Traditional dynamic vibration absorbers (DVAs) consist of a mass-spring-damper system and are an effective means of attenuating structural vibration over a narrow frequency band. The effective bandwidth of the DVA can be increased by the addition of an externally controlled force, generally applied between the reaction-mass and the primary structure. Such devices are known as hybrid DVAs. This thesis presents a new hybrid DVA configuration which utilizes two reaction-masses in parallel. On this proposed hybrid dual-mass (DM) DVA, the control force is applied between the reaction-masses. It is shown that in broadband control applications, the proposed DM-DVA requires less control force to achieve the same primary attenuation as the traditional hybrid single-mass (SM) DVA. The hybrid DM-DVA was compared to the hybrid SM-DVA with two tests. A numerical simulation of the hybrid DVAs attenuating a single-degree-of-freedom structure was performed. To achieve an equal amount of primary attenuation, the hybrid SM-DVA required 65% higher root-mean-square (RMS) control effort than the hybrid DV-DVA. The numerical model also demonstrated that the hybrid DM-DVA was less sensitive to changes in the system as compared to the hybrid SM-DVA. Additionally, a prototype hybrid DVA was built which could be configured as either the hybrid SM or DM-DVA. The prototype hybrid DVA was used with the feedforward Filtered-X LMS algorithm to control the vibration of a fixed-free beam. The hybrid SM and DM-DVAs attenuated the primary response by a factor of 11.5 and 12.3, while requiring control efforts of 4.9 and 2.7 V/N RMS, respectively. Thus, the hybrid DM-DVA required 45% less control effort while yielding a higher attenuation ratio in this experiment. These results demonstrate the superior performance of the proposed DM-DVA for broadband control applications as compared to the traditional SM-DVA. / Master of Science

Passive control techniques to minimize structural vibrations are limited with respect to the amount of attenuation obtained especially in the low-frequency region but do not require adding any power. Active control methods are effective for reducing structural vibrations, especially at low frequencies, but may require significant control effort. Thus, passive and active control methods have complementary frequency ranges of application. This research consists of combining active and passive control techniques to simultaneously attenuate extensional and flexural power flows in infinite thin beams and determine the advantages and disadvantages of such a combination. An analytical model is developed for an infinite beam with a passive insert of high damping placed at some distance from a point force excitation (passive approach). The passive control of vibrations results in a reduction of both extensional and flexural power flows downstream of the passive material discontinuity. The simultaneous active control of extensional and flexural waves, using two co-located independent piezoceramic actuators bonded to the surface of the beam, is theoretically studied. The active control model shows that the use of two independent piezoceramic actuators allows complete cancellation of the total power flow (sum of the extensional and flexural power flows) downstream of the actuators. The combination of passive and active control methods for three different configurations (actuators located upstream of, downstream of, and on the passive insert) is investigated and complete control of the total power flow is again achieved. The results demonstrate that in the case of the actuators bonded to the passive material discontinuity, the active/passive combination has great potential for reducing the control effort required for the active controller. Finally, an approximation of the influence of heavy fluid flanking paths on the optimal active/passive system is developed by simulation of these flanking paths using axial and torsional springs. This last study shows that both axial and torsional springs will result in modification of the control effort required by the actuators if their respective stiffness is greater than the equivalent stiffness of the section in parallel with the springs. / Master of Science

The building sector has become the largest consumer of end use energy in the world, exceeding both the industry and the transportation sectors. Extensive types of energy saving techniques have been developed in the past two decades to mitigate the impact of buildings on the environment. Instead of the conventional active building environmental control approaches that solely rely on the mechanical air conditioning systems, increasing attention is given to the passive and mixed-mode approaches in buildings. This thesis aims to explore the integration of passive cooling approaches and active air conditioning approaches with different dehumidification features, by making effective use of the information on: 1) various dynamic response properties of the building system and mechanical plants, 2) diverse variations of the building boundary conditions over the whole operation process, 3) coupling effect and synergistic influence of the key operational parameters, and 4) numerous parameter conflicts in the integrated active-passive operation. These issues make the proposed integration a complex multifaceted process operation problem. In order to deal with these challenges, a systematic approach is developed by integrating a number of advanced building/system physical models and implementing well established advanced dynamic optimization algorithms. Firstly, a reduced-order model development and calibration framework is presented to generate differential-algebraic equations (DAE) based physical building models, by coupling with the high-order building energy simulations (i.e., EnergyPlus) and implementing MLE+ co-simulation programs in the Matlab platform. The reduced-order building model can describe the dynamic building thermal behaviors and address substantial time delay effects intrinsic in the building heat transfer and moisture migration. A calibration procedure is developed to balance the modelling complexity and the simulation accuracy. By making use of the advanced modeling and simulation features of EnergyPlus, the developed computational platform is able to handle real buildings with various geometric configurations, and offers the potential to cooperate with the dominant commercial building modeling software existing in the current AEC industry. Secondly, the physical model for the active air conditioning systems is developed, which is the other critical part for the dynamic optimization. By introducing and integrating a number of sub-models developed for specific building components, the model is able to specify the dynamic hygrothermal behavior and energy performance of the system under various operating conditions. Two representative air conditioning systems are investigated as the study cases: variable air volume systems (VAV) with mechanical dehumidification, and the desiccant wheel system (DW) with chemical dehumidification. The control variables and constraints representing the system operational characteristics are specified for the dynamic optimization. Thirdly, the integrated active-passive operations are formulated as dynamic optimization problems based on the above building and system physical models. The simultaneous collocation method is used in the solution algorithm to discretize the state and control variables, translating the optimization formulation into a nonlinear program (NLP). After collocation, the translated NLP problems for the daily integrated VAV/DW operation for a case zone have 1605/2181 variables, 1485/2037 equality constraints and 280/248 inequality constraints, respectively. It is found that IPOPT is able to provide the optimal solution within minutes using an 8-core 64-bit desktop, which illustrates the efficiency of the problem formulation. The case study results indicate that the approach can effectively improve the energy performance of the integrated active-passive operations, while maintaining acceptable indoor thermal comfort. Compared to the conventional local control strategies, the optimized strategies lead to remarkable energy saving percentages in different climate conditions: 29.77~48.76% for VAV and 27.85~41.33% for DW. The energy saving is contributed by the improvement of both the passive strategies (around 33%) and active strategies (around 67%). It is found that the thermal comfort constraint defined in the optimization also affects the energy saving. The total optimal energy consumption drops by around 3% if the value of the predicted percentage dissatisfied (PPD) limit is increased by one unit between 5~15%. It is also found that the fitted periodic weather data can lead to similar operation strategies in the dynamic optimization as the realistic data, and therefore can be a reasonable alternative when the more detailed realistic weather data is not available. The method described in the thesis can be generalized to supervise the operation design of building systems with different configurations.

Radio frequency interference (RFI) poses significant challenges for passive microwave radiometry used in climate studies and Earth science. Despite operating in protected frequency bands, microwave radiometers often encounter RFI from sources like air surveillance radars, 5G communications, and unmanned aerial vehicles. Traditional RFI detection methods rely on handcrafted algorithms designed for specific RFI types. This study proposes a deep learning (DL) approach, leveraging convolutional neural networks to detect various RFI types on a global scale. By learning directly from radiometer data, this data-driven method enhances detection accuracy and generalization. The DL framework processes raw moment data and Stokes parameters, dynamically labeled using quality flags, offering a robust and efficient solution for RFI detection. This approach demonstrates the potential for improved RFI mitigation in passive remote sensing applications.

Många svenska hushåll fondsparar och 2018 uppgick fondsparandet i genomsnitt till 434 000 kronor per person. Nobelpristagaren Fama (1970) påvisade att det inte är möjligt att generera en högre riskjusterad avkastning än marknadens. Samtidigt finns det fortfarande mängder av aktivt förvaltade fonder som utlovar högre avkastning än marknaden. Därmed är det alltjämt otydligt för småsparare om passivt eller aktivt förvaltade fonder genererar störst avkastning. Till skillnad från liknande tidigare studier, har denna studie ett större urval av fonder. Syftet är att undersöka vilket fondalternativ som mest gynnar investerares avkastning på den svenska marknaden. Syftet uppfylls genom att prestationsmåtten Sharpekvot och Jensens Alfa, för utvärdering av fondernas avkastning, undersöks. Resultaten visade att det inte är möjligt att generera en högre riskjusterad avkastning över den valda tidsperioden. Generellt hade indexfonderna bland de högre riskjusterade avkastningarna, jämfört med de aktivt förvaltade fonderna. Vilket även tyder på att en högre fondavgift är omotiverad. / Many Swedish households are investors, in 2018 investments in funds reached an average of 434 000 Swedish Crowns per person. The Nobel laureate Fama showed that yielding a higher risk-adjusted return than the market is not possible. Simultaneously, a great amount of actively conducted funds that pledges a higher return than the market is still launched today. Which arises a disorientation among small savers if passive or active conducted funds generate higher returns. Unlike previous studies, the range of funds were increased in this study. The purpose is to examine the returns of the funds with the performance measures Sharpe-ratio and Jensen’s Alpha. The results indicate that it is not possible to outperform a higher risk-adjusted yield than the market for the chosen time period. Overall, the passive funds had higher risk-adjusted returns compared to the active funds, which indicates that a higher fee for the funds is unjustified.

Esta dissertação apresenta uma análise numérica do controle de vibrações estruturais através de cerâmicas piezoelétricas em extensão e em cisalhamento conectadas a circuitos ativo-passivos compostos por resistência, indutância e fonte de tensão. Para tal, um modelo de elementos finitos de vigas sanduíche com três camadas elásticas e/ou piezoelétricas foi desenvolvido. Realizou-se também uma modelagem dos componentes do circuito elétrico e seu acoplamento à estrutura gerando assim uma equação de movimento acoplada para a estrutura com elementos piezoelétricos conectados aos circuitos elétricos. Uma análise harmônica das equações obtidas foi realizada para se obter uma avaliação preliminar dos efeitos causados pelos componentes elétricos do circuito na estrutura. Observou-se que os elementos passivos do circuito, resistência e indutância, tem não somente um efeito de absorvedor dinâmico de vibrações mas, também, promovem uma amplificação da autoridade de controle no caso de se atuar através da fonte de tensão. Usando a metodologia tradicional de projeto de absorvedores dinâmicos de vibrações, derivou-se expressões para os valores de resistência e indutância de modo a maximizar o desempenho passivo do sistema. Uma análise numérica do desempenho na redução das amplitudes de vibração em um viga engastada-livre com uma cerâmica piezoelétrica em extensão ou cisalhamento foi realizada mostrando bons resultados. Em seguida, uma análise da autoridade de controle para estas estruturas foi realizada visando a implementação de um controle híbrido ativo-passivo. A parcela ativa do controle foi obtida usando-se uma estratégia de controle por retroalimentação ótima do tipo linear quadratic regulator para calcular a tensão aplicada ao circuito. Uma comparação entre os resultados mostra que o controle híbrido ativo-passivo é sempre superior aos controles puramente ativos ou passivo para os dois casos estudados, com cerâmicas piezoelétricas em extensão e cisalhamento. / This work presents a numerical analysis of the structural vibration control using piezoelectric materials in extension and shear mode connected to active-passive electric circuits composed of the resistance, inductance and voltage source. For that, a finite element model for sandwich beams with three elastic or piezoelectric layers was developed. A modeling of the electric circuit dynamics and its coupling to the structure with piezoelectric elements was also done. A harmonic analysis of the resulting equations was performed to yield a preliminary evaluation of the effects caused by the electric circuit components on the structure. It was observed that the passive circuit components not only lead to a dynamic vibration absorber effect but also to an amplification of the control authority in case of actuation using the voltage source. Using the standard methodology for the design of dynamic vibration absorbers, expressions were derived for the resistance and inductance values that optimize the passive vibration control performance of the system. A numerical analysis of the passive vibration control was performed for cantilever beams with extension and shear piezoelectric ceramics showing satisfactory results. Then, an analysis of the control authority was carried out for the same structures aiming at an active-passive vibration control. The active control was achieved using a linear quadratic regulator optimal feedback strategy to evaluate the voltage applied to the circuit. A comparison between the obtained results show that hybrid active-passive control is always superior to the purely active or purely passive control for both cases studied, with extension and shear piezoelectric ceramics.

The human vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR) stabilizes gaze during head movement. The reflex is typically tested in a clinic or laboratory using passive rotations or artificial stimuli which measure the amount of damage the vestibular apparatus has suffered. However, during everyday activities the vestibular system is stimulated by active, self generated head movements. Head movements are often rapid and associated with the goal of achieving either gaze-fixation or re-fixation. Patients who complain of on-going symptoms will typically identify a particular position or movement that aggravates their symptoms in their everyday life. There is a need to identify objective parameters which correlate with the subjective complaints of patients whose symptoms persist after vestibular damage. In the first study, a gaze-refixation task, patients who complain of ongoing symptoms (poorly-compensated), during rapid head turns, after unilateral vestibular de-afferentation (uVD) were compared with those who did not have the same complaints (well-compensated) and normal subjects. Well- and poorly-compensated groups were sorted according to responses on a standardized questionnaire. All subjects were then located in a real-world, non-laboratory environment in which poorly-compensated subjects reported experiencing symptoms. Each subject’s head, eye and gaze displacement and velocity, head rotation frequency and blink or eye-lid closure were measured and analysed and compared between ipsi- and contra-lesional head rotations within and between subject groups. When subjects are able to generate their own active head rotations it has been suggested that a number of vestibular and extra-vestibular strategies might be employed to compensate for an impaired VOR. In subsequent studies, high resolution scleral search coils were used to identify the compensatory mechanisms used during active head rotations during a gaze-fixation task. A corrective saccade is typically observed during passive ipsilesional head rotations or “impulses” and might be potentiated during rapid, active or self-generated head rotations. The conditions which predict or contribute to the generation of the rapid, corrective eye movement were investigated. The results were compared with responses to passive head impulses of matched velocity and acceleration to determine if active head impulses could be used to identify a lesioned vestibular apparatus as is routinely clinically achieved with passive head impulses.

Cette thèse présente l'étude d'un système convectif à méso-échelle (MCS), observé à Niamey (Afrique de l'Ouest) au cours de la campagne AMMA (Analyse Multidisciplinaire de la Mousson Africaine) en 2006, à l'aide d'un modèle numérique à méso-échelle (BRAMS). L'objectif est de documenter le cycle de vie de ce type de système nuageux complexe et de caractériser les processus microphysiques prépondérants à l'aide d'observations synthétiques. Pour cela, plusieurs simulateurs d'instruments de télédétection ont été couplés aux sorties du modèle afin de créer un jeu de données qui soit comparable aux observations réalisées durant la campagne (au sol, aéroportées et satellitaires) : un radar à 95 GHz (facteur de réflectivité équivalente et vitesse Doppler), un lidar à 532 nm (coefficient de rétrodiffusion atténué) et un radiomètre infrarouge (températures de brillance à 8.7, 10.6, et 12 µm). Les comparaisons directes et statistiques ont mis en évidence l'importance de l'utilisation d'un schéma microphysique à deux moments pour la restitution de ce type de système. La caractérisation à méso-échelle de ce MCS a été effectuée en utilisant une méthode originale de discrimination des parties convectives, stratiformes et cirriformes à partir des températures de brillance et des réflectivités radar. L'analyse statistique des champs de température de brillance a permis de vérifier que le modèle BRAMS représente de façon réaliste le cycle de vie du MCS étudié. Dans le cadre d'une analyse à petite échelle, les comparaisons entre les réflectivités radar et les vitesses Doppler (observées et simulées) ont montrées que le processus de givrage était surestimé par le modèle même dans la partie stratiforme du MCS. L'étude des différents échanges entre classes d'hydrométéores a permis de mettre évidence le fait que les agrégats givrés, souvent observés, n'étaient pas correctement restitués par le modèle. Un ajustement de la paramétrisation de deux classes d'hydrométéores glacés (agrégat et graupel) est donc nécessaire. Le paramètre de forme des lois gamma utilisées pour représenter la distribution en taille de ces hydrométéores, ainsi que les coefficients des lois masse-diamètre doivent être modifiés afin de mieux représenter la gamme des densités observées in situ. Néanmoins, la variabilité des distributions en tailles calculées à partir des 7 classes d'hydrométéores dans cette partie de l'enclume est en accord avec les distributions observées in situ.

A corpus of terms for human beings collected from 18th century novels is studied from a broad sociolinguistic perspective. A summary of recent linguistic theories and a survey of 18th century culture and society are provided as background. The basic assumption is that the meaning of words is dependent on human beings and their society and that shifts in meaning are linked to changes in attitudes, culture and social structure. Terms used for men and women therefore mirror the concepts of 'male' and 'female' in a society. Gender differences found in various semantic fields are presented and discussed. Prototypes for certain terms are suggested by means of frame analysis. Sense developments are traced and related to societal changes. Differences in male and female usage are discussed. The findings are analyzed in terms of the following contrasts within the concepts of 'male' and 'female': spirit/matter; power/dependency; active/passive; varied/limited. / digitalisering@umu

The human vestibulo-ocular reflex (VOR) stabilizes gaze during head movement. The reflex is typically tested in a clinic or laboratory using passive rotations or artificial stimuli which measure the amount of damage the vestibular apparatus has suffered. However, during everyday activities the vestibular system is stimulated by active, self generated head movements. Head movements are often rapid and associated with the goal of achieving either gaze-fixation or re-fixation. Patients who complain of on-going symptoms will typically identify a particular position or movement that aggravates their symptoms in their everyday life. There is a need to identify objective parameters which correlate with the subjective complaints of patients whose symptoms persist after vestibular damage. In the first study, a gaze-refixation task, patients who complain of ongoing symptoms (poorly-compensated), during rapid head turns, after unilateral vestibular de-afferentation (uVD) were compared with those who did not have the same complaints (well-compensated) and normal subjects. Well- and poorly-compensated groups were sorted according to responses on a standardized questionnaire. All subjects were then located in a real-world, non-laboratory environment in which poorly-compensated subjects reported experiencing symptoms. Each subject’s head, eye and gaze displacement and velocity, head rotation frequency and blink or eye-lid closure were measured and analysed and compared between ipsi- and contra-lesional head rotations within and between subject groups. When subjects are able to generate their own active head rotations it has been suggested that a number of vestibular and extra-vestibular strategies might be employed to compensate for an impaired VOR. In subsequent studies, high resolution scleral search coils were used to identify the compensatory mechanisms used during active head rotations during a gaze-fixation task. A corrective saccade is typically observed during passive ipsilesional head rotations or “impulses” and might be potentiated during rapid, active or self-generated head rotations. The conditions which predict or contribute to the generation of the rapid, corrective eye movement were investigated. The results were compared with responses to passive head impulses of matched velocity and acceleration to determine if active head impulses could be used to identify a lesioned vestibular apparatus as is routinely clinically achieved with passive head impulses.