The reliable operation of Integrated Circuits (ICs) has become increasingly difficult to achieve in the deep sub-micron (DSM) era. With continuously decreasing device feature sizes, combined with lower supply voltages and higher operating frequencies, the noise immunity of VLSI circuits is decreasing alarmingly. Thus, VLSI circuits are becoming more vulnerable to noise effects such as crosstalk, power supply variations and radiation-induced soft errors. Among these noise sources, soft errors (or error caused by radiation particle strikes) have become an increasingly troublesome issue for memory arrays as well as combinational logic circuits. Also, in the DSM era, process variations are increasing at an alarming rate, making it more difficult to design reliable VLSI circuits. Hence, it is important to efficiently design robust VLSI circuits that are resilient to radiation particle strikes and process variations. The work presented in this dissertation presents several analysis and design techniques with the goal of realizing VLSI circuits which are tolerant to radiation particle strikes and process variations. This dissertation consists of two parts. The first part proposes four analysis and two design approaches to address radiation particle strikes. The analysis techniques for the radiation particle strikes include: an approach to analytically determine the pulse width and the pulse shape of a radiation induced voltage glitch in combinational circuits, a technique to model the dynamic stability of SRAMs, and a 3D device-level analysis of the radiation tolerance of voltage scaled circuits. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed techniques for analyzing radiation particle strikes in combinational circuits and SRAMs are fast and accurate compared to SPICE. Therefore, these analysis approaches can be easily integrated in a VLSI design flow to analyze the radiation tolerance of such circuits, and harden them early in the design flow. From 3D device-level analysis of the radiation tolerance of voltage scaled circuits, several non-intuitive observations are made and correspondingly, a set of guidelines are proposed, which are important to consider to realize radiation hardened circuits. Two circuit level hardening approaches are also presented to harden combinational circuits against a radiation particle strike. These hardening approaches significantly improve the tolerance of combinational circuits against low and very high energy radiation particle strikes respectively, with modest area and delay overheads. The second part of this dissertation addresses process variations. A technique is developed to perform sensitizable statistical timing analysis of a circuit, and thereby improve the accuracy of timing analysis under process variations. Experimental results demonstrate that this technique is able to significantly reduce the pessimism due to two sources of inaccuracy which plague current statistical static timing analysis (SSTA) tools. Two design approaches are also proposed to improve the process variation tolerance of combinational circuits and voltage level shifters (which are used in circuits with multiple interacting power supply domains), respectively. The variation tolerant design approach for combinational circuits significantly improves the resilience of these circuits to random process variations, with a reduction in the worst case delay and low area penalty. The proposed voltage level shifter is faster, requires lower dynamic power and area, has lower leakage currents, and is more tolerant to process variations, compared to the best known previous approach. In summary, this dissertation presents several analysis and design techniques which significantly augment the existing work in the area of resilient VLSI circuit design.

Connecting Urban Residents to Their Watersheds with Green Stormwater Infrastructure: A case study of Thornton Creek in Seattle, Washington.

The California Global Warming Solutions Act, also known as Assembly Bill 32 (AB 32), was passed in 2006 to reduce California emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. Senate Bill 375 (SB 375) was passed in 2008 to support AB 32's emission goals. SB 375 aims to reduce emissions from transportation and land use by assigning regional per capita emission targets for 2020 and 2035. Through a series of four case studies of San Diego, San Francisco, Fresno, and Berkeley, this thesis investigates the impacts of SB 375. Each region is required to combine housing and regional transit plans in the hopes of promoting future sustainable growth. By compacting development SB 375 hopes to reduce sprawl and per capita emissions over time by greatly decreasing vehicular miles traveled.

Esta tese propõe avaliar a integridade estrutural de projetos de válvulas do tipo esfera trunnion e/ou gaveta. Por meio desta pesquisa, são avaliados os principais modos de falhas e parâmetros funcionais. Os estudos foram realizados utilizando a técnica dos elementos finitos e permitiram a construção de modelos para avaliar os seguintes modos de falha. (i) colapso estrutural dos principais componentes; (ii) vazamento na interface esfera/sede; (iii) travamento do sistema de acionamento devido à influência da vazão de escoamento do fluido. A avaliação da integridade estrutural é de fundamental importância para mitigar e/ou evitar erros, durante a fase de desenvolvimento de válvulas. Os modelos desenvolvidos também possibilitam o aprimoramento de novos projetos de válvulas e o aperfeiçoamento de projetos já desenvolvidos. O estudo proposto pode ser utilizado como indicador da qualidade de projeto de válvulas, auxiliando a equipe de desenvolvimento no dimensionamento de novos produtos, permitindo assim a avaliação dos requisitos funcionais e a avaliação da possível melhoria do projeto. Os resultados mostraram que o uso do método dos elementos finitos durante as fases iniciais do processo de desenvolvimento de válvulas é extremamente útil na concepção de novos produtos, permitindo a elaboração de produtos otimizados, sendo que por meio de um conhecimento multidisciplinar falhas prematuras podem ser detectadas nas fases iniciais do processo de desenvolvimento de projeto de válvulas, possibilitando com isso o desenvolvimento de um projeto mais racional com melhoria significativa de qualidade, confiabilidade, desempenho e competividade. O uso do método dos elementos finitos também possibilita uma redução do número de ensaios com protótipos físicos, o tempo de desenvolvimento e consequentemente o custo final do produto. / This thesis proposes to evaluate the structural integrity of the trunnion ball valves and/or gate. By means of this research, are evaluated main failure modes and functional parameters. The studies were conducted using the finite elements technique and allowed the construction of models to evaluate the following modes of failure. (i) structural collapse of the main components; (ii) leakage in the ball/seat interface; (iii) torque and/or locking of drive system due the influence of fluid flow rate. The evaluation of the integrity structural is of fundamental importance to mitigate and/or avoid errors, during the valve development phase. The models developed also enable the improvement de new valves design and the upgrade the valves design already developed. The proposed study can be used as an indicator the quality of valves design, assisting the development team in the design of new products, thus enabling the assessment of the functional requirements and evaluation of possible improvements in the design. The results showed that the use of finite element method during the early stage of valve development process is extremely useful in the conception the new products, allow to develop products optimized, and by means of a multidisciplinary knowledge premature failures can be detected in the early stages of the product design, besides enable the development of a design more rational with significant improvement in quality, reliability, performance and competitiveness. The use of finite element method also allows reduction the number of with physical prototype tests, time of development and the final cost of the product.

Esta tese propõe avaliar a integridade estrutural de projetos de válvulas do tipo esfera trunnion e/ou gaveta. Por meio desta pesquisa, são avaliados os principais modos de falhas e parâmetros funcionais. Os estudos foram realizados utilizando a técnica dos elementos finitos e permitiram a construção de modelos para avaliar os seguintes modos de falha. (i) colapso estrutural dos principais componentes; (ii) vazamento na interface esfera/sede; (iii) travamento do sistema de acionamento devido à influência da vazão de escoamento do fluido. A avaliação da integridade estrutural é de fundamental importância para mitigar e/ou evitar erros, durante a fase de desenvolvimento de válvulas. Os modelos desenvolvidos também possibilitam o aprimoramento de novos projetos de válvulas e o aperfeiçoamento de projetos já desenvolvidos. O estudo proposto pode ser utilizado como indicador da qualidade de projeto de válvulas, auxiliando a equipe de desenvolvimento no dimensionamento de novos produtos, permitindo assim a avaliação dos requisitos funcionais e a avaliação da possível melhoria do projeto. Os resultados mostraram que o uso do método dos elementos finitos durante as fases iniciais do processo de desenvolvimento de válvulas é extremamente útil na concepção de novos produtos, permitindo a elaboração de produtos otimizados, sendo que por meio de um conhecimento multidisciplinar falhas prematuras podem ser detectadas nas fases iniciais do processo de desenvolvimento de projeto de válvulas, possibilitando com isso o desenvolvimento de um projeto mais racional com melhoria significativa de qualidade, confiabilidade, desempenho e competividade. O uso do método dos elementos finitos também possibilita uma redução do número de ensaios com protótipos físicos, o tempo de desenvolvimento e consequentemente o custo final do produto. / This thesis proposes to evaluate the structural integrity of the trunnion ball valves and/or gate. By means of this research, are evaluated main failure modes and functional parameters. The studies were conducted using the finite elements technique and allowed the construction of models to evaluate the following modes of failure. (i) structural collapse of the main components; (ii) leakage in the ball/seat interface; (iii) torque and/or locking of drive system due the influence of fluid flow rate. The evaluation of the integrity structural is of fundamental importance to mitigate and/or avoid errors, during the valve development phase. The models developed also enable the improvement de new valves design and the upgrade the valves design already developed. The proposed study can be used as an indicator the quality of valves design, assisting the development team in the design of new products, thus enabling the assessment of the functional requirements and evaluation of possible improvements in the design. The results showed that the use of finite element method during the early stage of valve development process is extremely useful in the conception the new products, allow to develop products optimized, and by means of a multidisciplinary knowledge premature failures can be detected in the early stages of the product design, besides enable the development of a design more rational with significant improvement in quality, reliability, performance and competitiveness. The use of finite element method also allows reduction the number of with physical prototype tests, time of development and the final cost of the product.

Community-based youth non-profit organizations (NPOs) have become increasingly popular for the provision of youth prevention and intervention services, yet many youth NPOs lack the resources to undergo formal evaluation. Further, most existing program evaluations do not consider individual characteristics of the child or the child’s exposure to stressors. The current pilot study sought to evaluate the extent to which boys participated in 1:1 mentoring and other program activities at the Son of a Saint (SOAS) NPO, an organization seeking to provide positive male role models for fatherless young boys. In addition, the current study examined the effects of program involvement on both prosocial (i.e., academic performance) and antisocial (i.e., aggression and delinquency) outcomes, as well as the moderating role of callous-unemotional (CU) traits and exposure to trauma/stressors on study outcomes. Data were collected from mothers (N = 37) and boys (N = 27) at the first assessment point, and from mothers (N = 21) one year later. Results of bivariate correlational and regression analyses at T1 indicated that boys who have been part of SOAS for shorter durations had higher levels of participation overall, and that behavioral/academic problems were associated with more program participation. Results at T2 indicated that participation in a greater variety of activities was related to lower levels of antisocial behavior. No significant interactions were detected for either CU traits or trauma exposure in the current sample. Implications of findings are discussed with regard to future program evaluation at SOAS. Detailed recommendations for overcoming the study limitations, particularly regarding the small sample size, are provided.

Current Federal, State, and local San Francisco housing policy advocates mixed-income housing as a positive approach to creating living environments for low-income families. Strategies for creating mixed-income housing environments include large-scale public housing re-development efforts, inclusionary housing policies, and the use of discretionary funding for mixed-income development projects. Researchers agree that there is not yet enough evidence to support that mixed-income strategies are achieving positive results and have noted that the expected outcomes for mixed-income strategies are founded upon a number of assumptions. It is assumed that a mix of households at varying income levels will result in greater stability, improved access to services and resources, opportunities for social networking, and greater social control leading. This study addresses the root of these assumptions and presents findings regarding the perceived success of mixed-income development in realizing desired outcomes. Results are presented based on in-depth interviews with housing industry experts. This study aims to provide a clearer picture of why mixed-income development has gained popularity and how the strategy may be better understood and utilized in future housing development.

This thesis describes the design and implementation of information system for company Patrokolos s.r.o., dealing with wireless links for CCTV and security systems. Information system enables its users to record data about custommers, entered into the system and assign them a new contract, they may suggest using an integrated graphical interface. It allows to work with information of produced units. Based on the topology of the proposed contract enabled the implemented system to build configuration skript for Mikrotik OS, which then loaded into the unit. The information system is implemented in PHP 5 in cooperation with the MySQL database system 5.1.

The aim of Master's thesis is to apply statistical methods in production process. The assignment of the thesis is to describe and evaluate pressing process which is the part of posistor production. The first theoretical part contains introduction to the mathematical statistics, verifying assumptions about the data, describing the regression analysis, the analysis of variance and the part of the design of experiment. The second practical part is focused on design, performing and interpreting of experiments. The thesis is developed according to requirements of company EPCOS s.r.o. Šumperk. Statistical program MINITAB Rlease 14, which is supported by company, was used for all computations.

This paper shows the difference in User Experience between Physical and Digital tabletop games. The goal of the project is to get an understanding of how and why playing tabletop games differentiates depending on the platform. Seven tabletop games have been chosen from different genres with an official digital adaptation. We’ve measured four key factors, Usability, Aesthetics, Social Connectivity and Engagement. The key factors have been used to gather User Experience metrics that were used to compare the digital and physical versions of the tabletop games. The result from this thesis is that physical tabletop games have a higher rating than the digital versions in all key factors except in usability where the differences were miniscule. Games that rely on imperfect information offer a much higher social connectivity and engagement when it’s played around a table. Games relying on tile-placement offers a higher usability and engagement when played digitally due to the assistance provided by the game. Physical tabletop games are the preferred option of the two but the accessibility of the digital versions makes them remain relevant.