The static stability of a Tension Leg Platform (TLP) with an intact tendon system is principally provided by its tendons and hence quite different from those of a conventional ship or even a floating structure positioned by its mooring system. Because small deformations in tendons are capable of providing sufficient righting moment to a TLP, the contribution from the inclination of its hull is relatively insignificant, especially when its tendon system is intact. When the tendon system of a TLP is completely damaged, the static stability of a TLP behaves and is calculated in a similar manner as those of a conventional ship. In the case of a TLP with a partially damaged tendon system, the stability of a TLP may be provided by the deformation of its tendons and to a certain extent the inclination of its hull. Several hurricanes in recent years have raised concerns about the feasibility and the robustness of the TLP concept in the deep water Gulf of Mexico. To the best of our knowledge, existing publications on the research of static stability of TLPs are limited. This study investigates the static stability of different types of TLPs representing those deployed in the Gulf of Mexico, under three different scenarios. That is, a TLP with 1) an intact tendon system, 2) a partially damaged tendon system, and 3) a completely damaged tendon system. The four different types of TLP chosen for this study are 1) a conventional four-leg TLP, 2) three-leg mini TLP, 3) extended four-leg TLP and 4) mini four-leg TLP. To avoid buckling and yielding occurring in a tendon, we define that the maximum righting moment provided by an intact or partially damaged tendon system is reached when the tension in one or more tendons on the down tension leg becomes zero or when the tension in one or more tendons on the up tension leg starts to yield. This definition leads us to identify the most dangerous (or vulnerable) directions of met-ocean conditions to a TLP with an intact or partially damaged tendon system. Hence, our finding may also be used in the study on the pitch/roll dynamic stability of a TLP. The righting moments of each TLP in the three different scenarios are respectively computed and compared with related wind-induce static upsetting moment at certain velocities. By comparing their ratios, the static stability of a TLP and the redundancy of its tendon system may be revealed, which has important implication to the design of a TLP.

In the poultry industry, further processed meat products have the highest share in the market, and because there is a growing demand of food products with enriched amounts of unsaturated fatty acids, the objectives of this research were to assess lipid oxidation development and quality characteristics of chicken meat as affected by dietary fat and vitamin E levels. Broilers were fed during six weeks with diets containing animal/vegetable, lard, palm kernel, soybean, conjugated linoleic acid, flaxseed, or menhaden oil. Each lipid diet was supplemented with either a control (33 or 42 mg/kg) or a supranutritional level (200-400 or 200 mg/kg) of vitamin E. Breast and thigh meat, or skin, were processed, packaged, and refrigerated as raw meat, cooked patties, or cooked sous vide meat. The results showed that the chicken meat fatty acid composition reflected those from the dietary fats. In the meat or skin there was a higher lipid oxidation susceptibility as the proportion of unsaturated fatty acids increased, shown as malonaldehyde values, particularly in the treatments with low supplemented level of vitamin E (P<0.05). The relative lipid oxidative stability of the meat decreased in consecutive order from raw, cooked sous vide, and cooked meat patties. Sous vide cooked meat developed lipid oxidation at a slow rate and showed not to be affected by nonheme iron values. Dietary fat and vitamin E level affected breast meat lightness (L* color space) values (P<0.05), but not muscle pH, Allo-Kramer shear force, or water holding capacity. In conclusion, the increment in the proportion of unsaturated fatty acids increases the susceptibility to lipid oxidation in the meat. Supranutritional supplementation levels of vitamin E are more effective at inhibiting the lipid oxidation development in chicken meat than some current levels used by the poultry industry. Neither dietary fat nor vitamin E level seems to affect the development of pale, soft, and exudative meat condition in chicken meat.

The primary goal for this PhD project has been to investigate instability of reversiblepump turbines (RPTs) as a phenomenon and to find remedies to solve it. The instability occurs for turbines with s-shaped characteristics, unfavourable waterways and limited rotating inertia. It is only observed for certain operation points at either high speed or low load. These correspond to either high values of Ned or low values of Qed. The work done in this PhD thesis can be divided into the three following categories. Investigate and understand the behaviour of a pump turbine: A model was designed in order to investigate the pump turbine behaviour related to its characteristics. This model was manufactured and measurements were performed in the laboratory. By using throttling valves or torque as input the full s-shaped characteristics was measured. When neither of these techniques is used, the laboratory system has unstable operation points which result in hysteresis behaviour. Global behaviour of the RPT in a power plant system was investigated through analytical stability analysis and dynamic system simulations. The latter included both rigid and elastic representation of the water column. Turbine internal flow: The flow inside the runner was investigated by computer simulations (CFD). Two-dimensional analysis was used to study the inlet part of the runner. This showed that a vortex forming at the inlet is one of the causes for the unstable characteristics. Three-dimensional analyses were performed and showed multiple complex flow structures in the unstable operation range. Measurements at different pressure levels showed that the characteristics were dependent on the Reynolds number at high Ned values in turbine mode. This means that the similarity of flows is not sufficiently described by constant Qed and Ned values at this part of the characteristics. Design modifications: The root of the stability problem was considered to be the runner’s geometric design at the inlet in turbine mode. Therefore different design parameters were investigated to find relations to the characteristics. Methods used were measurements, CFD modelling and analytical models. The leading edge profile was altered on the physical model and measurements were performed in the laboratory. Results showed that the profiles have significant influence on characteristics and therewith stability at high speed operation points. Other design parameters were investigated by CFD analysis with special focus on the inlet blade angle.

The recent development in the marine industry with largerships built in sandwich construction and also the use of moreadvanced materials has enforced improvements of design criteriaregarding wrinkling. The commonly used Hoff’s formula isnot suited for the highly anisotropic fibre reinforced sandwichface sheets of today. The work presented herein investigates the wrinklingphenomenon. A solution to wrinkling of anisotropic sandwichplates subjected to multi-axial loading is presented. Thesolution includes the possibility of skew wrinkling where thewrinkling waves are not perpendicular to the principal loaddirection. The wrinkling angle is obtained from the solutiontogether with the maximum wrinkling load. This method has beensupported with tests of anisotropic plates subjected touni-axial and bi-axial loading. The effect of the face sheet local bending stiffness showsthe importance of including the face sheet stacking sequence inthe wrinkling analysis. The work points out the influence ofthe face sheet local bending stiffness on wrinkling. Threedifferent means of improving the wrinkling load except changingcore material is evaluated. The effect of the differentapproaches is evaluated theoretically and also throughcomparative testing. The transition between wrinkling and pureface sheet compression failure is investigated. Theoreticaldiscussions are compared with compressive test results of twodifferent face sheet types on seven different core densities.The failure modes are investigated using fractography. Theresults clearly show how the actual sandwich compressionfailure mode is influenced by the choice of core material,changing from wrinkling failure to face sheet micro bucklingfailure as the modulus density increases. Finally, a new approach is presented where the wrinklingproblem is transferred from a pure stability problem to amaterial strength criterion. The developed theory providesmeans on how to decide which sandwich constituent will failfirst and at which load it will fail. The method give insightto and develop the overall understanding of the wrinklingphenomenon. A very good correlation is found when the developedtheory is compared with both finite element calculations and toexperimental tests. <b>Keywords:</b>wrinkling, local buckling, imperfection,stability, anisotropy, sandwich

Analyzing the current state of the United States' alliances with both Japan and South Korea underscores the failure of the traditional alliance theory concepts, realism, liberalism, and constructivism, to adequately describe their continuation. Introducing a concept termed the stability theory to alliance theory explains the current trajectories of the US-Japan and US-South Korea alliances. Stability theory is an extension of the conception of the three aforementioned theories and hedging, and is based in part upon the inherent inertia resisting change, in a long-standing alliance. In setting the stage for the introduction of stability theory, the past, present, and future of the alliances come into play, illustrating how this new theory picks up where others fall off.

The objective of this investigation is the development of improved techniques for the estimation of robustness for dynamic systems with structured uncertainties, a problem which was approached by application of the Lyapunov direct method. This thesis considers the sign properties of the Lyapunov function derivative integrated along finite intervals of time, in place of the traditional method of the sign properties of the derivative itself. This proposed approach relaxes the sufficient conditions of stability, and is used to generate techniques for the robust design of control systems with structured perturbations. The need for such techniques has been demonstrated by recent research interest in the area of robust control design. The system considered is assumed to be nominally linear, with time-variant, nonlinear bounded perturbations. Application of the proposed technique warrants that estimates of robustness will either match or constitute an improvement upon those obtained by application of the traditional Lyapunov approach. The application of numerical procedures are used to demonstrate improvements in estimations of robustness for two-, three- and four-dimensional dynamic systems with one or more structured perturbations. The proposed numerical approaches obtain improved bounds, which are considered in the sense of their engineering aspects. To increase the accuracy of the numerical procedures, symbolic algebraic calculations are utilized. / Graduation date: 1991

Clones are a matter of great concern to the software engineering community because of their dual but contradictory impact on software maintenance. While there is strong empirical evidence of the harmful impact of clones on maintenance, a number of studies have also identified positive sides of code cloning during maintenance. Recently, to help determine if clones are beneficial or not during software maintenance, software researchers have been conducting studies that measure source code stability (the likelihood that code will be modified) of cloned code compared to non-cloned code. If the presence of clones in program artifacts (files, classes, methods, variables) causes the artifacts to be more frequently changed (i.e., cloned code is more unstable than non-cloned code), clones are considered harmful. Unfortunately, existing stability studies have resulted in contradictory results and even now there is no concrete answer to the research question "Is cloned or non-cloned code more stable during software maintenance?" The possible reasons behind the contradictory results of the existing studies are that they were conducted on different sets of subject systems with different experimental setups involving different clone detection tools investigating different stability metrics. Also, there are four major types of clones (Type 1: exact; Type 2: syntactically similar; Type 3: with some added, deleted or modified lines; and, Type 4: semantically similar) and none of these studies compared the instability of different types of clones. Focusing on these issues we perform an empirical study implementing seven methodologies that calculate eight stability-related metrics on the same experimental setup to compare the instability of cloned and non-cloned code in the maintenance phase. We investigated the instability of three major types of clones (Type 1, Type 2, and Type 3) from different dimensions. We excluded Type 4 clones from our investigation, because the existing clone detection tools cannot detect Type 4 clones well. According to our in-depth investigation on hundreds of revisions of 16 subject systems covering four different programming languages (Java, C, C#, and Python) using two clone detection tools (NiCad and CCFinder) we found that clones generally exhibit higher instability in the maintenance phase compared to non-cloned code. Specifically, Type 1 and Type 3 clones are more unstable as well as more harmful compared to Type 2 clones. However, although clones are generally more unstable sometimes they exhibit higher stability than non-cloned code. We further investigated the effect of clones on another important aspect of stability: method co-changeability (the degree methods change together). Intuitively, higher method co-changeability is an indication of higher instability of software systems. We found that clones do not have any negative effect on method co-changeability; rather, cloning can be a possible way of minimizing method co-changeability when clones are likely to evolve independently. Thus, clones have both positive and negative effects on software stability. Our empirical studies demonstrate how we can effectively use the positive sides of clones by minimizing their negative impacts.

Grasslands throughout the world including those in British Columbia have been severely reduced and altered by agricultural production and inappropriate livestock grazing practices. Ongoing degradation of rangelands is a worldwide problem, currently affecting about 680 million hectares of rangelands. Studies on development and application of criteria and indicators for forests and grasslands are often lacking, or have been done on a limited number of sites with relatively narrow ranges of climate and soil type. This study aims to (i) quantify the relationships among soil/vegetation properties known to be affected by grazing to easily-assessed indicators, used in the existing health assessment systems, that do not require laboratory analyses or time consuming measurement, and (ii) to evaluate impacts of grazing on soil aggregate stability on the rough fescue grasslands of the southern interior of British Columbia. During the growing seasons of 2006 and 2007, soil and vegetation properties were measured on nine open grassland sites with a potential natural plant community dominated by rough fescue (Festuca campestris Rydb.) in the southern interior of British Columbia. Each site had at least one area excluded from grazing and all units were classified into different seral stages according to the amount of rough fescue present on the land. Rough fescue cover was found to be a useful indicator of the presence of functioning recovery mechanisms. Percent exposed mineral soil was found to be a sensitive indicator of the degree of soil stability and watershed function, as well as an indicator of the integrity of nutrient cycles and energy flows in rough fescue grasslands. Percent Junegrass cover was not as sensitive an indicator as percent exposed mineral soil, but has general overall strength with many health measures.. Only the 1-2 mm aggregate size class was closely related to most soil and vegetation properties, showing that it is more sensitive than the other aggregate stability parameters to soil and vegetation properties. The results from this study can help rangeland managers and ranchers in determining the rangeland health in their area as well as help researchers understand that only a certain number of parameters need to be assessed.

El objetivo de esta tesis es estudiar el funcionamiento de los mercados de trabajo dónde los trabajadores son asignados a las empresas por procesos aleatorios usando modelos de asignación bilateral. En estos modelos, los agentes pertenecen a uno de dos conjuntos disjuntos -empresas y trabajadores- y cada agente tiene preferencias ordinales sobre el otro lado del mercado. El problema se reduce a una asignación de los miembros de estos dos conjuntos el uno al otro.En el segundo capítulo, titulado "On Random Matching Markets: Properties and Equilibria," se describe un algoritmo que empieza desde una asignación cualquiera y continua creando, a cada paso, una asignación provisional. En cada momento del tiempo, una empresa es elegida al azar y se considera el mejor trabajador en su lista de preferencias. Si este trabajador ya está asignado a una empresa mejor, la asignación no se altera. En caso contrario, el trabajador y la empresa quedan temporalmente juntos hasta que el trabajador reciba una propuesta de trabajo mejor. Seguidamente, se exploran algunas propiedades del algoritmo; por ejemplo, el algoritmo generaliza el famoso algoritmo de "deferred-acceptance" de Gale y Shapley. Luego se analizan los incentivos que los agentes enfrentan en el juego de revelación inducido por el algoritmo. El hecho de que las empresas son seleccionadas al azar introduce incertidumbre en el resultado final. Una vez que las preferencias de los agentes son ordinales, se utiliza un concepto de equilibrio ordinal, basado en la dominancia estocastica de primer orden.En el tercer capítulo, "Incentives in Decentralized Random Matching Markets," se considera un juego secuencial dónde los agentes actúan de acuerdo con las reglas generales del algoritmo. En este capítulo, las estrategias de los agentes pueden tomar una forma cualquiera y no tienen que coincidir con una lista de preferencias. El primer jugador es la Naturaleza, que elige una secuencia de empresas , que representa la incertidumbre existente en un mercado descentralizado. Luego, las empresas son elegidas de acuerdo con la sequencia y les es dada la oportunidad de hacer una propuesta. Ya que el juego es dinamico, se analizan los equilibrios de Nash ordinales perfectos en subjuegos.En "Random Stable Mechanisms in the College Admissions Problem," se considera el juego inducido por un mecanismo aleatorio estable. En este capítulo, se caracterizan los equilibrios de Nash ordinales. En particular, puede obtenerse una asignación en un equilibrio dónde las empresas revelan sus verdaderas preferencias si y sólo si la asignación es estable con respecto a las verdaderas preferencias.Por fin, en el último capítulo, se caracterizan los equilibrios perfectos ordinales en el juego inducido por un mecanismo aleatorio estable. / The purpose of this thesis is to explore the functioning of labor markets where workers are assigned to firms by means of random processes using two-sided matching models. In these models, agents belong to one of two disjoint sets -firms and workers- and each agent has ordinal preferences over the other side of the market. Matching reduces to assigning the members of these two sets to one another.In the second chapter, entitled "On Random Matching Markets: Properties and Equilibria," I describe an algorithm that starts with any matching situation and proceeds by creating, at each step, a provisional matching. At each moment in time, a firm is randomly chosen and the best worker on its list of preferences is considered. If this worker is already holding a firm he prefers, the matching goes unchanged. Otherwise, they are (temporarily) matched, pending the possible draw of even better firms willing to match this worker. Some features of this algorithm are explored; namely, it encompasses other algorithms in the literature, as Gale and Shapley's famous deferred-acceptance algorithm. I then analyze the incentives facing agents in the revelation game induced by the proposed algorithm. The random order in which firms are selected when the algorithm is run introduces some uncertainty in the output reached. Since agents' preferences are ordinal in nature, I use ordinal Nash equilibria, based on first-order stochastic dominance.In the third chapter, "Incentives in Decentralized Random Matching Markets," I take a step further by considering a sequential game where agents act according to the general rules of the algorithm. The original feature is that available strategies exhaust all possible forms of behavior: agents act in what they perceive to be their own best interest throughout the game, not necessarily according to a list of possible matches. The game starts with a move by Nature that determines the order of play, reflecting the inherently uncertain features of a decentralized market. Then, firms are selected according to the drawn order and given the opportunity to offer their positions. In order to account for the dynamic nature of the game, I characterize subgame perfect ordinal Nash equilibria.Following a different approach, in "Random Stable Mechanisms in the College Admissions Problem," I consider the game induced by a random stable matching mechanism. In this paper, I characterize ordinal Nash equilibria, providing simultaneously some results that extend to deterministic mechanisms. In particular, a matching can be obtained as the outcome of a play of the game where firms reveal their true preferences if and only if it is stable with respect to the true preferences.In closing, in the last chapter I characterize perfect equilibria in the game induced by a random stable mechanism.

It is widely understood that injection and production activities can induce additional stress fields that will couple with the in situ stress field. An increased shear stress may cause serious casing stability issue, and casing integrity is one of the major issues in the development of an oilfield. In this thesis, I will present a methodology for semi-quantitatively addressing the physical processes, the occurrence, and the key influential factors associated with large-area casing shear issues in Daqing Oilfield. In the research, I will investigate reservoir heterogeneity and the far-field stress field in the Daqing Oilfield, China; I will review fundamental theories of rock strength, rock failure, casing shear, and techniques for coupling fluid flow and mechanical response of the reservoirs; and I will present mathematical simulations of large-area casing shear in one typical area (X1-3B) in Daqing Oilfield, under different regimes of water-affected shale area ratio and block pressure difference. Heterogeneity in Daqing Oilfield varies according to the scale. Mega-heterogeneity is not too serious: the geometry of the oilfield is simple, the structure is flat, and faults are numerous and complex, but distributed evenly. Macro-heterogeneity is, however, intense. Horizontal macro-heterogeneity is associated with lateral variations because of different depositional facies. Vertical macro-heterogeneity of Daqing Oilfield because of layering is typified by up to 100 individual sand layers with thickness ranging from 0.2 to 20 m and permeability ranging from 20 to 1600 mD (average 230 mD). Furthermore, there are a number of stacked sand-silt-shale (clastic lithofacies) sequences. Mercury porosimetry and photo-micro-graphic analyses were used to investigate the micro-heterogeneity of Daqing Oilfield. This method yields a complete pore size distribution, from several nanometers to several thousands of micro-meters as well as cumulative pore volume distributions, pore-throat aspect ratios, and fractal dimensions. The fractal dimension can be used to describe the heterogeneity at the pore scale; for sandstones, the larger the fractal dimension of a specific pore structure, the more heterogeneous it is. Reservoir sandstones of Daqing Oilfield have similar porosity and mineralogy, so their micro-heterogeneity lies in a micro-structure of considerable variability. Differences in micro-structure affect permeability, which also varies considerably and evidences a considerable amount of micro-scale anisotropy. Finally, the number and nature of faults in the oilfield make the macro-scale heterogeneity more complex. Rock strength is affected by both intrinsic factors and external factors. Increased water saturation affects rock strength by decreasing both rock cohesion and rock friction angle. In Daqing Oilfield, is seems that a 5% increase of water content in shale can decrease the maximum shearing resistance of shale by approximately 40%. Hysteretic behavior leads to porosity and permeability decreases during the compaction stage of oilfield development (increasing σ'). Also, injection pressures are inevitably kept as high as possible in the pursuit of greater production rates. These lead to non-homogeneous distributions of pressures as well as in changes of material behavior over time. Loss of shear strength with water content increase, inherent reservoir heterogeneity, and long periods of high-pressure water injection from a number of wells are three key factors leading to casing shear occurring over large areas in Daqing Oilfield. Reservoir heterogeneity and structural complexity foster uneven formation pressure distribution, leading to inter-block pressure differences. Sustained long-term elevated pressures affect overburden shale mechanical strength as well as reducing normal stresses, and the affected area increases with time under high-pressure injection so that the affected areas overlap at the field scale and alter the in situ stress field. Once the maximum compressive stress parallels or nearly parallels the differential pressure, and the water-affected shale area is big enough, the shear stability of the interface between the shale and the sandstone is severely compromised, and when the thrust stress imposed exceeds the shearing resistance, the strata will slip in a direction corresponding to the vector from high-pressure to low-pressure areas. The change in this slip and creep displacement field is the major reason for the serious casing deformation damage in Daqing Oilfield. To quantify the scale effect of the water-affected shale area on casing stability, coupled non-linear poroelastic fluid flow was simulated for a typical area. The Daqing Oilfield simulation result is in coincidence with the in situ observation of disturbed stress fields and casing displacement. The water-affected area has a scale effect on the casing stability. The ratio of the water-affected shale formation area to the total area influences the stability coefficient much more than the block pressure difference. In the studied area, under conditions of injection pressure of 12.7 MPa and no more than 2.5 MPa block pressure difference, the water-affected ratio should be smaller than 0.50 or so in order to maintain areal casing stability. By history matching, in the studied area under current development condition and considering the water-affected ratio, so long as the injection pressure and pressure differential between blocks are controlled to be less than 12.7 MPa and 0.86 MPa respectively, formation shear slip along a horizontal surface will no longer occur.