Proprietary.

This paper presents a method to reduce time complexity of the computation of higher–order tensor lines. The method can be applied to higher–order tensors and the spherical harmonics representation, both widely used in medical imaging. It is based on a gradient descend technique and integrates well into fiber tracking algorithms. Furthermore, the method improves the angular resolution in contrast to discrete sampling methods which is especially important to tractography, since there, small errors accumulate fast and make the result unusable. Our implementation does not interpolate derived directions but works directly on the interpolated tensor information. The specific contribution of this paper is a fast algorithm for tracking lines tensor fields of arbitrary order that increases angular resolution compared to previous approaches.

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Complex optical pulse shapes are typically generated from ultrashort laser pulses by manipulating the optical spectrum of the input pulses. This generates complex but periodic time-domain waveforms. Optical Arbitrary Waveform Generation (OAWG) builds on the techniques of ultrashort pulse-shaping, with the goal of making non-periodic, truly arbitrary optical waveforms. Some applications of OAWG are coherently controlling chemical reactions on a femtosecond time scale, improving the performance of LADAR systems, high-capacity optical telecommunications and ultra wideband signals processing. In this work, an array of Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Lasers (VCSELs) are used as modulators, by injection-locking each VCSEL to an individual combline from an optical frequency comb source. Injection-locking ensures that the VCSELs' emission is phase coherent with the input combline, and modulating its current modulates mainly the output optical phase. The multi-GHz modulation bandwidth of VCSELs updates the output optical pulse shape on a pulse-to-pulse time scale, which is an important step towards true OAWG. In comparison, it is about a million times faster than the liquid-crystal modulator arrays typically used for pulse shaping! Novel components and subsystems of Optical Arbitrary Waveform Generation (OAWG) are developed and demonstrated in this work. They include: 1. Modulators An array of VCSELs is packaged and characterized for use as a modulator for rapid?update pulse?shaping at GHz rates. The amplitude and phase modulation characteristics of an injection-locked VCSEL are simultaneously measured at GHz modulation rates. 2. Optical Frequency Comb Sources An actively mode-locked semiconductor laser was assembled, with a 12.5 GHz repetition rate, ~ 200 individually resolvable comblines directly out of the laser, and high frequency stability. In addition, optical frequency comb sources are generated by modulation of a single frequency laser. 3. High-resolution optical spectral demultiplexers The demultiplexers are implemented using bulk optics, and are used to spatially resolve individual optical comblines onto the modulator array. 4. Optical waveform measurement techniques Several techniques are used to measure generated waveforms, especially for spectral phase measurements, including multi-heterodyne phase retrieval. In addition, an architecture for discriminating between ultrashort encoded optical pulses with record high sensitivity is demonstrated.

The development of phased array antenna systems requires considerable resources and time. Due to this constraint, the Naval Air Command (NAVAIR) needs a phased array that can be physically reconfigured to meet the demands of multiple missions without added development time or cost. This work develops and demonstrates a solution to this problem by implementing an adaptive calibration approach to the development of electronically steerable antennas (ESAs). In contrast to previous analog adaptive beamformer systems, this system allows for an arbitrary antenna configuration with a variable number of antenna elements and locations. A simulation model of arbitrary phased array configurations was developed to test the beamformer calibration algorithm and was used to show practical tile locations. To demonstrate this approach, four 4x4 ULA phased array antenna tiles were built and tested together in various configurations to show the viability of developing a physically reconfigurable phased array system.

Finite element(FE) method has been used to model cutting process since 1970s. However, it requires special techniques to cope with the difficulties in simulating extremely large strain when compare to static or small deformation problems. With the advancement of FE techniques, researchers can now have a deeper insight of the mechanism of material flow and chip formation of metal cutting process. Even the stagnation effect of the workpiece material in front of the cutting edge radius can be captured by using FE techniques such as Remeshing and Arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian(ALE) formulation. However most of this models are limited to plane strain assumption which means they are 2-dimensional. Although 3D models are existing in the literatures, most of them employ Remeshing technique which is very computationally intensive and has many critics regarding its accuracy due to its frequent remeshing and mapping process. The rest of the 3D models employ Lagrangian formulation. The 3D models by Lagrangian formulation have the same limitations and drawbacks as in 2D models, as it requires failure criteria and in most of the cases predefined partition surfaces are also required. ALE technique on the other hand resolves all the drawbacks of the other formulations, it not only inherits the advantages of the other techniques but also has its own unique advantages such as it can simulate a longer time span up to couple seconds more economically by fixing the number of elements used. Although it's commonly accepted that ALE formulation is superior to other formulations of techniques in modeling metal cutting process, its usage is only limited to 2D models. Limited 3D ALE metal cutting models is available in the literature. Thus the main objective of this research is to explore the possibility of building a 3D metal cutting model with ALE formulation. The reliability and limitations will also be studied. Furthermore, Couple Eulerian-Lagrangian(CEL) formulation is a recent developed formulation that has a lot of potential in modeling metal cutting process in 3D. It will be compared with ALE models to study its potential and limitations in modeling metal cutting process. A new frictional model will also be proposed, which suggests that the frictional phenomenon in metal cutting is a consolidated effect of both friction between material interface and shear yield of the workpiece material. This idea provide a brand new perspective of viewing the friction phenomenon of metal cutting compared to those existed models. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc)

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No description available.

El VII Pleno Jurisdiccional Supremo en Materia Previsional y Laboral consideró que solo merecen protección de eficacia resarcitoria los trabajadores de dirección o de confianza de entidades y empresas del sector privado que desde su ingreso ocuparon una posición en la que ejercían funciones ordinarias o comunes, más no los que directamente ocuparon un puesto de confianza o de dirección. A pesar de que nuestra legislación ampara la protección ante despido arbitrario, en la práctica a los trabajadores de confianza se les retira de sus cargos bajo la premisa de “pérdida de confianza”, este ya es un serio problema, sin embargo, el mismo se agrava aún más en los tribunales, donde a nivel jurisprudencial y en base al Pleno mencionado, el cual no es vinculante, se les está privando, en algunos casos, a aquellos trabajadores de confianza que han superado un periodo de prueba de manera satisfactoria, de un derecho o beneficio laboral que les corresponde. Esto ha ocasionado una fuerte incertidumbre jurídica y una falta de criterio uniforme en cuanto al accionar justo, pues no todos obtienen lo que “les es debido”. La problemática sobre la cual se enfocará la presente investigación es de suma importancia para ventilar esta posición discriminatoria injustificada, así como para determinar los criterios para garantizar la protección resarcitoria frente al despido arbitrario de todos los trabajadores de confianza. De esta manera se busca argumentar una efectiva protección y consecución de estabilidad laboral, evitando así las posibles injusticias que, aunque hoy solo reciben algunos, resulta una amenaza para todos. / The Seventh Supreme Jurisdictional Plenum on Social Security and Labor Matters considered that only management workers or trusted workers of private sector companies and/or institutions who first entered a position in which they performed common or ordinary duties, deserved protection with the effect of compensation, but not those who directly held a position of trust or management. Despite the fact that our legislation provides protection against arbitrary dismissal, in practice, trusted workers are removed from their jobs because of “loss of confidence”. This is already a serious problem, however, the problem is even worse in the courts, in case law level, where on the basis of the above-mentioned plenum, which is not binding, trusted workers who have successfully passed a probationary period are in some cases deprived of a right or benefit to which they are entitled. This has led to considerable legal uncertainty and a lack of uniform standards of fairness, as not everyone gets what is “due to them”. The problem on which this investigation will focus is extremely important in order to clarify this unjustified discriminatory position, as well as to determine the criteria for guaranteeing compensatory protection of all management workers and trusted workers against arbitrary dismissal. In this way, it seeks to argue for effective protection and achievement of job stability, thus avoiding possible injustices that, although today only some receive, are a threat to all. Keywords: Reliance, indemnity,

We consider a wireless sensor network, in which end users are interested in maximizing the useful information supplied by the network till network partition due to inevitable node deaths. Neither throughput maximization nor network lifetime maximization achieves the objective: A network with high throughput provides information at a high rate, but can exhaust the nodes of their energies quickly; similarly, a network can achieve a long lifetime by remaining idle for most of the time. We propose and seek to maximize a new metric: “Aggregate bit transported before network partition” (a product of throughput and lifetime), which precisely captures the usefulness of sensor networks. We model the links in the wireless sensor network as wired links with reduced equivalent capacities, formulate and solve the problem of maximizing bits transported before network partition on arbitrary networks. To assess the benefits that network coding can yield for the same objective, we study a scenario where the coding-capable nodes are placed on a regular grid. We propose an optimal algorithm to choose the minimum number of coding points in the grid to ensure energy efficiency. Our results show that, even with simple XOR coding, the bits transported can increase up to 83 % of that without coding. Further, we study the problem of in-network data aggregation in a wireless sensor network to achieve minimum delay. The nodes in the network compute and forward data as per a query graph, which allows operations belonging to a general class of functions. We aim to extract the best sub-network that achieves the minimum delay. We design an algorithm to schedule the sub-network such that the computed data reaches sink at the earliest. We consider directed acyclic query graphs as opposed to the existing work which considers tree query graphs only.