Computational theories of structure-from-motion and stereo vision only specify the computation of three-dimensional surface information at points in the image at which the irradiance changes. Yet, the visual perception is clearly of complete surfaces, and this perception is consistent for different observers. Since mathematically the class of surfaces which could pass through the known boundary points provided by the stereo system is infinite and contains widely varying surfaces, the visual system must incorporate some additional constraints besides the known points in order to compute the complete surface. Using the image irradiance equation, we derive the surface consistency constraint, informally referred to as no news is good news. The constraint implies that the surface must agree with the information from stereo or motion correspondence, and not vary radically between these points. An explicit form of this surface consistency constraint is derived, by relating the probability of a zero-crossing in a region of the image to the variation in the local surface orientation of the surface, provided that the surface albedo and the illumination are roughly constant. The surface consistency constraint can be used to derive an algorithm for reconstructing the surface that "best" fits the surface information provided by stereo or motion correspondence.

The main topic of this doctoral thesis is asymptotic properties of zeros in polynomial families arising as eigenfunctions to exactly-solvable differential operators. The study was initially inspired by a number of striking results from computer experiments performed by G. Masson and B. Shapiro for a more restrictive class of operators. Our research is also motivated by a classical question going back to S. Bochner on a general classification of differential operators possessing an infinite sequence of orthogonal eigenpolynomials. In general however, the sequence of eigenpolynomials of an exactly-solvable operator is not an orthogonal system and it can therefore not be studied by means of the extensive theory known for such systems. Our study can thus be considered as the first steps to a natural generalization of the asymptotic behaviour of the roots of classical orthogonal polynomials. Exactly-solvable operators split into two major classes: non-degenerate and degenerate. We prove that in the former case, as the degree tends to infinity, the zeros of the eigenpolynomial are distributed according to a certain probability measure which is compactly supported on a tree and which depends only on the leading term of the operator. Computer experiments indicate the existence of a limiting root measure in the degenerate case too, but that it is compactly supported (conjecturally on a tree) only after an appropriate scaling which is conjectured (and partially proved) in this thesis. One of the main technical tools in this thesis is the Cauchy transform of a probability measure, which in the considered situation satisfies an algebraic equation. Due to the connection between the asymptotic root measure and its Cauchy transform it is therefore possible to obtain detailed information on the limiting zero distribution.

The objective of this research was to evaluate the treatment efficiency of a trichloroethylene(TCE)-contaminated aqueous solution and soil by combined technologies of the emulsified nanoscale zero-valent iron slurry (ENZVIS) and electrokinetic remediation process. Nanoiron was synthesized using the chemical reduction method by industrial grade chemicals. The synthesized nanoparticles contained elemental iron and iron oxide as determined by X-ray diffractmetry(XRD). Micrographs of FE-SEM have shown that a majority of nanoiron were in the size range of 30~50 nm. The stability study of food-grade soybean oil emulsion was conducted using six non-ionic surfactants and soybean oil. The results have shown that the emulsion prepared by mixed surfactants (Span 80 and Tween 40) and soybean oil yielded a better emulsion stability. Based on the above finding, the nanoiron slurry, soybean oil and aforementioned, mixed surfactants were used to prepare ENZVIS. Degradation of TCE by ENZVIS under various operating parameters was carried out in batch experiments. The experimental results have indicated that emulsified nanoiron outperformed nanoiron in TCE dechlorination rate. ENZVIS (0.75 g-Fe0/L) degradated TCE (initial conc.= 10 mg/L) down to 45 %. An increase of the oil dosage could improve the stability of the emulsion, but yielding a negative influence on degradation of TCE. Experimental results also showed that ENZVIS could remove TCE up to 94 % when pH=6. It was also formed that a higher TCE initial concentration would result in a higher TCE removal efficiency. In addition, using ENZVIS to degraded TCE-contaminated artificial groundwater has indicated that nitrate and carbonate of groundwater will suppress nanoiron reaction with TCE. Especially, a high concentration of carbonate in the reaction system might form a passive film or precipitates on nanoiron surface. This study further evaluated the treatment efficiency of combining ENZVIS and electrokinetic technology in treating a TCE-contaminated soil. Experimental conditions were given as follows:(1) initial TCE concentration in the range of 98~118 mg/kg; (2) an electric potential gradient of 1 V/cm; (3) a daily addition of 20 mL ENZVIS; and (4) a reaction time of 10 days. Experimental results have shown that an addition of ENZVIS to the anode reservoir of strongly acidic and oxidative environment would cause nanoiron to corrode rapidly and decrease TCE removal efficiency. On the other hand, an addition of ENZVIS to the cathode reservoir would enhance the degradation of TCE therein. In summary, an addition of ENZVIS to the cathod reservoir would yield the best TCE removal efficiency.

Syftet med uppsatsen är att försöka förklara vad det är som påverkar tiden som en mamma ammar. För att undersöka vad det är som påverkar tiden som en mamma ammar, har en Zero inflated negative binomial-modell (ZINB-modell) tagits fram. Resultaten visar att det som avgör hur länge en mamma kommer att amma är: Graviditetens längd, mammans ålder, mammans rökvanor under graviditetens sista månader, mammans rökvanor samt mammans nationella ursprung.

A method is proposed to fuse the information from two navigation systems whose relative position is unknown, but where there exists an upper limit on how far apart the two systems can be. The proposed information fusion method is applied to a scenario in which a pedestrian is equipped with two foot-mounted zero-velocity-aided inertial navigation systems; one system on each foot. The performance of the method is studied using experimental data. The results show that the method has the capability to significantly improve the navigation performance when compared to using two uncoupled foot-mounted systems. / <p>QC 20121221</p>

We consider the uplink of a multicell multiuser single-input multiple-output system where the channel experiences both small and large-scale fading. The data detection is done by using the linear zero-forcing technique, assuming the base station (BS) has perfect channel state information of all users in its cell. We derive  new, exact analytical expressions for the uplink rate, symbol error rate, and outage probability per user, as well as alower bound on the achievable rate. This bound is very tight and becomes exact in the large-number-of-antennas limit. We further study the asymptotic system performance in the regimes of high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), large number of antennas, and large number of users per cell. We show that at high SNRs, the system is interference-limited and hence, we cannot improve the system performance by increasing the transmit power of each user. Instead, by increasing the number of BS antennas, the effects of interference and noise can be reduced, thereby improving the system performance. We demonstrate that, with very large antenna arrays at the BS, the transmit power of each user can be made inversely proportional to the number of BS antennas while maintaining a desired quality-of-service. Numerical results are presented to verify our analysis.

Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka om nyhetsvärderingen har ändrats under åren 2001-2011 i Dagens Nyheters nyhetsrapportering om attackerna mot USA den 11 september 2001. Detta har vi gjort genom att studera bevakningen av årsdagarna för terrordåden. Dagens Nyheter valdes eftersom tidningen har en tillräckligt stor redaktion och tillräckligt med resurser för att täcka internationella händelser. Vår teoretiska ram utgörs av tre nyhetsvärderingsteorier. Med dessa som utgångspunkt utformade vi variabler och gjorde en kvantitativ innehållsanalys. Denna kompletterades med intervjuer med två av Dagens Nyheters före detta korrespondenter i USA. Vår hypotes var att fokus under de första åren skulle ligga på kategorin "offren och/eller terrordåden" för att sedan förflyttas till "terrordådens påverkan på samhället" och på "återuppbyggnaden av Ground Zero", men också till "ifrågasättandet av USA:s krig mot terrorismen" och "terrordåden ur terroristernas synvinkel". Resultatet visade att Dagens Nyheter till störst del har fokuserat på "offer och/eller terrordåden" samt "terrordådens påverkan på samhället". Ofta förekommer "kända personer och politiker" eller "representanter för USA" i artiklarna. I så väl text som i bild är amerikaner och svenskar överrepresenterade då artiklarna utspelar sig huvudsakligen i USA och i Sverige. Tvärtemot vad vi trodde förekommer sällan personer från Mellanöstern eller misstänkta terrorister. Inte heller ifrågasätts USA:s krig mot terrorismen.

Saab has an analogue solution which is used to drive small motors in aircrafts. The motor is a brushless DC-motor and uses a resolver and hall sensors to control it. As sensorless control is something that has been expanding and attracting more interest over the last decade, Saab is considering the possibility of using a digital sensorless system depending on its performance on the control compared to their analogue system. There is little documentation of performance for a digital sensorless solution compared to an analogue solution. Therefore the question to be answered in this research is: How is the performance of the digital solution compared to the existing analogue solution? It was answered by finding a complete sensorless system on the market and then compare its performance to a digital system with sensors that resembles the analogue solution. Performance wise, InstaSPIN does not perform as well as EPOS2 which represent the sensorless system respective the system with sensors. InstaSPIN needs a startup sequence, can not run at the same low velocities, has a longer rise time, settling time and greater ripple. An examination of the software should be done before using the disadvantages that was found as a reason for not considering a sensorless system. Especially the startup sequence in the software should be examined as it is InstaSPINs greatest weakness compared to EPOS2. / Saab använder idag ett analogt system för att driva små motorer i deras flygfarkoster. Det analoga systemet använder en borstlös DC-motor och en resolver för styrning av motorn. Motorstyrning med system som är oberoende av givare är ett område som vuxit och fått ett ökat intresse det senaste decenniet. Saab överväger möjligheten att använda ett givarlöst digitalt system beroende på dess styrprestanda jämfört med deras analoga system. Eftersom det finns lite dokumentation om prestandan så är frågan som ska besvaras i denna rapport: Hur förhåller sig det givarlösa digitala systemet prestandamässigt jämfört med det existerande analoga systemet? Detta besvarades genom att leta upp ett komplett system på marknaden och sedan jämföra dess prestanda mot ett digitalt system som liknar det analoga systemet.  Prestandamässigt så fungerar InstaSPIN som representerar det givarlösa systemet inte lika effektivt som EPOS2 som representerar systemet som använder givare. Nackdelarna med InstaSPIN är att den behöver en startsekvens, inte kan köra på lika låga hastigheter, har längre stigtid, insvängningstid och större rippel. Man bör undersöka mjukvaran innan nackdelarna används som en anledning till att inte använda ett givarlöst system. Speciellt startsekvensen bör undersökas eftersom det är IntaSPINs största svaghet jämfört mot EPOS2.

In this thesis, we have explained the different types of DAC (Digital-to-Analog) architectures and their advantages and disadvantages. We have mainly focused on current-steering digital-to-analog design for achieving high speed and high performance. The current-steering DAC is designed using binary weighted architecture. The benefits of this architecture is that it occupies less area, consumes less power and the number of control signals required are very less. The requirements for high speed and high performance DAC are discussed in detail. The circuit is implemented in a state-of-the-art 65 nm process, with a supply voltage of 1.2 V and at a sampling speed of 2 GHz. The resolution of the DAC is 8-bits. The design of 8-bit current-steering DAC converts 8 most significant bits (MSBs) into their binary weighted equivalent, which controls 256 unit current sources. The performance of the DAC is measured using the static and dynamic  parameters. In communication applications the static performance measures such as INL and DNL are not of utmost importance. In this work, we have mainly concentrated on the dynamic performance characteristics like SNR (Signal to Noise Ratio) and SFDR (Spurious Free Dynamic Range). For measuring the dynamic parameters, frequency domain analysis is a better choice. Also, we have discussed how the pole-zero analysis can be used to arrive at the dynamic performance metrics of a unit element of the DAC at higher frequencies. Different methods were discussed here to show the effects of poles and zeroes on the output impedance of a unit element at higher frequencies, for example, by hand calculation, using Mathematica and by using cadence. After extensive literature studies, we have implemented a technique in cadence, to increase the output impedance at higher frequencies. This technique is called as “complimentary current solution technique”. This technique will improve the output impedance and SFDR compared to the normal unit element design. Our technique contains mostly analog building blocks, like, current mirrors, biasing scheme and switching scheme and few digital blocks like D-ff (D-flip flop). The whole system is simulated and verified in MATLAB. Dynamic performances of the DAC such as SNR and SFDR are found with the help of MATLAB.

Evaluation of motion characteristics of ships and offshore structures at the early stage of design as well as during operation at the site is very important. Strip theory based programs and 3D panel method based programs are the most popular tools used in industry for vessel motion analysis. These programs use different variations of the Green’s function or Rankine sources to formulate the boundary element problem which solves the water wave radiation and diffraction problem in the frequency domain or the time domain. This study presents the development of a 3D frequency domain Green’s function method in infinite water depth for predicting hydrodynamic coefficients, wave induced forces and motions. The complete theory and its numerical implementation are discussed in detail. An in house application has been developed to verify the numerical implementation and facilitate further development of the program towards higher order methods, inclusion of forward speed effects, finite depth Green function, hydro elasticity, etc. The results were successfully compared and validated with analytical results where available and the industry standard computer program WAMIT v7.04 for simple structures such as floating hemisphere, cylinder and box barge as well as complex structures such as ship, spar and a tension leg platform.