Thesis. 1975. B.S.--Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Mechanical Engineering. / Bibliography: leaf 33. / B.S.

In this work, three different classes of colour converting layers (CCLs) for the down-conversion of blue and green Organic Light Emitting Devices (OLEDs) have been developed. In Chapter 3, the dispersion of organic dyes into polymer matrices via solution processing and solid state methods is presented. Application of hybrid organic-inorganic fluorescent particles, composed of organic fluorescent molecules absorbed into porous supporting materials, is discussed in Chapter 4. This solution allows for the dispersion of the organic molecule into an otherwise non-miscible polysiloxane matrix and resulted in the discovery of unusual optical properties of one of the organic dye (fluorescein disodium salt). This peculiar emission has been studied in more detail during Chapter 5. In addition, the possible use of fluorescent nanodiamonds, produced by gamma radiation, as luminescent materials, has been investigated in Chapter 6.

A numerical method for the simulation of compressible turbulent flows is presented. This method includes a novel hybrid grid generation for airfoil cascades and an unstructured mesh flow solver. The mesh tool incorporates a mapping technique and a grid smoothing method. The mapping technique is used to build an initial volume mesh and the grid smoothing method is used to improve the quality of the initial mesh. The grid smoothing is based on the optimization of mesh-quality parameters. The further improvement of the smoothed mesh is achieved by an edge-swapping and node-insertion technique. The unstructured flow solver is developed for a hybrid grid. This flow solver uses a rotational frame of reference. The convective and viscous fluxes are numerically solved by an upwind scheme and an averaged nodal gradient. A higher-order spatial accuracy is achieved by a piece-wise linear reconstruction. An explicit multi-stage method is employed for integration in time. The Menter’s k −τ model is implemented to simulate the turbulence effects. The flow solver is validated against the analytical and experimental results. A parametric study is performed for a high speed centrifugal compressor.

Quantum chromodynamics (QCD) is the modern theory of strong interactions. Quarks and antiquarks interact extit{via} gluons, the gauge bosons, and form well-know bound states, namely mesons and baryons. This non-Abelian gauge theory predicts the existence of unconventional states of quarks and gluons: Exotic hadrons. Their observation remains a difficult task since their properties are poorly known. Their theoretical study is a challenging task and will guide experimentalists in their work. This thesis is devoted to two main types of exotic hadrons: Hybrid mesons and glueballs. Hybrid mesons are mesons in which the gluon field is in an excited state. In constituent models, the excitation of the flux tube is interpreted in term of a constituent gluon. In this thesis, the connection between the two pictures, flux tube excitation and constituent gluon, is demonstrated. Using the technique of the auxiliary field, we reproduce, from the three-body system quark-antiquark-gluon, the excitations of the quark-antiquark potential observed in lattice QCD. We complete our study of mesons with exotic quantum numbers by performing a analysis of the low-lying spectrum. Glueballs are hadronic states with no valence quarks. Theoretical developments suggests that confined gluons gain a constituent mass inside glueballs. According to this, a gluon can be considered as a heavy spin-1 particle. Two- and three-gluon glueballs are then similar of heavy meson and baryon systems. We preformed a complete study of the low-lying spectrum of these glueballs. The comparison with the pure gauge results from lattice QCD showed a disagreement and led us to the conclusion that the gluon degree-of-freedom was not correctly taken into account. Indeed, the implementation of transverse gluons at the level of the wave functions solved this problem for two-gluon glueballs. For both systems, hybrid mesons and glueballs, we used semi-relativistic Hamiltonians since they remain valid for massless particles. A code in Gaussian basis was developed to solve our eigenvalue problems. For this purpose, we found the matrix elements between Gaussian functions for various operators.

The Chinese car market has, through the last decade evolved into the major market in the world. Its car market from has become the world’s largest market from 2009 until today. With the emerging market that is China, the demand for cars is supposed to grow even more in the next decade.The thesis starts by studying the theories of consumer market segmentation with a hybrid and dynamic aspect. A quantitative investigation was conducted with the help of a survey. The survey was sent out to car consumers and potential car consumers who are residing in China. From this study the authors were able to anticipate possible preferential profiles.

Intensive management of short rotation hybrid poplar (HP) plantations on agriculture land has demonstrated good early yields and promise as an alternative crop for farmers selling fibre to the forest industry. However, multiple rotations of HP may impact the future productivity of plantations through nutrient removals. The objectives, therefore, of this study were to determine the nutrient stores and fluxes for two HP plantations with differing site quality, fertilizer applications and past land management practices and to construct a 20-year nutrient budget to examine impacts of harvesting short rotation HP on long-term productivity.<p>Heights and biomass were measured by harvesting above- and below-ground and separating biomass into tree components; measurement of atmospheric deposition, mineral weathering, litterfall, litter decomposition, and leaching for HP plantations on an Alfalfa (HPA) and Pasture (HPP) sites in 2004-05. The budget was developed by averaging fluxes over 2 years and scaling up to a 20-year rotation. <p>Unfertilized treatments in the HPA plantation showed greater tree growth than all other treatments. Fertilized and unfertilized treatments had greater biomass production and nutrient pools than treatments at the HPP plantation. The fertilizer treatments did not affect on biomass production and nutrient accumulation.<p>Nutrient additions to the HPA were greater than the HPP plantations for leaf litterfall and leaching. Nutrient resorption from senescing leaves was greater at the HPP plantation suggesting that nutrient pools were smaller and that trees responded by keeping nutrients in the biomass. Fertilization at both plantations increased nutrient flow for inputs and outputs in 2004-05. Water leachate and leaf litterfall showed increased nutrient contents in fertilized treatments at both plantations.<p>A high fertility plantation that used fertilizer and practiced whole-tree harvesting exported more nutrients (and fibre) than a plantation with marginal site quality practicing stem-only harvesting. Time to replenish nutrients from atmospheric deposition and mineral weathering would range from 6 to 50 years for Ca and N, respectively, suggesting that subsequent plantations would require fertilizers to replenish soil nutrient reserves.<p>While HP plantations in Saskatchewan can produce high yields, they require large nutrient inputs and are inefficient (sequester a large amount) in nutrient use. High site quality is important to obtain high yields but conservational techniques, such as stem-only harvesting, are important in maintaining site quality over the long-term.

To further improve performances of machine systems, mechatronics offers some opportunities. Traditionally, mechatronics deals with how to integrate mechanics and electronics without a systematic approach. This thesis generalizes the concept of mechatronics into a new concept called hybrid intelligent machine system. A hybrid intelligent machine system is a system where two or more elements combine to play at least one of the roles such as sensor, actuator, or control mechanism, and contribute to the system behaviour. The common feature with the hybrid intelligent machine system is thus the presence of two or more entities responsible for the system behaviour with each having its different strength complementary to the others. The hybrid intelligent machine system is further viewed from the systems structure, behaviour, function, and principle, which has led to the distinction of (1) the hybrid actuation system, (2) the hybrid motion system (mechanism), and (3) the hybrid control system. <p>This thesis describes a comprehensive study on three hybrid intelligent machine systems. In the case of the hybrid actuation system, the study has developed a control method for the true hybrid actuation configuration in which the constant velocity motor is not mimicked by the servomotor which is treated in literature. In the case of the hybrid motion system, the study has resulted in a novel mechanism structure based on the compliant mechanism which allows the micro- and macro-motions to be integrated within a common framework. It should be noted that the existing designs in literature all take a serial structure for micro- and macro-motions. In the case of hybrid control system, a novel family of control laws is developed, which is primarily based on the iterative learning of the previous driving torque (as a feedforward part) and various feedback control laws. This new family of control laws is rooted in the computer-torque-control (CTC) law with an off-line learned torque in replacement of an analytically formulated torque in the forward part of the CTC law. This thesis also presents the verification of these novel developments by both simulation and experiments. Simulation studies are presented for the hybrid actuation system and the hybrid motion system while experimental studies are carried out for the hybrid control system.

To further improve performances of machine systems, mechatronics offers some opportunities. Traditionally, mechatronics deals with how to integrate mechanics and electronics without a systematic approach. This thesis generalizes the concept of mechatronics into a new concept called hybrid intelligent machine system. A hybrid intelligent machine system is a system where two or more elements combine to play at least one of the roles such as sensor, actuator, or control mechanism, and contribute to the system behaviour. The common feature with the hybrid intelligent machine system is thus the presence of two or more entities responsible for the system behaviour with each having its different strength complementary to the others. The hybrid intelligent machine system is further viewed from the systems structure, behaviour, function, and principle, which has led to the distinction of (1) the hybrid actuation system, (2) the hybrid motion system (mechanism), and (3) the hybrid control system. <p>This thesis describes a comprehensive study on three hybrid intelligent machine systems. In the case of the hybrid actuation system, the study has developed a control method for the true hybrid actuation configuration in which the constant velocity motor is not mimicked by the servomotor which is treated in literature. In the case of the hybrid motion system, the study has resulted in a novel mechanism structure based on the compliant mechanism which allows the micro- and macro-motions to be integrated within a common framework. It should be noted that the existing designs in literature all take a serial structure for micro- and macro-motions. In the case of hybrid control system, a novel family of control laws is developed, which is primarily based on the iterative learning of the previous driving torque (as a feedforward part) and various feedback control laws. This new family of control laws is rooted in the computer-torque-control (CTC) law with an off-line learned torque in replacement of an analytically formulated torque in the forward part of the CTC law. This thesis also presents the verification of these novel developments by both simulation and experiments. Simulation studies are presented for the hybrid actuation system and the hybrid motion system while experimental studies are carried out for the hybrid control system.

Intensive management of short rotation hybrid poplar (HP) plantations on agriculture land has demonstrated good early yields and promise as an alternative crop for farmers selling fibre to the forest industry. However, multiple rotations of HP may impact the future productivity of plantations through nutrient removals. The objectives, therefore, of this study were to determine the nutrient stores and fluxes for two HP plantations with differing site quality, fertilizer applications and past land management practices and to construct a 20-year nutrient budget to examine impacts of harvesting short rotation HP on long-term productivity.<p>Heights and biomass were measured by harvesting above- and below-ground and separating biomass into tree components; measurement of atmospheric deposition, mineral weathering, litterfall, litter decomposition, and leaching for HP plantations on an Alfalfa (HPA) and Pasture (HPP) sites in 2004-05. The budget was developed by averaging fluxes over 2 years and scaling up to a 20-year rotation. <p>Unfertilized treatments in the HPA plantation showed greater tree growth than all other treatments. Fertilized and unfertilized treatments had greater biomass production and nutrient pools than treatments at the HPP plantation. The fertilizer treatments did not affect on biomass production and nutrient accumulation.<p>Nutrient additions to the HPA were greater than the HPP plantations for leaf litterfall and leaching. Nutrient resorption from senescing leaves was greater at the HPP plantation suggesting that nutrient pools were smaller and that trees responded by keeping nutrients in the biomass. Fertilization at both plantations increased nutrient flow for inputs and outputs in 2004-05. Water leachate and leaf litterfall showed increased nutrient contents in fertilized treatments at both plantations.<p>A high fertility plantation that used fertilizer and practiced whole-tree harvesting exported more nutrients (and fibre) than a plantation with marginal site quality practicing stem-only harvesting. Time to replenish nutrients from atmospheric deposition and mineral weathering would range from 6 to 50 years for Ca and N, respectively, suggesting that subsequent plantations would require fertilizers to replenish soil nutrient reserves.<p>While HP plantations in Saskatchewan can produce high yields, they require large nutrient inputs and are inefficient (sequester a large amount) in nutrient use. High site quality is important to obtain high yields but conservational techniques, such as stem-only harvesting, are important in maintaining site quality over the long-term.

A 10 x 10 factorial mating design and a ‘common-garden’ rearing approach were employed to examine genetic effects and heritability of growth, carcass-quality traits, and disease resistance, important production traits in the aquaculture of hybrid striped bass (♀ white bass, Morone chrysops, crossed with ♂striped bass, Morone saxatilis). Genotypes at four to ten nuclear-encoded microsatellites were used for parentage assignment and a general, linear-mixed model and a Restricted Maximum Likelihood (REML) algorithm were used to estimate variance components associated with dam, sire, and dam x sire interaction effects. Dam and sire effect on juvenile growth (weight, length and growth rates) were significant, whereas dam by sire interaction effect was not. Estimates of broad-sense heritability for growth, based on family means (h2 f), in dams ranged from 0.60 ± 0.20 to 0.82 ± 0.10 and in sires ranged from 0.43 ± 0.20 to 0.75 ± 0.18. High correlations were found between growth rates measured at two time intervals. Estimates of general combining ability for growth rates differed significantly among dams and among sires, whereas estimates of specific combining ability for each dam × sire combination did not differ significantly from zero. These results suggest that additive-effect genes contributed to the differences in juvenile growth. Dam and sire effect on fillet weight were significant; dam effect on liver weight and sire effect on total viscera weight were also significant. Dam and sire effect on hepatosomatic index and viscerasomatic index were significant, as was dam and sire interaction effect on viscerasomatic index. Phenotypic and genetics correlations between body weight and carcass-quality traits were high (0.85 - 1.00). Phenotypic correlations between body weight and standardized carcass-quality traits were positive but low, ranging from 0.07 to 0.19. Resistance to S. iniae was assessed in a challenge experiment, using the 10 dam x 10 sire factorial mating design. A significant effect of sire on resistance to S. iniae was found, and offspring from one sire had a 2.4 times higher probability of dying than offspring from the ‘average’ sire. Genetic effects on the immune-response parameters and on stress-response parameters assessed were non-significant.