In digital video compression, apart from storage, successful transmission of the compressed video data over the bandwidth limited erroneous channels is another important issue. To enable a video codec for broadcasting application, it is required to implement the corresponding coding tools (e.g. error-resilient coding, rate control etc.). They are normally non-normative parts of a video codec and hence their specifications are not defined in the standard. In Dirac as well, the original codec is optimized for storage purpose only and so, several non-normative part of the encoding tools are still required in order to be able to use in other types of application. Being the "Research and Developments of the Dirac Video Codec" as the research title, phase I of the project is mainly focused on the error-resilient transmission over a noisy channel. The error-resilient coding method used here is a simple and low complex coding scheme which provides the error-resilient transmission of the compressed video bitstream of Dirac video encoder over the packet erasure wired network. The scheme combines source and channel coding approach where error-resilient source coding is achieved by data partitioning in the wavelet transformed domain and channel coding is achieved through the application of either Rate-Compatible Punctured Convolutional (RCPC) Code or Turbo Code (TC) using un-equal error protection between header plus MV and data. The scheme is designed mainly for the packet-erasure channel, i.e. targeted for the Internet broadcasting application. But, for a bandwidth limited channel, it is still required to limit the amount of bits generated from the encoder depending on the available bandwidth in addition to the error-resilient coding. So, in the 2nd phase of the project, a rate control algorithm is presented. The algorithm is based upon the Quality Factor (QF) optimization method where QF of the encoded video is adaptively changing in order to achieve average bitrate which is constant over each Group of Picture (GOP). A relation between the bitrate, R and the QF, which is called Rate-QF (R-QF) model is derived in order to estimate the optimum QF of the current encoding frame for a given target bitrate, R. In some applications like video conferencing, real-time encoding and decoding with minimum delay is crucial, but, the ability to do real-time encoding/decoding is largely determined by the complexity of the encoder/decoder. As we all know that motion estimation process inside the encoder is the most time consuming stage. So, reducing the complexity of the motion estimation stage will certainly give one step closer to the real-time application. So, as a partial contribution toward realtime application, in the final phase of the research, a fast Motion Estimation (ME) strategy is designed and implemented. It is the combination of modified adaptive search plus semi-hierarchical way of motion estimation. The same strategy was implemented in both Dirac and H.264 in order to investigate its performance on different codecs. Together with this fast ME strategy, a method which is called partial cost function calculation in order to further reduce down the computational load of the cost function calculation was presented. The calculation is based upon the pre-defined set of patterns which were chosen in such a way that they have as much maximum coverage as possible over the whole block. In summary, this research work has contributed to the error-resilient transmission of compressed bitstreams of Dirac video encoder over a bandwidth limited error prone channel. In addition to this, the final phase of the research has partially contributed toward the real-time application of the Dirac video codec by implementing a fast motion estimation strategy together with partial cost function calculation idea.

Characterization of the effect of physical properties on the performance such as stiffness and drainage of unbound granular materials is necessary in order to incorporate them in pavement design. The stiffness, deformation and permeability behaviour of unbound granular materials are the essential design inputs for Mechanistic-Empirical Pavement Design Guide as well as empirical design methods. The performance based specifications are aimed to design, and construct a durable and cost effective material throughout the design life of a pavement. However, the specification varies among jurisdiction depending on the historical or current practice, locally available materials, landform, climate and drainage. A literature review on the current unbound granular materials virgin and recycled concrete aggregate base construction specification has been carried out in this study. Resilient modulus, permanent deformation and permeability tests have been carried out on seven gradations of materials from locally available sources. Resilient modulus stiffness of unbound granular material at two different conditioning stress level have been compared in the study. The long term deformation behaviour has also been characterized from results of the permanent deformation test using shakedown approach, dissipated energy approach and a simplified approach. The results show improvement in resilient modulus and permanent deformation for the proposed specification compared to the currently used materials as a results of reduced fines content, increased crush count and inclusion of larger maximum aggregate size into the gradation. A significant effect of particle packing on permeability of granular materials have also been found, in addition to the effect of fines. / October 2016

Title: Kerdock codes and around Author: Kateřina Teplá Department: Department of algebra Supervisor: prof. RNDr. Aleš Drápal, CSc., DSc., Department of algebra Abstract: Kerdock codes form a family of nonlinear codes, that contains more codewords than any known linear code with the same parameters. The main goal of this thesis is a connection of Kerdock codes with other areas of mathematics, mainly orthogonal geometry, combinatorics and cryptogra- phy. It describes theory of symplectic and quadratic forms on vector spaces of characteristic 2 and its relationship to Kerdock codes. Then it is pro- ven, that codewords of Kerdock code of constant weight form combinatorial 3-design. Finally usage of Kerdock codes in construction of Boolean bent functions and t-resilient functions, that are basis of many cryptographic pri- mitives, is analysed. Keywords: Kerdock code, Kerdock set, t-design, resilient function 1

A velocidade das transformações econômicas e tecnológicas no ambiente social e no mundo dos negócios exige do empreendedor capacidades cada vez mais adaptativas para que consiga manter a competitividade de seu negócio. O sucesso ou o fracasso empresarial estão condicionados à habilidade deste profissional em superar as adversidades que caracterizam o contexto dos negócios. A diversidade de enfoques teóricos sobre o sucesso traz diferentes perspectivas sobre a sobrevivência das empresas diante da realidade concorrencial do meio empresarial. Por outro lado, no que se refere ao insucesso ou fracasso empresarial, percebe-se uma carência de estudos sobre o assunto. No momento em que se relaciona o comportamento do empreendedor diante desse insucesso, suas características comportamentais, seus estilos de enfrentamento, sua capacidade de superar a adversidade do fracasso, maior ainda é a carência de pesquisas sobre o tema. Essa capacidade de superação evidencia o grau de resiliência do empreendedor diante do insucesso e está relacionada aos estilos de enfrentamento que o empreendedor adota. Em função disso, o presente estudo tem como objetivo analisar o comportamento resiliente e os estilos de enfrentamento dos empreendedores em situações de insucesso empresarial, especificamente em casos de descontinuidade do negócio. Para isso, treze empreendedores que vivenciaram a descontinuidade do seu negócio foram entrevistados. Os relatos permitiram um processo de análise e de comparação entre as características comportamentais dos mesmos antes, durante e depois da descontinuidade do negócio. A partir das transcrições das entrevistas aplicou-se a Escala de Funcionamento Defensivo (EFD) na linha do tempo da pesquisa, antes, durante e depois da descontinuidade do negócio, o que permitiu a caracterização dos comportamentos dos empreendedores em cada momento. Juntamente com a EFD, aplicou-se a técnica de análise de conteúdos para a análise das categorias a priori e não a priori definidas para o estudo. Os resultados da pesquisa permitiram identificar aspectos comportamentais dos empreendedores entrevistados, bem como evidenciar variáveis que influenciaram diretamente na capacidade de superação e no comportamento resiliente do empreendedor diante do fracasso. Antes da descontinuidade do negócio, os estilos de enfrentamento mais utilizados indicam que eles agiram sem pensar e sem planejar, eram onipotentes, acreditavam que poderiam transpor qualquer obstáculo e se achavam melhores que os outros. Durante a descontinuidade do negócio, a ideação suicida e a identificação projetiva foram evidências significativas. Depois da descontinuidade do negócio, o comportamento dos empreendedores caracterizou-se pela utilização de estilos mais adaptativos, como a auto-observação, o humor e a afiliação. Constatou-se que a onipotência voltou a ser significativa nesse momento, o que indica similitude com as características de autoconfinaça e autoestima, características de empreendedor e do comportamento resiliente, respectivamente. Constatou-se, também, que o apoio familiar ou de outras pessoas, como amigos ou colegas de trabalho, representaram um suporte relevante para a superação do insucesso empresarial. Palavras-chave: Administração aspectos psicológicos. Comportamento resiliente. Insucesso empresarial. Empreendedor. / Given the speed of economic and technological changes in both social and business environments, the entrepreneur has been demanded to constantly nurture adaptive abilities to keep his/her business competitive, the entrepreneurial success or failure being a function of this professionals ability to overcome adversities in the business world. Although a wide range of theoretical approaches to success have developed varied perspectives on a company survival in the face of increased competition, a few studies have focused on the entrepreneurial failure. These few studies have not been able to properly investigate the entrepreneurs behavior that precedes failure, his/her behavioral characteristics, his/her coping styles and particularly his/her ability to overcome failure, a measure of the entrepreneurs resilience to failure and coping skills. Against this background, this dissertation aims to analyze entrepreneurs resilient behavior and coping styles in failure situations, more specifically in cases of business discontinuance. Building on interviews with 13 entrepreneurs that have experienced business discontinuance, this study compares and contrasts these entrepreneurs behavioral characteristics before, during and after their experience of business discontinuance. The understanding of the entrepreneurs behavior before, during and after the episodes of business discontinuance draws both on the use of a Defensive Functioning Scale (DFS) to analyze the transcribed interviews and on the content analysis technique to examine both a priori and a posteriori categories determined for this study. The results underpin entrepreneurs behavioral characteristics and point to variables directly influencing their coping styles and resilience to failure. Before business discontinuance, the most common coping styles are those consisting of acting without thinking and planning, being allegedly omnipotent, believing in the ability to overcome any obstacles and despising others. In the course of business discontinuance, the most common coping styles involve suicidal ideation and projective identification. Finally, the most common post-discontinuance coping styles involve the use of more adaptive styles, such as affiliation, auto-observation and humor. In this latter moment, alleged omnipotence is once again present, indicating similitude to characteristics of self-confidence and self-esteem, which are typical of entrepreneurship and resilience respectively. Additionally, family support and aid from friends and workmates reportedly play an important role in the entrepreneurs overcoming of business failure.

The global retail business is extremely dynamic and this brings new issues in front of us and deserves responsibilities to address those issues. The Textile Retail Business is also experiencing this change as the whole retail textile supply chain has already become globalized with the time especially in terms of sourcing of raw materials and production as well. This phenomenon has raised the questions of threats regarding sustainability and resiliency of the supply chain. Today‘s retailers are working closely with these topics in a competition basis to achieve competitive advantages in their supply chain. This dissertation aims to sketch out the possible latent challenges for which the companies prefer to work with a scattered supply chain in terms of different geographical location as it involves lot of time, transportation and risks too and it additionally disputes the total environmental and resilient approach of the supply chain and moreover to validate the inter-relation between ecological sustainability and resiliency of the supply chain. Based on the case study on two companies having different sizes but similar values towards environment which are also located in different geographical region, we have tried to find out the answers. Companies build up supply chain firstly evaluating flexibility and resiliency of their own supply chain only by considering the technology availability, quality and pricing involved with the product and then they want to be sustainable and resilient by addressing other issues. The main challenges for the companies to alter their position are the product specific characteristics, availability of know-how and the suitable process cost involved with product. It has proposed for the companies who are working with numerous supply chains located in different geographical location to do some adjustments among their nearby suppliers for a typical product on experimental basis especially providing technological and logistics support to their suppliers to attain more concrete approach towards their values that they believe. / Program: Magisterutbildning i Applied Textile Management

Com o crescimento dos grandes centros urbanos e expansão da ação do homem sobre a natureza, muitos projetos de engenharia se tornam inviáveis devido a inexistência de solos que atendam as solicitações necessárias no local, elevados custos de transporte e excessivos danos ambientais. Uma das alternativas existentes é a melhoria das condições destes solos e entre as múltiplas técnicas para melhoramento encontram-se os solos artificialmente cimentados, os quais têm como uma de suas mais corriqueiras utilizações em campo a resistência a solicitações cíclicas, principalmente na construção de pavimentos, o reforço de áreas suscetíveis a sismos e a fundação de estruturas costeiras. Assim esta pesquisa estuda o comportamento cíclico de uma determinada areia artificialmente cimentada, aferindo sua resistência a compressão simples, módulo cisalhante, sucção e focando nos parâmetros módulo de resiliência e vida de fadiga e busca correlacioná-los com a razão porosidade/teor volumétrico de cimento. Para tanto, foi projetado e construído um equipamento para realização dos ensaios de fadiga e calibrado outro equipamento já existente para execução de ensaios de módulo de resiliência conforme a norma vigente. Em conjunto com os resultados dos ensaios, são apresentadas uma relação de previsão do módulo com base no modelo composto de estado de tensões e correlações satisfatórias dos parâmetros cíclicos obtidos com a razão porosidade/teor volumétrico de cimento, comprovando a possibilidade de seu uso na previsão do comportamento e dosagem deste solo-cimento. / With the growth of large urban centers and expansion of human activities, many engineering projects become infeasible due to the absence of soils that meet the necessary requests on site, high transportation costs and excessive environmental damage. One of the alternatives is to improve the conditions of these soils and, among multiple improvement techniques, the artificially cemented soil is highlighted. This practice has one of its most usual applications on the field to improve materials strength to cyclic loads, especially in pavement designs, reinforcement of areas susceptible to earthquakes and foundations of coastal structures. This research studies the cyclic behavior of a artificially cemented sand, checking its compressive strength, shear modulus, suction and focusing on the resilient modulus and fatigue life parameters. Additionally it seeks to correlate them with the porosity/volumetric cement content ratio. To this end it was designed and built a device for carrying out the fatigue tests and calibrated another existing equipment to run resilient modulus tests according to current standards. Along with the tests results, a modulus prediction relationship is shown based on the composite model of stress state and good correlations of cyclic parameters obtained with the porosity/volumetric content of cement ratio are observed proving the possibility of its use for predicting behavior and dosage of this soil-cement.

Many systems operate in uncertain, possibly adversarial environments, and their successful operation is contingent upon satisfying specific requirements, optimal performance, and ability to recover from unexpected situations. Examples are prevalent in many engineering disciplines such as transportation, robotics, energy, and biological systems. This thesis studies designing correct, resilient, and optimal controllers for discrete-time complex systems from elaborate, possibly vague, specifications. The first part of the contributions of this thesis is a framework for optimal control of non-deterministic hybrid systems from specifications described by signal temporal logic (STL), which can express a broad spectrum of interesting properties. The method is optimization-based and has several advantages over the existing techniques. When satisfying the specification is impossible, the degree of violation - characterized by STL quantitative semantics - is minimized. The computational limitations are discussed. The focus of second part is on specific types of systems and specifications for which controllers are synthesized efficiently. A class of monotone systems is introduced for which formal synthesis is scalable and almost complete. It is shown that hybrid macroscopic traffic models fall into this class. Novel techniques in modular verification and synthesis are employed for distributed optimal control, and their usefulness is shown for large-scale traffic management. Apart from monotone systems, a method is introduced for robust constrained control of networked linear systems with communication constraints. Case studies on longitudinal control of vehicular platoons are presented. The third part is about learning-based control with formal guarantees. Two approaches are studied. First, a formal perspective on adaptive control is provided in which the model is represented by a parametric transition system, and the specification is captured by an automaton. A correct-by-construction framework is developed such that the controller infers the actual parameters and plans accordingly for all possible future transitions and inferences. The second approach is based on hybrid model identification using input-output data. By assuming some limited knowledge of the range of system behaviors, theoretical performance guarantees are provided on implementing the controller designed for the identified model on the original unknown system.

<p>There is consistent research evidence that shows improvement of the engineering properties of subgrade soils treated with lime or cement. However, limited information is available on the effect of climatic changes on the subgrade stiffness. The thesis studies the effects of changes in soil moisture content and temperature on the resilient modulus of treated and untreated subgrades in Indiana. Two types of soils were tested: A-6 and A-7-6, from two locations in Indiana: Hartford City and Bloomington, respectively. When existing standards ASTM D559/559-15 and ASTM D560/560-16 for wetting/drying (WD) and freezing/thawing (FT) processes, respectively, were followed, the treated and untreated samples failed through the process of preparation due to the stringent procedures in the standards. Appropriate test conditions were investigated, as part of the research, to develop new protocols more appropriate to the field conditions in Indiana. Two new test protocols were developed and successfully applied to the treated soils. A total of 26 resilient modulus, M_R, tests were conducted following the standard AASHTO T307-99. The M_R results showed that the repeated action of WD and FT cycles reduced the stiffness of the chemically-treated soils down to values similar to or lower than those of the untreated soils. However, when the amount of chemical was doubled, with respect to the optimum, the M_R of the treated soils improved over that of the untreated soils, even after the wetting-drying cycles.</p>

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Oregon, 2006. / Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 167-173). Also available for download via the World Wide Web; free to University of Oregon users.

In this thesis the relative importance of input encoding and learning algorithm on protein secondary structure prediction is explored. A novel input encoding, based on multidimensional scaling applied to a recently published amino acid substitution matrix, is developed and shown to be superior to an arbitrary input encoding. Both decimal valued and binary input encodings are compared. Two neural network learning algorithms, Resilient Propagation and Learning Vector Quantization, which have not previously been applied to the problem of protein secondary structure prediction, are examined. Input encoding is shown to have a greater impact on prediction accuracy than learning methodology with a binary input encoding providing the highest training and test set prediction accuracy.