Wear on total knee replacements is an important criterion for their performance characteristics. Numerical simulations of such wear have seen increasing attention over the last years. They have the potential to be much faster and less expensive than the in vitro tests in use today. While it is unlikely that in silico tests will replace actual physical tests in the foreseeable future, a judicious combination of both approaches can help making both implant design and pre-clinical testing quicker and more cost-effective. The challenge today for the design of simulation methods is to obtain results that convey quantitative information and to do so quickly and reliably. This involves the choice of mathematical models as well as the numerical tools used to solve them. The correctness of the choice can only be validated by comparing with experimental results. In this article, we present finite element simulations of the wear in total knee replacements during the gait cycle standardized in the ISO 14243-1 document, used for compliance testing in several countries. As the ISO 14243-1 standard is precisely defined and publicly available, it can serve as an excellent benchmark for comparison of wear simulation methods. We use comparatively simple wear and material models, but we solve them using a new wear algorithm that combines extrapolation of the geometry changes with a contact algorithm based on nonsmooth multigrid ideas. The contact algorithm works without Lagrange multipliers and penalty parameters, achieving unparalleled stability and efficiency. We compare our simulation results with the experimental data from physical tests using two different actual total knee replacements. Even though the model is simple, we can predict the total mass loss due to wear after 5-million gait cycles, and we observe a good match between the wear patterns seen in experiments and our simulation results. When compared with a state-of-the-art penalty-based solver for the same model, we measure a roughly fivefold increase of execution speed.

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Total ankle replacement (TAR) implants are an effective option to restore the range of motion of the ankle joint for arthritic patients. An effective tool for analyzing these implants’ mechanical performance and longevity in-silico is finite element analysis (FEA). ABAQUS FEA was used to statically analyze the von Mises stress and contact pressure on the articulating surface of the bearing component in two newly installed fixed-bearing total ankle replacement implants (the Wright Medical INBONE II and the Exactech Vantage). This bearing component rotates on the talar component to induce primary ankle joint motion of plantarflexion and dorsiflexion. The stress response was analyzed on this bearing component since it is made of the least strong material in the implant assembly (ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE). This bearing component commonly fails and is the cause for surgeon revisions. Six different FEA models for various gait percentages during stance (10%, 20%, 30%, 40%, 50%, and 60%) were created. They varied in magnitude of the compressive load and the ankle dorsiflexion/plantarflexion angle. This study captured the variation in stress magnitudes based on the portion of the stance phase. The results indicated that the stress distribution on the articulating surface increased as compressive load increased, and the largest magnitudes occurred at high dorsiflexion angles (15-30°). The von Mises stress and contact pressure tended to occur in regions where the thickness of the bearing was the least. Additionally, high contact pressures were examined in areas near the talar component's edge or at the bearing's edges. To the author’s knowledge, this is the first study available to the research community that analyzes the Vantage implant with FEA. This study lays an essential foundation for future researchers in presenting a thorough literature review of TAR and for a simple model setup to capture the stress distributions of two TAR implants. This study provides valuable information that can be beneficial to medical company designers and orthopedic surgeons in understanding the stress response of TAR patients.

Cache memories have been usually implemented with Static Random-Access Memory (SRAM) technology since it is the fastest electronic memory technology. However, this technology consumes a high amount of leakage currents, which is a major design concern because leakage energy consumption increases as the transistor size shrinks. Alternative technologies are being considered to reduce this consumption. Among them, embedded Dynamic RAM (eDRAM) technology provides minimal area and leakage by design but reads are destructive and it is not as fast as SRAM. In this thesis, both SRAM and eDRAM technologies are mingled to take the advantatges that each of them o¿ers. First, they are combined at cell level to implement an n-bit macrocell consisting of one SRAM cell and n-1 eDRAM cells. The macrocell is used to build n-way set-associative hybrid ¿rst-level (L1) data caches having one SRAM way and n-1 eDRAM ways. A single SRAM way is enough to achieve good performance given the high data locality of L1 caches. Architectural mechanisms such as way-prediction, swaps, and scrub operations are considered to avoid unnecessary eDRAM reads, to maintain the Most Recently Used (MRU) data in the fast SRAM way, and to completely avoid refresh logic. Experimental results show that, compared to a conventional SRAM cache, leakage and area are largely reduced with a scarce impact on performance. The study of the bene¿ts of hybrid caches has been also carried out in second-level (L2) caches acting as Last-Level Caches (LLCs). In this case, the technologies are combined at bank level and the optimal ratio of SRAM and eDRAM banks that achieves the best trade-o¿ among performance, energy, and area is identi¿ed. Like in L1 caches, the MRU blocks are kept in the SRAM banks and they are accessed ¿rst to avoid unnecessary destructive reads. Nevertheless, refresh logic is not removed since data locality widely di¿ers in this cache level. Experimental results show that a hybrid LLC with an eighth of its banks built with SRAM technology is enough to achieve the best target trade-o¿. This dissertation also deals with performance of replacement policies in heterogeneous LLCs mainly focusing on the energy overhead incurred by refresh operations. In this thesis it is de¿ned a new concept, namely MRU-Tour (MRUT), that helps estimate reuse information of cache blocks. Based on this concept, it is proposed a family of MRUTbased replacement algorithms that randomly select the victim block among those having a single MRUT. These policies are enhanced to leverage recency of information for a few blocks and to adapt to changes in the working set of the benchmarks. Results show that the proposed MRUT policies, with simpler hardware complexity, outperform the Least Recently Used (LRU) policy and a set of the most representative state-of-the-art replacement policies for LLCs. Refresh operations represent an important fraction of the overall dynamic energy consumption of eDRAM LLCs. This fraction increases with the cache capacity, since more blocks have to be refreshed for a given period of time. Prior works have attacked the refresh energy taking into account inter-cell feature variations. Unlike these works, this thesis proposes a selective refresh policy based on the MRUT concept. The devised policy takes into account the number of MRUTs of a block to select whether the block is refreshed. In this way, many refreshes done in a typical distributed refresh policy are skipped (i.e., in those blocks having a single MRUT). This refresh mechanism is applied in the hybrid LLC memory. Results show that refresh energy consumption is largely reduced with respect to a conventional eDRAM cache, while the performance degradation is minimal with respect to a conventional SRAM cache. / Valero Bresó, A. (2013). Hybrid caches: design and data management [Tesis doctoral]. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/32663 / Premios Extraordinarios de tesis doctorales

Roasted coffee silver skin is a coffee by-product, the uses of which are currently limited, e.g., as fertilizer, for energy production, or animal feed. Due to a low content of fat and carbohydrates combined with a high content of fiber, polyphenols and proteins, roasted silver skin is a valuable possible food ingredient. Potential applications include partial flour replacement in bakery products, as antioxidant and providing protein or fiber sources in sports or functional foods. As no relevant consumption of isolated silver skin occurred before 1997 in the European Union (EU), it was classified as a novel food in need of premarketing approval. Novel food applications must meet legal requirements for compositional and toxicological information. This review presents information on silver skin composition and toxicological studies. Several in vitro studies and subchronic in vivo studies are available with negative results, not suggesting a need for further studies on carcinogenic effects, reproduction, or chronic toxicity. All available studies so far concluded that no toxic effects of silver skin were found or are to be expected. For a novel food application in the EU, further in vitro studies on mutagenic potential may be needed to close a formal data gap.

Pinhole leaks in copper plumbing pipes are a big concern for the homeowners. The problem is spread across the nation and remains a threat to plumbing systems of all ages. Due to the absence of a single acceptable mechanistic theory no preventive measure is available to date. Most of the present mechanistic theories are based on analysis of failed pipe samples however an objective comparison with other pipes that did not fail is seldom made. The variability in hydraulic and water quality parameters has made the problem complex and unquantifiable in terms of plumbing susceptibility to pinhole leaks. The present work determines the spatial and temporal spread of pinhole leaks across United States. The hotspot communities are identified based on repair histories and surveys. An assessment of variability in water quality is presented based on nationwide water quality data. A synthesis of causal factors is presented and a scoring system for copper pitting is developed using goal programming. A probabilistic model is presented to evaluate optimal replacement time for plumbing systems. Methodologies for mechanistic modeling based on corrosion thermodynamics and kinetics are presented. / Master of Science

Feminist philosophy of science has long been considered a fringe element of philosophy of science as a whole. A careful consideration of the treatment of the key concept of objectivity by such philosophical heavyweights as Thomas Kuhn and Karl Popper, followed by an analysis of the concept of objectivity with the work of such feminist philosophers of science as Donna Haraway, Lynn Hankinson Nelson, and Sandra Harding, reveals that feminist philosophers of science are not members of some fringe movement of philosophy of science, but rather are doing philosophical work which is both crucial and connected to the work of other, "mainstream" philosophers of science. / Master of Arts

Pinhole corrosion leak in home plumbing has emerged as a significant issue. In the major water distribution system managed by municipalities and water utilities the costs are distributed among all subscribers. The home plumbing repair/replacement cost and possible water damage cost must be addressed by the home owner. There are also issues of the value of home, insurance rates, health consequences, and taste and odor problems. These issues have become major concerns to home owners. Cradle to grave life cycle assessment is becoming an integral part of industrial manufacturing. In this thesis comprehensive details pertaining to life cycle assessment are presented. Copper tubing for plumbing installations is mainly obtained from recycled copper. Various stages of copper plumbing pipe manufacturing are explained. A comprehensive synthesis of various corrosion mechanisms is presented. Particular reference is given to copper plumbing pipe corrosion. A decision support tool for replacing copper plumbing pipes is presented. The deterioration process is grouped into early, normal and late stages. Because available data reflects late stage process, an optimization, neural network and curve fitting models are developed to infer early and normal stage behavior of the plumbing system. Utilizing the inferred leak rates a non-homogeneous poisson process model is developed to generate leak arrival times. An economically sustainable replacement criterion is adopted to determine optimal replacement time. / Master of Science