Biomaterials employed for neural stimulation, as well as brain/machine interfaces, offer great perspectives to combat neurodegenerative diseases, while application of lab-on-a-chip devices such as multielectrode arrays is a promising alternative to assess neural function in vitro. For bioelectronic monitoring, nanostructured microelectrodes are required, which exhibit an increased surface area where the detection sensitivity is not reduced by the self-impedance of the electrode. In our study, we investigated the interaction of neurons (SH-SY5Y) and glial cells (U-87 MG) with nanocolumnar titanium nitride (TiN) electrode materials in comparison to TiN with larger surface grains, gold, and indium tin oxide (ITO) substrates. Glial cells showed an enhanced proliferation on TiN materials; however, these cells spread evenly distributed over all the substrate surfaces. By contrast, neurons proliferated fastest on nanocolumnar TiN and formed large cell agglomerations. We implemented a radial autocorrelation function of cellular positions combined with various clustering algorithms. These combined analyses allowed us to quantify the largest cluster on nanocolumnar TiN; however, on ITO and gold, neurons spread more homogeneously across the substrates. As SH-SY5Y cells tend to grow in clusters under physiologic conditions, our study proves nanocolumnar TiN as a potential bioactive material candidate for the application of microelectrodes in contact with neurons. To this end, the employed K-means clustering algorithm together with radial autocorrelation analysis is a valuable tool to quantify cell-surface interaction and cell organization to evaluate biomaterials’ performance in vitro

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / One of the main causes of control loop performance degradation are the oscillations, which have a negative effect on the performance of these loops and may force the plant to operate at less than optimal conditions. One of the fundamental steps for the evaluation of industrial control loop performance is the detection and diagnosis of these oscillations, also motivated by the growing emphasis on security and earnings capacity of the installations. This paper uses wavelet analysis combined with other signal analysis techniques such as the autocorrelation function and the Granger Causality, to make the complete diagnosis of oscillations in control loops processes. Numerical test simulations are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. First, the techniques are used for the diagnosis of a simple control loop in the format of internal model control. After, the methods are applied in a catalytic cracking unit operating under model predictive control (MPC). The results show the potentiality of the proposed methodology to real applications. / Uma das principais causas da degradação do desempenho em malhas de controle são as oscilações, as quais têm um efeito negativo sobre o desempenho dessas malhas e pode forçar a planta a operar em condições abaixo do ideal. Um dos passos fundamentais para a avaliação do desempenho de malhas de controle industriais são a detecção e diagnóstico dessas oscilações, motivados também pela crescente ênfase na segurança e capacidade de lucro das instalações. O presente trabalho usa a análise de Wavelet combinada com outras técnicas de análise de sinais, tais como a Função de Autocorrelação e a Causalidade de Granger, para fazer o diagnóstico completo de oscilações em malhas de controle de processos. Testes de simulações numéricas são apresentados para demonstrar a eficácia da metodologia proposta. Primeiramente, as técnicas são utilizadas para o diagnóstico de uma malha de controle simples no formato de controle por modelo interno. Posteriormente, os métodos são aplicados numa unidade de craqueamento catalítico operando sob controle preditivo (MPC). Os resultados obtidos mostram a potencialidade da metodologia proposta para aplicações reais.

The current persistent drought and changes in the climate system have raised water managers expert questions about how to manage water resources in the future. The manifestation of climate change in hydrological series and their influence on the magnitude of threats to the storage functions of reservoirs are more often investigated. Already today, long-term shortages of storage capacity in reservoirs lead to the introduction of special manipulations on water structures. The aim of the thesis is to perform the analysis of time series, respectively decomposition of hydrological series average annual and monthly discharges. Create extended hydrological bases using synthetic discharge series generators and develop a comprehensive analysis of storage volume without considering losses even with the introduction of losses from the water surface vapor in the UNCE RESERVOIR program. The created discharge series are compared and evaluated on the basis of statistical characteristics and reservoir storages results with the real discharge series. The practical app is conducted on the Vranov reservoir in the Dyje River Basin.

Knowledge of the properties of single molecule diffusion is important for controlling dynamic self-assembly of molecular structures. A powerful experimental technique for determining diffusion coefficients is the recording of diffusion-induced signal fluctuations by a locally fixed point-like probe. Here, the signal becomes modified, whenever a molecule enters a certain detection area on the surface under the probe. The technique is minimal invasive and has a very good time resolution, enabling the investigation of highly mobile molecules. Theories are necessary for the analysis of the fluctuations and the extraction of diffusion properties. In this thesis, three methods are presented, which are based on the autocorrelation function, the distribution of peak widths and the distribution of interpeak intervals. Analytical expressions are derived for the distributions and the autocorrelation function in case of molecules, which can be described by circular or rectangular shapes. For rectangular shaped molecules, rotational diffusion can influence the recorded fluctuations. To allow for a simultaneous determination of rotational and translational diffusion coefficients the analytical treatment is extended. Furthermore, new methods are developed to determine the diffusion tensor for anisotropic stochastic molecular motion, using either one linearly extended probe or two individual probes. Coarse-graining the signal recorded by a point-like probe, which repeatedly moves on a line or a circle, is suggested for experimental implementation. All facets of the evaluation methods are verified against kinetic Monte Carlo simulations. Applications to experimental data, recorded by a locally fixed scanning tunneling microscope tip, are demonstrated for copperphthalocyanine and PTCDA molecules diffusing on Ag(100).

The main objective of the thesis was to investigate the feasibility of accurately and precisely fore- casting the number of both national and provincial bene ciaries of social security grants in South Africa, using simple autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) models. The series of the monthly number of bene ciaries of the old age, child support, foster care and disability grants from April 2004 to March 2010 were used to achieve the objectives of the thesis. The conclusions from analysing the series were that: (1) ARIMA models for forecasting are province and grant-type spe- ci c; (2) for some grants, national forecasts obtained by aggregating provincial ARIMA forecasts are more accurate and precise than those obtained by ARIMA modelling national series; and (3) for some grants, forecasts obtained by modelling the latest half of the series were more accurate and precise than those obtained from modelling the full series. / Mathematical Sciences / M.Sc. (Statistics)

Divers radars sont développés pour des besoins d’aide à la conduite automobile de sécurité mais aussi de confort. Ils ont pour but de détecter la présence d’obstacles routiers afin d’éviter d’éventuelles collisions. La demande actuelle en termes de capteurs radars pour l’automobile connaît une croissance importante et les technologies employées doivent garantir de bonnes performances dans un environnement dégradé par les signaux interférents des autres utilisateurs. Dans cette thèse, nous nous intéressons au développement d’un système radar performant en tout lieu et en particulier dans un contexte multi-utilisateurs. A ce propos, nous proposons de nouvelles formes d’ondes qui se basent sur la combinaison des codes fréquentiels de Costas et d’autres techniques de compression d’impulsion en exploitant les signaux de Costas modifiés. La conception adoptée permet, grâce à la diversité introduite, de synthétiser un nombre important de formes d’ondes. Nous avons, ensuite, exploité deux approches d’estimation des paramètres des cibles. La première, plutôt classique, se base sur le traitement Doppler dans un train d’impulsions cohérent. La deuxième, récente dans le domaine automobile, se base sur la technique dite de « Compressed Sensing ». Une adaptation de ces algorithmes pour les signaux proposés a été discutée dans des environnements bruités et multi-cibles. L’ensemble de ces travaux contribue à explorer de nouvelles formes d’ondes, autres que celles utilisées dans les radars actuels et à proposer un traitement innovant en réception, adapté aux radars en général et à l’automobile en particulier. / Several driver assistance radars are developed for security and comfort requirements. Their goal is among others to detect the presence of obstacles for collision avoidance. The current demand in terms of automotive radar sensors experience a significant growth and the technologies being employed must ensure good performances especially in an environment degraded by interfering signals of other users. In this thesis, we are interested in developing a radar system which is effective in all situations especially in a multi-user context. For this purpose, we propose novel radar waveforms based on the combination of frequency hopping Costas codes and other pulse compression techniques, using modified Costas signals. The design approach allows to synthesize a significant number of waveforms, thanks to the high diversity introduced. Afterwards, we have exploited two estimation of target parameters approaches. The first one, quite classic, is based on Doppler processing in a coherent pulse train. The second one, recent in the automotive field , is based on the Compressed sensing techniques. An adaptation of these algorithms to proposed signals is discussed in noisy and multi-target environments. All these works contribute in one hand to explore novel radar waveforms, complement to those currently used in automotive radars and in another hand to propose an innovative processing at the receiver level, suited to radar applications in general and automotive ones in particular.

The main objective of the thesis was to investigate the feasibility of accurately and precisely fore- casting the number of both national and provincial bene ciaries of social security grants in South Africa, using simple autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) models. The series of the monthly number of bene ciaries of the old age, child support, foster care and disability grants from April 2004 to March 2010 were used to achieve the objectives of the thesis. The conclusions from analysing the series were that: (1) ARIMA models for forecasting are province and grant-type spe- ci c; (2) for some grants, national forecasts obtained by aggregating provincial ARIMA forecasts are more accurate and precise than those obtained by ARIMA modelling national series; and (3) for some grants, forecasts obtained by modelling the latest half of the series were more accurate and precise than those obtained from modelling the full series. / Mathematical Sciences / M.Sc. (Statistics)

This thesis aims to contribute to the developments of wireless communication systems. The work generally consists of three parts: the first part is a discussion on general digital communication systems, the second part focuses on wireless channel modelling and fading mitigation techniques, and in the third part we discuss the possible application of advanced digital signal processing, especially time-frequency representation and blind source separation, to wireless communication systems. The first part considers general digital communication systems which will be incorporated in later parts. Today's wireless communication system is a subbranch of a general digital communication system that employs various techniques of A/D (Analog to Digital) conversion, source coding, error correction, coding, modulation, and synchronization, signal detection in noise, channel estimation, and equalization. We study and develop the digital communication algorithms to enhance the performance of wireless communication systems. In the Second Part we focus on wireless channel modelling and fading mitigation techniques. A modified Jakes' method is developed for Rayleigh fading channels. We investigate the level-crossing rate (LCR), the average duration of fades (ADF), the probability density function (PDF), the cumulative distribution function (CDF) and the autocorrelation functions (ACF) of this model. The simulated results are verified against the analytical Clarke's channel model. We also construct frequency-selective geometrical-based hyperbolically distributed scatterers (GBHDS) for a macro-cell mobile environment with the proper statistical characteristics. The modified Clarke's model and the GBHDS model may be readily expanded to a MIMO channel model thus we study the MIMO fading channel, specifically we model the MIMO channel in the angular domain. A detailed analysis of Gauss-Markov approximation of the fading channel is also given. Two fading mitigation techniques are investigated: Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) and spatial diversity. In the Third Part, we devote ourselves to the exciting fields of Time-Frequency Analysis and Blind Source Separation and investigate the application of these powerful Digital Signal Processing (DSP) tools to improve the performance of wireless communication systems.