We study several different models of extended bodies in gravitational fields. Firstly, we revisit the glider model of a dumbbell-like oscillating body. We develop an independent scheme to integrate the equations of motion. We study the radial fall of a Newtonian spring, calculate the position shifts of the spring and find the critical value of the spring constant which cannot overcome the tidal forces. We argue that the relativistic glider model is unphysical due to its behaviour in the critical regions. Secondly, we show that Dixon's theory of extended bodies predicts a geodesic motion of the centre of mass in maximally symmetric spacetimes. We prove that a system of test particles can be described by a conserved stress-energy tensor and we evaluate the position shifts of the glider model in the maximally symmetric spacetimes, showing its disagreement with Dixon's theory. We thus conclude again that the glider model must be rejected. And thirdly, we study a model of an extended body consisting of interacting particles, which is in accord with Dixon's theory. We calculate the position shifts for this model and show that the model does not predict any measurable swimming effect. Finally, we estimate the numerical error of the calculation by finding the position shifts of the model in maximally symmetric...

Sabe-se que a epilepsia do lobo temporal associada à esclerose hipocampal (ELT-EH) é uma síndrome epiléptica frequente e de difícil controle medicamentoso. Além disso, esta condição acarreta em uma série de prejuízos cognitivos aos seus portadores antes e após a cirurgia para tratamento das crisesrefratárias. Alguns trabalhos mostram que o prognóstico cognitivo pode mudar dependendo da abordagem cirúrgica realizada. Dessa forma, este trabalho teve como objetivo verificar qual o papel do polo temporal no funcionamento cognitivo. Para isso, foi realizada uma análise retrospectiva dos prontuários médicos de 146 pacientes adultos com ELT-EH esquerda, destros, avaliados no Centro de Cirurgia de Epilepsia (CIREP) do Hospital das Clínicas da Faculdade de Medicina de Ribeirão Preto (HCFMRP) - Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Os resultados mostraram um melhor desempenho na tarefa de nomeação por confronto visual nos pacientes que passaram por lobectomia temporal esquerda sem ressecção do polo (p=0.007). Quando realizada da análise do índicede mudança confiável (RCI) para verificar a relevância clínica dos achados, 39,4% dos pacientes que passaram pela cirurgia com ressecção do polo temporal mostraram uma piora significativa de desempenho no teste de nomeação por confronto visual no Boston Naming Test (BNT), enquanto apenas 16% dos que passaram pela cirurgia sem ressecção do polo mostraram piora significativa no mesmo teste (p=0.015). No entanto, este mesmo grupo mostrou um pior prognóstico de controle de crises quando comparado ao grupo com ressecção do polo (p=0.018). Assim, esses dadosindicam que o polo temporal pode estar envolvido em habilidades de nomeação. Nossos resultados sugerem, portanto, que a cirurgia para o tratamento das crises refratárias nos pacientes com ELT-EH esquerda poderiam considerar as diferenças individuais para decidir a melhor abordagem cirúrgica para cada paciente / It is known that the temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) associated with hippocampal sclerosis (HS) is a frequent epileptic syndrome with difficult medication control. In addition, this condition leads to a series of cognitive impairments to patients before and after surgery for the treatment of refractory crises. Studies shown that cognitive prognosis may change depending on the surgical approach. Thus, this study aimed to verify the role of temporal pole in cognitive functions. A retrospective analysis of medical records from 146 adult patients with left-sided TLE-HS - evaluated at the Center for Epilepsy Surgery (CIREP) of the Clinical Hospital from Ribeirão Preto Medical School was performed. The results showed a higherperformance on visual confrontation namingtests - according to the Boston Naming Test (BNT) - in patients submitted to left temporal lobectomy without pole resection (p=0.007). Reliable change index (RCI)analysis, for clinical relevance,revealed that 39.4% of the patients submitted to temporal pole resectionshowed significantly worse performance on visual confrontation naming and only 16% of the patients without pole resection were significantly worse in the same test (p=0.015). However, this same group showed a worse prognosis of crisis control when compared to the group with pole resection (p=0.018). Altogether, the present study suggest that the temporal pole may be involved in naming skills. Our results suggest that surgery for left TLE-HS should be performed considering individual differences to decide the best surgical approach for each patient

<p>Rapid development in CMOS technology has resulted in its suitability for the implementation of readout front-end systems in terms of high integration density, and low power consumption yet at the same time posing many challenges for analog circuits design like readout front-end. One of the significant challenges is the low noise design for high speed front-end systems, while at the same time minimizing the power consumption as much as possible.</p><p>A high speed, low noise, low power, and programmable readout front-end system is designed and implemented for an X-ray detector in CMOS 0.18 m technology in this thesis work. The front-end system has a peaking time of 10 ns, which is the highest speed ever reported in the published work. The front-end system is designed to achieve low noise in terms of ENC, and a low power consumption of 2.9 mW. The detector capacitance is the most dominating parameter to low noise, which in turn is directly related to the power consumption. In this thesis work an ENC of 435 electrons is achieved for a detector capacitance of 5 pF and an ENC of 320 electrons for a detector capacitance of 3 pF. Based on the comparison to related published work, a performance improvement of at least two times is achieved taking peaking time, power, ENC, and detector capacitance all into consideration. The output pulse after amplification has peak amplitude of 300 mV for a maximum injected charge of 40000 electrons from the detector.</p><p>The readout front-end system noise performance is strongly dependent on the input MOSFET type, size, and biasing. In this work a PMOS has been selected and optimized as the input device due to its smaller 1/f noise and high gain as compare to NMOS when biased at same currents. The architecture designed in this work consists of a folded cascode CSA with extra cascode in first stage, a pole-zero cancellation circuit to eliminate undershoot, a shaper amplifier, and integrators using Gm-C filter technique. All of these components are optimized for low power while meeting the noise requirements. The whole front-end system is programmed for peaking times of 10, 20, and 40 ns. The programmability is achieved by switching different capacitors and resistors values for all the poles and zeros in the front-end, and by switching parallel transconductance in the Gm-C filters. Finally fine tuning of all the capacitance, resistance, and transconductance values is done to achieve required performance.</p>

<p>The purpose of this essay is to examine how the adventure is accomplished as a project, and how this is vindicated, through science or by other means. The scientists of today are not seen as adventurers or heroes, at least not as they used to, but this image lives on as a sort of role or social institution, that can be used by anyone and in any purpose. These roles could be seen as a type of rules for the modern adventurer, and act both as a limit or a possibility. This essay compares two North Pole travelers, Ola Skinnarmo and Salomon August Andrée.</p> / <p>Denna uppsats syfte är att undersöka hur man genomför äventyret som ett projekt och hur detta legitimeras, genom vetenskap eller på annat sätt. Vetenskapsmännen ses idag inte som äventyrare eller hjältar, i alla fall inte på samma sätt som förr, men den bilden lever kvar i form av en "rollbeskrivning" eller en sorts "social institution" som kan användas av vem som helst och i alla möjliga syften. Dessa"rollbeskrivningar"skulle kunna ses som en sorts "spelregler" för dagens moderna äventyrare och verka både begränsande och möjliggörande. I uppsatsen jämförs två polarfarare, Ola Skinnarmo och Salomon August Andrée, och deras respektive expeditioner. </p>

<p>Rysslands doktrinella hierarki fungerar utan arenaspecifika doktriner. Det finns ett övergripande säkerhetsstrategiskt dokument, direkt underställt detta dokument finns den militära doktrinen. Ändå utformades 2001 en maritim doktrin som skall behandla det maritima läget och rysslands ekonomiska intressen på haven fram till år 2020. Varför denna doktrin utformades kan ha sitt svar i Rysslands ökade maritima intresse i och kring ryskt havsterritorium, men det kan även vara ett sätt att visa sina officiella ställningstaganden, intressen och intentioner öppet för världssamfundet. 2010 publicerades ett nytt säkerhetsstrategiskt dokument och samma år offentliggjordes även den nya militäradoktrinen. Det utformades i samma veva även en strategisk Arktisk doktrin som tillkännagav Rysslands intentioner och intressen i denna nya och oexploaterade region som tack vare jordens förhöjda medeltemperatur de senare åren har öppnat upp nya områden. Många nationer har blivit intresserade av detta nya område, bland annat USA, Kanada, Danmark och Norge. Detta har i sin tur skapat en grogrund, för tvister om gränsdragningar och om vem som har rätten till resursextraheringen i området. Det som detta arbete kommer att avhandla är, vad den äldre ryska maritima doktrinen har haft för inverkan påde senare utvecklade doktrinerna. Vad finns det för skillnader, likheter och vilka punkter har höjts till en merbeslutad nivå? Utifrån dessa kriterier kommer sedermera en estimering, om vad dessa variabler kan ha förinverkan, på ryska marinstridskrafters uppträdande i Arktis regionen i ett framtidsperspektiv.</p> / <p>Russian doctrine on set hierarchy works without specific arena doctrines. There is a comprehensive security strategy document, and as a direct subordinate to this document is the military doctrine. Yet in the year of 2001 a maritime doctrine was developed to deal with the maritime situation and Russia's economic interests in the seas until 2020. Why this doctrine was designed might have its answer in Russia's increased interest in maritime and Russian waters around the territory, but it can also be a way to show their official positions, interests and intentions open to the world community. In 2010 Russia published a new security strategy document, and the same year the new military doctrine was presented to the public. A strategic doctrine was also produced that announced Russia’s Arctic intentions and interests in this new and undeveloped region. That thanks to the earth's average temperature incensement in recent years has opened up new areas. Many nations are now interested in this new area, including the U.S., Canada, Denmark and Norway. This has created a dispute about the boundaries and who have the right to excavate the resources in the area. What this paper will discuss, is how the older Russian maritime doctrine has influenced the later developed doctrines. What are the differences, similarities, and what points have been raised to amore decision-making level? The based off these criteria will subsequently result, in an estimation of what impact these variables could have, on the Russian naval forces behaviour in the Arctic region ina future perspective.</p>

Rapid development in CMOS technology has resulted in its suitability for the implementation of readout front-end systems in terms of high integration density, and low power consumption yet at the same time posing many challenges for analog circuits design like readout front-end. One of the significant challenges is the low noise design for high speed front-end systems, while at the same time minimizing the power consumption as much as possible. A high speed, low noise, low power, and programmable readout front-end system is designed and implemented for an X-ray detector in CMOS 0.18 m technology in this thesis work. The front-end system has a peaking time of 10 ns, which is the highest speed ever reported in the published work. The front-end system is designed to achieve low noise in terms of ENC, and a low power consumption of 2.9 mW. The detector capacitance is the most dominating parameter to low noise, which in turn is directly related to the power consumption. In this thesis work an ENC of 435 electrons is achieved for a detector capacitance of 5 pF and an ENC of 320 electrons for a detector capacitance of 3 pF. Based on the comparison to related published work, a performance improvement of at least two times is achieved taking peaking time, power, ENC, and detector capacitance all into consideration. The output pulse after amplification has peak amplitude of 300 mV for a maximum injected charge of 40000 electrons from the detector. The readout front-end system noise performance is strongly dependent on the input MOSFET type, size, and biasing. In this work a PMOS has been selected and optimized as the input device due to its smaller 1/f noise and high gain as compare to NMOS when biased at same currents. The architecture designed in this work consists of a folded cascode CSA with extra cascode in first stage, a pole-zero cancellation circuit to eliminate undershoot, a shaper amplifier, and integrators using Gm-C filter technique. All of these components are optimized for low power while meeting the noise requirements. The whole front-end system is programmed for peaking times of 10, 20, and 40 ns. The programmability is achieved by switching different capacitors and resistors values for all the poles and zeros in the front-end, and by switching parallel transconductance in the Gm-C filters. Finally fine tuning of all the capacitance, resistance, and transconductance values is done to achieve required performance.

Rysslands doktrinella hierarki fungerar utan arenaspecifika doktriner. Det finns ett övergripande säkerhetsstrategiskt dokument, direkt underställt detta dokument finns den militära doktrinen. Ändå utformades 2001 en maritim doktrin som skall behandla det maritima läget och rysslands ekonomiska intressen på haven fram till år 2020. Varför denna doktrin utformades kan ha sitt svar i Rysslands ökade maritima intresse i och kring ryskt havsterritorium, men det kan även vara ett sätt att visa sina officiella ställningstaganden, intressen och intentioner öppet för världssamfundet. 2010 publicerades ett nytt säkerhetsstrategiskt dokument och samma år offentliggjordes även den nya militäradoktrinen. Det utformades i samma veva även en strategisk Arktisk doktrin som tillkännagav Rysslands intentioner och intressen i denna nya och oexploaterade region som tack vare jordens förhöjda medeltemperatur de senare åren har öppnat upp nya områden. Många nationer har blivit intresserade av detta nya område, bland annat USA, Kanada, Danmark och Norge. Detta har i sin tur skapat en grogrund, för tvister om gränsdragningar och om vem som har rätten till resursextraheringen i området. Det som detta arbete kommer att avhandla är, vad den äldre ryska maritima doktrinen har haft för inverkan påde senare utvecklade doktrinerna. Vad finns det för skillnader, likheter och vilka punkter har höjts till en merbeslutad nivå? Utifrån dessa kriterier kommer sedermera en estimering, om vad dessa variabler kan ha förinverkan, på ryska marinstridskrafters uppträdande i Arktis regionen i ett framtidsperspektiv. / Russian doctrine on set hierarchy works without specific arena doctrines. There is a comprehensive security strategy document, and as a direct subordinate to this document is the military doctrine. Yet in the year of 2001 a maritime doctrine was developed to deal with the maritime situation and Russia's economic interests in the seas until 2020. Why this doctrine was designed might have its answer in Russia's increased interest in maritime and Russian waters around the territory, but it can also be a way to show their official positions, interests and intentions open to the world community. In 2010 Russia published a new security strategy document, and the same year the new military doctrine was presented to the public. A strategic doctrine was also produced that announced Russia’s Arctic intentions and interests in this new and undeveloped region. That thanks to the earth's average temperature incensement in recent years has opened up new areas. Many nations are now interested in this new area, including the U.S., Canada, Denmark and Norway. This has created a dispute about the boundaries and who have the right to excavate the resources in the area. What this paper will discuss, is how the older Russian maritime doctrine has influenced the later developed doctrines. What are the differences, similarities, and what points have been raised to amore decision-making level? The based off these criteria will subsequently result, in an estimation of what impact these variables could have, on the Russian naval forces behaviour in the Arctic region ina future perspective.

Technological advances results in the fact that quite a large number of electronic equipment interacts with its environment leading to the malfunction of the devices. This brings about the necessity of using proper electromagnetic (EM) wave absorbers/shields to avoid such interactions. In order to absorb EM waves in a large frequency band from several MHz to GHz, barium hexaferrite (BaHF) ceramics which are produced as textured ceramics as well as in multilayered form can be used. Textured ceramics are processed by tape casting using templated grain growth (TGG) phenomenon. In order to obtain textured ceramics, BaHF powders and platelets are required as raw materials in such a way that during sintering small size powders are directioned by large platelet surfaces. In this study, ferrite powders were synthesized by mixed oxide technique while the platelets were produced by both molten salt synthesis (MSS) and reactive templated grain growth (RTGG) methods. In the case of platelet synthesis by MSS, effects of calcination temperature and time as well as type and composition of the flux on the formation and morphology of platelets were investigated based on the XRD and SEM results. Studies have shown that KCl flux led to the formation of sharper platelet morphology, while NaCl resulted in more round shapes. However, extent of BaHF formation in the case of NaCl was higher when compared to KCl flux due to its higher wettability characteristic, and hence faster interaction with the raw materials. Since the aspect ratio of the synthesized platelets was only ca. 2-4, these platelets were not efficient for further TGG studies. Alternatively, BiFeO3 (BiF) particles having ~30-40 &mu / m average size were synthesized as seed crystals for the synthesis of BaHF platelets by RTGG method. After the washing of these platelets with dilute HNO3, pure BaHF powders and platelets were directed by tape casting which was followed by sintering using TGG phenomenon. Degree of achieved texturing in the processed ceramics was studied using Rietveld analysis, pole figure measurement and electron backscattered diffraction (EBSD).

This dissertation proposes several simple, robust, and non-intrusive condition monitoring methods for induction motors fed by closed-loop inverters and claw-pole generators with built-in rectifiers. While the flexible energy forms synthesized by power electronic converters greatly enhance the performance and expand the operating region of induction motors and claw-pole generators, they also significantly alter the fault behavior of these electric machines and complicate the fault detection and protection. In this dissertation, special characteristics of the connected closed-loop inverter and rectifier have been thoroughly analyzed, with particular interest in their impact on fault behaviors of the induction motor and the claw-pole generator. Based on the findings obtained from the theoretical and experimental analysis, several sensorless thermal, mechanical, and insulation monitoring methods are proposed by smartly utilizing special features and capabilities of the connected power electronic converter. A simple and sensitive stator turn-fault detector is proposed for induction motors fed by closed-loop inverter. In addition, a stator thermal monitoring method based on active DC current injection and direct voltage estimation is also proposed to prevent the closed-loop controlled induction motors from thermally overloading. The performance of both methods is demonstrated by extensive experimental results. Methods to detect serpentine belt slip, serpentine belt defect, rotor eccentricity have been proposed for claw-pole generators using only the available electric sensor information. Methods to detect and protect stator turn faults in claw-pole generators are also presented in this dissertation. Lastly, a novel method to detect the generalized bearing roughness fault is proposed. All the proposed condition monitoring techniques have been validated by experimental results.

This research investigates the role of clustering, learning and innovation in retaining competitiveness in an existing tourism area in a peripheral region of Europe. To do this it draws on the tourism resort area known as the Costa del Sol in southern Spain. Structurally, it focuses on hotel and catering businesses, which are considered to be at the heart of the tourism industry. Tourism is shown not only to be fundamental to the development ofthis coastal agglomeration, but also critical to the development of the province of Malaga (of which the Costa del Sol is a part) and the wider region of Andalucia. Hence the need to examine the evolution oftourism, the sources of competitive advantage and how such advantage can be retained in a globalised marketplace. The key proposition is that retaining competitive advantage can best be achieved through learning and innovation and that agglomerations provide a milieu in which learning and innovation are stimulated. Agglomeration theory and the role of learning and innovation are tested through an examination of the spatial and temporal evolution of hotel and catering businesses and through questionnaire surveys covering these businesses. In particular, the surveys are directed at addressing the issues of learning and innovation and assessing the extent to which the Costa del Sol operates as a 'learning region'. Questionnaire work met with severe problems of non-response despite being undertaken in conjunction with local business organisations. Nevertheless, sufficient responses were obtained to provide some tentative answers to the questions being posed and to provide the foundation for further research. The principal conclusions were that the Costa del Sol has acted as a growth pole and seedbed for business development, and that learning and innovation are promoted as much by competition as by co-operation. Finally, some public policy implications are drawn from these conclusions.