The demand for high performance electronic devices is ever increasing in today's world with advent of digital technology in every field. In order to support this fast paced growth and incursion of digital technology in society, smarter, smaller integrated circuits are required at a lower cost. This primary requirement drives semiconductor industries towards the integration of larger number of smaller transistors on a given circuit area. The past decades have seen a rapid evolution of material processing and fabrication techniques, as focus shifts from submicron to sub-nanometer length scales in device configuration. As the functional feature size of an integrated circuit decreases, the threshold of defect causing impurities rises drastically. Huge amount of resources are spent in downstream and upstream processing in order to restore system from contamination upsets and in the upkeep of Ultra-High-Purity (UHP) process streams to meet these stringent requirements. Contamination once introduced into the system also drastically reduces process yield and throughput resulting in huge losses in revenue. Regular UHP fluid distribution system maintenance as well as restorative operations involve a purging operation typically known as Steady State Purge (SSP). This purge operation involves large amount of expensive UHP gas and time. Depending on the scale of the system and type of process involved this results in significant tool, process downtimes and can have a wide range of environment, health and safety (ESH) ramifications. A novel purge process, referred to as Pressure Cyclic Purge (PCP) was studied for establishing gas phase contamination control in UHP applications. In understanding the basic mechanism of this technique and to analyze its extent of application in aiding purging operations, a coupled approach involving experimental investigation and computational process modelling was used. Representative and generic distribution sections such as main supply lines and sections with laterals were contaminated with a known amount of moisture as impurity. The dynamics of the impurity transport through the system from purging with SSP as well as PCP was captured by a highly sensitive analyzer. The surface interactions between the moisture and EPSS were characterized in terms of adsorption and desorption rate constants and surface site density. A computational process model trained using experimental data was then validated and used to study the steady and cyclic purge mechanisms and predict complex purge scenarios. Industrially relevant and applicable boundary conditions and system definitions were used to increases the utility of the computational tool. Although SSP compared closely with PCP on simple systems without laterals, a drastic difference in dry-down efficiency was noticed in systems with dead volumes in the form of capped laterals. Studies on system design parameters revealed that the disparity in performance was observed to increase with larger number and surface area of dead volumes, opening a path to critical understanding of the differences in process mechanisms. Beneficial transient pressure gradient induced convective flow in the dead volumes during cyclic purge was identified to be the main factor driving the enhanced dry down rate. Similar trends were observed on using surface concentration as the purge metric. Hybrid purge schemes involving a combination of SSP and PCP were found to yield higher benefit in terms of efficient use of purge gas. Removal of strongly interacting contaminant species showed a higher benefit from use of controlled PCP scheme. Although, parametric analysis carried out on the operating factors of cyclic purge suggested that the enhancement in dry down increased with higher pressure range, it was highly conditional towards configurational factors in design and operation such as system dimensions, holding time, cycling pattern, valve loss coefficients and the complex inter coupling between them. The robustness of the process simulator allows the development of optimal purge scenarios for a given set of system parameters in order to perform a controlled purge. The benefit of using a hybrid PCP scheme was evaluated in terms of UHP purge gas and process time as a function of purity baseline required. Apart from UHP gas distribution systems, process vessels, chambers and components along the process stream are also prone to molecular contamination and pose a threat to product integrity. The dead volumes acting as areas of contaminant accumulation represent cavities or dead spaces in flow control elements such as mass flow controllers (MFCs), gauges, valves or dead spaces in process chambers. Steady purge has very little effect in cleanup of such areas and more efficient methods are necessitated to raise purge efficiency. The analysis of application of PCP is extended to such components through the development of a robust and comprehensive process simulator. The computational model applies a three dimensional physical model to analyze purge scenarios with steady and cyclic purge. The results presented pertain to any generic gas phase contaminant and electronic grade steel surfaces. Close investigation of the purge process helped elaborate the cleaning mechanism. Critical steps driving the purge process were identified as - dilution of chamber by introduction of fresh gas during re-pressurization and chamber venting during depressurization. Surface and gas phase purging of chambers with dead spaces using steady and cyclic purge were studied and compared. Cyclic purge exhibited a higher rate of dry down. The effect of system, design and purge operating parameters on surface cleaning were studied. Although higher frequency cycles and larger operating pressure ranges optimized for a given geometry are found to deliver better pressure cyclic purge (PCP) performances, the benefit is found to be contingent to a strong interplay between system parameters. PCP is found to be advantageous than steady state purge (SSP) in terms of purge gas usage and operation time in reaching a certain purity baseline. Specialty process gases supplied to the fabrication facility are typically stored in the form of liquids in enormous tanks outside the fab. Ammonia is a widely used in UHP concentrations for a variety of process including epitaxial growth, MOCVD, etching and wet processes in the semiconductor industry. The recent development in LED research has risen the demand and supply for Ammonia based compounds. Stringent baselines are maintained for the impurities associated with the manufacturing of such gases (e.g. Moisture in Ammonia). Apart from the difference in the rates of evaporation of the individual species from the storage cylinder causing accumulation of slower evaporating species, external temperature fluctuations also generate unsteady flux of desired species. When concentrations rise above this threshold additional purification or in most cases discarding large volumes of unused gas is warranted, causing loss of resources and causing ESH issues. Bulk gases are usually delivered over long lengths of large diameter pipes which produce large density of adsorption sites for contaminants to accumulate and eventually release into the gas stream. In order to establish contamination control in the gas delivery system, the surface interactions of the multispecies system with the delivery line surface was characterized. Desired concentrations of moisture in ammonia and UHP nitrogen mixtures were produced in a gas mixing section capable of delivering controlled mass flow rates to an EPSS test bed. Transient moisture profiles during adsorption and desorption tests at various test bed temperatures, mass flow rates and moisture concentration were captured by a highly sensitive analyzer. A mathematical model for single and multi-species adsorption was used in conjunction with experimental data to determinate kinetics parameters for moisture, ammonia system in EPSS surface. The results indicate competitive site binding on EPSS between ammonia and water molecules. Also, the concentration distribution of each species between surface, gas phase is interdependent and in accordance to the kinetic parameters evaluated. Back diffusion of impurity is a major source of contaminant introduction into UHP streams. Back diffusion refers to the transport of contaminants against the flow of bulk process stream. Molecular species can back diffuse from dead volumes, during mixing operations etc., simply when there is a gradient of concentration. A steady state approach was used to analyze the mechanism and effects of various geometrical and operational parameters on back diffusion. High sensitivity moisture detectors were used to capture the dynamics of contamination in a section of a generic distribution system. Results showed that back diffusion can occur through VCR fittings, joints and valves under constant purge. General trends on the effect of design parameters on back diffusion were derived from studies on various orifice sizes, system dimensions, flow rates and test moisture concentrations. Coupled parametric studies helped identify critical variable groups to perform dimensionless analysis on back diffusion of moisture. Crucial points where back diffusion can be minimized or completely eliminated are identified to help set up guidelines for cyclic and steady purge parameters without excessive use of expensive UHP gas or installation of unnecessarily large factors of safety. Wet cleaning of micro/nano sized features is a highly frequent process step in the semiconductor industry. The operation is a huge consumer of ultra-pure water and one of the main areas where process time minimization is focused. Comprehensive process model is developed to simulate the mechanism and capture the dynamics of rinsing high aspect ratio Silicon features in the nanometer scale. Rinsing of model trench, post etch contaminated with ammonium residue is studied. Mass transport mechanisms such as convection, diffusion are coupled with surface processes like adsorption and desorption. The effect of charged species on the trench surface and in the bulk, the resultant induced electric field on the rinse dynamics and decay of surface species concentration is studied. General rinsing trends and critical points in change in mechanisms were identified with critical groups such as mass transfer coefficient and desorption coefficient. The model is useful in evaluating process efficiency in terms of rinse time and DI water consumption under varying process temperature, contaminant concentration, and rinse fluid flow rate. The generic build of the model allows extension of its functionality to other impurity-substrate material couples.

Les concentrateurs Falcon permettent de séparer des particules en fonction de leur densité. Leur capacité à traiter des débits de suspension importants rend leur utilisation courante dans les procédés miniers. Dans les gammes de tailles ultrafines (entre 1 et 100 μm), leur coupure devient à la fois granulométrique et densimétrique. Ce travail a porté sur la compréhension de leur physique et de ses limites. Une analyse de leurs mécanismes de séparation a abouti à une loi d’échelle analytique, validée expérimentalement. Des investigations plus complètes appliquées aux suspensions ultrafines ont été réalisées numériquement. Finalement un critère physique liant la gamme de taille à séparer aux densités des différentes fractions a été explicité et appliqué à la valorisation de sédiments fins. / Enhanced gravity separators are widely used in minerals beneficiation, as their superior gravity field enables them to separate particles within narrow classes of density and size. This study aims to shed light on the Falcon concentrator’s ability to separate particles with size and density ranges lower than usual, 1 to 100 micrometers and 1.2 to 3.0 s.g. respectively. Differential particle settling being identified as the prevailing separation mechanism under such conditions, this study couples a theoretical and numerical approach with targeted experiments to build a predictive Falcon separation model that embeds phenomenological fluid and particle flow analysis. Based on this model, physical limitations were identified and quantified through explicit relations between operating parameters, and particle size and density ranges. Falcon’s efficiency to beneficiate dredged sediments was characterized in this way.

Deoiling of petroleum wastewater is a major concern in petroleum process engineering. The conventional design procedure for deoiling systems consists of nine consecutive stages involving different people or groups. This thesis considers reengineering the conventional procedure, with the aim of increasing the efficiency of the process and productivity of people involved. The thesis then investigates the development of the appropriate computer support tools for the new procedure. The reengineering of the procedure is based on concepts proposed by Hammer (1990). The resulting procedure consists of four stages, where parallelism of the different tasks in the conventional procedure is explicitly considered. A model of the new procedure is described in UML (Unified Modelling Language). The advantage of using UML instead of using just natural language description is that UML uses graphical representation that is easy to use and less prone to ambiguity. Based on the new procedure, a decision support system called CODES (Conceptual DEsign of deoiling Systems) was designed and implemented. CODES supports the stages of wastewater assessment, equipment options at different locations, treatment disposal options and recommendations for final process configuration. Two Case Studies using operating field data are reported. The Case Studies using CODES proved to be straightforward to use and produced appropriate comments on the performance of the existing designs and proposed alternatives to satisfy the design requirements. CODES results agreed with knowledge from previous plant trials. The contribution of this thesis to the deoiling design process is twofold. Firstly, a critical review of the conventional procedure has resulted in a new one, which has potential benefits of improving a company's efficiency by reducing the number of people and activities involved, and shortening the design time. Secondly, the feasibility of applying the new procedure and CODES is successfully demonstrated through the case studies. Limitations and areas of extensions are also identified.

Knowledge is considered important for the survival and growth of an enterprise. Currently knowledge is stored in various places including the bottom drawers of employees. The human being is considered to be the most important knowledge provider. Over the years knowledge based systems (KBS) have been developed to capture and nurture the knowledge of domain experts. However, such systems were considered to be separate and different from the traditional information systems development. Many KBS development projects have failed. The main causes for such failures have been recognised as the difficulties associated with the process of knowledge elicitation, in particular the techniques and methods employed. On the other hand, the main emphasis of information systems development has been in the areas of data and information capture relating to transaction based systems. For knowledge to be effectively captured and nurtured it is necessary for knowledge to be part of the information systems development activity. This thesis reports on a process of investigation and analysis conducted into the areas of information, knowledge and the overlapping areas. This research advocates a hybrid approach, where knowledge and information capture to be considered as one in a unified environment. A meta-schema design based on Formal Object Role Modelling (FORM), independent of implementation details, is introduced for this purpose. This is considered to be a key contribution of this research activity. Both information and knowledge is expected to be captured through this approach. Meta data types are provided for the capture of business rules and they form part of the knowledge base of an organisation. The integration of knowledge with data and information is also described. XML is recognised by many as the preferred data interchange language and it is investigated for the purpose of rule interchange. This approach is expected to enable organisations to interchange business rules and their meta-data, in addition to data and their schema. During interchange rules can be interpreted and applied by receiving systems, thus providing a basis for intelligent behaviour. With the emergence of new technologies such as the Internet the modelling of an enterprise as a series of business processes has gained prominence. Enterprises are moving towards integration, establishing well-described business processes within and across enterprises, to include their customers and suppliers. The purpose is to derive a common set of objectives and benefit from potential economic efficiencies. The suggested meta-schema design can be used in the early phases of requirements elicitation to specify, communicate, comprehend and refine various artefacts. This is expected to encourage domain experts and knowledge analysts work towards describing each business process and their interactions. Existing business processes can be documented and business efficiencies can be achieved through a process of refinement. The meta-schema design allows for a ?systems view? and sharing of such views, thus enabling domain experts to focus on their area of specialisation whilst having an understanding of other business areas and their facts. The design also allows for synchronisation of mental models of experts and the knowledge analyst. This has been a major issue with KBS development and one of the main reasons for the failure of such projects. The intention of this research is to provide a facility to overcome this issue. The natural language based FORM encourages verbalisation of the domain, hence increasing the understanding and comprehension of available business facts.

Orientador: Paulo Sérgio Graziano Magalhães, Domingos Guilherme Pellegrino Cerri / Texto em português e inglês / Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Engenharia Agrícola / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-20T09:43:56Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 RodriguesJunior_FrancelinoAugusto_D.pdf: 5867515 bytes, checksum: d0a916567644887d3fde3276131e3750 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012 / Resumo: Dentro da mesma área de produção agrícola existe variabilidade espacial e temporal da produtividade e qualidade da cultura. Técnicas de Agricultura de Precisão (AP) são usadas para a quantificação dessa variabilidade, podendo assim distinguir áreas de maior e menor rentabilidade e qualidade, possibilitando então a identificação dos fatores que ali influenciaram para tal evento. É neste contexto que se insere o projeto proposto utilizar as técnicas de AP para identificar no campo a relação solo-produtividade-qualidade da matéria prima. Este trabalho teve como objetivo geral verificar como a produtividade e a qualidade da cana-de-açúcar (porcentagens de brix, pol e fibra) variam dentro do mesmo talhão; verificar como os atributos físicos e químicos do solo, nitrogênio foliar afetam a produtividade e qualidade da cana, e analisar padrões de variabilidade temporal dos parâmetros de qualidade da cana-de-açúcar ao longo dos ciclos estudados. Para realização do trabalho foi selecionada e georreferenciada uma área de 10 ha, cultivada com cana-de-açúcar pertencente à Usina São João pertencente ao Grupo SJC Bioenergia, localizada no município de Araras - SP. Nesta área foi feita uma grade de amostragem de 30x30m, utilizada para a coleta dos atributos físicos e químicos do solo, e parâmetros de qualidade da cana, totalizando 117 pontos amostrais. Todas as amostragens foram realizadas nos anos de 2008 (cana planta), 2009-2010 (primeira soca) e 2011 (segunda soca). Para identificar a influência das variáveis em estudo na produtividade e qualidade da cana-de-açúcar foi feita a análise de correlação linear, com base em zonas de manejo previamente determinadas. Para a seleção das variáveis a fim de propor modelos matemáticos foi utilizado a Análise de Componentes Principais e Stepwise, utilizando como variáveis resposta a produtividade e os parâmetros de qualidade de cana-de-açúcar. Por meio de técnicas de geoestatística foi verificada a estabilidade temporal dos parâmetros de qualidade da cana-de-açúcar ao decorrer dos ciclos e as porcentagens de erros de estimação dos modelos confeccionados. Não foi possível identificar padrões de estabilidade temporal da qualidade da cana-de-açúcar ao longo do experimento, contudo, com a metodologia proposta pode-se identificar a influência que os atributos do solo e planta possuem na produtividade e nos parâmetros de qualidade da cana-de-açúcar, sendo os teores de matéria orgânica, P, K, pH e H+Al as variáveis que ditaram os modelos propostos, sendo que esses obtiveram coeficientes de determinação variando de 6 a 80%, com valores de resíduos decimais e mostrando distribuição normal, com porcentagens de erros de estimação na sua maioria entre ± 1% / Abstract: Within the same crop area there is a spatial and temporal variability in yield and crop quality. Techniques for Precision Agriculture (PA) are used to quantify this variability, thus being able to identify areas of high and low profitability and quality, hence enabling the identification of the factors that may influence for such an event. In this context this project has as proposal by PA techniques identify in the field the relationship between the soil and yield/quality of the raw material. This study aims to assess how the yield and sugar cane quality parameters (Brix, pol and fibre) vary within the field; verify how the physical chemical soil attributes and leaf nitrogen affects the yield and quality of the sugar cane, and analyzes the pattern of the temporal stability of the sugar cane quality parameters throughout the crop cycles. The experiment was carried out an sugar cane crop area selected and georeferenced of 10 ha, belonging to the São João Mill (SJC Bioenergia), located in the Araras - SP. In this area a 30x30m grid sampling was used to sample quality sugar cane parameters and physical-chemical soil attributes, totaling 117 sampling points. All samplings were performed during the years 2008 - plant cane, first ratoon (2009-2010) and second ratoon (2011). To identify the influence of the variables on yield and quality of sugar cane, Pearson's linear correlation analysis was performed, based on predetermined management zones. Principal component analysis and stepwise approach was used to select the variables in order to propose mathematical models, using as response variables the yield and sugar cane quality parameters. By means of geostatistics it was verified the temporal stability of the sugar cane quality parameters during the crop cycles and the percentages of estimations errors made by the models. It was not possible to identify patterns of temporal stability for the quality parameters along the experiment, but with the proposed methodology, it was possible to identify the influence that soil attributes and plant had in yield and sugar cane quality parameters, being the soil organic matter, P, K, pH e H+Al the variables which driven the proposed models, who had R2 ranging from 6 to 80% with decimals residues showing normal distribution and percentages of estimation errors mostly within ± 1% along the whole experiment / Doutorado / Maquinas Agricolas / Doutor em Engenharia Agrícola

Process modelling is one of the extensively time consuming tasks within the fieldof process management. This thesis represents an alternative approach minimizing the effort for process modelling based on an intelligent, self-learning system.The current situation of process management in practise is the starting point forthe definition of the requirements which an appropriate information system architecture has to fulfil to solve the issues of contemporary process modelling. The current situation is described by a combination of theoretical considerations aboutcontemporary process management and a survey estimating the efforts needed tomodel and update process descriptions and diagrams out of several, very different documents. The identified requirements represent the groundwork for the derivation of manda-tory features and the architectural composition of the basic components of an intelligent software system and its integration in a process manager’s work. Moreover the effects of the integration of the defined intelligent software system on the social-technical interactions within organizations are sketched. Because text analysis and the transformation of texts into process diagrams crucially influences efficiency and effectivity in process management appropriate, established technologies are comparatively evaluated and discussed regarding theirability to reduce these efforts. According to the identified advantages and limitations of artificial neural networks within the qualitative comparison of the dif-ferent technologies a new concept was developed to fit the needs more holisticthan the existing concepts. The new concept consists of aspects of different established technologies, biological findings and philosophical thoughts about the impossibility of a physical representation of human mind. It results in a conceptof three-dimensional, spatiotemporal flexible, artificial neural networks, which change themselves permanently. A final qualitative comparison figures out thedifferences between the characteristics of existing concepts of artificial neural networks and determines the improvements and benefits the new concept of neural networks achieves.

Cette thèse se place dans une dynamique de recherche d’amélioration des processus d’implémentation et de déploiement de solutions logicielles de type PLM dans les entreprises. Nous proposons une démarche complète de déploiement, centrée sur les acteurs de l’entreprise, qui s’appuie sur l’utilisation de deux outils jusque là peu usités pour répondre à ce type de problématique : les cartes heuristiques et les personas. Nous proposons d’utiliser la carte heuristique (ou map) comme support du projet et moteur de la réflexion et de la communication dans le cadre d’un projet. La map offre une nouvelle dimension à la définition de l’application et à la communication avec le client : une structure et une organisation dynamiques et « immédiates ». Elle permet de mettre en évidence l’organisation et les processus du client. Nous affinons notre proposition en travaillant aussi sur l’accompagnement et l’implication du client en plaçant les futurs utilisateurs au centre de nos préoccupations. Nous proposons une démarche complémentaire à la carte heuristique pour faire émerger des spécifications directement par le client : les personas. La carte heuristique permet d’obtenir un support unique pour suivre le cycle de vie du logiciel et sa construction repose sur l’approche descendante, tandis que persona, centré sur les utilisateurs et leur environnement, se base sur une approche ascendante. Nous obtenons ainsi une double exploration du système, ce qui offre une nouvelle dimension à la modélisation d’entreprises en vue de l’implantation d’une solution logicielle. Cette proposition améliore la pertinence et la qualité de l’analyse et de l’application. / This thesis concerns research on PLM tools. We especially focus here on improvement of the deployment process of PLM tools in enterprises. We develop a methodology to help PLM software developers to design and deploy a PLM solution among their customers. Our proposition, centered on final users of PLM solution, is build around two unusual tools for enterprise modeling: mind map and persona. Mind map is used as a communication element between developer and customer during the entire project. Mind map is a common support to exchange data and encourage reflection. It offers a new dynamic and a new dimension in the definition of the PLM solution for customer and developer since it makes easier description of customer’s organization and process. We enrich our proposition with persona. Persona completes mind map and permits an easier identification of users’ needs. Such a tool allows us to be more efficient on accompaniment and implication of customer and users. Mind map is a unique support for software developer and customer to follow life cycle of the software. It is based on a top-down approach. Persona is centered on users in the company and on their environment. It is a bottom-up approach. Association of these tools allows us obtaining a double exploration of the system that provides a new dimension in enterprise modeling with a view to software deployment. This proposition increase pertinence and quality of the users’ needs analysis and of customer organization modeling. As a consequence it also improves design and deployment of the PLM solution which is closed to the users’ needs and well adapted to the company’s organization and processes.

"There are two critical points in every aerial flight—its beginning and its end." — Alexander Graham Bell, 1906. From beginning till the end, the safety critical software plays a vital role in avionics and hence its development and its certification are indispensable. “RTCA DO-178B- Software Considerations in Airborne Systems and Equipment Certification” provides the normative guidelines to develop such systems. In particular, this standard provides the safety protocol and processes that should be followed to achieve safe systems. The safety guideline of DO178B emphasizes more on better documentation, communication and visibility into actual process. For realizing the guidelines of DO178B, a well-defined and collectively accepted (at least at the development team–level) interpretationof the protocol and processes is needed. To achieve such interpretation, a well-defined modeling language that models the process with safety construct is essential. The Object Management Group’s Software and System Process Engineering Metamodel SPEM 2.0 standard provides specification for modeling software and systems development processes. SPEM2.0, however, is a general purpose language and does notprovide sufficient coverage in terms of language constructs to address safety concerns. This thesis proposes S-SPEM, an extension of the SPEM2.0 to allow users to specify safety-oriented processes for the development of safety critical systems in the context of RTCA DO 178B. The DO178B is analyzed to capture the safety related process elements and SPEM 2.0 is extended to include those safety concepts. Moreover, to simulate and validate the modeled processes, S-SPEMconcepts are mapped onto XML Process Definition Language (XPDL) concepts and a transformation algorithm is sketched. Finally, a case-study will illustrate theusage and effectiveness of the proposed extension.

Today, business process modelling is important part of analysis and design of the information systems. There is number of standards, which is concerned with process modelling, whereas each of them represents a little different approach. The project Opensoul created general metamodel, which defines basic elements and their mutual associations, which all standards should meet. In other words, it defines basic rules for process modelling. The goal of this thesis is to compare chosen standards of process modelling with Business process metamodel of Opensoul initiative. The results of this comparison would have provide basis to answer the question, which standard supports in the best way the rules of process modelling defined by metamodel through the system of elements and their associations. This goal requires specifying the method, on which basis the comparison will be made. This method comprises the extension of metamodel with new elements and their relations to other elements, and the extension of some elements with some workflow patterns defined by Workflow Patterns initiative. That is the main benefit of this thesis.

The topic of this thesis is the process analysis of the production company. The main goal is to describe, model and asses the recent status of processes. The additional goal is the measurements and recommendations proposal based on the evaluations. The process management is described in the introduction of the theory with subsequent explanation of methods and methodology of process modeling. The basic standards for process models creation is described in the next part of the thesis. The analyzed company will be introduced in the practical part of the paper and the method derived from the theoretical part will be applied. After modeling the recent status the necessary measures and changes will be introduced to eradicate the identified problems.