La société contemporaine fait face à un niveau de menace sans précédent depuis la seconde guerre mondiale. La lutte contre le trafic illicite mobilise aussi l’ensemble desorganes de police, visant à endiguer le financement du crime organisé. Dans cet effort, les autorités s’engagent à employer des moyens de plus en plus modernes, afin notamment d’automatiser les processus d’inspection. L’objectif de cette étude est de développer des outils de vision par ordinateur afin d’assister les officiers de douanes dans la détection d’armes et de narcotiques. Letravail présenté examine l’emploi de techniques avancées de classification et de recalage d’images pour l’identification d’irrégularités dans des acquisitions radiographiques de fret. Plutôt que de recourir à la reconnaissance par apprentissage, nos méthodes revêtent un intérêt particulier lorsque les objets ciblés présentent des caractéristiques visuelles variées. De plus, elles augmentent notablement la détectabilité d’éléments cachés dans des zones denses, là où même les algorithmes de reconnaissance n’identifieraient pas d’anomalie. Nos travaux détaillent l’état de l’art des méthodes de classification et de recalage, explorant aussi diverses pistes de résolution. Les algorithmes sont testés sur d’importantes bases de données pour apprécier visuellement et numériquement leurs performances / Our societies, faced with an unprecedented level of security threat since WWII, must provide fast and adaptable solutions to cope with a new kind of menace. Illicit trade also, oftencorrelated with criminal actions, is viewed as a defining stake by governments and agencies. Enforcement authorities are thus very demandingin terms of technological features, asthey explicitly aim at automating inspection processes. The main objective of our research is to develop assisting tools to detect weapons and narcotics for lawenforcement officers. In the present work, we intend to employ and customize both advanced classification and image registration techniques for irregularity detection in X-ray cargo screening scans. Rather than employing machine-learning recognition techniques, our methods prove to be very efficient while targeting a very diverse type of threats from which no specific features can be extracted. Moreover, the proposed techniques significantly enhance the detection capabilities for law-enforcement officers, particularly in dense regions where both humans or trained learning models would probably fail. Our work reviews state-of-the art methods in terms of classification and image registration. Various numerical solutions are also explored. The proposed algorithms are tested on a very large number ofimages, showing their necessity and performances both visually and numerically.

Due to the increasing interest in low-cost, lightweight, and wearable technologies, flexible and printed electronics has become an intensive field of research during the last two decades. This research is mainly focused on the development of solution-processed organic materials, the evolution of diverse appropriate printing technologies and the enhancement of electronic device performance. Compared to conventional electronics, printed technologies allow for cheaper and easier processing but much poorer resolution, which results in comparatively large organic field effect transistor (OFET) channel lengths of a few ten microns. Reducing the channel length requires the use of additional methods such as wetting-based and non-printed approaches. The minimisation of the channel length is crucial in order to obtain higher frequencies and increasing currents. Therefore, overcoming the resolution limitation is one of the challenging topics in the field of printed electronics. In this thesis, a new approach for the realisation of fully inkjet-printed small-channel OFETs is investigated. For this purpose, a piezoelectric Drop-on-Demand (DOD) inkjet printer with 10 pl printheads is employed. This approach involves a self-aligned, dewetting-based technique for the reproducible fabrication of source and drain electrodes with homogeneous and well-controllable channel lengths down to 4 μm. For the realisation of these electrodes, a water-based, hydrophobic nanoparticle (NP) dispersion is initially printed and dried at room temperature in order to spontaneously form a thin hydrophobic twin-line of few microns due to the so-called coffee ring effect (CRE). This mechanism is responsible for the migration of the NPs from the center to the edge of the printed line during evaporation. An alcohol-based silver NP ink is subsequently printed on the hydrophobic lines and self-aligned to split into two separated source and drain electrodes. Dispersions with different materials such as polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) and fluoroplastic NPs, different particle sizes and concentrations are evaluated in order to optimize the twin line deposition and the dewetting of the silver ink. Optimum dispersions are printed, then characterised on untreated polyethylene naphthalate (PEN) foils and oxygen plasma treated dielectrics such as cross-linked poly-4-vinylphenol (c-PVP) and cross-linked polymethyl methacrylate (c-PMMA). To evaluate the influencing parameters on the twin-line deposition, a model is developed for the calculation of the printed rivulet width and the electrode gap, which is determined by the width of the hydrophobic ring. These dimensions are investigated as functions of the printing parameters, NP concentration, line geometry, and wetting properties. Multiple simulations are used to determine the influence of each parameter on the twin-line deposition and calculate the critical channel length, below which the dewetting of the conductive ink on the hydrophobic line is no more possible. Based on the simulation results, the optimum parameters are used to control the gap between the printed source and drain electrodes. The underlying mechanism is finally employed for the realisation of fully inkjet-printed OFETs on plastic substrates with small channel lengths and a bottom gate bottom contact configuration (BGBC). For this purpose, a silver NP ink is used for the electrodes, a PTFE NP dispersion is printed on c-PVP and a small-molecule 6,13-Bis(triisopropylsilylethynyl)pentacene (TIPS-pentacene) solution is used for the semiconducting layer. Multiple small-channel OFET arrays are furthermore fabricated with a good reproducibility of the channel length and a high yield, which proves the industrial applicability of the proposed approach. / Die Integration kostengünstiger, leichter und tragbarer Technologien gewinnt zunehmend an Interesse. Dies führt kontinuierlich zu einer rasanten Zunahme der Forschungsaktivitäten im Bereich der flexiblen und gedruckten Elektronik. Der Fokus liegt hierbei überwiegend auf der Entwicklung organischer Materialien, Herstellung von geeigneten Druckverfahren und Verbesserung der Leistungsfähigkeit gedruckter elektronischer Bauteile. Ein ausschlaggebender Vorteil der gedruckten gegenüber der konventionellen Elektronik liegt darin, dass sie eine preiswerte und einfache Prozessierung ermöglicht. Die Beeinträchtigung dieser jungen Technologie ist immer noch die schwächere Auflösung, welche zur Erstellung von organischen Feldeffekttransistoren (OFETs) mit vergleichbar größeren Kanallängen von einigen zehn Mikrometern führt. Die Reduzierung der Kanallänge erfordert die Verwendung zusätzlicher Hilfsmethoden z.B. oberflächenspannungsstrukturiertes Drucken oder “non-printing”-Technologien. Die Minimierung der Kanallänge ist entscheidend, um höhere Frequenzen und Ströme zu erzielen. Daher ist die Optimierung der Auflösung ein wesentlicher Parameter, um die Technologie weiter zu entwickeln. Die vorliegende Arbeit stellt ein neu entwickeltes Verfahren zur Realisierung von All-Inkjet-gedruckten OFETs mit kleinen Kanallängen dar. Hierbei wird ein Drop- on-Demand (DOD) Inkjet-Drucker mit 10pl-Druckköpfen eingesetzt. Dieses Verfahren basiert auf einem oberflächenspannungsabhängigen Ansatz für die reproduzierbare Erstellung von Source- und Drainelektroden mit homogenen und kontrollierbaren Kanallängen bis 4 μm. Beim Erstellen dieser Elektroden wird zuerst eine wasserbasierte Dispersion mit hydrophoben Nanopartikeln gedruckt und bei Raumtemperatur getrocknet. Während der Trocknungsphase wird der sogenannte Kaffeeringeffekt (CRE) zu Nutze gemacht. So führt der CRE zur Migration der Nanopartikeln vom Zentrum bis zum Rand der gedruckten Struktur. Diese gerichtete Migration bewirkt eine spontane Erstellung einer dünnen hydrophoben Doppellinie mit einer Breite von nur wenigen Mikrometern. In einem weiteren Schritt wird eine alkoholbasierte Silbernanopartikeltinte über die hydrophobe Linie gedruckt. Aufgrund der niedrigen Oberflächenenergie der darunter befindlichen hydrophoben Linie, teilt sich die leitfähige Tinte in zwei voneinander getrennte Strukturen, die zunächst als Source- und Drainelektroden eingesetzt werden. Um dieses Verfahren zu optimieren, werden im Rahmen dieser Arbeit Dispersionen mit verschiedenen hydrophoben Materialien wie Teflon- oder fluoroplastische Nanopartikeln unterschiedlicher Partikelgrößen und Konzentrationen untersucht. Die optimale Dispersion wird darauffolgend auf unbehandelten PEN-Folien und sauerstoffplasmabehandelten Dielektrika wie vernetztem Poly-4-Vinylphenol (c- PVP) und vernetztem Polymethylmethacrylat (c-PMMA) gedruckt und anschließend charakterisiert. Um den Einfluss verschiedener Parameter auf dieses Verfahren zu evaluieren, wurde ein Modell für die Berechnung der Breiten der gedruckten Struktur und der getrockneten hydrophoben Doppellinie, die den Elektrodenabstand bestimmt, entwickelt. Diese Dimensionen werden in Abhängigkeit verschiedener Druckparameter, Nanopartikelkonzentrationen, Liniengeometrien und Benetzungseigenchaften untersucht. Zunächst werden Simulationen durchgeführt, um den Einfluss von jedem Parameter auf die Doppellinienentstehung zu bestimmen. Dieses Modell ist ebenfalls erforderlich für die Berechnung der kritischen Kanallänge, unter welcher keine Entnetzung der leitfähigen Tinte auf der hydrophoben Linie mehr möglich ist. Die gewonnenen Simulationsergebnisse bzw. die optimalen Parameter werden für die Kontrolle des Abstands zwischen den Source- und Drainelektroden beim Drucken eingesetzt. Das beschriebene Verfahren wird zur Realisierung von All-Inkjet-gedruckten OFETs mit kleinen Kanallängen auf Plastiksubstraten in einer Bottom-Gate-Bottom-Contact-Konfiguration (BGBC) verwendet. Die benutzten Materialien bestehen aus einer Silbernanopartikeltinte für die Source-, Drain- und Gateelektroden, c-PVP für das Dielektrikum und TIPS-Pentacen für den Halbleiter. Multiple OFET-Arrays werden zum Schluss mit hoher Reproduzierbarkeit der Kanallängen und hoher Ausbeute gedruckt, um die industrielle Anwendbarkeit des vorgestellten Verfahren zu zeigen.

Die gängige Methodik zum Konzipieren automatisierter Montagesysteme umfasst die Planung der Montage und die physische Entwicklung der technischen Gesamtlösung. Zur Abbildung der konkreten Aufgabe werden standardisierte Symbole in einem Ablaufplan miteinander verknüpft. Die Hauptaufgabe des Konstrukteurs ist die Auswahl und die Zusammenstellung einer optimalen Konfiguration der Funktionsträger sowie deren Implementierung in einer Gesamtlösung unter Berücksichtigung der vorgegebenen Randbedingungen. Das Problem ist der fehlende Informationsgehalt der bisher eingesetzten Handhabungssymbole und Symbole zur Ermittlung der Funktionsträger zur Beschreibung der Montage- und Handhabungsplanung sowie die fehlende Vorgehensweise zur Auswahl der Funktionsträger aus den verschiedenen Varianten nach minimaler Taktzeit und Gesamtanschaffungskosten. Zur Realisierung eines effizienten Montageplanungssystems leitet sich daher die Zielstellung ab, den Informationsgehalt der standardisierten Symbole zu erweitern und mit logischen Schnittstellen für eine automatisierte Verknüpfung in der Funktionsfolge auszustatten. Diese neuen Symbole beinhalten die Definition der Funktionen sowie alle Randbedingungen und Parameter zur eindeutigen Beschreibung der Handhabungsaufgabe. Mithilfe dieser Parameter werden Anforderungslisten erstellt und nach passenden Anlagenkomponenten gesucht. Zur Auswahl der optimalen Komponenten des Montagesystems wird das lineare Optimierungsproblem hinsichtlich der Kombination aus Taktzeit und Gesamtanschaffungskosten gelöst. / The common methodology for designing automated assembly systems involves the assembly planning and the physical development of overall technical solution. To illustrate the concrete task, standardized symbols are connected together in a flowchart. The designer's main task is the selection and the composition of an optimal configuration of the functional carriers as well as their implementation in an overall solution in consideration of the predetermined boundary conditions. One problem is the lack of information content of the previously used handling symbols and the symbols for determining the functional carriers, which describe the assembly and handling planning. The other is the insufficient methods for selecting the functional carriers from the different variants based on minimum cycle time and total acquisition cost. In order to realize an efficient assembly planning system, the objective is therefore to expand the information content of the standardized symbols and equip them with logical interfaces for automated connection in the functional sequence. These new symbols contain the definition of the functions as well as all boundary conditions and parameters for the unambiguous description of the handling task. These parameters are utilised to create requirement lists and search for suitable plant components. In order to select the optimal components of the assembly system, the linear optimization problem regarding the combination of cycle time and total acquisition costs is solved.

An emerging technology is the hybridization of wheel loaders. Since wheel loaders commonly operate in repetitive cycles it should be possible to use this information to develop an efficient energy management strategy that decreases fuel consumption. The purpose of this thesis is to evaluate if and how this can be done in a real-time online application. The strategy that is developed is based on pattern recognition and Equivalent Consumption Minimization Strategy (ECMS), which together is called Adaptive ECMS (A-ECMS). Pattern recognition uses information about the repetitive cycles and predicts the operating cycle, which can be done with Neural Network or Rule-Based methods. The prediction is then used in ECMS to compute the optimal power distribution of fuel and battery power. For a robust system it is important with stability implementations in ECMS to protect the machine, which can be done by adjusting the cost function that is minimized. The result from these implementations in a quasistatic simulation environment is an improvement in fuel consumption by 7.59 % compared to not utilizing the battery at all.

<div>Smart warehouses have become more popular in these days, with Automated Guided Vehicles (AGVs) being used for order pickups. They also allow efficient cost management with optimized storage and retrieval. Moreover, optimization of resources in these warehouses is essential to ensure maximum efficiency. In this thesis, we consider a three dimensional smart warehouse system equipped with heterogeneous AGVs (i.e., having different speeds). We propose scheduling and placement policies that jointly consider all the different design parameters including the scheduling decision probabilities and storage assignment locations. In order to provide differentiated service levels, we propose a prioritized probabilistic scheduling and placement policy to minimize a weighted sum of mean latency and latency tail probability (LTP). Towards this goal, we first derive closed-form expressions for the mean latency and LTP. Then, we formulate an optimization problem to jointly optimize a weighted sum of both the mean latency and LTP. The optimization problem is solved efficiently over the scheduling and decision variables. For a given placement of the products, scheduling decisions of customers’ orders are solved optimally and derived in closed forms. Evaluation results demonstrate a significant improvement of our policy (up to 32%) as compared to the state of other algorithms, such as the Least Work Left policy and Join the Shortest Queue policy, and other competitive baselines.</div>

This dissertation mainly studies correlation and then portfolio analysis of financial contagion and capital flight, focusing on currency co-movements around the political uncertainty due to the Brexit referendum on 26 June 2016. The correlation, mean, and covariance computations in the analysis are both time-unconditional and time-conditional, and the generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (GARCH) and exponentially weighted moving average (EWMA) methods are applied. The correlation analysis in this dissertation (Chapter 1) extends the previous literature on contagion testing based on a single global factor model, bivariate correlation analysis, and heteroskedasticity bias correction. Chapter 1 proposes an alternatively extended framework, assuming that intensification of financial correlations in a state of distress could coincide with rising global-factor-loading variability, provides simple tests to verify the assumptions of the literature and of the extended framework, and considers capital flight other than merely financial contagion. The outcomes show that, compared to the literature, the extended framework can be deemed more verified to the Brexit case. Empirically, with the UK being the shock-originating economy and the sterling value plummeting on the US dollar, there exist contagions to some other major currencies as well as a flight to quality, particularly to the yen, probably suggesting diversification benefits. When the correlation coefficients are time-conditional, or depend more on more recent data, the evidence shows fewer contagions and flights since the political uncertainty in question disappeared gradually over time. After relevant interest rates were partialled out, some previous statistical contagion and flight occurrences became less significant or even insignificant, possibly due to the significant impacts of the interest rates on the corresponding currency correlations. The portfolio analysis in this dissertation (Chapter 2) examines financial contagion and capital flight implied by portfolio reallocations through mean-variance portfolio analysis, and builds on the correlation analysis in Chapter 1. In the correlation analysis, correlations are bivariate, whereas in the portfolio analysis they are multivariate and the risk-return tradeoff is also vitally involved. Portfolio risk minimization and reward-to-risk maximization are the two analytical cases of portfolio optimality taken into consideration. Robust portfolio optimizations, using shrinkage estimations and newly proposed risk-based weight constraints, are also applied. The evidence demonstrates that the portfolio analysis outcomes regarding currency contagions and flights, implying diversification benefits, vary and are noticeably dissimilar from the correlation analysis outcomes of Chapter 1. Subsequently, it could be inferred that the diversification benefits deduced from the portfolio and correlation analyses differ owing to the dominance, during market uncertainty, of the behaviors of the means and (co)variances of all the shock-originating and shock-receiving returns, over the behaviors of just bivariate correlations between the shock-originating and shock-receiving returns. Moreover, corrections of the heteroskedasticity bias inherent in the shock-originating returns, overall, do not have an effect on currency portfolio rebalancing. Additionally, hedging demands could be implied from detected structural portfolio reallocations, probably as a result of variance-covariance shocks rising from Brexit. / This dissertation mainly studies correlation and then portfolio analysis of financial contagion and capital flight, focusing on currency co-movements around the political uncertainty due to the Brexit referendum on 26 June 2016. The correlation, mean, and covariance computations in the analysis are both time-unconditional and time-conditional, and the generalized autoregressive conditional heteroskedasticity (GARCH) and exponentially weighted moving average (EWMA) methods are applied. The correlation analysis in this dissertation (Chapter 1) extends the previous literature on contagion testing based on a single global factor model, bivariate correlation analysis, and heteroskedasticity bias correction. Chapter 1 proposes an alternatively extended framework, assuming that intensification of financial correlations in a state of distress could coincide with rising global-factor-loading variability, provides simple tests to verify the assumptions of the literature and of the extended framework, and considers capital flight other than merely financial contagion. The outcomes show that, compared to the literature, the extended framework can be deemed more verified to the Brexit case. Empirically, with the UK being the shock-originating economy and the sterling value plummeting on the US dollar, there exist contagions to some other major currencies as well as a flight to quality, particularly to the yen, probably suggesting diversification benefits. When the correlation coefficients are time-conditional, or depend more on more recent data, the evidence shows fewer contagions and flights since the political uncertainty in question disappeared gradually over time. After relevant interest rates were partialled out, some previous statistical contagion and flight occurrences became less significant or even insignificant, possibly due to the significant impacts of the interest rates on the corresponding currency correlations. The portfolio analysis in this dissertation (Chapter 2) examines financial contagion and capital flight implied by portfolio reallocations through mean-variance portfolio analysis, and builds on the correlation analysis in Chapter 1. In the correlation analysis, correlations are bivariate, whereas in the portfolio analysis they are multivariate and the risk-return tradeoff is also vitally involved. Portfolio risk minimization and reward-to-risk maximization are the two analytical cases of portfolio optimality taken into consideration. Robust portfolio optimizations, using shrinkage estimations and newly proposed risk-based weight constraints, are also applied. The evidence demonstrates that the portfolio analysis outcomes regarding currency contagions and flights, implying diversification benefits, vary and are noticeably dissimilar from the correlation analysis outcomes of Chapter 1. Subsequently, it could be inferred that the diversification benefits deduced from the portfolio and correlation analyses differ owing to the dominance, during market uncertainty, of the behaviors of the means and (co)variances of all the shock-originating and shock-receiving returns, over the behaviors of just bivariate correlations between the shock-originating and shock-receiving returns. Moreover, corrections of the heteroskedasticity bias inherent in the shock-originating returns, overall, do not have an effect on currency portfolio rebalancing. Additionally, hedging demands could be implied from detected structural portfolio reallocations, probably as a result of variance-covariance shocks rising from Brexit.

The aim of this master thesis is to study algorithms for automatically tuning antenna parameters to improve the performance of the radio access part of a telecommunication network and user experience. There are four dierent optimization algorithms, Stepwise Minimization Algorithm, Random Search Algorithm, Modied Steepest Descent Algorithm and Multi-Objective Genetic Algorithm to be applied to a model of a radio access network. The performances of all algorithms will be evaluated in this thesis. Moreover, a graphical user interface which is developed to facilitate the antenna tuning simulations will also be presented in the appendix of the report.

Den senaste tidens utveckling inom automatisk taligenkänning har lett till mindre resurskrävan-de och mer effektiva modeller. Detta innebär nya möjligheter för forskning kring spontant tal.I den här studien används Kungliga Bibliotekets svenska version av Wav2Vec 2.0 och en tal-korpus skapas utifrån ljudklipp från Sveriges Radio för att undersöka artikulationshastighet ispontant tal. Artikulationshastighet har setts ha en negativ korrelation till informationsdensiteti tidigare studier. Utifrån Uniform Information Density-hypotesens antagande; att talare strävarefter att jämna ut distributionen av information i ett yttrande, undersöks om de sammanlagdadependenslängderna mellan alla huvud och dependenter i meningar är korrelerat med artiku-lationshastigheten. Studien visar att metoden där artikulationshastighet beräknas med hjälp avKB:s Wav2Vec 2.0 leder till systematiskt högre artikulationshastighet än vid en manuell beräk-ning. Samt att korrelationen mellan antal stavelser i ett ord och artikulationshastighet blir denomvända mot vad tidigare studier med manuella metoder visat. Hypotesen att längre depen-denslängd skulle vara relaterat till högre artikulationshastighet får inget stöd i studien. Iställetses en motsatt effekt av minskande artikulationshastighet i relation till ökande dependenslängd.Studien belyser behovet av en modell specialiserad för beräkning av duration för att vidare ut-forska artikulationshastighet genom automatisk taligenkänning. / The last few years progress within automatic speech recognition has led to models that are lessresource demanding and more effective. This means new possibilities in the research regardingspontaneous speech. In this study, KB:s Swedish version of Wav2Vec 2.0 is used to create aspeech corpus and investigate articulation rate in spontaneous speech, with data from SverigesRadio. This study aims to investigate if this is a good method. It has been observed in previousstudies that articulation rate is negatively correlated to information density. With the uniforminformation density hypothesis; that speakers aim to distribute information evenly in an utteran-ce, as a base - this study aims to investigate whether the sum of the word dependency lengths insentences is correlated to articulation rate. The result shows that the method of calculating ar-ticulation rate with KB:s Wav2Vec 2.0 leads to systematically higher articulation rates comparedto results of a manual method. The hypothesis that longer dependency lengths would correlatewith higher articulation rates is not supported in the results. Instead the opposite effect can be  observed. The study shows the need for a model specialized in calculating duration for futureresearch regarding articulation rate with automatic speech recognition.KeywordsASR, automatic speech recognition, UID, articulation rate, dependency length, dependecy mi-nimization, corpus studies, information density

Diploma thesis " Democratic deficit of the EU: options of evolvement" deals with democracy and democratic legitimacy of the European Union. It represents a particular concept of the EU's democratic deficit, which is ambiguous term, but generally indicates a lack of democracy- particularly the lack of popular participation in the governance or a lack of democratic legitimacy of EU institutions and decision-making. The aim of my work was, according to the hypotheses to determine what is causing the EU's democratic deficit, whether it is a serious problem that should be addressed at European level, and if so, what are the possibilities for minimizing or further evolvement. To explore this issue further, I examine the theory of democratic legitimacy in the introduction and divide it into the "input and output" legitimacy. Subsequently, I also introduced methodology and the current debate on democratic deficit in the leading periodicals, dealing with the EU and think tanks. The second part deals with the history of the democratic deficit and its various definitions, follows with a presentation of my two hypotheses dealing with the question whether or not the EU's democratic deficit is a problem. In the third part, my two hypotheses are tested on the project of the Single European Sky, which aims to...

In this paper we propose an algorithm for solving systems of coupled monotone inclusions in Hilbert spaces. The operators arising in each of the inclusions of the system are processed in each iteration separately, namely, the single-valued are evaluated explicitly (forward steps), while the set-valued ones via their resolvents (backward steps). In addition, most of the steps in the iterative scheme can be executed simultaneously, this making the method applicable to a variety of convex minimization problems. The numerical performances of the proposed splitting algorithm are emphasized through applications in average consensus on colored networks and image classification via support vector machines.