La tendance à la miniaturisation des produits n'est pas sans influence sur l'évolution de leurs moyens de production et d'assemblage. En effet, dû à la réduction d'échelle, l'assemblage de petits composants (appelé microassemblage) est perturbé par les forces de surface comme les forces de capillarité. Ces forces, exercées par le pont liquide reliant manipulateur et composant, sont habituellement négligeables (et négligées) dans l'assemblage conventionnel dominé par les forces de gravité. L'approche originale suivie dans ce travail consiste à tirer parti de ces effets et à les utiliser pour la manipulation de microcomposants, c'est-à-dire de composants dont la taille va de quelques dizaines de microns à quelques millimètres. Ce travail tente donc d'apporter quelques réponses aux problèmes de conception posés par un tel choix: quels sont les avantages d'une telle approche? Comment ces forces `fonctionnent-elles'? Sont-elles suffisamment grandes pour manipuler des microcomposants? Comment, dans ce cas, relâcher le composant? Quel rôle la tension de surface joue-t-elle? En quoi le choix des matériaux est-il important? Comment optimiser la conception du manipulateur? Tout au long de ce travail, le lecteur trouvera un inventaire des principes de manipulation existants, les éléments nécessaires à la modélisation des forces de capillarité, ainsi que la description de la simulation et du banc d'essai développés par l'auteur dans le but d'étudier ces paramètres de conception. Les résultats présentés dans cette thèse recouvrent essentiellement deux thèmes: quelles sont les règles de conception à suivre pour maximiser les forces de capillarité (problème de la préhension) et comment choisir une stratégie de relâche adéquate (problème de la relâche)? / Doctorat en sciences appliquées / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished

This thesis is an examination of the Russian Armed Forces from the time of Peter the Great in the eighteenth century to the Red Army of the present.

No description available.

The thesis attempts to account for the social and political conditions which precipitated the military coup d'etat in 1967 in Greece. Part I focuses on the Hellenic Armed Forces as a power centre in the Greek political system erected on the ruins of the civil war (1946 - 1949 ). The roots of the Army's political role are traced back to the circumstances which gave rise to the civil war and the country's dependence on foreign powers. The nature of the Greek military's dependence on foreign powers is also brought into perspective. A p.rticu1ar chapter is devoted to the discussion of the sources of the Army's economic and social power as well as describing the socio-political and professional portrait of the Greek officer cotps and their politics. Part II deals with the complex relationships between the principal state institutions, the Monarchy, Parliament and the Armed Forces. Their individual strengths and weaknesses, and conflicts between them, are analysed in conjunction with the various pressures and influences exerted upon them from within and without. Part 111 studies the impact of a certain model of capitalist development on the socio-political changes which occurred in Greece in the post civil-war era (1950-1967). The form of state and the resultant political divisions, and their r1ationshi p to the social and political movements of the period are also examined in some detail. The conditions of the regime's stability and change are linked to the country's 'political institutions by applying the concepts of political mobilisation, political participation, political integration and institutionalisation.Part IV emines the crisis of the post civil-war state in Greece and attempts to cast light on the important political changes in the period 1963-1967 and on the relationship of a deepening and all embracing political crisis to the actual staging of the military coup d'tat of 1967. A necessary chronological account of events is combined with an examination of actual political practices, policies, conduct and tactics applied by the main protagonistic political forces. Finally, a concluding chapter focuses specifically on various theoretical approaches and interpretations of the role of the Hellenic Armed Forces in Greek politics over the period concerned and their ultimate intervention. The substantive conclusions of the thesis are placed into the context of a theoretical discussion which attempts to account for the post-war rise of military and authoritatian regimes in peripheral and semiperipheral capitalist societies

The collapse of the Spanish real-estate market in 2007-8, and the colossal destruction of jobs it provoked, put an abrupt end to a decade-long model of growth, which was based on the construction and tourism industries as its primary motors as well as on the massive indebtedness of the labouring masses. In the severe economic downturn that ensued, a social conflict appeared: on the one side, the many indebted people forming the movement of the Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca (PAH) and, on the other side, the financial industry. This study offers an ethnographic account of the aforementioned conflict as it unfolds in the precarious reality of Barcelona and Santa Coloma de Gramenet, with a particular emphasis on the experience and struggle of the affected persons. The argument advanced is that the main predicament of the debt conflict is the subordination of life processes to the imperatives of financial accumulation; a situation enabled by a specific constellation of forces, involving the successive governments of Spain, the financial elite, the police, and the courts.

Triathlon involves three different modes of endurance events, swim, bike and run, consecutively. Transitions between events are critical to be successful in the sport; however, many triathletes report impaired running performance due to adverse residual effects from cycling. One of the strategies that triathletes use to manage the adverse effects is to use a bicycle with a more vertical seat post angle. There is limited evidence that support the effectiveness of such bicycle geometry, but many of these studies lacks ecological validity. Twelve triathletes and cyclists completed a 20-km simulated course with instrumentations for 3D motion, kinetic, and electromyographic analyses under two different seat post angle settings: shallow (ROAD) and steep (TRI). Series of paired-t tests were used for statistical analysis. Results indicated cycling mechanics between two seat post angle conditions were similar; however, the steep condition resulted in time-delay in muscle activation and pedal force application. There was no significant difference in cycling performance. The athletes were able to retain relatively consistent pedaling techniques with modification of seat post angle.

Polarization plays a significant role in the physical and chemical properties of water, thus polarizable water models have been extensively evolved and studied in the past several decades. In this dissertation, two polarizable water models have been extended, and some physical properties in gas phase and condensed phase were studied and analyzed. It was verified that the out-of-plane polarization effect is of great importance in some physical properties. Besides, we proved that there are some connections between these two models, although they were derived from different methodologies. The first polarizable water model we developed was a combination of charge response kernel (CRK) method and polarizable point dipole (PPD) method. In the CRK method, a CRK matrix is defined as the second order derivative of energy with respect to the external potential at atomic sites. It is applied to represent the intensity of charge response to external environment. While in the PPD method, the polarizability tensor which is the second order derivative of energy with respect to external field at the same site, is introduced to characterize the variation of dipole moment in the presence of external perturbation. In our method, we proved that although the CRK matrix of three-site water model has 9 element, it only carries two independent variables, and these two variables only rely on the water geometry and the in-plane polarizability. Thus besides the CRK matrix located on each atomic site, an additional polarizability residing on oxygen atom specifically inducing dipole moment along the direction perpendicular to the water plane was added in our model. With the addition of the out-of-plane description, some physical properties were much enhanced. In the second polarizable water model we extended, electronegativity equalization (EE) method was employed. In this three-site water model, atomic electronegativity and hardness matrix were the first and second order derivative of energy with respect to the partial charge on atomic sites, respectively. In this method, electronegativity differs among different atom types, and the off-diagonal elements in hardness matrix are related on not only atom types but also distances among the corresponding atoms. Accordingly, the intramolecular water deformation can be included. Thus flexible polarizable water model is accessible. With flexibility, this water model is more realistic. Our model validated that more flexible parameterization and geometry could improve the physical performance. At last, we connected the second polarizable water model with the first one. Although the two polarizable models were derived from different methodologies, we proved that under one simple approximation, corresponding CRK matrix can be achieved from hardness matrix. / published_or_final_version / Chemistry / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

The magnitudes of seismic forces which develop in floor diaphragms were investigated in this report to enable the development of a desktop floor diaphragm force design method for use in a structural design office. The general distributions of the forces which develop within the floor diaphragm were also investigated. Two and three dimensional, non-linear numerical integration time history analyses were performed to determine the trends and estimates of inertial and self-strain compatibility transfer forces within floor diaphragms. Sensitivity studies were carried out to determine which simplifying analytical modelling assumptions could be made in the analytical models. It was found that foundation flexibility, shear deformations in walls and the type of plastic hinge model, all affected the magnitudes of forces within floor diaphragms. A range of buildings with different stiffness, strength, height, types of lateral force resisting systems and different locations of the building including different seismic zones and soil types were modelled with the time history analyses method. The results indicated that the magnitudes of inertial forces were primarily related to higher dynamic modes of the structure and the transfer forces were related to the lower modes of vibration of the structure. It was identified that the maximum magnitudes of inertial and transfer forces do not occur simultaneously. The results also indicated that larger inertial and transfer forces, than those predicted by the Equivalent Static Analysis method, developed in the lower levels of the buildings. From these results a static force floor diaphragm design method was developed. Comparisons were made between both the inertial and transfer floor diaphragm forces obtained from the proposed static method, to values from time history analyses. These comparisons indicated that the floor forces obtained by the proposed method were generally larger than the floor forces obtained by the time history results. Elastic and inelastic finite element analyses were used to estimate the in-plane distributions of floor diaphragm forces for floor diaphragms with different geometries and lateral force resisting elements. Comparisons were made between the total tension forces obtained from the finite element analyses and Strut and Tie Analysis methods; these comparisons indicated the relative levels of redistribution of internal forces which could induce cracking within the floor. The comparisons indicated that redistribution cracking in the floors could develop around corner columns, re-entrant corners and openings.

No description available.

No description available.