There is a growing interest in employing sub-soil sensing systems to support precision agriculture. This thesis presents the design of an RFID sub-soil sensing system which is based on integrating passive RFID technology and sub-soil sensing technology. The proposed RFID sub-soil system comprises of an above-ground RFID reader and a number of RFID sub-soil sensor nodes. The key feature of the system is that the sensor nodes do not require an on-board battery, as they are capable of harvesting energy from the ElectroMagnetic (EM) field generated by the RFID reader. The sensor nodes then transmit sensor measurements to the reader wirelessly through soil. With the proposed RFID sub-soil system, the high path loss of the sub-soil wireless channel is a significant problem which leads to the challenge for the system to achieve an acceptable Quality of Service (QoS). In this project, the path loss in soil has been characterised through CST simulations. In the simulations, the effect of the soil on the sensor node antenna has also been investigated. This thesis also presents the design and implementation of a programmable RFID reader platform and an embedded RFID sensor node prototype. The RFID reader platform is implemented using a National Instruments (NI) PXI system, and it is configured and controlled by NI LabVIEW software. The sensor node prototype is capable of harvesting RF energy and transmitting sensor measurements from a temperature sensor through backscatter communication. A series of sub-soil experiments have been carried out to evaluate the performance of the RFID sensor node prototype using the PXI-based RFID reader platform. The experimental results are presented and analysed in this thesis. Additionally, this work has explored trade-offs in the system design, and these design trade-offs are summarised and described.

The focus of this study is the underground music scene in Belgrade, Serbia. This work requires the exploration of varied cultural and market factors that have shaped the scene, resulting in its present form. The explored phenomenon is complex and achieving the necessary depth of analysis will involve the use of a wide set of theoretical sources and research methods. The fieldwork includes in-depth interviews, reflective accounts of longitudinal participant observation, data collected through email correspondence, and a large amount of documentary data. Data analysis will be articulated into a single methodology (examined in depth in Chapter 3).

Le stockage de l’énergie constitue un enjeu majeur pour garantir la sécurité des réseaux électriques et favoriser le développement des énergies renouvelables. Véritable alternative aux stations de transfert d’énergie par pompage (STEP), le stockage d’énergie par air comprimé (CAES pour Compressed Air Energy Storage) fait partie des technologies les plus intéressantes. Dans les systèmes classiques utilisés actuellement, l’énergie de compression est perdue et l'air est préchauffé lors de la détente. Il en résulte une émission de CO2 et un rendement faible de l’ordre de 50%. Le système AA-CAES (Advanced Adiabatic Compressed Air Energy Storage) vise à pallier ces deux inconvénients en stockant la chaleur de compression dans un régénérateur thermique et en la restituant avant la détente dans la turbine. Compte tenu des fortes sollicitations thermiques, mécaniques et cycliques que subit cet ouvrage, la conception d'un revêtement capable d'assurer la stabilité, l'isolation et l'étanchéité constitue un enjeu principal du système. Ce point crucial constitue l'axe principal autour duquel s'articule cette thèse. Une campagne d'essais en laboratoire a été mise en oeuvre pour étudier les comportements thermique, hydraulique et mécanique de tous les matériaux impliqués dans un régénérateur souterrain creusé dans une roche cristalline. Pour l'air humide, dont le comportement thermodynamique est mal connu dans la gamme des fortes températures et des pressions envisagées, un nouveau modèle théorique a été développé. De la même façon, un modèle thermo-hydro-mécanique a été développé pour un milieu poreux déformable saturé traversé par un fluide compressible. L'intégration de ce modèle dans un logiciel de calcul de structures par éléments finis a permis d’examiner plusieurs configurations de revêtement et d'étudier l’effet des mécanismes de couplage sur le champ de température et sur la stabilité mécanique. Afin de valider les développements effectués et les solutions de revêtement proposées, un prototype d’un régénérateur à échelle réduite combinant pression et température a été construit dans le laboratoire LITEN du CEA à Grenoble. Les résultats des expériences et des modélisations effectuées ont mis en évidence l'importance du phénomène de convection dans les briques isolantes du revêtement et la nécessité d'assurer l'étanchéité du système avant l'isolation thermique. / Energy storage is a major challenge to ensure the safety of electrical networks and to promote the development of renewable energies. Veritable alternative to Pumped Storage Hydropower (PSH), the energy storage using compressed air (for CAES Compressed Air Energy Storage) is one of the most interesting technologies. In conventional systems currently in use, the compression energy is lost and the air is preheated during the expansion phase. This results in emission of CO2 and a low efficiency of about 50%. The AA-CAES (Advanced Adiabatic Compressed Air Energy Storage) aims to overcome these two drawbacks by storing the heat of compression in a thermal regenerator and restoring it before expansion in the turbine. Given the high thermal, mechanical and cyclic loading subject to the regenerator, the design of a lining capable of ensuring stability, insulation and sealing is a main issue of the system. This crucial point is the main axis around which this research is articulated. A laboratory testing campaign has been conducted to study the thermal, mechanical and hydraulic behavior of all materials involved in the underground regenerator excavated in a crystalline rock. For the humid air, whose thermodynamic behavior is not well studied within the range of the high foreseen temperatures and pressures, a new theoretical model was developed. In the same way, a thermo-hydro-mechanical model was developed for a deformable porous medium saturated with a compressible fluid. The implementation of this last model into a finite element numerical code was used to examine several lining configurations and to study the effect of coupling mechanisms on the temperature field and the mechanical stability. To validate the developments made and the proposed lining solutions, a prototype of a small scale regenerator combining temperature and pressure was built in the LITEN laboratory of CEA in Grenoble. The results of the conducted experiments and modeling revealed the importance of the convection phenomenon in the insulating bricks of the lining and the need to seal the system before thermal insulation.

Magister Scientiae - MSc / The aim of the study was to determine the prevalence of and risk factors contributing to work-related musculoskeletal injuries amongst underground mine workers in Kitwe, Zambia.

The mining industry is constantly under pressure to improve productivity, effciency and safety. Although an increased use of automation technology has the potential of con- tributing to improvements in all three factors mines have been relatively slow to make use of automation technology. Automation in the underground mining environment is a challenging prospect for a number of reasons not least of which being the diffculties and associated costs of installing infrastructure in this hazardous environment. The work described in this dissertation focuses on the modelling of a Load-Haul-Dump or LHD vehicle for the purpose of autonomous navigation and control. Considerable progress has been made in automating underground mining vehicles in recent years, and successful test installations have been made. There are still however a number of shortcomings in the existing autonomous underground mine vehicle navigation systems. This dissertation attempts to address some of these problems through the development of a more accurate vehicle model for an LHD vehicle incorporating some vehicle and tyre dynamics thereby potentially reducing the number of sensors and the amount of installed infrastructure necessary to implement the vehicle navigation system. Simulation results are provided for different vehicle modelling techniques and the results are compared and discussed in terms of their suitability for physical implementation in an underground mine. / Dissertation (MEng (Electronic Engineering))--University of Pretoria, 2007. / Electrical, Electronic and Computer Engineering / MEng / unrestricted

Positioning in environments where GPS is absent is a field currently under intensive research.Systems are currently being researched or designed for indoor use, often relying on ultra-wideband radio, ultrasound, fingerprinting or Wi-Fi.For underground mining, the problem is magnified, as installation of new equipment is expensive.Mobilaris Mining and Civil Engineering AB supplies a service, Mobilaris Mining Intelligence, using existing Wi-Fi infrastructure present in many mines for communication, and has developed two Wi-Fi-based positioning methods and one hybrid system, using dead reckoning and gyroscope.The first positioning method, Positioning Method 1, positions resources at the location of the strongest access point.The other positioning method, Positioning Method 4, uses signal strength values to construct an area where the tag is likely to be, similar to a Venn diagram. This thesis proposes a Quality of Positioning system to dynamically and select the best of all available positioning systems for every object to be positioned.This should be trained automatically by ``light vehicles'', such as service pickup trucks, equipped with the hybrid positioning system acting as reference values.Testing was done at the Kristineberg Mine in Västerbotten, Sweden, using a pickup truck equipped with the hybrid positioning system and Wi-Fi personnel positioning tags.It was found that the difference between the two positioning methods was not statistically significant, and that the hybrid positioning system was insufficiently accurate to act as a reference value. This thesis further revealed that the architecture of Mobilaris Mining Intelligence makes implementing a dynamic system impractical.Although planned for, the dynamic Quality of Positioning system was not implemented due to being deemed too impractical, complex and time-consuming compared to the benefit it would have provided.A high-level description of such an implementation is however presented, should it be motivated by future studies.

Representing revolutionary terrorists as heroes and martyrs was a typical feature of the mythology of the Russian revolutionary underground at the beginning of the 20th century. This mythology described Underground Russia, the world of the revolutionaries, as an ideal country inhabited by ideal people. The purpose of that epos was to represent the revolutionary struggle, and individual revolutionaries in such a way that they would gain sympathy from the wider public and become role models for other revolutionary fighters. Sympathetic representations of women who committed political violence seem to be especially shocking in the context of Russia at the beginning of the twentieth century, since female violent behavior contradicted the existing gender order. Employing theoretical perspectives of Critical Discourse Analysis, gender history and intersectionality, the dissertation analyzes the way narratives about the individual life paths of female terrorists of the Party of Socialist Revolutionaries (the PSR), the biggest socialist party in Russia at the beginning of the 20th century, were constructed in their revolutionary auto/biographies. It analyzes how the lives of women from different social and ethnic origins, of different ages, with different life paths, who happened to be united only by their participation in the political terrorism of the PSR, were recounted with the help of narratives used in the Russian revolutionary underground. The research findings demonstrate that the accounts of the lives of female PSR terrorists were constructed with the help of the dominant narrative that was formed as a conversion story. Within the framework of that narrative, the lives of individual women were adapted to the dominant discourse of heroism and martyrdom, and at the same time were contextualized within the dominant discourse on “good” femininity that existed in the Russian society, and even within the discourse on Jews as perpetual “Others” in the Russian empire in case of Jewish women. Social and ethnic backgrounds as well as individual circumstances of the terrorist women, however, transformed the dominant narrative, and thus created diversity of representations. The discursive practice of writing a revolutionary life accepted by Bolsheviks influenced the discursive practice employed in revolutionary auto/biographies of female terrorists written during the early Soviet period.

The final thesis covers a situation of a second housing in Czech Republic. It analyzes an origin and a development of this phenomenon during 20th century. Thesis is focused on the second half of 20th century especially, emphasizes the variety of motivations for having the hobby of second housing and also discusses the issues with constructions or reconstructions of cottages and chalets. Particularly, insufficiencies of building materials and lack of craft services that are closely related to underground economy, which is also discussed here.

The Diploma thesis deals with the leisure time of youth in the seventies of the 20th century in Czechoslovakia. It compares two forms of spending leisure time. Those are the official activities that were organized by the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia by the Socialist Union of Youth and unofficial alternatives that are ideologically opposed communism. The aim of this Diploma thesis is to contribute to the analysis of spare time of youth in the seventies of the 20th century. How did exactly the young generation of seventies in Czechoslovakia spend their free time and what opportunities did they really have. The conclusions of the thesis should then contribute to the development of further research in the area of free time of socialist society.

The goal of my thesis is to analyze the growth of Moscow metro since 1935 to the present. The analysis will be based on available and acceptable literature and sources within the building expansion of Moscow underground system in different periods of time. The thesis will be devoted to development and projects of metro expansion in relations to city growth. It will include the technical and contractual characteristics of stations and certain lines and railway carriages. A part of my thesis will be focused on the architecture of stations. One of the chapters in thesis will compare the oldest underground of soviet type in Moscow with London metro, which is the oldest metro in the world. Next part of my project will be concerned with economical and statistical indicators, analysis of financing issues of Moscow underground as for the soviet period and post collapse time as well.