The thesis is composed of three main parts. The first part is theoretical and I deal here with economic relationships between macroeconomic magnitudes. Second part dedicated to the econometric theory of prognosis follows, in which I deal with different types of prognoses and prediction methods used at present. In the third, practical, part my intended aim is to create the best possible models of relations between fundamental macroeconomic magnitudes, using real Czech economy data, and to make simulation predictions of these magnitudes based on acquired models while utilising scenario analysis. First, I deal with choice of MSE and VAR models. Then follows the estimate of particular models and validation of prognostic capabilities of particular models for static and dynamic simulation. I conclude with elaboration of macroeconomic magnitudes prognosis while using scenario analysis.

Ces travaux de recherche s’inscrivent dans le cadre de la conception de récepteurs multistandard optimisés pouvant traiter des signaux à spécifications hétérogènes. L’idée est d’appliquer l’échantillonnage aléatoire au niveau de l’étage en bande de base d’un récepteur radio logicielle restreinte afin de tirer profit de son pouvoir d’anti-repliement. La nouveauté dans ces travaux est l’étude analytique de la réduction du repliement spectral par l’échantillonnage aléatoire à temps quantifié, candidat favorable à l’implémentation matérielle. Une deuxième contribution concerne aussi l’étude analytique de l’échantillonnage pseudo-aléatoire à temps quantifié (TQ-PRS) dont l’importance réside en sa grande facilité d’implémentation matérielle. Les formulations théoriques ont permis d’estimer l’atténuation des répliques en fonction du facteur de la quantification temporelle et du facteur du sur-échantillonnage. Les mesures de l’atténuation du repliement spectral ont permis de dimensionner l’étage en bande de base d’une architecture de réception multistandard. Le dimensionnement s’intéresse à différentes configurations de l’étage en bande de base régies par les performances du convertisseur analogique numérique (ADC) utilisé.Les travaux de recherche ont démontré que l’application du TQ-PRS au niveau de l’ADC mène soit à une réduction de l’ordre du filtre anti-repliement soit à une réduction de la fréquence d’échantillonnage. Un bilan global de la consommation de puissance a permis un gain de 30% de la consommation de l’étage en bande de base analogique. En tenant compte du générateur de l’horloge TQ-PRS et de l’étage de sélection numérique du canal, ce gain devient 25%. / The work presented in this Ph.D. dissertation deals with the design of multistandard radio receivers that process signals with heterogeneous specifications. The originality of these research activities comes from the application of random sampling at the baseband stage of a software defined radio receiver. The purpose behind the choice of random sampling is to take advantage of its alias-free feature. The originality of this work is the analytic proof of the alias attenuation feature of the time quantized random sampling, the implementation version of the random sampling. A second contribution concerns also the analytic study of the simplest implementation version of the random sampling, the time quantized pseudo-random sampling (TQ-PRS). Theoretical formulas allow the estimation of the alias attenuation in terms of time quantization factor and oversampling ratio. Alias attenuation measurement permits to design the baseband stage of the proposed multistandard radio receiver architecture. The design concerns different configuration of the baseband stage according to the performances of the used analog-to-digital converters (ADC). The TQPRS allows decreasing the anti-aliasing filter order or the sampling frequency. The design of the baseband stage reveals a difference on the choice of the time quantization factor for each standard. The power consumption budget analysis demonstrates a power consumption gain of 30% regarding the power consumption of the analog baseband stage. This gain becomes 27.5% when the TQ-PRS clock and the digital canal selection stages are considered.

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Corrosion is a major challenge in the use of molten fluoride salt as a coolant in molten salt reactors (MSRs). A promising way of satisfying the two requirements of high strength and corrosion resistance is to clad structural alloys with a corrosion resistant material. Four candidate cladding and structural alloy combinations—stainless steel 316L and Incoloy 800H structural alloys either diffusion bonded to Hastelloy N or electroplated with nickel—were thermally aged at 700 °C for two to eight months. Based on measured concentration profles, the diffusion resistance of the four material combinations was compared and diffusion results were extrapolated to an end of reactor lifetime. The most important conclusion from this work is that Hastelloy N is highly likely to be signifcantly more diffusion resistant than nickel. The difference in diffusion resistance between Incoloy 800H and stainless steel 316L is relatively small. Two methods were used for extrapolating experimental diffusion results: (1) a diffusion model and calculated diffusion coeffcients and (2) simulations with Thermo-Calc DICTRA. Some simulations were carried out with a corrosion boundary condition of near-zero chromium concentration, demonstrating the potential of simulations for predicting diffusionlimited corrosion in molten fluoride salts. A surprising result of these simulations is that decreasing the thickness of Ni plating did not increase the thickness of diffusion zones in underlying structural alloys. / Thesis / Master of Applied Science (MASc)

This work demonstrates how ICP-MS can be employed to evaluate cesium volatilization from LiF-BeF2 (Flibe) salt with ab initio molecular dynamics studies used as corroborating data to better understand cesium behavior. Using mixtures of Flibe with 2 mol% CsF, it was found that cesium was stable within the salt melt at temperatures between 500-650°C over a time span of 8 hours. At 800°C, cesium vaporized from the salt at a rate of 0.83% / hr with a mass flux of 0.0023 g Cs / cm2hr. The atomistic modeling results show poor solvation of Cs at 500°C and 800°C, with stability preferred at 650°C. Specialized equipment and procedures were needed to enable this work, especially those required for safe handling of beryllium containing salts. The methods, custom equipment, and important considerations for working with high-temperature fluoride salts are detailed in this thesis.

Error-control codes, which are being extensively used in communication systems, have found themselves very useful in data storage as well during the past decade. This thesis deals with two types of codes for data storage, one pertaining to the issue of privacy and the other to reliability. In many scenarios, user accessing some critical data from a server would not want the server to learn the identity of data retrieved. This problem, called Private Information Retrieval (PIR) was rst formally introduced by Chor et al and they gave protocols for PIR in the case where multiple copies of the same data is stored in non-communicating servers. The PIR protocols that came up later also followed this replication model. The problem with data replication is the high storage overhead involved, which will lead to large storage costs. Later, Fazeli, Vardy and Yaakobi, came up with the notion of PIR code that enables information-theoretic PIR with low storage overhead. In the rst part of this thesis, construction of PIR codes for certain parameter values is presented. These constructions are based on a variant of conventional Reed-Muller (RM) codes called binary Projective Reed-Muller (PRM) codes. A lower bound on block length of systematic PIR codes is derived and the PRM based PIR codes are shown to be optimal with respect to this bound in some special cases. The codes constructed here have smaller block lengths than the short block length PIR codes known in the literature. The generalized Hamming weights of binary PRM codes are also studied. Another work described here is the implementation and evaluation of an erasure code called Coupled Layer (CL) code in Ceph distributed storage system. Erasure codes are used in distributed storage to ensure reliability. An additional desirable feature required for codes used in this setting is the ability to handle node repair efficiently. The Minimum Storage Regenerating (MSR) version of CL code downloads optimal amount of data from other nodes during repair of a failed node and even disk reads during this process is optimum, for that storage overhead. The CL-Near-MSR code, which is a variant of CL-MSR, can efficiently handle a restricted set of multiple node failures also. Four example CL codes were evaluated using a 26 node Amazon cluster and performance metrics like network bandwidth, disk read and repair time were measured. Repair time reduction of the order of 3 was observed for one of those codes, in comparison with Reed Solomon code having same parameters. To the best of our knowledge, such large gains in repair performance have never been demonstrated before.

Les réacteurs nucléaires de 4ème génération devront permettre une utilisation optimisée desressources naturelles. Les travaux réalisés durant cette thèse se placent ainsi dans le cadre del'étude du potentiel de déploiement d'un tel réacteur : le MSFR (Molten Salt Fast Reactor), réacteurà sels fondus à spectre neutronique rapide dans une configuration innovante et encore peuétudiée. Comme un excellent niveau de sûreté est une condition nécessaire pour le déploiementde l'énergie nucléaire, il est important de soulever la question de la sûreté de ce type de réacteurdès les premières phases de sa conception.Le MSFR a fait l'objet d'études comparatives des outils de simulations numériques dans lecadre d'un benchmark neutronique au sein du projet européen EVOL. La définition et l'analysedu benchmark neutronique statique et en évolution ont été réalisées pendant cette thèse. Lescomparaisons des différentes grandeurs physiques ont permis de conclure à un bon accord entreles différents codes et méthodes utilisés par les partenaires du projet, et ont mis en avant l'influencedu choix des bases de données nucléaires. Dans l'objectif de l'étude de sûreté du MSFR,la puissance résiduelle a aussi été étudiée en détails. Un outil de calcul de chaleur résiduellea été développé et validé, permettant ainsi d'évaluer la puissance résiduelle précise du MSFR.Les sources de chaleur de chaque localisation contenant des produits radioactifs ont alors étéquantifiées. Ceci a permis de conclure que le sel combustible et l'unité de bullage constituent lessources majeures de puissance résiduelle.Nous avons initié un travail sur la méthodologie de l'étude de sûreté. Les principes fondamentauxde sûreté sont directement transposables au MSFR, mais leurs applications concrètes nele sont pas. En effet, la spécificité du design, due à l'état liquide du combustible et aux systèmesde retraitement associés au réacteur, ainsi que l'état embryonnaire du design, font qu'un travailpréliminaire de transposition des éléments de sûreté a dû être réalisé. Ce travail a conduit entreautres à dresser une liste d'accidents propres au MSFR. Enfin, nous avons pu mener des étudesphysiques préliminaires sur les conséquences possibles de certains de ces accidents, qui serontutilisées comme base pour des études plus approfondies avec des outils plus sophistiqués.

Distributed storage systems provide fast and reliable access to data by intro- ducing redundancy for stored les. The most common approach of adding re- dundant information is by repetition and erasure codes. Two main processes in a distributed storage system are reconstruction of original le and regenerat- ing a new node. These two processes require bandwidth, which are termed as reconstruction-bandwidth and repair-bandwidth. The current literature treat- s these two processes separately. That is, there are methods to reduce the reconstructing bandwidth without considering the repair-bandwidth, and also there are methods to reduce the repair-bandwidth. We study these two pro- cesses together and try to jointly minimize the reconstruction-bandwidth and repair-bandwidth. We observe a method that has the minimum reconstruction- bandwidth might have large amount of repair-bandwidth and vice versa. We propose codes which minimizes the sum of the repair-bandwidth and reconstruction- bandwidth. The main contribution of this thesis is nding an value of repair locality r (number of nodes connected during node repair) and devising two coding meth- ods in which total bandwidth approximates to be half reduced compared with MSR and MBR when k ! 1 under the condition that 1 6 r 6 k.

This is a report of a verification study of the multiphysics simulation framework MOOSE which was preformed at the company Seaborg Technologies. In the process of designing molten salt reactors there is a special need of making credible multiphysics simulations since the fuel is in motion. In this study the incompressible version of Navier-Stokes equations of finite volumes available in the Navier-Stokes module of the MOOSE framework is verified by modelling and simulations of fluid flow and heat transfer in two different systems with available benchmarks. The first system, a thin buoyancy driven molten sodium hydroxide test loop which is verified by a similar model made with the high fidelity CFD software STAR-CCM+ as benchmark. The second system, forced convection of air through a straight pipe with heated walls which is verified by comparisons with an analytical solution. The resulting velocity profiles from simulations of the first system corresponds well with the benchmark but certain conclusions can not be drawn from it since the the transient simulations stops to converge before reaching equilibrium. The results from simulations of the second system corresponds well with the analytical solution and no convergence issues arise. The conclusion from the results is that the incompressible version of Navier-Stokes equations of finite volumes available in the Navier-Stokes module of the MOOSE framework has potential to be used in multiphysics simulations of molten salt reactors but seemingly not in cases of buoyancy driven flows in thin geometries. Two proposals for further work is recommended. The first is that this implementation is applied in a context with forced fluid flow or a context with thicker fluid domain. The second proposal is that the other available abilities of MOOSE such as finite element method and/or the compressible version of the Navier-Stokes equations should be tested.