are examined for the Reynolds number range Re = 80-640 using 2D Navier-Stokes-based simulations. Nozzle plugs are shortened to reduce viscous losses via three techniques: one - truncation, two - the use of parabolic contours, and three - a geometric process involving scaling. Shortened nozzle are derived from a full length geometry designed for optimal isentropic performance. Expansion ratio (ε = 3.19 and 6.22) and shortened plug length (%L = 10-100%) are varied for the full Reynolds number range. The performance of plug nozzles is then compared to that of linear-walled nozzles for equal pressure ratios, Reynolds numbers, and expansion ratios. Linear-walled nozzle half-angle is optimized to to ensure plug nozzles are compared against the best-case linear-walled design. Results indicate that the full length plug nozzle delivers poor performance on the microscale, incurring excessive viscous losses. Plug performance is increased by shortening the nozzle plug, with the scaling technique providing the best performance. The benefit derived from reducing plug length depends upon the Reynolds number, with a 1-2% increase for high Reynolds numbers an up to 14% increase at the lowest Reynolds number examined. In comparison to Linear-walled nozzle, plug nozzles deliver superior performance when under-expanded, however, this trend reverses at low pressure ratios when the nozzles become over-expanded.

No description available.

Foram analisadas a capacidade seladora e a adaptação marginal de tampões apicais confeccionados com diferentes materiais, sob a influência de três técnicas de obturação de canais radiculares. Foram utilizados cento e vinte dentes permanentes de humanos, unirradiculados e portadores de um canal, superiores ou inferiores, com raízes íntegras e ápices completamente formados. Após a abertura coronária, foi realizado o preparo dos canais radiculares pela técnica coroa-ápice, com brocas de Gates Glidden em ordem numérica decrescente, partindo-se da broca número 5 até a de número 1, sendo que esta sempre ultrapassou o forame apical em 1mm. Após esse procedimento, os canais foram dilatados, ainda, com limas do tipo K, iniciando-se com a de número 50 até a de número 90, padronizando-se, assim, o diâmetro do forame. Durante a instrumentação, todas as limas ultrapassaram o forame apical em 1mm. Após esse procedimento, realizou-se a impermeabilização da superfície externa das raízes, com uma camada de Araldite e duas de esmalte para unhas. Na seqüência, os dentes foram divididos em 4 grupos de 30 espécimes cada, de acordo com os materiais utilizados na confecção dos tampões apicais, com 5mm de espessura: Grupo 1 - pasta L & C, Grupo 2 - cimento MTA-Angelus® cinza, Grupo 3 - cimento CPM® e Grupo 4 - cimento MBPc. A seguir, cada grupo foi dividido em três subgrupos, com 10 dentes cada, de acordo com a técnica obturadora utilizada: condensação lateral, híbrida de Tagger e sistema Ultrafil. Realizadas as obturações, os 10 dentes de cada subgrupo, devidamente identificados, foram imersos em solução corante de Rodamina B a 0,2%, pH 7,0 e levados à estufa a 37oC, onde permaneceram por 48 horas. Após a lavagem dos dentes e a retirada da impermeabilização, os mesmos foram desgastados longitudinalmente, na face mesial ou na distal, utilizando-se discos de carburundum, de modo a expor o tampão apical e a obturação. A análise da infiltração marginal foi feita utilizando-se fotografias digitalizadas, com o auxílio do software Image Tool 3.0. Como medida de infiltração, considerou-se o traço de maior extensão do corante, na interface tampão apical-parede dentinária, desde a porção mais apical do material até a sua porção mais cervical. Para a realização do teste de adaptação marginal às paredes dentinárias dos materiais utilizados como tampão apical, foram utilizados os mesmos dentes submetidos ao teste de infiltração de Rodamina B a 0,2%, com exceção dos dentes do grupo 1 (pasta L & C). Assim, os 90 espécimes dos grupos 2, 3 e 4 foram seccionados transversalmente a 7mm do ápice. Esses segmentos foram metalizados e levados ao microscópio eletrônico de varredura (M.E.V.), obtendo-se fotomicrografias com aumentos de 35X e 150X. Para a análise da adaptação marginal dos cimentos testados, as fotomicrografias com aumento de 35X foram levadas ao software Image Tool 3.0 e a mensuração da desadaptação foi feita de forma linear, medindo-se, em micrometros, a extensão da mesma. Os resultados obtidos, tanto da análise da infiltração como da adaptação marginal, foram tabulados e submetidos aos testes estatísticos de Kruskal- Wallis e de Dunn. Os resultados mostraram que o cimento MBPc apresentou os menores índices de infiltração de Rodamina B a 0,2%, com diferença estatística significante para os demais materiais; o cimento CPM® apresentou os melhores resultados quando avaliada a adaptação às paredes do canal radicular, porém sem significância estatística; as três técnicas obturadoras utilizadas não tiveram influência sobre a capacidade seladora e nem na adaptação dos tampões apicais. / This study evaluated the sealing ability and marginal adaptation of apical plugs fabricated with different materials, under the influence of three root canal filling techniques. The study sample was composed of 120 single-rooted permanent teeth with a single canal, either maxillary or mandibular, with intact roots and completely formed apices. After coronal opening, root canal preparation was performed by the crown-down technique with Gates Glidden burs in decreasing order, from bur #5 to #1; the latter always surpassed the apical foramen in 1mm. After this procedure, the root canals were enlarged with K files #50 to #90, therefore standardizing the foramen diameter. During instrumentation, all files surpassed the apical foramen in 1mm. Afterwards, the external root surfaces were impermeabilized by application of one coat of Araldite and two coats of nail enamel. Following, the teeth were divided into 4 groups with 30 specimens each, according to the materials employed to fabricate the apical plugs, with 5-mm thickness: Group 1 - L & C paste; Group 2 - gray MTA-Angelus -sealer; Group 3 - CPM - sealer; and Group 4 - MBPc sealer. Each group was then divided into three subgroups with 10 teeth each, according to the root canal filling technique adopted: lateral condensation, Tagger hybrid technique, and Ultrafil system. Then, the 10 teeth from each subgroup, properly labeled, were immersed into 0.2% Rhodamine B, pH 7.0 and placed in an oven at 37oC for 48 hours. After rinsing and removal of the impermeable coat, the teeth were longitudinally worn with carborundum discs on the mesial or distal aspect, with a view to expose the apical plug and root canal filling. Analysis of marginal leakage was performed with aid of digitized photographs on the software Image Tool 3.0. Leakage was measured on the most extensive trace of dye leakage at the interface between the apical plug and dentinal wall, from the most apical to the most cervical portions of material. The marginal adaptation of materials employed for fabrication of the apical plug to the dentinal walls was investigated on the same teeth submitted to the 0.2% Rhodamine B leakage test, except for the teeth in Group 1 (L & C paste). For that purpose, the 90 specimens in Groups 2, 3 and 4 were transversely sectioned at 7mm from the apex. These segments were gold-sputtered and analyzed by scanning electron microscopy, with achievement of photomicrographs at 35X and 150X magnifications. For analysis of the marginal adaptation of sealers, the photomicrographs at 35X magnification were analyzed on the software Image Tool 3.0 and the extent of misfit was measured linearly, in micrometers. The results achieved for both leakage and marginal adaptation analyses were tabulated and statistically analyzed by the Kruskal- Wallis and Dunn\'s tests. The results revealed that the sealer MBPc exhibited the lowest values of leakage of 0.2% Rhodamine B, with statistically significant difference compared to the other materials; the sealer CPM - presented the best results as to adaptation to the root canal walls, yet without statistical significance; the three root canal filling techniques employed did not have any influence on the sealing ability or the adaptation of apical plugs.

Antimicrobial resistant microorganisms are predicted to pose an existential threat to humanity inside of the next 3 decades. Characterisation of novel acting antimicrobial small molecules from microorganisms has historically counteracted this evolutionary arms race, however the bountiful source of pharmaceutically relevant bioactive specialised metabolites discovered in the Golden era of drug discovery has long since dried up. The clinicians' arsenal of useful antimicrobials is diminishing, and a fresh perspective on specialised metabolite discovery is necessary. This call to action is being answered, in part, through advances in genome sequencing, bioinformatics predictions and the development of next generation synthetic biology tools aiming to translate the biological sciences into an engineering discipline. To expedite our route to new pharmaceutically relevant specialised metabolites using the synthetic biology toolbox several bottlenecks need to be addressed, and are tackled here in. Biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs) represent blueprints to pharmaceuticals, however to date the vast wealth of knowledge about biosynthetic gene clusters is inconsistently reported and sporadically disseminated throughout the literature and databases. To bring the reporting of BGCs in line with engineering principles we designed and built a community supported standard, the Minimum Information about a Biosynthetic Gene cluster (MIBiG), for reporting BGCs in a consistent manner, and centralised this information in an easy to operate and open access repository for rapid retrieval of information, an essential resource for the bioengineer. Prioritisation represents the next bottleneck in specialised metabolite discovery. Bioinformatics tools have predicted a cache of thousands of BGCs within publicly available genome sequences, however high experimental attrition rates drastically slows characterisation of the corresponding specialised metabolite. We designed and built an Output Ordering and Prioritisation System (OOPS), to rank thousands of BGCs in parallel against molecular biology relevant parameters, pairing BGCs with appropriate heterologous expression hosts and facilitating a judicious choice of BGCs for characterisation to reduce experimental attrition. To fully realise the potential of synthetic biology in specialised metabolite discovery a genetically amenable heterologous host, capable of completing rapid design-build-test-learn cycles, is necessary. This cannot be achieved for the pharmaceutically important type II polyketides, as their biosynthetic machinery is largely restricted to Actinobacteria. Using MIBiG datasets, antiSMASH and BLASTP we identify 5 sets of soluble type II polyketide synthases (PKS) in Escherichia coli for the first time. We construct and test the robustness of a plug-and-play scaffold for bioproduction of aromatic polyketides using one PKS in E. coli, yielding anthraquinones, dianthrones and benzoisochromanequinones intermediates. Through bioprospecting for biological 'parts' to expand the chemical diversity of our plug-and-play scaffold we describe a new lineage of type II PKSs predominantly from non-Actinobacteria. The standards, softwares, and plug-and-play scaffold and biosynthetic 'parts' described here-in will act as an engine for rapid and automated bioproduction of existing, and novel, pharmaceutically relevant aromatic polyketides in E. coli using the synthetic biology toolbox.

Os aços inoxidáveis dúplex compõem uma família de materiais conhecidos por apresentar uma excelente combinação propriedades mecânicas e de corrosão, e por isso têm sido amplamente estudados nos últimos anos. Contudo, essa combinação de propriedades está intrinsecamente relacionada com a microestrutura desses aços, composta por iguais quantidades de ferrita e austenita, e esse equilíbrio entre as fases é extremamente dependente dos ciclos térmicos aos quais são submetidos, sob risco, inclusive, da precipitação de fases secundárias deletérias. Sendo assim, a soldagem desses materiais exige uma série de cuidados para que ela não implique em prejuízo para suas propriedades. Nesse contexto, a soldagem por fricção surge como alternativa para a união e reparo dessas ligas, justamente por apresentar um menor aporte térmico que técnicas convencionais de soldagem. Isto posto, foi realizado um reparo pelo processo de soldagem por fricção com pino consumível em uma chapa de 12mm de espessura feita em um aço inoxidável dúplex UNS S31803. Para tanto, foram registrados os dados térmicos do processamento, analisou-se a microestrutura apresentada pela junta soldada, além de avaliar-se sua tenacidade ao impacto. Os resultados comprovaram que, embora não ocorra significativa precipitação de fases secundárias, o processo de soldagem por fricção provoca diminuição da tenacidade ao impacto do material por causar o deslocamento do equilíbrio entre as fases no sentido de formação da fase ferrítica. / Duplex stainless steels compose a family of materials known to exhibit an excellent combination of mechanical and corrosion properties, and therefore have been widely studied in recent years. However, this combination of properties intrinsically relates to the microstructure of these steels that consists of equal amounts of ferrite and austenite, and this balance between phases is extremely dependent on the thermal cycles, at risk including the precipitation of deleterious secondary phases. Thus, welding of these materials requires a lot of care so that it does not result in damage to their property. In this context, the friction welding is an alternative to the union and repair of these alloys, just by having a lower heat input than conventional welding techniques. That said, a repair by the friction taper plug welding process was made on a 12 mm plate thick in a duplex stainless steel UNS S31803. Thermal processing data were recorded, microstructure presented by the welded joint was analyzed, and evaluate is its impact toughness. The results proved that although not occur significant precipitation of secondary phases, the friction welding process causes decrease in the impact toughness of the material for causing the displacement of the equilibrium between the phases towards the formation of the ferritic phase.

Robotics has been considered as a viable automation solution for the aerospace industry to address manufacturing cost. Many of the existing robot systems augmented with guidance from a large volume metrology system have proved to meet the high dimensional accuracy requirements in aero-structure assembly. However, they have been mainly deployed as costly and dedicated systems, which might not be ideal for aerospace manufacturing having low production rate and long cycle time. The work described in this thesis is to provide technical solutions to improve the flexibility and cost-efficiency of such metrology-integrated robot systems. To address the flexibility, a software framework that supports reconfigurable system integration is developed. The framework provides a design methodology to compose distributed software components which can be integrated dynamically at runtime. This provides the potential for the automation devices (robots, metrology, actuators etc.) controlled by these software components to be assembled on demand for various assembly applications. To reduce the cost of deployment, this thesis proposes a two-stage error compensation scheme for industrial robots that requires only intermittent metrology input, thus allowing for one expensive metrology system to be used by a number of robots. Robot calibration is employed in the first stage to reduce the majority of robot inaccuracy then the metrology will correct the residual errors. In this work, a new calibration model for serial robots having a parallelogram linkage is developed that takes into account both geometric errors and joint deflections induced by link masses and weight of the end-effectors. Experiments are conducted to evaluate the two pieces of work presented above. The proposed framework is adopted to create a distributed control system that implements calibration and error compensation for a large industrial robot having a parallelogram linkage. The control system is formed by hot-plugging the control applications of the robot and metrology used together. Experimental results show that the developed error model was able to improve the 3s positional accuracy of the loaded robot from several millimetres to less than one millimetre and reduce half of the time previously required to correct the errors by using only the metrology. The experiments also demonstrate the capability of sharing one metrology system to more than one robot.

This research presents the first use of side-polished Panda fiber in the fabrication of slab-coupled optical sensors (SCOS). It is determined that the Panda SCOS provides a sensor that is comparable to the D-fiber SCOS in cases of electric field sensing. It exhibits greater power transfer and higher bandwidth than a typical D-SCOS. The Panda SCOS is also less costly and easier to splice than the D-fiber alternative. This comes at a cost of slightly decreased sensitivity and a more fragile fabrication process. This research also demonstrates the use of the Panda-SCOS as means of voltage characterization across both the spark gap of an ignition coil circuit along with the spark gap of an automobile. This paper demonstrates the use of a Panda SCOS to measure the voltages and time delays across the spark gaps at different stages of a Marx generator setup .

This dissertation provides the motivation for and evidence in favour of an approach to language extension via dynamic loading of plug-ins. There is a growing realisation that language features are often a superior choice to software libraries for implementing applications. Among the benefits are increased usability, safety and efficiency. Unfortunately, designing and implementing new languages is difficult and time consuming. Thus, reuse of language infrastructure is an attractive implementation avenue. The central question then becomes, what is the best method to extend languages? Much research has focussed on methods of extension based on using features of the language itself such as macros or reflection. This dissertation focuses on a complementary solution: plug-in compilers. In this approach languages are extended at run-time via dynamic extensions to compilers, called plug-ins. Plug-ins can be used to extend the expressiveness, safety and efficiency of languages. However, a plug-in compiler provides other benefits. Plug-in compilers encourage modularity, lower the barrier of entry to development, and facilitate the distribution and use of experimental language extensions. This dissertation describes how plug-in support is added, to both the front and back-end of a compiler, and demonstrates their application through a pair of case studies.