Made available in DSpace on 2014-06-12T17:36:54Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 arquivo2298_1.pdf: 1442134 bytes, checksum: 1d02a33585d247fd73fb6ccb901b64e9 (MD5) license.txt: 1748 bytes, checksum: 8a4605be74aa9ea9d79846c1fba20a33 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / A qualidade das águas subterrâneas vem sendo comprometida devido à contaminação por gasolina resultante de vazamentos em postos de combustíveis. Os principais contaminantes são os compostos BTEX (benzeno, tolueno, etilbenzeno e xilenos) por causarem toxicidade crônica, serem carcinogênicos e teratogênicos. Uma alternativa de biorremediação é o uso de biorreatores anaeróbios. Neste trabalho foi avaliada a biodegradação anaeróbia de BTEX, no tratamento de água residuária sintética que simulou água contaminada com gasolina, considerando a influência dos macro e micronutrientes. Foram utilizados 3 reatores (RI, RII e RIII) de 4 l cada, operados em bateladas de 48 h, sob agitação constante, em sala climatizada (30 ± 1 ºC). O inóculo utilizado foi uma mistura de lodo proveniente de 2 reatores UASB (esgoto doméstico: abatedouro de aves, 1:1). O experimento foi conduzido em 4 fases com aumento gradativo de DQO, em mg.l-1 (FI-1000, FII-1000, FIII-2000 e FIV-4000). Em FI utilizou-se esgoto sintético para adaptação do inóculo. Em FII, FIII e FIV, o reator RI recebeu etanol, macro e micronutrientes; RII, água contaminada com gasolina e macronutrientes; e RIII, água contaminada com gasolina, macro e micronutrientes. Os resultados indicaram que a presença de nutrientes foi determinante do melhor desempenho de remoção de DQO observado em RIII (56%, 88% e 83% para FII, FIII e FIV), quando comparado com RII (55%, 32% e 42% para FII, FIII e FIV). No entanto, não foi observada influência dos micronutrientes sobre a remoção de BTEX. A presença dos BTEX não afetou o desempenho de remoção de DQO em RIII, uma vez que seu comportamento foi semelhante ao de RI. A maior velocidade de remoção da DQO aconteceu em até 12 horas de experimento na última fase (FIV), em todos os reatores avaliados. Portanto, a escolha por um dos tratamentos deve depender dos compostos de interesse, uma vez que para remoção de matéria orgânica total pode ser conveniente investir na adição de micronutrientes, enquanto que para remoção de BTEX seu efeito não foi efetivo

Doctor of Philosophy(PhD) / Particle formation in RAFT-mediated emulsion polymerization has been studied using reaction calorimetry. By measuring the heat flow during controlled feed ab-initio emulsion polymerization in the presence of amphipathic RAFT agents, particle formation by self-assembly of these species could be observed. Two different monomer systems, i.e. styrene and n-butyl acrylate, and various degrees of hydrophobicity of the initial macro-RAFT agents have been studied and compared. The different macro-RAFT agents were synthesized by first forming a hydrophilic block of poly(acrylic acid) that would later on act as the electrosteric stabilizing group for the particles. Subsequently, different lengths of hydrophobic blocks were grown at the reactive end of the poly(acrylic acid) hydrophilic block via the RAFT-mediated controlled radical polymerization, either comprised of n-butyl acrylate or styrene. Two processes govern particle formation: adsorption of macro-RAFT agents onto growing particles and formation of new particles by initiation of micellar aggregates or by homogeneous nucleation. Competition between these processes could be observed when monomers with a relatively high (n-butyl acrylate) or low (styrene) propagation rate coefficient were used. A model describing particle formation has been developed and the results of model calculations are compared with experimental observations. Preliminary modeling results based on a set of reasonable physico-chemical parameters already showed good agreement with the experimental results. Most parameters used have been verified experimentally. The development of the molecular weight distribution of the macro-RAFT agents has been analyzed by different techniques. Quantification of the particle formation process by analytical techniques was difficult, but qualitative insights into the fundamental steps governing the nucleation process have been obtained. The amount of macro-RAFT agents initially involved in particle formation could be determined from the increase of molecular weight. The particle size distribution has been measured by capillary hydrodynamic fractionation, transmission electron microscopy and dynamic light scattering. From the data obtained from these particle-sizing techniques, the number of particles during the reaction could be monitored, leading to an accurate estimate for the particle formation time. Upon implementation of the experimental data obtained for the surface active macro-RAFT systems, the model demonstrated to be very sensitive towards the “headgroup” area of the macro-RAFT species. Three nucleation cases based on the initial surface activity of the macro-RAFT species in the aqueous phase are proposed to explain the deviations from the assumptions of the nucleation model. Even though the macro-RAFT species have a narrow molecular weight distribution, they are nevertheless made up of a distribution of block lengths of polystyrene upon a distribution of block lengths of poly(acrylic acid). The resulting differences in initial surface activity are the most probable reason for the observed differences between model calculations and experimental results for the nucleation time and particle size distribution of the final latex product. With the procedure described above, latexes have been synthesized without using conventional surfactants and the mechanisms involved in the particle formation for these systems have been elucidated. The results of this work enable production of latex systems with well defined molecular mass distributions and narrow particle size distributions. Furthermore, the technique based on the application of amphipathic RAFT agents is promising for the production of complex polymeric materials in emulsion polymerization on a technical scale.

This thesis proposes the methodology and guidelines for community-based macro-level CPM transferability to do road safety planning applications, with models developed in one spatial-temporal region being capable of used in a different spatial-temporal region. In doing this. the macro-level CPMs developed for the Greater Vancouver Regional District (GVRD) by Lovegrove and Sayed (2006, 2007) was used in a model transferability study. Using those models from GVRD and data from Central Okanagan Regional District (CORD), in the Province of British Columbia. Canada. a transferability test has been conducted that involved recalibration of the 1996 GVRD models to Kelowna, in 2003 context. The case study was carried out in three parts. First, macro-level CPMs for the City of Kelowna were developed using 2003 data following the research by GVRD CPM development and use. Next, the 1996 GVRD models were recalibrated to see whether they could yield reliable prediction of the safety estimates for Kelowna, in 2003 context. Finally, a comparison between the results of Kelowna’s own developed models and the transferred models was conducted to determine which models yielded better results. The results of the transferability study revealed that macro-level CPM transferability was possible and no more complicated than micro-level CPM transferability. To facilitate the development of reliable community-based, macro-level collision prediction models, it was recommended that CPMs be transferred rather than developed from scratch whenever and wherever communities lack sufficient data of adequate quality. Therefore, the transferability guidelines in this research, together with their application in the case studies, have been offered as a contribution towards model transferability to do road safety planning applications, with models developed in one spatial-temporal region being capable of used in a different spatial-temporal region.

Development of Industrial robots is becoming more expensive and time consuming over the years. A lot of costs are spent in the development, and so it is necessary to improve the conceptual design phase. This thesis is an object lesson that shows one of the multiple ways to improve the named phase. It basically consists on, using a CAD program, build a robot whose parameters have to be modified from a user interface. The parameters to change are the dimensions of the robot’s parts (morphology parameterization) and also the parts to use (topology parameterization), which can be chosen from a large library of different parts. Some parameters are changed so as the build robot has similar mass properties to a given one, in order to be able to do some tests with it and export the results to improve the real robot. For this reason, in the interface done there is also written some code to get the mass properties of the built robot. Even so, this thesis only shows how to do the named actions but it has not been done any kind of test.

Predation is one of the important selective factors that regulate the species composition of benthic invertebrate communities. The study objective was to investigate the invertebrate distribution in two contrasting habitats in Lake Takern, southern Sweden, submerged Chara vegetation and emergent Phragmites australis vegetation, and to investigate the influence of predation from fish on certain invertebrates. Laboratory studies were used to estimate handling time and the intake rate (mg/sec) by the fish based on the optimal foraging model. In the field, fish and invertebrates were collected with gill nets and hand nets respectively and the fish gut content was analyzed. In total, sixteen invertebrates’ taxa were collected from the two habitats. The proportion of the invertebrate’s overlaps from each of the habitat was calculated by Renkonen index and with Sorensen diversity index. Both indices showed a similarity larger than 65%, indicating that there was no significant difference in the invertebrates’ distribution in the P. australis and the Chara habitat. The fish caught with the gill nets were: roach (Rutilus rutilus), perch (Perca fluviatilis), tench (Tinca tinca), and rudd (Scardinius erythrophthalmus). The caught perch had eaten: Asellus aquaticus, Gammarus lacustris, Corixidae, and the larvae of Chironomidae and Zygoptera.A comparison was made on the invertebrates found in the field and the ones observed from the gut of the perch, and the findings were that the invertebrates that had more occurrence in the gut were less in proportion in the benthic samples. In the laboratory experiment perch ( Perca fluviatilis) was used as the predator fish and the prey organisms were Asellus aquaticus,Gammarus pulex, and Corixidae of three size categories. The results showed that perch handling time for A.aquaticus of the different size categories, was not significantly different (p>0.05); and the same results were valid for Corixidae and G. pulex. However, the intake rate of perch across the prey and their size categories were significantly different. The handling time was not significantly different which means that the predator fish will gain more in terms of intake rate as it prey on larger size prey items, thus harmonizing with the optimum foraging theory. / MSc Ecology and Environmental Science

National Bureau of Statistics of China (PRC) announced that the GDP of 2005 is 2255.7 billion dollars and China has replaced Italy as the world¡¦s sixth-largest economy, next to the United States, Japan, Germany, Britain and France. Taiwan economic development source is mainly from exports, the share of GDP as high as 49%. From the Second World War to 2000, Taiwan mainly exporting area is the United States. This situation had been changed in 2001 though. From the beginning of 2001, Taiwan¡¦s export to China surpassed Taiwan¡¦s export to the United States for the first time over the amount and the gap has become greater and greater. Department of Statistics, Ministry of Economic Affairs reported that Taiwan¡¦s exports to China were 28% (US$ 56.22 billion dollars) and only 15% (US$29.1 billion dollars) went to the United States. No matter how large of China¡¦s economic cooling policy is, it will make great impact on Taiwan inevitably due to the cross-strait economic and trade exchanges getting closer day by day. Confronting China¡¦s economic policy of macro adjustment and controls, how should Taiwan industry take response measures? The main purpose of China¡¦s macro-control policy is to control the domestic demand, and there fore the most direct impact on the target will be the Taiwan factory owners producing goods for domestic market. So, Taiwanese businessmen should plan before they move for keeping flexibility in business and have the ideas of the alternative market to reduce the business risks. The research methods of this study adopt social sciences method, including literature quoted language analysis, statistical analysis and SWOT analysis, so as to know the top-ranked industries of the output value in Taiwan, which are major industries like the electronics industry and the petroleum and petrochemical industry. After China implemented macro-control policy, how on earth does this influence make on Taiwan industries, the investment in China and business operations of Taiwanese businessmen? How do the Taiwan governing authorities, Taiwan factory owners and Taiwanese businessmen investing in China take response measures? In conclusion, the suggestions to our government for the response measures of China¡¦s macro-control policy: (1) Government should set up the statistics database from the aspects of the funds and market demand. (2) Government should provide the cross-strait economic and trade policy and information to the factory owners. (3) Government should continuously pay close attention to the growth of China¡¦s economic slowdown. (4) Government should relax restrictions on Taiwanese business financing in China through China-based Off-shore Banking Units (OBU) as soon as possible. (5) Government should remind Taiwanese businessmen of having more constructive strategies to add more footholds overseas. (6) Actively popularize the imperatives of the beneficial division of labor and business models to Taiwanese businessmen. (7) Government should provide the related information for Taiwanese businessmen, such as the laws and regulations of the investment and management in the market of Mainland China, the perspective and competition of all kinds of industries. (8) Government should constructively work out the good models of cross-strait business division The suggestions to Taiwanese businessmen: (1) Stop to listen and watch before investing. (2) Choose the investment or industry that you are familiar with and find the partners that you are rely on. (3) Have the sound and steady increase of investment. (4) Give a careful consideration to the transfer investment.

Technological advancements in computer hardware and software have made embedded systems highly affordable and widely used. Consumers have ever increasing demands for powerful embedded devices such as cell phones, PDAs and media players. Such complex and feature-rich embedded devices are strictly limited by their battery life- time. Embedded systems typically are diskless and use flash for secondary storage due to their low power, persistent storage and small form factor needs. The energy efficiency of a processor and flash in an embedded system heavily depends on the choice of file system in use. To address this problem, it is necessary to provide sys- tem developers with energy profiles of file system activities and energy efficient file systems. In the first part of the thesis, a macro-model for the CRAMFS file system is established which characterizes the processor and flash energy consumption due to file system calls. This macro-model allows a system developer to estimate the energy consumed by CRAMFS without using an actual power setup. The second part of the thesis examines the effects of using non-volatile memory as a write-behind buffer to improve the energy efficiency of JFFS2. Experimental results show that a 4KB write-behind buffer significantly reduces energy consumption by up to 2-3 times for consecutive small writes. In addition, the write-behind buffer conserves flash space since transient data may never be written to flash.

As the circuit density and clock rate in SIP or SOC getting higher, the crosstalk interference between interconnects becomes more and more serious. This results in the degradation of signal integrity. Full wave simulation softwares such as HFSS are often used to analyze the characteristics of the transmission system, but the computation time is relatively long and it is difficult to integrate with active circuits. On the other hand, circuit simulation softwares such as ADS has the advantages of simplicity and needs less simulation time. The circuit simulation softwares is so far the best tool of designing high speed circuits. Usually obtain scalable equivalent macro-model in the existing literature with the technology of the frequency-domain, but using the technology of the time-domain to construct scalable equivalent macro-model have more direct, convenient and low-cost. Therefore, considering cost and practicability, this thesis develops a systematic method using the method of Pencil Matrix in time domain to obtain the scalable broadband equivalent macro-model of the components of high-speed interconnect structures. The developed macro-models can be applied to existing simulation softwares for a fast and accurate analysis of systems such as SIP.

This thesis proposes the methodology and guidelines for community-based macro-level CPM transferability to do road safety planning applications, with models developed in one spatial-temporal region being capable of used in a different spatial-temporal region. In doing this. the macro-level CPMs developed for the Greater Vancouver Regional District (GVRD) by Lovegrove and Sayed (2006, 2007) was used in a model transferability study. Using those models from GVRD and data from Central Okanagan Regional District (CORD), in the Province of British Columbia. Canada. a transferability test has been conducted that involved recalibration of the 1996 GVRD models to Kelowna, in 2003 context. The case study was carried out in three parts. First, macro-level CPMs for the City of Kelowna were developed using 2003 data following the research by GVRD CPM development and use. Next, the 1996 GVRD models were recalibrated to see whether they could yield reliable prediction of the safety estimates for Kelowna, in 2003 context. Finally, a comparison between the results of Kelowna’s own developed models and the transferred models was conducted to determine which models yielded better results. The results of the transferability study revealed that macro-level CPM transferability was possible and no more complicated than micro-level CPM transferability. To facilitate the development of reliable community-based, macro-level collision prediction models, it was recommended that CPMs be transferred rather than developed from scratch whenever and wherever communities lack sufficient data of adequate quality. Therefore, the transferability guidelines in this research, together with their application in the case studies, have been offered as a contribution towards model transferability to do road safety planning applications, with models developed in one spatial-temporal region being capable of used in a different spatial-temporal region.

Doctor of Philosophy(PhD) / Particle formation in RAFT-mediated emulsion polymerization has been studied using reaction calorimetry. By measuring the heat flow during controlled feed ab-initio emulsion polymerization in the presence of amphipathic RAFT agents, particle formation by self-assembly of these species could be observed. Two different monomer systems, i.e. styrene and n-butyl acrylate, and various degrees of hydrophobicity of the initial macro-RAFT agents have been studied and compared. The different macro-RAFT agents were synthesized by first forming a hydrophilic block of poly(acrylic acid) that would later on act as the electrosteric stabilizing group for the particles. Subsequently, different lengths of hydrophobic blocks were grown at the reactive end of the poly(acrylic acid) hydrophilic block via the RAFT-mediated controlled radical polymerization, either comprised of n-butyl acrylate or styrene. Two processes govern particle formation: adsorption of macro-RAFT agents onto growing particles and formation of new particles by initiation of micellar aggregates or by homogeneous nucleation. Competition between these processes could be observed when monomers with a relatively high (n-butyl acrylate) or low (styrene) propagation rate coefficient were used. A model describing particle formation has been developed and the results of model calculations are compared with experimental observations. Preliminary modeling results based on a set of reasonable physico-chemical parameters already showed good agreement with the experimental results. Most parameters used have been verified experimentally. The development of the molecular weight distribution of the macro-RAFT agents has been analyzed by different techniques. Quantification of the particle formation process by analytical techniques was difficult, but qualitative insights into the fundamental steps governing the nucleation process have been obtained. The amount of macro-RAFT agents initially involved in particle formation could be determined from the increase of molecular weight. The particle size distribution has been measured by capillary hydrodynamic fractionation, transmission electron microscopy and dynamic light scattering. From the data obtained from these particle-sizing techniques, the number of particles during the reaction could be monitored, leading to an accurate estimate for the particle formation time. Upon implementation of the experimental data obtained for the surface active macro-RAFT systems, the model demonstrated to be very sensitive towards the “headgroup” area of the macro-RAFT species. Three nucleation cases based on the initial surface activity of the macro-RAFT species in the aqueous phase are proposed to explain the deviations from the assumptions of the nucleation model. Even though the macro-RAFT species have a narrow molecular weight distribution, they are nevertheless made up of a distribution of block lengths of polystyrene upon a distribution of block lengths of poly(acrylic acid). The resulting differences in initial surface activity are the most probable reason for the observed differences between model calculations and experimental results for the nucleation time and particle size distribution of the final latex product. With the procedure described above, latexes have been synthesized without using conventional surfactants and the mechanisms involved in the particle formation for these systems have been elucidated. The results of this work enable production of latex systems with well defined molecular mass distributions and narrow particle size distributions. Furthermore, the technique based on the application of amphipathic RAFT agents is promising for the production of complex polymeric materials in emulsion polymerization on a technical scale.