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Målet med detta examensarbete är att utreda de möjligheter som erbjuds vid introduktion av närvarodetektion och ett kommunikativt nätverk för vanliga vägguttag. Detta har undersökts med införandet av ett trådlöst nätverk med Smartphone styrning. En förundersökning har genomförts undersökandes de eventuella besparingar som kan göras genom att reducera standby-förluster i hushåll. Undersökningen ledde till slutsatsen att standby-energi står för en onödigt hög del av den totala energiförbrukningen i moderna hushåll. En prototyp med syftet att utvärdera genomförbarheten och nyttan av närvarodetekterande, styrbara och nätverkade strömuttag har designats och konstruerats. För kontroll av nätverket har även en mjukvaruprototyp för Smartphones tagits fram i programspråket Symbian C++. Informationsnätverket är baserat på Bluetooth-teknologi. Funktionaliteten hos den färdiga prototypen visar att det förslagna konceptet som sådant är fullt genomförbart men att blåtandstekniken har vissa begränsningar som måste arbetas runt för att få tillfredställande prestanda inom nätverket. / The aim of this master thesis has been to investigate the possibilities made available with the introduction of user awareness and network capabilities to an ordinary wall socket. This is done by the usage of wireless network construction and Smartphones for control of said network. A preliminary investigation was performed regarding the possible gains of reducing standby power consumption in households. The investigation concluded that standby power consumption stands for an unnecessary high part of the total energy consumption of a modern household. A prototype with the purpose of evaluating the feasibility and use of user aware, controllable and networked power sockets has been designed and constructed. An application using Symbian C++ deployed on a Smartphone has been developed for control and configuration of the network. The information network is based on Bluetooth technology. The functionality of the finished prototype shows that the proposed concept is fully realizable but that the Bluetooth technology has some inherent limits that need to be worked around in order to achieve satisfying network performance.

Political socialization and human agency

Three high performance circuits for a low power supply DRAM¡¦s are presented in this thesis. First, a modified multi-stage sense amplifier is proposed, that utilizes the auxiliary transmission gate and charge recycling technique. The auxiliary NMOS transistor of the multi-stage sense amplifier is replaced by the transmission gate to improve the sensing speed. In addition, the charge recycling technique is used to reduce the power dissipation of multi-stage sense amplifier. It improves the sensing time by 6.1ns (24.4%) compared to that of the conventional multi-stage sense amplifier and the power saving percentage of 25.6% compared to that of the conventional one. Second, an improved Standby Power Reduction (SPR) Circuit is reported. The capacitor boosting technique is utilized in our proposed Static Current Cut-off Standby Power Reduction (SCCSPR) Circuit, which turns off the always-on MOS transistor of SPR circuit. The power consumption is 30.9% reduced by our design compared to that of the conventional SPR circuit. Third, an improved voltage doubler is developed. The indirect switch is utilized in our proposed circuit, it provides larger gate source bias applied to the PMOS pass transistor. Thus, the current drivability is arisen and the pumping speed is improved as well. In the 2V supply voltage, the pumping speed of our modified voltage doubler is arisen about 18.6% compared to that of the conventional voltage doubler. These high performance circuits in this thesis are applied in a 1-Kbit DRAM circuits. A data access time of 36ns and total power consumption 52.58mW are attained when the supply voltage is 2V. The access time of 10.3ns (22.2%) and power consumption of 6.44mW (11%) are reduced compared to that of the conventional DRAM.

Mémoire numérisé par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal.

Functionality for efficient computation of properties of system lifetimes was developed, based on the Mathematica framework. The model of these systems consists of a system structure and the components independent lifetime distributions. The components are assumed to be non-repairable. In this work a very general implementation was created, allowing a large number of lifetime distributions from Mathematica for all the component distributions. All system structures with a monotone increasing structure function can be used. Special effort has been made to compute fast results when using the exponential distribution for component distributions. Standby systems have also been modeled in similar generality. Both warm and cold standby components are supported. During development, a large collection of examples were also used to test functionality and efficiency. A number of these examples are presented. The implementation was evaluated on large real world system examples, and was found to be efficient. New results are presented for standby systems, especially for the case of mixed warm and cold standby components.

This Master\'s thesis analyzes the relationship between the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Brazilian government during the administration of Juscelino Kubitschek (1956-1961). It focuses on the years of 1957-1959, at the time when the Brazilian government was negotiating the country\'s first and second standby agreements with the Fund. The objective is to identify the conditions that led the Kubitschek administration to break down negotiations with the IMF in June 1959. Relying on IMF, Brazilian and North-American official documents, Brazilian newspapers and interviews with Brazilian officials, this study reveals that the Brazilian government only opened negotiations with the Fund in 1958 after Washington\'s intense pressure. The American government conditioned U.S. loans to Brazil to the signature of a standby agreement between Brazil and the Fund, instead of negotiating financial assistance directly with Rio de Janeiro as it had been doing until then. Washington employed the IMF as a way to advance its foreign economic policy agenda in Brazil. This harsh U.S. position remained consistent despite increasing Soviet overtures to Latin America. Given the Fund\'s stabilization demands and Brazil\'s poor stabilization performance, disagreements between the IMF and the Brazilian government built up, leading to the breakdown in the negotiations in June 1959. As a consequence, U.S.-Brazilian relations seriously deteriorated, encouraging President Kubitschek to embrace a more globalist foreign policy. These conclusions are relevant because they brought to light aspects that usually have been neglected by the literature: the crucial role played by the U.S. as to why Kubitschek\'s Brazil sought IMF financial assistance; the insufficiency of a narrow Cold War framework to explain why Washington took a hard stance on Brazil; and the link between the IMF-Brazilian breakdown and the roots of President Jânio Quadros\' Independent Foreign Policy in the early 1960s. / Esta dissertação analisa as relações entre o Fundo Monetário Internacional (FMI) e o Brasil durante a administração de Juscelino Kubitschek (1956-1961). A análise foca nos anos de 1957 a 1959, momento em que o governo brasileiro estava negociando o primeiro e o segundo acordo standby do país com o FMI. O objetivo é identificar as condições que encorajaram a administração Kubitschek a suspender negociações com o FMI em junho de 1959. Com base em documentos oficiais brasileiros, norte-americanos e do FMI, bem como em jornais brasileiros e em entrevista com oficiais brasileiros, esta pesquisa revela que o governo Brasileiro somente iniciou negociações com o Fundo em 1958 após intensa pressão de Washington. O governo dos Estados Unidos condicionou empréstimos ao Brasil à assinatura de um acordo standby entre Brasil e Fundo, ao invés de negociar ajuda financeira diretamente com o Rio de Janeiro como até então fazia. Washington utilizou o FMI para avançar sua agenda de política econômica externa no Brasil. Essa posição dura dos EUA se manteve consistente mesmo diante das crescentes ofensivas soviéticas na América Latina. Tendo em vista as demandas por estabilização do Fundo e o precário desempenho anti-inflacionário do Brasil, os desacordos entre FMI e o governo Brasileiro aumentaram, culminando na suspensão das negociações em junho de 1959. Consequentemente, as relações entre EUA e Brasil se deterioraram seriamente, encorajando o Presidente Kubitschek a adotar uma política externa mais globalista. Essas conclusões são relevantes porque lançam luz em aspectos normalmente negligenciados pela literatura: no papel crucial dos EUA na busca por ajuda financeira do FMI pelo Brasil de Kubitschek; na insuficiência de uma simples análise baseada no contexto da Guerra Fria para explicar a razão pela qual Washington assumiu uma posição dura em relação ao Brasil; e na relação entre a suspensão das negociações entre Brasil e FMI e as raízes da Política Externa Independente do Presidente Jânio Quadros no início da década de 1960.