In this thesis an investigation will be done on how time and frequency can be synchronized over Ethernet with help of Precision Time Protocol and Synchronous Ethernet. The goal is to achieve a high accuracy in the synchronization when a topology of 10 cascaded nodes is used. Different approaches may be used when implementing Precision Time Protocol for synchronization. They will be investigated and the best approach for a good accuracy will be proposed. Another question that this thesis will cover is how to recover a radio frequency, a multiple of 3.84 MHz from Ethernets 10.3125 GHz. By using hardware support for the timestamps and transparent clocks in the forwarding nodes the best accuracy is achieved for the time and phase synchronization. Combining this with Synchronous Ethernet for frequency synchronization, to get a traceable clock through the system, will lead to the best result. The total error does not need to be greater than 1.46~ns if the asymmetry in the medium is neglected and a welldesigned PCS and FIFO are used. Recovering the radio frequency from Ethernet is done by using the highest common frequency, either an integer phase locked loop or a fractional phase locked loop can be used. The fractional phase locked loop will give a better result but will contribute with spurs that the integer phase locked loop does not.

Este trabalho trata das etapas de construção do primeiro relógio atômico brasileiro, de seu principio de funcionamento e de uma avaliação primária do seu desempenho. Descrevemos a montagem e os equipamentos utilizados na parte mecânica, óptica e eletrônica. Utilizando um método primário de avaliação determinamos a precisão do relógio como sendo aproximadamente 1 parte em 109 / This work is about the stages construction of the first Brazilian atornic clock, of its operation beginning and of a primary evaluation of its acting. We described the layout and the equipment used in the mechanical, optical and electronics parts. Using a primary rnethod of evaluation determined the precision of the clock as being approximately 1 part of 109

Esta tese faz parte de um programa de estabelecimento de metrologia científica de tempo e frequencia no Brasil. Com este objetivo, estamos desenvolvendo dois padrões de frequência atômicos: um feixe térmico de 133Cs bombeado opticamente, em funcionamento, e outro de átomos frios, em fase de conclusão. Para caracterizarmos o relógio de feixe, realizamos a medida de sua razão sinal ruído, do perfil de velocidade do feixe térmico e dos deslocamentos de frequências presentes neste padrão. A estabilidade de frequência de curto período medida neste relógio e de σ(τ) =(1.78x10-11) x τ-1/2 . O processo de construção de relógio de átomos frios (sistemas de vácuo, sistema de controle, cavidade e sintetizadores de microondas) é apresentado em detalhes / This work is part of the program of the establishment of time and frequency metrology in Brazil. To realize this objective we are developing two atomic frequency standards: optically pumped cesium-beam frequency standard, currently in operation, and an atomic fountain, which is in progress. The performance of the Cs beam standard was evaluated by the measurements of the signal-to-noise ratio, velocity distribution and some major frequency shifts. The measurement short-term stability is σ(τ) =(1.78x10-11) x τ-1/2 . The atomic fountain construction process (vacuum chamber, the control system, microwave cavities and synthesizers) is described in detail

Esta tese faz parte de um programa de estabelecimento de metrologia científica de tempo e frequencia no Brasil. Com este objetivo, estamos desenvolvendo dois padrões de frequência atômicos: um feixe térmico de 133Cs bombeado opticamente, em funcionamento, e outro de átomos frios, em fase de conclusão. Para caracterizarmos o relógio de feixe, realizamos a medida de sua razão sinal ruído, do perfil de velocidade do feixe térmico e dos deslocamentos de frequências presentes neste padrão. A estabilidade de frequência de curto período medida neste relógio e de σ(τ) =(1.78x10-11) x τ-1/2 . O processo de construção de relógio de átomos frios (sistemas de vácuo, sistema de controle, cavidade e sintetizadores de microondas) é apresentado em detalhes / This work is part of the program of the establishment of time and frequency metrology in Brazil. To realize this objective we are developing two atomic frequency standards: optically pumped cesium-beam frequency standard, currently in operation, and an atomic fountain, which is in progress. The performance of the Cs beam standard was evaluated by the measurements of the signal-to-noise ratio, velocity distribution and some major frequency shifts. The measurement short-term stability is σ(τ) =(1.78x10-11) x τ-1/2 . The atomic fountain construction process (vacuum chamber, the control system, microwave cavities and synthesizers) is described in detail

Este trabalho trata das etapas de construção do primeiro relógio atômico brasileiro, de seu principio de funcionamento e de uma avaliação primária do seu desempenho. Descrevemos a montagem e os equipamentos utilizados na parte mecânica, óptica e eletrônica. Utilizando um método primário de avaliação determinamos a precisão do relógio como sendo aproximadamente 1 parte em 109 / This work is about the stages construction of the first Brazilian atornic clock, of its operation beginning and of a primary evaluation of its acting. We described the layout and the equipment used in the mechanical, optical and electronics parts. Using a primary rnethod of evaluation determined the precision of the clock as being approximately 1 part of 109

In the 21st century, the proliferation of steer-by-wire systems has become a central issue in the automobile industry. With such systems there is often an objective to minimise vibrations on the steering wheel to increase driver comfort. Nevertheless, steering wheel vibration is also recognised as an important medium that assists drivers in judging the vehicle's subsystems dynamics as well as to indicate important information such as the presence of danger. This has led to studies of the possible role of vibrational stimuli towards informing drivers of environment conditions such as road surface types. Numerous prior studies were done to identify how characteristics of steering wheel vibrational stimuli might influence driver road surface detection which suggested that there is no single, optimal, acceleration gain that could improve the detection of all road surface types. There is currently a lack of studies on the characteristics of transient vibrations of steering wheel as appear to be an important source of information to the driver road surface detection. Therefore, this study is design to identify the similarity characteristics of transient vibrations for answering the main research question: "What are the time-domain features of transient vibrations that can optimise driver road surface detection?" This study starts by critically reviewing the existing principles of transient vibrations detection to ensure that the identified transient vibrations from original steering wheel vibrations satisfy with the definition of transient vibrations. The study continues by performing the experimental activities to identify the optimal measurement signal for both identification process of transient vibrations and driver road surface detection without taking for granted the basic measurement of signal processing. The studies then identify the similarity of transient vibrations according to their time-domain features. The studies done by performing the high-dimensional reduction techniques associated with clustering methods. Result suggests that the time-domain features of transient vibrations that can optimise driver road surface detection were found to consist of duration (Δt), amplitude (m/s2), energy (r.m.s) and Kurtosis.

Optical frequency combs have resulted in significant advances in optical frequency metrology and found wide application to precise physical measurements and molecular fingerprinting. A direct analogue of frequency combs in the phononic or acoustic domain has not been reported to date. This thesis describes a series of results to provide the first clear evidence for the generation of phononic frequency combs in the domain of micromechanical resonators. These results are supported by a theoretical framework which was originally developed to predict the existence of such features of combs in physical systems described by Fermi-Pasta-Ulam dynamics. The phononic frequency combs is mediated by nonlinear coupling between a primary driven mode and one or more parametrically excited internal modes. We provide experimental evidence for the formation of such phononic frequency combs in systems comprising of 2 or more coupled modes, with results qualitatively consistent with previous numerical studies based on Fermi-Pasta-Ulam dynamics. Additionally, externally pumped comb processes are also reported. Through systematic experiments at different drive frequencies and amplitudes, we portray the well-connected processes of phononic frequency comb formation and define attributes to control their concomitant features. Further, the interplay between these new nonlinear resonances and the well-established Duffing phenomenon is also discussed. While the experimental verification of the existence of phononic frequency combs is of scientific interest, several potential engineering applications exist including the unique capability to track resonant frequency of a micromechanical resonator without the requirement for an external feedback loop to sustain oscillations at the resonant frequency. The initial experimental results also demonstrate that good short-term frequency stability may be obtained for such micromechanical resonators operated under ambient conditions.

This thesis investigates the feasibility of using the non-invasive biomedical signal of oxygen saturation, or SpO₂ , to diagnose a sleep disorder known as Obstructive Sleep Apnoea Hypopnoea Syndrome (OSAHS). Epidemiologically, OSAHS is the most common condition investigated by sleep clinics. In a patient suspected of having the disorder, the upper airway is obstructed during sleep and a cessation in respiration results. An apnoea is defined as a temporary cessation of breathing. Similarly, a hypopnoea is defined as any reduction in breathing (i.e., less severe than an apnoea). The work has three main objectives; the first being to establish automated evaluation procedures for methods of quantifying apnoeic activity from the SpO₂ signal, the second being to accurately identify apnoeic and normal activity on a minute-by-minute basis, the third being to create a Respiratory Disturbance Index (RDI) based on the analysis which is comparable to the gold-standard Apnoea Hypopnoea Index (AHI) derived by experts. The detection of apnoeic activity is determined using three separate analyses: time domain, frequency domain, and autoregressive modelling with an incorporated amplitude criterion. A training dataset is utilised for algorithm development, and an independent dataset is employed for testing . All three methods result in comparable overall classification accuracies of: 81.2% (time domain), 82.1% (frequency domain), and 80.0% (autoregressive modelling with amplitude). In addition, particular attention is given to the resultant sensitivity, specificity, and accuracy values partitioned according to patient category; i.e., patients with OSAHS may be divided into normal, mild, moderate and severe. Lastly, a simple RDI is computed based on the automated analyses; i.e., the number of apnoeic segments detected divided by the total number of segments used. A comparison between computed RDI and AHI values for the test database show correlation values above 0.8. In conclusion, this thesis shows that through the automated analysis of the SpO₂ signal, OSAHS severity in patients suspected of having the disorder can be quantified. The AR-modelling with an incorporated amplitude criterion, in particular, shows the most promise for further work in this area.

Traditional and commercial speech synthesizers are incapable of synthesizing speech with proper emotion or prosody. Conveying prosody in artificially synthesized speech is difficult because of extreme variability in human speech. An arbitrary natural language sentence can have different meanings, depending upon the speaker, speaking style, context, and many other factors. Most concatenated speech synthesizers use phonemes, which are phonetic units defined by the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). The 50 phonemes in English are standardized and unique units of sound, but not expression. An earlier work proposed the analogy between speech and music ? ?speech is music, music is speech.? The speech data obtained from the master practitioners, who are trained in kinesensic voice, is marked on a five level intonation scale, which is similar to the music scale. From this speech data, 1324 unique expressive units, called expressemes®, are identified. The expressemes consist of melody and rhythm, which, in digital signal processing, is analogous to pitch, duration and energy of the signal. The expressemes have less acoustic and phonetic variability than phonemes, so they better convey the prosody. The goal is to develop a speech synthesizer which exploits the prosodic content of expressemes in order to synthesize expressive speech, with a small speech database. To create a reasonably small database that captures multiple expressions is a challenge because there may not be a complete set of speech segments available to create an emotion. Methods are suggested whereby acoustic mathematical modeling is used to create missing prosodic speech segments from the base prosody unit. New concatenatedormant hybrid speech synthesizer architecture is developed for this purpose. A pitch-synchronous time-varying frequency-warped wavelet transform based prosody manipulation algorithm is developed for transformation between prosodies. A time-varying frequency-warping transform is developed to smoothly concatenate the temporal and spectral parameters of adjacent expressemes to create intelligible speech. Additionally, issues specific to expressive speech synthesis using expressemes are resolved for example, Ergodic Hidden Markov Model based expresseme segmentation, model creation for F0 and segment duration, and target and join cost calculation. The performance of the hybrid synthesizer is measured against a commercially available synthesizer using objective and perceptual evaluations. Subjects consistently rated the hybrid synthesizer better in five different perceptual tests. 70% of speakers rated the hybrid synthesis as more expressive, and 72% preferred it over the commercial synthesizer. The hybrid synthesizer also got a comparable mean opinion score.

This thesis addresses the organisation of drive to human upper airway and inspiratory pump muscles. The characterisation of single motor unit activity is important as the discharge frequency or timing of discharge of each motor unit directly reflects the output of single motoneurones. Thus, the firing properties of a population of motor units is indicative of the neural drive to the motoneurone pool. The experiments presented in Chapter 2 measured the recruitment time of five inspiratory pump muscles (diaphragm, scalene, second parasternal intercostal, and third and fifth dorsal external intercostal muscles) during normal quiet breathing and quantified the timing and magnitude of drive reaching each muscle. Chapter 3 examined the EMG activity of a major upper airway muscle (the genioglossus). The single motor units of the genioglossus display activity that can be grouped into six types based on its association or lack of association with respiration. The types of activity are termed: Inspiratory Phasic, Inspiratory Tonic, Expiratory Phasic, Expiratory Tonic, Tonic, and Tonic Other. A new method is presented in Chapter 4 to illustrate large amounts of data from single motor units recorded from respiratory muscles in a concise manner. This single figure displays for each motor unit, the recruitment time and firing frequency, the peak discharge frequency and its time, and the derecruitment time and its frequency. This method, termed the time-and-frequency plot, is used to demonstrate differences in behaviour between populations of diaphragm (Chapter 2) and genioglossus (Chapter 3) motoneurones. In Chapter 5, genioglossus activity during quiet breathing is compared between a group of patients with severe OSA and healthy control subjects. The distribution of central drive is identical between the OSA and control subjects with the same proportion of the six types of motor unit activity in both groups. However, there are alterations in the onset time of Inspiratory Phasic and Inspiratory Tonic motor units in OSA subjects and their peak discharge rates are also altered. Single motor unit action potentials in OSA subjects showed an increased area. This suggests the presence of neurogenic changes and may provide a pathophysiological explanation for the increased multiunit electromyographic activity reported in OSA subjects during wakefulness.