Blocking artifact, characterized by visually noticeable changes in pixel values along block boundaries, is a common problem in block-based image/video compression, especially at low bitrate coding. Various post-processing techniques have been proposed to reduce blocking artifacts, but they usually introduce excessive blurring or ringing effects. This paper proposes a self-learning-based image/ video deblocking framework via properly formulating deblocking as an MCA (morphological component analysis)-based image decomposition problem via sparse representation. The proposed method first decomposes an image/video frame into the low-frequency and high-frequency parts by applying BM3D (block-matching and 3D filtering) algorithm. The high-frequency part is then decomposed into a ¡§blocking component¡¨ and a ¡§non-blocking component¡¨ by performing dictionary learning and sparse coding based on MCA. As a result, the blocking component can be removed from the image/video frame successfully while preserving most original image/video details. Experimental results demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed algorithm.

Even though silicon technology is dominant today, the physics (quantum electron tunneling effect), design (power dissipation, wire delays) and the manufacturing (lithography resolution) limitations of CMOS technology are pushed towards the scaling end. These issues motivated us towards a new paradigm that contributes to a continued advancement in terms of performance, density, and cost. The magnetic field coupled computing (MFC) paradigm, which is one of the regimes where we leverage and utilize the neighbor interaction of the nanomagnets to order the single-domain magnetic cells to perform computational tasks. The most important and attractive features of this technology are: 1) room temperature operation, which has been a limitation in electrostatic field coupled devices, 2) high density and nonetheless 3) low static power dissipation. It will be intriguing to address queries like, what are the challenges posed by the technology with such exotic features? Answer to such questions would become the focus of this doctoral research. The fundamental problem with magnetic field coupled devices is the directional flow of information from input to output. In this work, we have proposed a novel spatially moving Landauer clock system for MFC nanomagnet array which has an advantage over existing adiabatic clock system. Extensive simulation studies were done to model and validate the clock for different length, size, and shape of nanomagnet array. Another key challenge is the manufacturing defect, which leads to uncertainty and unreliability issues. We studied the different dominant types of geometric defects (missing material, missing cell, spacing, bulge, and merging) in array (used as interconnects) based on our fabrication experiments. We also studied effect of these defects on different segments (locations) of the array with spatially moving clock. The study concluded that a spatially moving clock scheme constitutes a robust MFC architecture as location of defect and length of arrays does not play any role in error masking as opposed to conventional clock. Finally, the work presents the study on the 2D nanomagnet array for boolean logic computation and vision logic computation. The effect of dipole-dipole interaction on magnetization state transition in closely spaced 2D array of ferromagnetic circular nanomagnet was explored. The detailed design space to demarcate the boundary between single domain state and vortex state reveals that the single domain state space is desirable for Boolean logic computation while the space around the boundary would be appropriate for vision logic computing.

China has the largest population and the fastest growing economy in the world. The general public's demand for health is rising promptly with the improvement of the living standard. However, the limited and unbalanced medical resource have caused the prominent problem of the society, even in the capital city of Beijing, the new hospital constructions with rational allocation is iminent and significant. Along with the technology development and Internet popularization, GIS approaches and related products has been widely used in the people's daily life. The main focus of this paper is to select a site for building a new hospital in Haidian District of Beijing using GIS-based Multi-Criteria Analysis (MCA). With Analytical Hieraichy Process(AHP) and Rank Order Method (ROM) for the weight setting on factor criteria, necessity tests and sensitivity tests are applied to check which criteria are really necessary and how the results are sensitive to their weight change. The optimal site located in Wenquan Town (E: 116.182, N:40.039) is screened from several candidate sites usin Google Earth maps, which makes the ultimate result more convincing and practical. It can be concluded that GIS-based MCA with necessity and sensitivity tests proposes a novel and useful reference to other site selection decision makers, and also provides constructive tools for the public asministration to set up efficent databases for decision makers to carry out spatial analyses. To make it more maneuverable and practical, a further research on th improvement of this method will have a promising future.

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This dissertation reports on an exploration of school leadership from the perspective of how school leaders bring multiple cognitive interests to bear in their leadership practice. By analysing the discourse of practising school leaders this study has enabled insight to be gained into school leaders’ reflections-on-actions in given leadership situations. On the basis of the analysis of discourse it is concluded in this study that school based leadership, and school leadership preparation, can be enhanced when illuminated through a cognitive perspective grounded in Habermas’ theory of knowledge-constitutive interests (1971). Recommendations are given in this dissertation for the development of an approach to school leadership preparation built on a cognitive interests framework. Based in qualitative research techniques the main evidentiary material was elicited by the use of semi-structured interviews, and the collection of narratives, and was analysed with a variation of Membership Categorisation Analysis (Sacks, 1972).

With the resource constrained nature of mobile devices and the resource abundant offerings of the cloud, several promising optimisation techniques have been proposed by the green computing research community. Prominent techniques and unique methods have been developed to offload resource/computation intensive tasks from mobile devices to the cloud. Most of the existing offloading techniques can only be applied to legacy mobile applications as they are motivated by existing systems. Consequently, they are realised with custom runtimes which incur overhead on the application. Moreover, existing approaches which can be applied to the software development phase, are difficult to implement (based on manual process) and also fall short of overall (mobile to cloud) efficiency in software qualityattributes or awareness of full-tier (mobile to cloud) implications. To address the above issues, the thesis proposes a model-driven architecturefor integration of software quality with green optimisation in Mobile Cloud Applications (MCAs), abbreviated as Mango architecture. The core aim of the architecture is to present an approach which easily integrates software quality attributes (SQAs) with the green optimisation objective of Mobile Cloud Computing (MCC). Also, as MCA is an application domain which spans through the mobile and cloud tiers; the Mango architecture, therefore, takesinto account the specification of SQAs across the mobile and cloud tiers, for overall efficiency. Furthermore, as a model-driven architecture, models can be built for computation intensive tasks and their SQAs, which in turn drives the development – for development efficiency. Thus, a modelling framework (called Mosaic) and a full-tier test framework (called Beftigre) were proposed to automate the architecture derivation and demonstrate the efficiency of Mango approach. By use of real world scenarios/applications, Mango has been demonstrated to enhance the MCA development process while achieving overall efficiency in terms of SQAs (including mobile performance and energy usage compared to existing counterparts).

This thesis offers a method that informs on the most appropriate sites for successful tree establishment and provides protection to the planted trees in CDM forestry projects. It also offers a method that can accurately and precisely estimate woody biomass in CDM forestry projects established on an agricultural landscape. The thesis has established a set of evaluation criteria that are defined and generally agreed upon by a panel of local forestry experts in Malawi. These criteria express the degree of appropriateness of particular locations to support successful tree establishment and growth, and protect the planted trees from deforestation and forest degradation. They also influence farmers’ decision-making to allocate land for either tree planting or other competing land use options, e.g. crop cultivation. The thesis uses these evaluation criteria to functionally identify priority sites on the landscape of Central Malawi for the establishment of CDM forestry projects. The priority sites are identified using trade-off analysis tools of the GIS-based MCA protocols. Besides site identification, the thesis has established a magnitude of discrepancy that can result from the use of imported allometric models in estimating woody biomass in CDM forestry projects. Imported allometric models consistently under-estimate the woody biomass of the growing trees in the study area with a mean prediction error of as high as 50%. Local allometric models are therefore developed and they are found to be both accurate and precise in estimating woody biomass. These results imply that identification of priority sites, and accurate and precise estimation of woody biomass in CDM forestry project activities are likely and can be attained. In turn, successful establishment of CDM project activities lead to enhanced productivity that will attract expanded investments in CDM forestry projects. The thesis uses Malawi as a case study. The findings of this thesis can be scaled out to other countries whose socio-ecological characteristics are similar to Malawi. These are mostly tropical countries of the Sub-Saharan Africa. In so doing, the thesis contributes to improving productivity and estimation of carbon in CDM forestry project.

Made available in DSpace on 2017-07-10T17:48:26Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Leslie_Defante.pdf: 812707 bytes, checksum: d92d4165f390781200d13f9907af6b34 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-07-29 / Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico / In order to characterize the farms, by identifying characteristics of production, milk composition and influence of the management systems of hygiene and sanitary production of milk - SPL of the western region of Paraná State. A study was conducted in 23 SPL, with the collection of data from a semi-structured questionnaire guide and collection of samples of raw milk and cooled water reservoirs.. analyses were performed using physical-chemical (fat, protein, lactose, total solids) of somatic cell counting (SCC) and total bacterial counting (TBC). For microbiological tests were performed to determine the most probable number of total coliform and thermotolerant coliform by multiple tube method. We evaluated the differences found in production systems by means of multivariate statistical techniques, namely: multiple correspondence analysis (MCA), principal component analysis (PCA) and cluster analysis, the milk production and herd feeding management, milking management, reproductive management, disease control, and finally the marketing of milk. The variables that best explained the diversity of the systems were: the amount of milk produced, lactating cows, repetition of estrus, based on feed and milking practices, hygiene and mastitis test ceilings. While the high counts of CBT, CCS and the presence of total coliforms and thermotolerant in some dairy production systems have proved to be indicative of deficiencies in hygiene procedures for milking, cleaning and sanitizing of milking equipment, associated with inadequate cooling of milk. Delivering the decreased concentrations of the components fat, protein and total solids, causing changes in the quality of milk and dairy products. The typology of production systems allowed to portray the diversity in the organization and manner of production, enabling the simplification of the universe of producers, allowing us to tailor production strategies, managing and improving the quality of milk for each system / Objetivou-se avaliar as características de 23 sistemas de produção de leite (SPL) na região Oeste do Estado do Paraná. O levantamento das características de produção, composição e qualidade do leite e do manejo higiênico-sanitário foi obtido pela coleta de dados a partir de um questionário guia semi-estruturado e pela coleta de amostras de leite de tanque e água de reservatórios. As amostras de leite foram analisadas quanto às características físico-químicas (gordura, proteína, lactose, sólidos totais), contagem de células somáticas, contagem bacteriana total e microbiológicas no leite. Para as análises microbiológicas foram realizadas a determinação do número mais provável de coliformes totais e coliformes termotolerantes pelo método de tubos múltiplos. Posteriormente, as diversidades encontradas nos SPL foram analisadas por meio de técnicas estatísticas multivariadas: análise de correspondências múltiplas (ACM), análise de componentes principais (ACP) e análise de cluster; quanto a produtividade do rebanho, manejo alimentar, manejo de ordenha, manejo reprodutivo, controle sanitário, e por último a comercialização do leite. As variáveis que melhor explicaram as diversidades dos SPL foram: a quantidade de leite produzido, o número de vacas lactantes, repetição de cio, base forrageira e as práticas de ordenha (teste de mastite e higienização dos tetos). Enquanto que elevados valores de CBT, CCS e presença de coliformes totais e termotolerantes em alguns SPL demonstraram ser um indicativo de deficiência nos procedimentos de higiene na ordenha, na limpeza e sanitização dos equipamentos de ordenha. Isso proporcionou uma a diminuição das concentrações dos componentes gordura, proteína e sólidos totais, ocasionando alterações na qualidade do leite. A tipologia dos sistemas de produção permitiu retratar a diversidade existente na organização e na forma de produção, possibilitando a simplificação do universo dos produtores, e a adequação de estratégias de produção, gestão e melhoria da qualidade do leite para cada sistema

Purpose: Compaction is one of the fundamental pillars of construction, without a proper compaction of ground material deformation may occur shorty after completed construction. A flaw of the traditional method of compaction control is that only point sources are obtained. This means that you can easily miss weak points of the compaction. This becomes significant when dealing with compaction of larger areas. The purpose of this study is to investigate how digital technology can ensure the compaction quality compared to traditional methods, and to expand the company’s knowledge of the application of the compaction computer MCA-3000. Method: The method chosen to gather data for this study were literature study, case study and interviews. Findings: The findings show how the compaction computer can be used to ensure compaction quality. An important factor is to know the conditions of the ground material in order to ensure a credible result. The case study suggest that the compaction computer can be used to visually show the compaction quality of an area. However, I cannot be used as a separated method to ensure compaction quality. The compaction computer needs test surfaces to be calibrated with assistance of traditional methods. This means that it cannot replace the traditional method. However, it can be used as a complementary tool to support the traditional methods. In the interviews, both the respondents pointed out that the compaction computer cannot be used as a separate method but can be used as a complementary tool for the contractors.  Implications: Our conclusions are as followed: ·         The compaction computer cannot be used as a single method to ensure compaction quality. ·         The compaction computer implies that it can be used as a complementary tool to support the traditional methods to ensure compaction quality of lager areas.  ·         The compaction computer allows the user to detect faults in real time during the compaction prosses. Our results indicate that the compaction computer can be uses as a complementary tool to support the traditional methods but not as its own method. To ensure the reliability of the compaction computer MCA-3000 further studies needs to be conducted to see how it preform with different ground material condition.  Limitations: Our result was limited by access of data. We were only able to collet data from a single project in a relatively small area, this means we only were able to get three data sources of compaction quality conducted with a tradition method. Another limitation was that the entire area had the same ground condition which means the result is only applicable in our case.

The wastewater industry is critical for both current and future human life. At the same time, competitive conditions of market spaces lead to technology evolution reaching continuously new frontiers. While many wastewater treatment plants are designed identically in different global loci, wastewater characteristics are unique and therefore decisions related to wastewater treatment technologies are very critical. Wastewater characteristics vary due to cultural and climate factors, among other things and thus, each wastewater treatment technology must be studied independently. Hence, decision analysis and decision making are an integral part of the industry. A multi criteria decision analysis (MCDA) has been applied in this thesis, including a fictional decision-making problem. Furthermore, this thesis describes an analytic approach to a complex decision-making problem in wastewater treatment by using multi attribute utility theory (MAUT). This thesis assigns utility values, applies Swing Weighting (SW) which is not commonly used in the wastewater industry and assesses weight coefficients for the utility functions for each criterion. The goal is to illustrate how proportional scoring can be used to assign utility values in different aspects related to wastewater treatment, how SW can be performed to assess weight coefficients that are related to wastewater treatment and finally how the additive utility can be applied to deliver the total utility. For this reason, a hypothetical decision problem was developed, in which, the decision maker can select amongst three different wastewater treatment technologies using sustainability criteria. This is a multi-dimensional problem that requires the use of a structured approach to analyze the options accordingly. More, six criteria are used to rank three different wastewater treatment technologies with respect to sustainability. Finally, the MCDA results from this hypothetical decision problem show how proportional scoring, SW, and the additive utility could be used in the selection of a wastewater treatment technology however it should be tested with real life decision problems.