A test program for the Hybrid-Composite Beam (HCB) was conducted prior to its use for the replacement of a skewed, simply-supported bridge (Tide Mill Bridge). The HCB is an innovative combination of conventional materials and ideas in a structural beam. The beam consists of a concrete arch tied with prestressing strand that is placed within a Fiber-Reinforced Polymer (FRP) box. Behavior in individual HCB's and a three HCB-system was examined to determine the appropriateness of the current design methodology developed by John Hillman and the simplifying assumptions made within it. Such assumptions include strain compatibility and linear-elastic behavior. Three HCB's were tested at the structures laboratory at Virginia Tech. During individual beam tests, the predicted behavior of the FRP box and prestressing strand agreed with experimental results. The tests revealed the arch was susceptible to local bending and behaved far differently from predicted. Overall, the beams were shown to behave linearly. A final test was performed to apply the design live load to the system. Slight non-linear behavior was observed in the beams. Distribution factors for the system were also investigated and compared to AASHTO and Hillman's model. AASHTO factors were conservative for exterior girders but unconservative for interior girders. Hillman's factors were often conservative but were in agreement for the shear in the exterior girder. The current design procedure appeared to predict FRP and strand behavior well, but the behavior of the arch appeared to differ greatly from the other components of the HCB. / Master of Science

Cross frames and diaphragms are essential to the stability of straight steel girder bridge systems as they help to resist lateral torsional buckling during construction and horizontal loading conditions. In skewed bridge systems, cross frames are often oriented parallel to the supports and hence, at an angle to the girder. To facilitate construction fit-up, plates, bent to match the skew angle, form the cross frame to stiffener connection. While the bent plate connection is a simple solution, it could introduce undesirable flexibility into the system, potentially compromising the effective brace stiffness. A proposed detail utilizing half pipe stiffeners may provide enhanced structural performance, while possibly reducing overall fabrication costs. Field and laboratory tests to determine the stiffness of both connection types are presented in the thesis. / text

Lateral bracing systems consisting of cross frames and their connections play a significant role in the elastic buckling strength of steel girder bridges. By providing lateral and torsional stability, they prevent lateral torsional buckling of the girder during bridge construction prior to the concrete bridge deck curing. To perform this function, the bracing system must possess adequate strength and stiffness. And since each component of the bracing system acts in series, the overall stiffness of the system is less than the least stiff component. In skewed bridges, cross frames at the ends of the girders are installed parallel to the bridge skew angle, and their connection to the girder requires that the cross frames be at an angle that prohibits welding a stiffener from the cross frame directly to the girder web. To make this connection, many states use a bent plate to span the angle between the web stiffener and cross frame. While this bent plate connection is now being widely used, it has never been rationally designed to account for its strength or stiffness in the bracing system. Results from field studies show that the bent plate connection may be limiting the cross frame stiffness thereby hampering its ability to provide stability to the girder during construction. The result is significant girder end rotations. The purpose of this research is to classify the impact of the bent plate connection on the end cross frame stiffness in skewed straight steel girder bridges and propose methods to improve the end cross frame’s structural efficiency. This research uses laboratory testing, finite element modeling, and parametric studies to recommend design guidance and construction practices related to the end cross frames of skewed steel girder bridges. In addition to recommending methods to stiffen the existing bent plate connection, an alternative pipe stiffener connection is evaluated. The pipe stiffener not only offers the possibility of a stiffer connection, but can also provide warping restraint to the end of the girder which may significantly increase the girder elastic buckling capacity. / text

Dans ce travail, nous proposons des procédures de test paramétriques et nonparamétrique localement et asymptotiquement optimales au sens de Hajek et Le Cam, pour trois modèles d'asymétrie. La construction de modèles d'asymétrie est un sujet de recherche qui a connu un grand développement ces dernières années, et l'obtention des tests optimaux (pour trois modèles différents) est une étape essentielle en vue de leur mise en application. Notre approche est fondée sur la théorie de Le Cam d'une part, pour obtenir les propriétés de normalité asymptotique, bases de la construction des tests paramétriques optimaux, et la théorie de Hajek d'autre part, qui, via un principe d'invariance permet d'obtenir les procédures non-paramétriques. Nous considérons dans ce travail deux classes de distributions univariées asymétriques, l'une fondée sur un développement d'Edgeworth (décrit dans le Chapitre 1), et l'autre construite en utilisant un paramètre d'échelle différent pour les valeurs positives et négatives (le modèle de Fechner, décrit dans le Chapitre 2). Le modèle d'asymétrie elliptique étudié dans le dernier chapitre est une généralisation multivariée du modèle du Chapitre 2. Pour chacun de ces modèles, nous proposons de tester l'hypothèse de symétrie par rapport à un centre fixé, puis par rapport à un centre non spécifié. Après avoir décrit le modèle pour lequel nous construisons les procédures optimales, nous obtenons la propriété de normalité locale asymptotique. A partir de ce résultat, nous sommes capable de construire les tests paramétriques localement et asymptotiquement optimaux. Ces tests ne sont toutefois valides que si la densité sous-jacente f est correctement spécifiée. Ils ont donc le mérite de déterminer les bornes d'efficacité paramétrique, mais sont difficilement applicables. Nous adaptons donc ces tests afin de pouvoir tester les hypothèses de symétrie par rapport à un centre fixé ou non, lorsque la densité sous-jacente est considérée comme un paramètre de nuisance. Les tests que nous obtenons restent localement et asymptotiquement optimaux sous f, mais restent valides sous une large classe de densités. A partir des propriétés d'invariance du sous-modèle identifié par l'hypothèse nulle, nous obtenons les tests de rangs signés localement et asymptotiquement optimaux sous f, et valide sous une vaste classe de densité. Nous présentons en particulier, les tests fondés sur les scores normaux (ou tests de van der Waerden), qui sont optimaux sous des hypothèses Gaussiennes, tout en étant valides si cette hypothèse n'est pas vérifiée. Afin de comparer les performances des tests paramétriques et non paramétriques présentés, nous calculons les efficacités asymptotiques relatives des tests non paramétriques par rapport aux tests pseudo-Gaussiens, sous une vaste classe de densités non-Gaussiennes, et nous proposons quelques simulations.

This paper details the process of creating the UNO Graduate thesis film Alien on a Savage Planet. Each major step in the filmmaking process is covered: screenwriting, producing, directing, cinematography, sound, production design, costumes, hair and makeup, workflow, editing, color correction, music and post- sound. A comprehensive assessment of the filmmaking process and the successes and failures of the project are discussed in length.

A modelagem da estrutura de dependência é de grande importância em todos os ramos da economia onde há incerteza. Ela é um elemento crucial na análise de risco e para a tomada de decisão sob incerteza. As cópulas oferecem aos agentes que se deparam com este problema um poderoso e flexível instrumento para modelar a estrutura de dependência entre variáveis aleatórias e que é preferível ao instrumento tradicional baseado na correlação linear. Neste estudo, nós analisamos a dinâmica temporal da estrutura de dependência entre índices de mercados financeiros internacionais e propomos um novo procedimento para capturar a estrutura de dependência ao longo do tempo. Adicionalmente, estudamos alguns fatos estilizados sobre índices de mercados financeiros como a relação entre volume-volatilidade e retorno-volatilidade. / Modelling dependence is of key importance to all economic fields in which uncertainty plays a large role. It is a crucial element of risk analysis and decision making under uncertainty. Copulas offer economic agents facing uncertainty a powerful and flexible tool to model dependence between random variables and often are preferable to the traditional, correlation-based approach. In this work we analyze the time dynamics of the dependence structure between broad stock market indices and propose a novel procedure to capture dependence structure over time. Additionally, we study some stylized facts about stock market indexes such as volume-volatility and return-volatility relations.

Background: Measures of central tendency are one of the foundational concepts of statistics, with the most commonly used measures being mean, median, and mode. While these are all very simple to calculate when data conform to a unimodal symmetric distribution, either discrete or continuous, measures of central tendency are more challenging to calculate for data distributed asymmetrically. There is a gap in the current statistical literature on computing median and mode for most skewed unimodal continuous distributions. For example, for a standardized normal distribution, mean, median, and mode are all equal to 0. The mean, median, and mode are all equal to each other. For a more general normal distribution, the mode and median are still equal to the mean. Unfortunately, the mean is highly affected by extreme values. If the distribution is skewed either positively or negatively, the mean is pulled in the direction of the skew; however, the median and mode are more robust statistics and are not pulled as far as the mean. The traditional response is to provide an estimate of the median and mode as current methodological approaches are limited in determining their exact value once the mean is pulled away. Methods: The purpose of this study is to test a new statistical method, utilizing the first order and second order partial derivatives in Taylor series expansion, for approximating the median and mode of skewed unimodal continuous distributions. Specifically, to compute the approximated mode, the first order derivatives of the sum of the first three terms in the Taylor series expansion is set to zero and then the equation is solved to find the unknown. To compute the approximated median, the integration from negative infinity to the median is set to be one half and then the equation is solved for the median. Finally, to evaluate the accuracy of our derived formulae for computing the mode and median of the skewed unimodal continuous distributions, simulation study will be conducted with respect to skew normal distributions, skew t-distributions, skew exponential distributions, and others, with various parameters. Conclusions: The potential of this study may have a great impact on the advancement of current central tendency measurement, the gold standard used in public health and social science research. The study may answer an important question concerning the precision of median and mode estimates for skewed unimodal continuous distributions of data. If this method proves to be an accurate approximation of the median and mode, then it should become the method of choice when measures of central tendency are required.

Existing classification analysis techniques (e.g., decision tree induction,) generally exhibit satisfactory classification effectiveness when dealing with data with non-skewed class distribution. However, real-world applications (e.g., churn prediction and fraud detection) often involve highly skewed data in decision outcomes. Such a highly skewed class distribution problem, if not properly addressed, would imperil the resulting learning effectiveness. In this study, we empirically evaluate three different approaches, namely the under-sampling, the over-sampling and the multi-classifier committee approaches, for addressing classification with highly skewed class distribution. Due to its popularity, C4.5 is selected as the underlying classification analysis technique. Based on 10 highly skewed class distribution datasets, our empirical evaluations suggest that the multi-classifier committee generally outperformed the under-sampling and the over-sampling approaches, using the recall rate, precision rate and F1-measure as the evaluation criteria. Furthermore, for applications aiming at a high recall rate, use of the over-sampling approach will be suggested. On the other hand, if the precision rate is the primary concern, adoption of the classification model induced directly from original datasets would be recommended.

Wireless data broadcast is an efficient way to disseminate digital information to clients equipped with mobile devices. It allows a huge number of the mobile clients simultaneously access data at anytime and anywhere in the wireless environments. Applications using wireless data broadcast to disseminate information include accessing stock activities and traffic conditions. Using index technologies on the broadcast file, i.e., selective tuning, can reduce a lot of energy consumption of the mobile devices without significantly increasing client waiting time. Most of the research work for selective tuning assumes that each data item broadcast on the wireless channel is fairly evenly accessed by mobile clients. In real-life applications, more popular data may be frequently accessed by clients than less popular ones, i.e., skewed access patterns. In this dissertation, to support efficiently selective tuning with skewed access patterns in the single-channel wireless environments, we first propose a skewed distributed index, SDI, on the uniform data broadcast, on which each data item is broadcast once in a broadcast cycle. Second, we propose a skewed index, SI, on the nonuniform data broadcast, on which a few popular data items are broadcast more frequently in a broadcast cycle than the others. The first proposed algorithm, SDI, considers the access probabilities of data items and the replication of index nodes. The proposed algorithm traverses a balanced tree to determine whether an index node should be replicated by considering the access probability of its child node. In our performance analysis and simulation results, we have shown that our proposed algorithm outperforms the variant-fanout tree index and the distributed index. The second proposed algorithm, SI, applies Acharya et al.'s Broadcast Disks to generate a broadcast program, in which the popular data items are broadcast more times than the others, in order to reduce client waiting time. Moreover, the proposed algorithm builds a skewed tree for these data items and allocates index nodes for the popular data items more times than those for the less popular ones in a broadcast cycle. From our performance analysis and simulation results, we have shown that our proposed SI outperforms the flexible index and the flexible distributed index.

Στην παρούσα διπλωματική εργασία προσομοιώθηκε ένας τριφασικός ασύγχρονος κινητήρας βραχυκυκλωμένου δρομέα, ισχύος 4 kW, συνδεσμολογίας αστέρα. Η προσομοίωση έγινε με τη χρήση του προγράμματος Opera 2-D της εταιρείας Vector Fields, το οποίο χρησιμοποιεί τη μέθοδο των πεπερασμένων στοιχείων για την επίλυση των μερικών διαφορικών εξισώσεων που περιγράφουν τη λειτουργία της μηχανής. Σκοπός της διπλωματικής αυτής ήταν η βέλτιστη προσομοίωση του κινητήρα μέσω του προαναφερθέντος προγράμματος, ώστε να συμπίπτουν τα πειραματικά αποτελέσματα με τα υπολογισθέντα και η απόδειξη ότι η τεχνική κατασκευής των αυλακώσεων δρομέα υπό κλίση επιφέρει μείωση των ανώτερων αρμονικών στα ηλεκτρικά μεγέθη του κινητήρα. Στην αρχή σχεδιάστηκε η τομή του ασύγχρονου κινητήρα στις δύο διαστάσεις έτσι ώστε να αναπαρασταθούν όσο το δυνατόν καλύτερα τα κατασκευαστικά μέρη του κινητήρα (στάτης, δρομέας, διάκενο) και με όσο το δυνατόν λιγότερα (τριγωνικά) στοιχεία προς επίλυση. Η προσομοίωση έγινε για διάφορες τιμές σταθερών στροφών της ταχύτητας του δρομέα. Εξετάσθηκαν υγιή μοντέλα του κινητήρα αλλά και μοντέλα με σφάλμα, όπως με σπασμένη τη μία μπάρα του δρομέα. Παρουσιάσθηκαν γραφικά διάφορα μεγέθη όπως η τάση τροφοδοσίας, τα ρεύματα στάτη αλλά και δρομέα, η ροπή εξόδου, η ταχύτητα περιστροφής και τέλος η ηλεκτρική γωνία. Μέσω των μεγεθών αυτών, επιβεβαιώσαμε τις πειραματικές μετρήσεις που πήραμε στο εργαστήριο. Τέλος, μέσω της ανάλυσης Fourier, επιβεβαιώσαμε την επιθυμητή μείωση στις ανώτερες αρμονικές σε ροπή και ρεύματα όταν οι αυλακώσεις του δρομέα κατασκευάζονται υπό κλίση σε σχέση με αυτές του στάτη. / In this diplomatic work a trifasic asynchronous star connected motor with power of 4kW was simulated. The simulation was accomplished by use of the Opera 2-D program developed by (the company) vector Fields. The program uses the method of finite elements to solve the partial differential equations that describe the function of the machine. The purpose of this project was to optimize the simulation of the engine (by means of the abovementioned program), so as to coincide the experimental results with the calculated ones and to prove that the technical construction of skewing the slots of the rotor entails a reduction of the higher harmonics of the electrical values of the engine. At the beginning the intersection of the asynchronous motor was designed in two dimensions so that it best represents the components of the engine (stator, rotor, gap) with the less possible (triangular) elements to be solved. Then the simulation was done for various values of constant rotor speed. Healthy models of the motor were examined but also models with errors, such as with a broken rotor bar. Various values were presented graphically, such as supply voltage, stator and rotor currents, output torque, rotational speed and finally electrical angle. Through these values, the experimental measurements, that were done in the laboratory, were confirmed. Finally, using the analysis Fourier, it was confirmed that the higher harmonics of torque and currents are reduced when the rotor slots are skewed compared to those of the stator.