Dans ce mémoire, une méthode subspace fitting (SF) destinée à l’identification des paramètres mécaniques et l’évaluation de l’état de santé de structures vibrantes, est présentée. La méthode SF s’attache à extraire, à partir des méthodes d’identification par sous-espaces (4SID), une matrice d’observabilité du système et de la corréler, au sens de la norme, à une matrice d’observabilité théorique. L’originalité de ce travail est de construire la matrice d’observabilité théorique sur la base d’un modèle éléments finis (EF) de la structure considérée. En ajustant les paramètres inconnus du modèle EF, les propriétés mécaniques de la structure vibrante sont identifiées. Les coûts de calcul d’une telle procédure sont réduits en considérant une méthode de réduction de modèle basée sur la position des excitations et des capteurs. La méthode est évaluée pour l’identification des fréquences propres d’une structure vibrante. Des applications numériques et expérimentales s’attachent à montrer la pertinence d’une telle approche. En particulier, il est mis en évidence que la méthode SF permet d’identifier précisément les fréquences propres d’une structure, pour des niveaux de bruit importants. / In this thesis, a subspace fitting (SF) method is presented for the identification of mechanical parameters and assessment of the health condition of vibrating structures. The SF method attempts to extract, from subspace identification methods (4SID), a system observability matrix of the system and correlate them with a theoretical observability matrix. The originality of this work is to obtain the theoretical observability matrix from a finite element model (EF) of the structure. By adjusting unknown parameters of the FE model, the mechanical properties of the vibrating structure are identified. Computational costs of such a procedure are reduced by considering a model reduction method based on the excitations and sensors location. The method is evaluated for the identification of natural frequencies of a vibrating structure. Numerical and experimental applications are assessed to show the relevance of such an approach. In particular, it is highlighted that the SF method can accurately identify the natural frequencies of a structure to high noise levels.

published_or_final_version / Speech and Hearing Sciences / Master / Master of Science in Audiology

<p>This thesis aims at formulating and validating models for electrochemical energy storage devices. More specifically, the devices under consideration are lithium ion batteries and polymer electrolyte fuel cells.</p><p>A model is formulated to describe an experimental cell setup consisting of a Li_xNi_0.8Co_0.15Al_0.05O₂ composite porous electrode with three porous separators and a reference electrode between a current collector and a pure Li planar electrode. The purpose of the study being the identification of possible degradation mechanisms in the cell, the model contains contact resistances between the electronic conductor and the intercalation particles of the porous electrode and between the current collector and the porous electrode. On the basis of this model formulation, an analytical solution is derived for the impedances between each pair of electrodes in the cell. The impedance formulation is used to analyse experimental data obtained for fresh and aged Li_xNi_0.8Co_0.15Al_0.05O₂ composite porous electrodes. Ageing scenarios are formulated based on experimental observations and related published electrochemical and material characterisation studies. A hybrid genetic optimisation technique is used to simultaneously fit the model to the impedance spectra of the fresh, and subsequently also to the aged, electrode at three states of charge. The parameter fitting results in good representations of the experimental impedance spectra by the fitted ones, with the fitted parameter values comparing well to literature values and supporting the assumed ageing scenario.</p><p>Furthermore, a steady state model for a polymer electrolyte fuel cell is studied under idealised conditions. The cell is assumed to be fed with reactant gases at sufficiently high stoichiometric rates to ensure uniform conditions everywhere in the flow fields such that only the physical phenomena in the porous backings, the porous electrodes and the polymer electrolyte membrane need to be considered. Emphasis is put on how spatially resolved porous electrodes and nonequilibrium water transport across the interface between the gas phase and the ionic conductor affect the model results for the performance of the cell. The future use of the model in higher dimensions and necessary steps towards its validation are briefly discussed.</p>

The conventional Zernike polynomial fit of circular aperture interferograms is reviewed and a more quantitative and statistical analysis is added. Some conventional questions such as the required number of polynomials, sampling requirements, and how to determine the optimum references surface are answered. Then, the analysis is applied to the polynomial fit of noncircular aperture interferograms and axicon interferograms. The problems and limitations of using Zernike polynomials are presented. A method of obtaining the surface figure error information from several smaller subaperture interferograms is analyzed. The limitations of the analysis for testing a large flat, a large parabola, or an aspheric surface are presented. The analysis is compared with the local connection method using overlapped wavefront information. Finally, the subaperture interferogram analysis is used to average several interferograms and to analyze lateral shearing interferograms.

Das Systemverhalten eines Einsteckvorganges und anschließenden Haltevorganges soll bestimmt werden. Bei den zu untersuchenden Komponenten sollen die Einpresskraft und die Haltekraft einem gewünschten Systemverhalten entsprechen. Zur Einstellung des gewünschten Systemverhaltens werden die Geometrieparameter variiert. Zuvor wird das Werkstoffverhalten der Komponenten kalibriert. Die vorliegende Spannungs-Dehnungs-Kurve aus einem Zugversuch wird benötigt zur Beschreibung eines Werkstoffverhaltens. Bei dieser Fragestellung geht es um die Parameteridentifikation für ein nichtlineares Materialmodell aus Ansys Workbench. Die Ergebnisse der Zugversuche werden als Referenzsignale in das Signal Processing eingelesen. Die in diesem Materialmodell vorhandenen Materialparameter sind so anzupassen, dass die numerischen Ergebnisse möglichst gut mit den experimentell gewonnenen Daten aus den Versuchen übereinstimmen.

Surface fitting methods play an important role in many scientific fields as well as in computer aided geometric design. The problem treated here is that of constructing a smooth surface that interpolates data values associated with scattered nodes in the plane. The data is said to be convex if there exists a convex interpolant. The problem of convexity-preserving interpolation is to determine if the data is convex, and construct a convex interpolant if it exists.

To improve efficacy in the field of drug discovery simpler in vivo, non invasive methods such as PET and SPECT are used. Pharmacokinetic analysis is the underlying method for analyzing the PET data. Imaging of tracer distribution is used to study a metabolic process. Using Matlab as the programming language, a software tool is developed to analyze the quantitative information from PET and to obtain an estimate of pharmacokinetic parameters, representing the bio- distribution of the radiotracer. A Graphical User Interface developed allows two types of analysis, depending upon the nature of the radiotracer: Compartmental Modeling and Logan Plot Analysis. Compartmental analysis gives us rate constants and blood volume where as Logan analysis gives us the distribution volume as the parameter of interest. Code validation is done for two radiotracers, 15O-water (Single compartment model) and FPAC (Logan Plot). Results from the code were compared with those obtained during a research work done to study MDR.

In practice, yield curves, i.e. plots of relation between yields and times to maturity for a group of comparable securities, are an important tool for assets and liabilities pricing as well as for financial decision making. The theoretical risk-free yield curve represents the term structure of interest rates that are used e.g. in insurance industry for pricing the liabilities, for which reserves are created, or also as a benchmark for pricing other assets in the market. When constructing the yield curve, it is not possible to observe yields of a group of assets for all maturities. That is why we use various mathematical methods which enable us to construct the yield curve also for unobserved maturities. In this thesis, some of these methods are introduced. The Svensson's method is one of the most important and frequently used ones. We use this method to derive the coupon curve from Czech government bonds aiming to construct the risk-free zero coupon yield curve. Later on, we use different weights for particular bonds trying to improve pricing of all the bonds based on the derived curve. Then, we also look for the curve that minimizes the mean squared error of estimated (compared to observed) prices. Because problems with liquidity can appear especially for long maturities, we apply all of the procedures to a...

This thesis explores how to best choose data when curve fitting using power exponential functions. The power exponential functions used are μ(b; x)=(xe1-x)b and Φ(ρ; x)=((1-x)ex)ρ . We use a number of designs such as the equidistant design, the Chebyshev design and the the D-optimal design to compare which design gives the best fit. A few examples including the logistic and the heidler function are looked at during the comparison. The measurement of the errors were made based on the sum of least squares errors in the first part and the maximum error in the second part. MATLAB was used in this comparison.

Os potenciais evocados têm uma consagrada utilização em clínica. Sua obtenção é dificultada pela presença de outros sinais biológicos, de artefatos de movimento, de ruído eletrônico, de interferência da rede elétrica e de artefatos de estímulo. A média síncrona ou promediação é um método que elimina os sinais que não estejam sincronizados com a estimulação, incluindo os outros sinais biológicos, os artefatos de movimento, o ruído e a interferência. No entanto, esse método não consegue eliminar os artefatos de estímulo. Outros métodos devem ser usados para essa tarefa. Para esses métodos, a eliminação do artefato de estímulo é bem sucedida quando o artefato não se sobrepõe ao potencial evocado. Porém, para uma captação próxima ao local de estimulação, a sobreposição ocorre e dificulta a eliminação do artefato de estímulo. O objetivo deste trabalho foi o de estudar a variação da amplitude e latência do pico do potencial evocado e sua influência nas estimativas da amplitude, da latência e do erro quadrático médio. Para potenciais evocados em que houve sobreposição com o artefato, o erro médio quadrático sempre foi reduzido com a remoção do artefato de estímulo. O erro de medição da latência foi reduzido a praticamente zero, independentemente da amplitude do potencial evocado. Por outro lado, o método inseriu erro na medição da amplitude de potenciais evocados grandes. Por isso, nesse caso específico de atraso pequeno e amplitude grande, a medição da amplitude deve ser feita diretamente no sinal antes da remoção do artefato de estímulo. Comparando a ocorrência de sobreposição com os locais de captação do potencial evocado, pode-se afirmar que, para o modelo de artefato de estímulo usado neste trabalho, a necessidade de se aplicar o procedimento de remoção de artefato se restringiu aos potenciais evocados captados no cotovelo, para estimulação do nervo mediano tanto no punho quanto na mão. / Evoked potentials have been used in clinics. Their measurement is hindered by the presence of other biological signals, movement artifacts, electronic noise, power-line interference, and stimulus artifacts. Synchronous averaging is a method that eliminates the signals that are not synchronized with the stimulation, including other biological signals, movement artifacts, noise and interference. However, this method fails to eliminate stimulus artifacts. Other methods must be used in this task. Using these methods, one can obtain success in the stimulus artifact elimination, whenever the artifact does not superimpose with the evoked potential. Nevertheless, for a measurement close to the stimulation site, the superimposition is a fact that hinders the elimination of the stimulus artifact. The objective of this Masters thesis was to study the variation of the amplitude and latency of an evoked potential and verify their influence on the amplitude and latency estimates, as well as on the mean square error. For evoked potentials in which there was superposition, the mean square error was always reduced by the removal of the stimulus artifact. Latency measurement errors were reduced to zero, regardless of the evoked potential amplitude. However, this method inserted amplitude measurement errors for large evoked potentials. So, in the case of short delays and large amplitudes, amplitude measurements should be performed directly on the signal, before stimulus artifact removal. By comparing the presence of superposition with the evoked potential recording sites, one may state that, for the stimulus artifact model used in this work, the need to apply the artifact removal procedure was restricted to the evoked potentials recorded on the elbow, for median nerve stimulation both on wrist and hand.