This thesis addresses several synthesis and optimization issues for embedded control systems. Examples of such systems are automotive and avionics systems in which physical processes are controlled by embedded computers through sensor and actuator interfaces. The execution of multiple control applications, spanning several computation and communication components, leads to a complex temporal behavior that affects control quality. The relationship between system timing and control quality is a key issue to consider across the control design and computer implementation phases in an integrated manner. We present such an integrated framework for scheduling, controller synthesis, and quality optimization for distributed embedded control systems. At runtime, an embedded control system may need to adapt to environmental changes that affect its workload and computational capacity. Examples of such changes, which inherently increase the design complexity, are mode changes, component failures, and resource usages of the running control applications. For these three cases, we present trade-offs among control quality, resource usage, and the time complexity of design and runtime algorithms for embedded control systems. The solutions proposed in this thesis have been validated by extensive experiments. The experimental results demonstrate the efficiency and importance of the presented techniques.

Cette thèse est dédiée à l'analyse de stabilité des systèmes à pas d'échantillonnage variable et à la commande dynamique de l'échantillonnage. L'objectif est de concevoir des lois d'échantillonnage permettant de réduire la fréquence d'actualisation de la commande par retour d'état, tout en garantissant la stabilité du système.Tout d'abord, un aperçu des récents défis et axes de recherche sur les systèmes échantillonnés est présenté. Ensuite, une nouvelle approche de contrôle dynamique de l'échantillonnage, "échantillonnage dépendant de l'état", est proposée. Elle permet de concevoir hors-ligne un échantillonnage maximal dépendant de l'état défini sur des régions coniques de l'espace d'état, grâce à des LMIs.Plusieurs types de systèmes sont étudiés. Tout d'abord, le cas de système LTI idéal est considéré. La fonction d'échantillonnage est construite au moyen de polytopes convexes et de conditions de stabilité exponentielle de type Lyapunov-Razumikhin. Ensuite, la robustesse vis-à-vis des perturbations est incluse. Plusieurs applications sont proposées: analyse de stabilité robuste vis-à-vis des variations du pas d'échantillonnage, contrôles event-triggered et self-triggered, et échantillonnage dépendant de l'état. Enfin, le cas de système LTI perturbé à retard est traité. La construction de la fonction d'échantillonnage est basée sur des conditions de stabilité L2 et sur un nouveau type de fonctionnelles de Lyapunov-Krasovskii avec des matrices dépendant de l'état. Pour finir, le problème de stabilisation est traité, avec un nouveau contrôleur dont les gains commutent en fonction de l'état du système. Un co-design contrôleur/fonction d'échantillonnage est alors proposé

In daily activities, hand use is dominated by individuated thumb and finger movements, and by grasping. This thesis focused on the level of ???independence??? of the digits and its relationship to hand grasps, from the level of the motor units to the level of synergistic grasping forces. Four major studies were conducted in healthy adult volunteers. First, spike-triggered averages of forces produced by single motor units in flexor pollicis longus (FPL) in a grasp posture showed small but significant loading of the index, but not other fingers. This reflected a neural rather than anatomical coupling, as intramuscular stimulation produced minimal effect in any finger. Also, FPL had a surprisingly large number of low-force motor units and this may account for the thumb???s exceptional dexterity and force stability compared with the fingers. Second, independent control of extensor digitorum (ED) was more limited than flexor digitorum profundus (FDP), as more ED motor units of a ???test??? finger were recruited inadvertently by extension than by flexion of adjacent digits. Third, ???force enslavement??? in maximal voluntary tasks was greater in digit extension than flexion. The distribution of force enslavement (and deficits) matched the pattern of daily use of the digits (alone and in combination), and reveals a neural control system which preferentially lifts fingers together from an object by extension but allows an individual digit to flex to contact an object so the finger pads can engage in exploration and grasping. Finally, during grasping, irrespective of whether a digit had been lifted from the object, coherence among forces generated by the digits was similar. In addition, the coherence between finger forces was independent of any contraction of the thumb, was stable over 2 months, and required no learning. The pattern of coherence between digital grasping forces may be closely related to the level of digit independence and daily use. Overall, the grasp synergy was remarkably invariant over the various tasks and over time. In summary, this thesis demonstrates novel aspects of the properties of FPL, the lack of complete independence of the digits, and robustness in the production of flexion forces in hand grasps.

Three-fifths of the Earth’s crust has been built at oceanic spreading centres in the last 160 million years. To explore crustal extension processes and the architecture of these constructive plate boundaries I have studied the oceanic rift in Iceland. Here the Mid Atlantic Ridge is anomalously elevated above sea level and thus easier to instrument. I have deployed and operated a dense network of seismometers in the remote volcanic highlands in central Iceland, and used the passive seismic data collected from this network to explore crustal structure and volcanic processes in the extensional rift zones. My analysis of persistent seismicity located in an intervening region between individual spreading segments, uniquely records the segmentation of plate spreading on the scale of individual volcanic systems. Precise location and characterisation of micro-earthquakes identifies a series of faults subparallel to the rift fabric, and source mechanisms define left-lateral strike-slip motion on these faults. This extremely high quality microseismic data reveals transform motion being accommodated by bookshelf faulting in a concentrated region between two such volcanic systems, providing evidence for the localisation of spreading in the discrete volcanic systems. While transform motion between spreading centres appears to be accommodated on a continuous basis, the extension of the brittle upper crust within the spreading centres occurs episodically during rifting events. Our local seismic network fortuitously recorded such a rifting episode in August 2014, during which the opening of a 5 metre wide dyke triggered a huge increase in seismicity across large areas of the rift zone. Stress-seismicity-rate modelling of this triggered seismicity, along with geodetic constraints on the deformation, provided a remarkable opportunity with which it was possible to prove the existence of stress-shadowing, a challenge which has eluded earthquake seismologists for decades. Using the excellent coverage of our extended seismic network I have also generated a new high resolution image of the regional crustal seismic structure using surface waves extracted from ambient seismic noise. The structure reveals low seismic velocities which are closely correlated with the volcanic rift zones, and faster wavespeeds in the older and non-volcanically active Tertiary crust. The strongest anomalies are seen in the north-west of the Vatnajökull icecap, at the location of thickest crust and inferred centre of the underlying mantle plume. Inversion for shear wave velocity structure shows high velocity-gradients in the top 10 km, defining a thickened extrusive upper crust in Iceland compared to standard oceanic crust, where it is normally 2–3 km thick. Below this, the shear wave velocity structure reveals a distinct low-velocity zone in the mid crust between 14–20 km depth, which is widespread across Iceland and shallows into the active volcanic rifts. This extensive feature suggests high mid-crustal temperatures and a high temperature-gradient between the extrusives of the upper crust and the intrusive mid-to-lower crust in Iceland.

This thesis examines how to find the best fit to a series of data points when curve fitting using power-exponential models. We describe the different numerical methods such as the Gauss-Newton and Levenberg-Marquardt methods to compare them for solving non-linear least squares of curve fitting using different power-exponential functions. In addition, we show the results of numerical experiments that illustrate the effectiveness of this approach.Furthermore, we show its application to the practical problems by using different sets of data such as death rates and rocket-triggered lightning return strokes based on the transmission line model.

Abstract The multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) technique combined with an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (MIMO--OFDM) has been introduced as a promising approach for the ever increasing capacity and quality of service (QoS) requirements for wireless communication systems. An efficient radio spectrum utilization expects a flexible transceiver solution, which has been the reason for the development of the software defined radio (SDR) technologies which in their turn are expected to enable the creation of cognitive radios. As a result, any radio solution could be invoked on demand on any platform. In this thesis work, we have studied detector algorithms and programmable processor architectures in order to find practical solutions for the future wireless systems. A programmable receiver can reduce the energy dissipation of the receiver by changing the detection algorithm based on the current channel realizations. To provide a realistic aspect to the implementations in different channel realizations, we present a wide state-of-the-art detector comparison. In addition, we present an extensive number arithmetic and word length study in order to evaluate realistic hardware complexity and energy dissipations of the implementations. The study includes a comprehensive design chain from the algorithm development to the actual processor design and finally programming software for the platforms. We evaluate single and multi-core processor implementations by comparing the achieved results to the Long Term Evolution (LTE) performance requirements. We implement detectors on digital signal processors (DSPs), graphics processing unit (GPU) and transport triggered architecture (TTA). The implementation results are compared in throughput, silicon area and energy efficiency. Finally, we discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the architectures and the implementation effort. / Tiivistelmä Usean antennin tekniikka yhdistettynä ortogonaaliseen taajuusvaihtelumodulointiin lähetin-vastaanotimessa on esitetty eräänä lupaavana ratkaisuna jatkuvasti kasvaviin kapasiteetti- ja palvelunlaatuvaatimuksiin langattomissa tietoliikennejärjestelmissä. Tehokas radiospektrin käyttö edellyttää joustavaa lähetin-vastaanotinratkaisua, mikä on ollut syynä ohjelmistoradioteknologioiden kehitykselle. Ohjelmistoradioiden kehityksen on puolestaan odotettu mahdollistavan kognitiiviradioiden syntymisen. Tuloksena, mikä tahansa radiosovellus voitaisiin herättää tarpeen mukaan millä tahansa ohjelmoitavalla sovellusalustalla. Tässä väitöskirjatyössä tutkitaan ilmaisinalgoritmeja sekä ohjelmoitavia prosessoriarkkitehtuureja tarkoituksena löytää käytännöllisiä ratkaisuja tulevaisuuden langattomiin järjestelmiin. Ohjelmoitavalla vastaanottimella voidaan vähentää vastaanottimen energiankulutusta vaihtamalla ilmaisinalgoritmeja vallitsevan kanavatilan mukaan. Työssä esitellään laaja, viimeisintä tutkimusta edustava ilmaisinalgoritmivertailu, joka antaa realistisen näkökannan toteutuksiin erilaisissa kanavatiloissa. Lisäksi työssä esitellään numeroaritmetiikka- ja sananpituustutkimus, jonka tarkoituksena on arvioida toteutusten realistista kovokompleksisuutta sekä energiankulutusta. Tutkimus sisältää kattavan suunnitteluketjun algoritmikehityksestä todelliseen prosessorisuunnitteluun ja lopulta algoritmin ohjelmointiin tietylle sovellusalustalle. Väitöskirjatyössä arvioidaan yksi- ja moniytimisiä prosessoritoteutuksia vertaamalla saavutettuja tuloksia Long Term Evolution -standardin suorituskykyvaatimuksiin. Ilmaisimia toteutetaan digitaalisilla signaaliprosessoreilla, grafiikkaprosessorilla sekä siirtoliipaisuarkkitehtuurilla. Toteutustuloksia vertaillaan laskentatehona, pinta-alana sekä energiatehokkuutena. Lopuksi käsitellään arkkitehtuurien hyviä ja huonoja puolia sekä suunnittelun työläyttä.

This thesis presents an investigation into the factors affecting the morphology of hybrid inorganic/organic photoactive layers used in photovoltaic cells. Although optimisation of the organic (polymer) phase has received substantial attention, research into the morphology of the inorganic phase (semiconducting nanocrystals) remains limited. It is believed that there is a strong link between the morphology of the final photoactive film and the quality of the initial nanocrystal dispersion. To this end, two nanocrystal systems were investigated; zinc oxide (ZnO) and lead sulphide (PbS). ZnO nanocrystals were synthesised and found to possess reproducible characteristics. It was determined that colloid stability was initially dependent upon the presence of acetate groups bound to the surface, which in turn required a small quantity of methanol to be present in the organic dispersant. It was also discovered that while methanol evaporated readily from the surface of the nanocrystals, another molecule, 1-propylamine (1-PA), did not. Further investigations showed that while methanol only weakly physisorbed to the surface of ZnO nanocrystals, 1-PA formed strong, dative covalent bonds with Zn2+, preventing evaporation despite a low boiling point. Subsequent investigations into the effects of different ligands upon colloid stability found that amine-based groups typically possessed superior stabilising capabilities compared to alcohol-based analogues. The characteristics of nanocrystal / polymer blends were also investigated. It was determined that the nanocrystal dispersion became unstable at higher concentrations of polymer due to depletion aggregation. Films of nanocrystal / polymer blends were cast from dispersions containing either alcohol or amine-based ligands, and it was observed that dispersions stabilised with 1-PA possessed smooth morphologies on the micrometer scale. Investigations at the nanometer scale, however, revealed aggregates large enough to favour recombination.The latter half of this thesis regards the characterisation of PbS nanocrystals and investigations into triggered aggregation. It was determined that while PbS nanocrystals possessed reproducible characteristics, the stabilising molecule, oleic acid (OA) was insulating. The effects of exchanging the OA groups for a shorter ligand, butylamine (BA) were investigated.Finally, PbS nanocrystals were treated with a bidentate ligand, 1,2-ethanedithiol (EDT) to induce triggered aggregation. It was observed that the system was highly sensitive to the concentration of EDT in dispersion, forming small, relatively dispersed aggregates at low [EDT], and micrometer-sized crystalline structures at high [EDT]. The characterisation and entrapment of these nanocrystal structures within semi-conducting polymer films is also discussed.

No description available.

V této práci je navrhnut energeticky úsporný procesor typu TTA (Transport Triggered Architecture) pro výpočet rychlé Fourierovy transformace (FFT). Návrh procesoru byl vytvořen na míru použitému algoritmu pomocí speciáoních funkčních jednotek. Algoritmus byl realizován jako posloupnost instrukcí tak, že většina výpočtu probíhá ve smyčce obrahující pouze jedionu paralelní instrukci. Tato instrukce je umístěna do instrukčního bufferu, odkud je potom volána místo instrukční paměti. Díky tomu se dá docílit nižší spotřeby, neboť volání z instrukčního bufferu je efektivnější než volání z instrukční paměti. Program byl zkompilován na časovém modelu procesoru a časová simulace potvrdila správnost návrhu. Součástí práce jsou rovněž pomocné programy v Pythonu, které slouží ke generaci referenčních výsledků a automatické simulaci a porovnání výsledků simulace s referencí.

Tesis por compendio / [EN] This thesis addresses to the current status of lightning protection, focusing on the external protection with emphasis on the process of interception. Under this approach, three pillars are studied due to their obvious interest in the evaluation and practical application of lightning protection during the first phase, the lightning interception. Those pillars are: Laboratory Tests Field Tests Lightning Protection Models. These three points can be treated individually; nevertheless, they are interrelated, not only for the technical field they belong to, all together pose an evolution in the magnitude of the electric discharge, starting by the study of the electric discharge in laboratory in order to understand the processes that involves its behavior. It is no possible reproduce the whole event of lightning in laboratory, so field tests are essential to characterize empirically the most important parameters of lightning in natural conditions. The measurements made in natural conditions, are employed to fundament some protection models, furthermore with the statistics, it is possible the definition of the lightning protection levels which determines the practical application of the lightning protection. The fact of encompassing different points in a technical field is imposed because this thesis has been made in a company specialized in lightning protection, which implies a need of knowledge applied to all the points concerning its scope. The main contributions of the thesis are collected in each of the chapters and in the proposals made in them, opening new lines of work on which to base a set of techniques and practices that could complement the ones currently applied. After an introductory chapter, it is treated the main core of the Thesis, composed by the chapters 3, 4 and 5 where the contributions, published by the author are exposed. In the chapter 3 it is made a revision of the laboratory tests studying the physical processes associated to the electric discharge. At this point and after the review, the author focuses on the U50 parameter (amplitude of a pulse voltage in a determined configuration whose application involves a 50% of probability to get a disruptive discharge) using a tool based on neural networks with a configuration of multilayer perceptron (MLP) with which the level of predictability of an individual pulse is evaluated with different configurations, data input and time windows, as indicative of the influence of a variable in the process of generation and interception of the electric arc. Regarding the field tests, its application typically involves monitoring high-rise structures, the use of rockets for artificial lightning triggering or lightning detection networks. At this point the different measurement strategies are evaluated and a new point of view that could be used to obtain reliable statistics in a short period of time is introduced, which resulted in a paper. The dissertation also introduces a methodology for continuous evaluation of lightning protection systems, comparing the performance of the installed systems and considering also the protection model used for the design of the installation. About protection models, in a brief introduction the author discusses the different models of protection by extending information about those standardized which, despite their lacks, remain widely used today. After evaluating the current context under standardized lightning protection, it is indicated that one way to complement physically the protection models is the inclusion of methods whose application is consistent with standardized lightning protection models. In this line the author presents a contribution embodied in an article. / [ES] En esta Tesis se aborda el estado actual de la protección contra el rayo centrándose en la protección externa y concretamente en el proceso de intercepción. Bajo este planteamiento, se estudian tres pilares fundamentales que presentan un evidente interés para la evaluación y aplicación de la protección contra el rayo en la fase de intercepción: Los ensayos de laboratorio Los estudios en campo Los modelos de protección Estos tres puntos pueden tratarse de forma individual, no obstante están relacionados entre sí, no sólo por el campo de la técnica al que pertenecen, sino también porque juntos plantean una evolución en la magnitud de la descarga eléctrica, comenzando con la descarga eléctrica en laboratorio para comprender los procesos que gobiernan su comportamiento. Al no ser posible la completa reproducción del fenómeno del rayo en laboratorio, los estudios de campo resultan necesarios para poder caracterizar empíricamente los parámetros característicos de los rayos en la naturaleza. Con las medidas en la naturaleza, además de fundamentar algunos modelos de protección, también se realizan estadísticas que son empleadas en la definición de los niveles de protección que determinan la aplicación práctica de la protección contra el rayo. El hecho de abarcar diferentes puntos de un campo de la técnica viene impuesto porque esta Tesis se ha realizado dentro del marco de una empresa especializada en la protección contra el rayo, lo que implica una necesidad de conocimiento aplicado a todos los puntos que conciernen a su campo de aplicación. Las principales contribuciones de la Tesis quedan recogidas en cada uno de los capítulos y las propuestas que se hacen en ellos, abriendo nuevas líneas de trabajo sobre las que fundamentar un conjunto de técnicas y prácticas que podrían complementar a las aplicadas actualmente. Tras un capítulo introductorio, se trata el núcleo principal de la Tesis, formado por los capítulos 3, 4 y 5 donde se presentan las contribuciones del autor en forma de publicación. En el capítulo 3 se revisan los ensayos en laboratorio, donde se pueden estudiar los procesos físicos asociados a los arcos eléctricos. En este punto y, tras una revisión, el autor se centra en el parámetro U50 (amplitud de un pulso de tensión en una configuración determinada cuya aplicación implica un 50% de probabilidad de obtener una descarga disruptiva) empleando una herramienta basada en redes neuronales en la configuración de perceptrón multicapa (MLP) con la que se analiza el nivel de predicción del resultado de un impulso individual con diferentes configuraciones, datos de entrada y ventanas temporales, como indicativo de la influencia de una variable en el proceso de generación e intercepción del arco eléctrico. Sobre los ensayos en campo, su aplicación implica normalmente la monitorización de estructuras de gran altura, el empleo de cohetes para el cebado artificial de rayos, o las redes de detección de rayos. En este punto se evalúan las diferentes estrategias de medida y se introduce un nuevo punto de vista que podría utilizarse para la obtención de estadísticas fiables en un tiempo reducido y que ha dado lugar a un artículo. También se menciona una metodología para la evaluación continua de los sistemas de protección contra el rayo con la que se podría comparar el rendimiento de los sistemas instalados, con el modelo de protección empleado para realizar el diseño de la instalación. Sobre los modelos de protección, tras una revisión de varios modelos de protección, la Tesis se centra en los modelos normalizados los cuales, pese a sus carencias son los más utilizados. Tras evaluar el contexto actual bajo las normativas de protección contra el rayo se indica que una vía para complementar físicamente los modelos de protección es la inclusión de métodos con fundamentación física cuya aplicación sea compatible con los modelos de protección normalizad / [CA] A aquesta Tesi s'aborda l'estudi del estat actual de la protecció contra el llamp centrant l'objectiu en la protecció externa i amb èmfasi en el procés de intercepció. Baix aquest plantejament, s'estudien tres pilars fonamentals que presenten un evident interès par la avaluació y aplicació pràctica de la protecció contra el raig a la seua primera fase, la intercepció del llamp: Els assajos de laboratori Els estudis de camp Els models de protecció Aquests tres punts poden tractar-se de forma individual, però estan relacionats entre si, no només pel camp de la tècnica al que pertanyen, sino també perquè junts plantegen una evolució en la magnitud de la descàrrega elèctrica, començant amb l'estudi de la descàrrega elèctrica al laboratori per a comprendre el processos que governen el seu comportament. Al no ser possible la completa reproducció del fenomen del raig al laboratori, els estudis de camp resulten imprescindibles per a poder caracteritzar empíricament els paràmetres característics dels rajos a la naturalesa. Amb les mesures realitzades a la naturalesa, amés de fonamentar alguns models de protecció, també es realitzen estadístiques que son emprades a la definició dels nivells de protecció que determinen la aplicació pràctica de la protecció contra el raig. El fet de comprendre diferents punts d'un camp de la tècnica ve impost per el fet de que aquesta Tesi ha sigut realitzada dins del marc d'una empresa especialitzada en la protecció contra el llamp, i açò implica la necessitat de coneixement aplicat a tots els punts que concerneixen al seu camp d'aplicació. Les principals contribucions de la Tesi queden arreplegades en cada un dels capítols i les propostes que se fan en ells, obrint noves línies de treball sobre les que fonamentar un conjunt de tècniques i practiques que podrien complementar a les aplicades actualment. Després d'un capítol introductori, es tracta el nucli principal de la Tesi, format per els capítols 3, 4 y 5 on es presenten les contribucions de l'autor en forma de publicació. Al capítol 3, es revisen els assajos en laboratori, a on es poden estudiar els processos físics associats als arcs elèctrics. En aquest punt i, desprès de una revisió, l'autor es centra en el paràmetre U50 (amplitut d'un impuls de tensió a una configuració determinada que implica un 50% de probabilitat de obtenir una descarrega disruptiva) emprant una ferramenta basada en xarxes neuronals amb configuració de perceptró multicapa (MLP) en la que s'analitza el nivell de predicció del resultat d'un impuls individual amb diferents configuracions, senyals d'entrada i finestres temporals, com indicatiu de l'influencia d'un variable en el procés de generació i intercepció de l'arc elèctric. Referent als assajos en camp, la seua aplicació implica normalment la monitorització d'estructures de gran alçada, la utilització de coets per al encebat artificial de rajos, o les xarxes de detecció de llamps. En aquest punt s'avaluen les diferents estratègies de mesura i s'introdueix un nou punt de vista que es podria utilitzar per a l'obtenció d'estadístiques fiables en un temps reduït, del que també ha sorgit un article. També es menciona una metodologia per a l'avaluació continua dels sistemes de protecció contra el raig en la que se podria comparar el rendiment dels sistemes instal¿lats, amb el model de protecció empleat per a realitzar el disseny de la instal.lació. Sobre els models de protecció, tres una revisió dels diferents models de protecció existents, la Tesi es centra en els models normalitzats, el quals, a pesar de les seues carències segueix sent els mes utilitzats en l'actualitat. Desprès de avaluar el context actual baix les normatives de protecció contra el raig s'indica que una via per a complementar físicament els models de protecció es la inclusió de mètodes amb fonamentació física que continuen sent compatibles amb els models de protecció / Ruiz Muñoz, D. (2015). Contribuciones a los sistemas de protección contra el rayo [Tesis doctoral no publicada]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/59440 / TESIS / Compendio