Waste management issues are prevalent in many parts of the world. Member states of the European Union (EU) are expected to follow the guidelines of the Waste Framework Directive set by the EU. The directive includes targets intended to facilitate waste management practices such as recycling and landfilling. Unfortunately, several countries in the Mediterranean regions are failing to meet these targets, one such country being Cyprus. The country is the third largest generator of municipal waste in the EU and majority of the country’s waste (approx. 80%) are landfilled, while just 19% are recycled. Cyprus has failed to meet the target for recycling 50% of the municipal waste by 2020. Much of the problems can be attributed to the fact that the country lacks good infrastructures such as recycling facilities and services for separate processing of recyclables and biodegradables. Cyprus University of Technology,situated in the city of Limassol, is a leading university in country that values environmental protection and sustainability and has won several awards for depicting their commitment towards sustainable development. Owing to their good environmental record, a study was conducted at this university in the form of a waste audit and nudging experiment along with a complimentary questionnaire. Nudging is a concept in behavioural science which proposes positive reinforcement through the form of indirect suggestions as a strategy to influence decisions and behaviours of individuals or groups. Nudging was undertaken through the intervention of an informative sign at the recycle bins. The waste audit was separated into two periods, control (without nudging) and intervention (with nudging). Later, a questionnaire was distributed to students to understand their attitudes and behaviours towards recycling and the nudging experiment. This research is analysed using a mixed method approach whereby data is collected and analysed using both quantitative and qualitative methods. A secondary data analysis was also utilised for recommending possible solutions to improving waste management problems in Cyprus based on recycling initiatives in other countries, particularly from the Mediterranean region. The research found that there has been an increase in the rate of recycling since nudging was introduced. The questionnaire results also implied that there is a general concern among students for recycling and that much more has to be done by the university to help with waste separation and recycling. The secondary analysis of literature also reveals Cyprus has a long way to go, but proper waste management can be achieved through the government’s prioritisation of environmental protection and improvement of waste management infrastructures. Although the findings in this research has been successful, it could have been further investigated if the waste audit period had been extended and more responses were acquired to the questionnaire. Additionally, conducting interviews of certain individuals could have provided more insight into the waste management challenges in the future.

The master thesis discusses physical causes of light polarization and problems brought by nascence of Polarization Mode Dispersion (PMD). These problems occur especially by high speed systems on optical cable traces. The thesis deals with actuation of transmitted signal by influence of Inter Symbol Interference and it also deals with methods for its measuring and compensation. As a results of measurements are in text presented data provided by EXFO Electro-Optical Engineering Inc. Company. Significant part of the thesis focuses on optical link Bit Error Rate (BER) which is connected with Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) and signal quality (Q-factor). Further on it is possible to find in text about so called eye diagram which is display mode that shows influence of communication channel on shape of the transmitted signal. To this diagram is related another one called constellation diagram which describes modulation mode and makes it possible to map dispersion of signal points around their nominal values. In connection with so called trajectory it makes vector diagram. Practical part includes depiction of these diagrams in MATLAB development environment.

This project describes the fundamental concepts and basic theory of polarization mode dispersion (PMD) in optical fibers. There are described basic the relation between Jones vectors and Stokes vectors, rotation matrices, the definition and representation of PMD vectors, the laws of infinitesimal rotation. After the introduction the first conception with bases of polarization mode dispersion (PMD) in optical fibers, they have become an important body of knowledge basic for the design of high-capacity optical communication systems. PMD effects are linear electromagnetic propagation phenomena occurring in so-called “single-mode“fibers. Despite their name, these fibers support two modes of propagation distinguished by their polarization. Because of optical birefringence in the fiber, the two modes travel with different group velocities, and the random change of this birefringence along the fiber length results in random coupling between the modes. With current practical transmission technology the resulting PMD phenomena lead to pulse distortion and system impairments that limit the transmission capacity of the fiber. I describe different ways of measuring PMD in optical fibre, PMD compensation techniques and analyse PMD results in optical fibres.

3D optical proximity scanner is described in this thesis. The sensor is marked as 03D201 and is made by Ifm electronic, GmbH company. The text also describes the basic characteristics, measuring principle, PC connection method and communication. A program for communication between PC and sensor was created and named O3D_Application. This program provides functions for real-time data transfer and visualization. Measured data can be saved easily by this program. The thesis also contains an analysis of measured data and parasitic parameters of the sensor.

The thesis focuses on the optical access networks and deals with the issue of transmission parameters of the physical layer, their negative impact on the quality of the services parameters and the possibilities of reducing their effect using the polarization multiplexing. The first and second chapter describe the theoretical background necessary for understanding the subsequent parts. The third chapter contains the practical part of the thesis. At first the optical routes in the Czech Republic in terms of polarization mode dispersion, which is together with insertion loss the main limiting parameter of high-speed optical networks, are evaluated. In the following part the measuring of the temperature changes effects on the polarization mode dispersion of the passive components and the effect of temperature changes to the polarization multiplexed signal are evaluated. To double the bandwidth and reduce the influence of polarization mode dispersion on the quality of services, the two simulation models of optical access networks using polarization multiplexing were carried out. These theoretical outputs were verified by the practical measurements in the laboratory and subsequently on the real optical route. Finally, a draft of the broadband optical access network based on wavelength and polarization multiplexing was designed based on obtained knowledge.

<p> In this thesis, we have developed a full time domain approach for the simulation of pulse propagation in the optical fiber. Same as split-step method in frequency domain, this approach also treats the linear and nonlinear process alternately. To avoid the back and forth transformation between time and frequency domains, a digital Infinite Impulse Response (IIR) filter is used to treat the linear propagation directly in time domain. The signal samples pass through a pre-extracted IIR digital filter where the convolution is simply replaced by a series of operations that consist of shift and multiplication only. </p> <p> Compared with frequency domain method, this approach is fully realized in a "data-flow" fashion. Compared with time domain finite impulse response (FIR) method, this approach can save more memory and computation time. </p> <p> This approach is verified by comparing with the conventional frequency domain split-step Fourier method, and it is applied to the simulation of the pulse propagation, including polarization mode dispersion (PMD) effect in the optical fiber. </p> / Thesis / Master of Applied Science (MASc)

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Master’s thesis engages in the impact of polarization mode dispersion on optical communication system. Polarization mode dispersion is mathematically described by Stoke’s and Jone’s space and ensure the theoretic causes of the rise of polarization mode dispersion that are divided on the external and internal effects. On the basis of these effects grow up a differential group delay (DGD) which makes causes that individual polarization modes have between them a time delay and limitation of maximum bit rate. Then master´s thesis analyses the influence of the polarization mode dispersion on the pulse enlargement and on the modulation signal. In this work, there are described the most applicated optical modulation formats. Polarization mode dispersion has also influence on the bit error rate of optical fibre link and closing of eye diagram too. Eye diagram is used to view the transmission characteristics and diagnoses the channel errors. Eye diagram is connected with the definitions as a bit error rate (BER) and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) that are explained in this work too. Following the gained experiences it was designed an useful graphic interface to display the effect of the polarization mode dispersion on the transmitted signal. Realization of the graphic interface is created in the program MATLAB. In Matlab-Simulink are created six models according to the kind of modulations with characteristic AWGN (Additive White Gaussian Noise) channel. Program was tested for a typical values. In all calculations it is counted only with the losses that are caused by the polarization mode dispersion. It is not calculated with the losses that are caused by a chromatic dispersion and attenuation. At the end of this work are evaluated all types of modulation formats depending on the polarization mode dispersion, optical fibre length, price and complexity of the realization. Atteined results of my master’s thesis are compared with two foreign articles.