As predicted by Gordon Moore, the number of transistors on a chip has roughly doubled every two years. Microprocessors featuring over a billion transistors are no longer science fiction. For example, Intel’s Itanium 9000 series and Intel’s Xeon 7400 series of processors feature 1.7 and 1.9 billion transistors respectively. To keep up with the emerging needs of contemporary very large scale integration (VLSI) design, industrial hardware description languages (HDLs) like Verilog and VHDL must be significantly enhanced. This thesis pinpoints some of the main shortcomings of the latest Verilog standard (IEEE 1364-2005) and shows how to overcome them by extending the language in a backward compatible way. To be able to cope with more complex circuits, well-understood higher-level abstraction mechanisms are needed. Verilog is already equipped with promising generative constructs making it possible to concisely describe a family of circuits as a parameterized module; however these constructs suffer from two problems: First, their expressivity is limited and second, they are not adequately supported by current tools. For instance, there are no static guarantees about the properties of the description generated as a result of instantiating a generic description with particular parameter values. Addressing both problems while remaining backward compatible led us to select a statically typed two-level languages (STTL) formal framework. By formalizing a core subset of Verilog as an STTL, we were able to define a static type system capable of: 1) checking the realizability of a description, 2) detecting bus width mismatches and array bounds violations, and 3) providing parametric guarantees on the resources required to realize a generic description. The power of the chosen framework is once more demonstrated as it also allows us to enrich the language with a new set of constructs that are designed to be expanded away when instantiated. To experiment with these ideas we implemented VPP, a Verilog Preprocessor with a built-in type checker. VPP is an unobtrusive tool accepting extended Verilog descriptions but generating descriptions compatible with any tool compliant with the Verilog standard. Our experience throughout this research showed that STTLs present a particularly suitable framework to formalize and implement generative features of a language. / Rice University, National Science Foundation (NSF) SoD award 0439017, Intel Corporation, Semiconductor Research Corporation (SRC) Task ID 1403.001

Automatic data extraction from medical legacy systems into archetype-based systems is analyzed, developed and tested in this work. Electronic health record system (EHRS) is a must in today’s healthcare environment. Lots of up-to-date medical systems are still built with classic development approaches, with semantics hard coded into systems. Modern EHRS standards propose new “two-level” methodology, which is based on separation of knowledge and information levels. This work suggests a methodology for heterogenic medical legacy systems that exist today to be transformed into ones, built with “two-level” methodology. Transformation is based on knowledge, residing in new system. By creating a comprehensive transformation scheme, it is possible to analyze and extract relevant data from semi structured or unstructured text fields with mixed information. Suggested methodology is tested with software prototype by extracting laboratory results of clinical blood test from semi structured fields of cardiology database. Achieved results are about 95% of data successfully transferred from legacy system. This approach preserves medical data accumulated during long years of work and transforms it into more useful form, creating structured data from unstructured text fields. It allows an automatic means of information technologies to be used by medicine expert to analyze and interpret legacy data (draw charts, calculate statistics and so on).

Pasitelkus tris teorines prieigas, darbe analizuojama Japonijos klimato kaitos politika. Siekiant atskleisti tiek šios sudėtingos sferos detalumą, tiek bendras tendencijas, tyrimo objektas suskaidomas į tris tyrimo laukus, kiekvienas iš jų analizuojamas taikant atskirą teoriją. Tai atitinkamai: klimato kaitos fenomenas, kuris analizuojamas rizikos visuomenės teorijos pagalba tiriant Japonijos atvejį; tarptautinės ir valstybinės interesų grupės, tiriamos pasitelkiant dviejų lygių žaidimų teoriją ir analizuojant Japonijos dalyvavimą penkioliktojoje Jungtinių Tautų Kopenhagos konferencijoje; valstybinės institucijos, nagrinėjant Japonijos ministerijų ir aukšto rango pareigūnų požiūrį į klimato kaitos politiką, remiantis švelniosios galios teorija. Darbe tiriamas 1992-2011 metų periodas, plačiausiai naudojamas kokybinės turinio analizės ir lyginamasis metodas. Pirmojo tyrimo lauko analizė parodė, kad Japonija gali būti priskiriama prie vėlyvojo modernizmo valstybių, turinčių rizikos visuomenę ir reflektyviai žvelgiančių į savo išsivystymą. Tai viena iš pagrindinių priežasčių, kodėl tokie reiškiniai kaip klimato kaita sulaukia dėmesio ir yra įtraukiami į šalių politinę dienotvarkę. Išnagrinėjus viešą valstybinę retoriką, Japonijos pozicija atitiko 8 iškeltus kriterijus, pradedant globalinio atšilimo reiškinio pateikimu kaip visuotinės neigiamus padarinius sukelsiančios grėsmės ir baigiant siekiais keisti nusistovėjusį gyvenimo būdą tiek vykdant programas šalies viduje, tiek ir... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / By using three theoretical approaches, this thesis analyzes Japan's climate change policy. With the aim to reveal both the details and main tendencies of this complicated field, the object of the research is divided into three fields and each of them is analyzed by using separate theory. It is correspondingly: climate change phenomena, which is analyzed by using risk society theory focusing on Japan’s case; domestic and international interest groups, that are studied by two-level game theory concentrating on Japans’ participation in COP15 to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change; state institutions, looking at Japan ministries’ and high-ranking officials’ perception of climate change using soft power theory as theoretical basis. The time frame of the work is from year 1992 to 2011. The main methods used are content and comparative analysis. The analysis of the first field shows that Japan can be considered as one of late modernity states distinguished by risk society and reflectivity on its development. It is one of the main reasons why such phenomena as climate change becomes important and included into country’s political discourse. After analyzing public rhetorics, Japan’s position corresponds to eight criteria used in the work, ranging from global warming presentation as a global risk that will have negative consequences to aspirations to change current lifestyle by implementing domestic programs and participating in creation of international institutions. The... [to full text]

Ce travail de thèse est consacré à la mesure de transport de chaleur par les phonons dans le régime quantique dans des systèmes confinés à très basse température.Le contexte de ce sujet est de soumettre ces systèmes à deux conditions extrêmes : basse température et faibles dimensions et de comprendre les propriétés thermiques fondamentales issues de ces limites.Les échantillons étudiés au cours de cette thèse sont des structures suspendues (membrane ou nanofil) ; elles sont élaborées à partir de nitrure de silicium amorphe (SiN).En abaissant la température, les longueurs caractéristiques des phonons comme le libre parcours moyen ou la longueur d'onde dominante des phonons augmentent. Lorsque ces longueurs caractéristiques dépassent les dimensions latérales du système, la diffusion sur les surfaces (boundary scattering) régira les propriétés thermiques. Dans cette limite de diffusion, le transport des phonons va de la diffusion aux surfaces (régime de Casimir) au régime balistique (limite quantique). Dans ce régime balistique, le courant de chaleur peut être exprimé en utilisant le modèle de Landauer. La conductance thermique est alors exprimée par: K=N_α q T où, N_α est le nombre de modes vibratoires peuplés, q=((π²k_B^2)T)⁄3h est la valeur universelle du quantum de conductance thermique et T est le coefficient de transmission.Dans ce travail, les mesures de conductance thermique de nanofils suspendus ont été effectuées jusqu'à très basse température. Une plate-forme de mesure ayant une sensibilité sans précédent a été développée pour mesurer la variation d'énergie inférieure à l'attojoule. Ces nouveaux capteurs permettent de mesurer les propriétés thermiques du guide d'onde de phonon 1D dans le régime quantique du transport de chaleur. Nous montrons que le coefficient de transmission est le facteur dominant qui définit la valeur de conductance thermique. Ce coefficent dépend de la dimension et de la forme des réservoirs ainsi que de la nature du matériau utilisé ce qui rend difficile la mesure du quantum de conductance thermique. Nous montrons que dans toutes les structures de SiN mesurées, le transport thermique pourrait être dominé par des excitations de faible énergie qui existent dans les solides amorphes (a-solides).Le deuxième ensemble important d'expériences concerne la chaleur spécifique. Nous avons étudié les propriétés thermiques de membranes suspendues de SiN très minces que l'on pense être des cavités de phonon 2D. Nous montrons que la dépendance en température de la chaleur spécifique s'écarte du comportement quadratique comme prévu à très basse température. Les modèles pertinents donnant une explication quantitative des résultats sont encore à l'étude. La présence de systèmes à deux niveaux dans les matériaux amorphes pourrait être une explication possible de la valeur absolue élevée de la chaleur spécifique observée. / This PhD entitles Phonon heat transport in the quantum regime is based on the analysis of the thermal properties of confined systems at very low temperature.The context of this subject is putting the systems in two extreme conditions (low temperature and low dimensions) and understand the fundamental thermal properties coming from these limits.The studied samples during this PhD that are suspended structures (membrane or nanowire) are elaborated from amorphous silicon nitride.By lowering the temperature, the phonon characteristic lengths like the mean free path or the phonon dominant wavelength increase. When these characteristic lengths exceed lateral dimensions of the system, the boundary scattering will govern the thermal properties. In the boundary scattering, phonon transport goes from boundary limited scattering (Casimir regime) to ballistics regime (quantum limit). In this ballistic regime, the heat current can be expressed using the Landauer model. The thermal conductance is then expressed as: K=N_α q T where N_α is the number of populated vibrational modes, q=((π²k_B^2)T)⁄3h is the universal value of quantum of thermal conductance, and T is the transmission coefficient.In this work, thermal conductance measurements of suspended nanowires have been performed down to very low temperature. A measurement platform having an unprecedented sensitivity have been developed that can measure a variation of energy smaller than the attojoule. These new sensors allow the measurement of thermal properties of 1D phonon waveguide in the quantum regime of heat transport. We show that the transmission coefficient is the dominant factor that set the thermal conductance value. It depends on the dimension and the shape of the reservoirs, and the nature of the material in use rendering difficult the measurement of the quantum of thermal conductance. We show that in all of the SiN structures, the thermal transport could be dominated by low energy excitations that exist in amorphous solids (a-solids).The second important set of experiments concerns the specific heat. We have studied suspended the thermal properties of very thin SiN membranes that are thought to be 2D phonon cavities. We show that the temperature dependence of the specific heat departs from the quadratic behavior as expected at very low temperature. The true models giving a quantitative explanation of the results is still under consideration. The presence of tunneling two-level systems in amorphous materials could be one possible explanation for the high absolute value of specific heat that has been measured.

The purpose of this inquiry is to examine weather Robert Putnam’s two-level game theory could be expanded to a third level. Furthermore, the study seeks to answer the question weather international negotiations can be played on three levels. For the purpose of the study, the two-level game theory will be applied to the ongoing negotiations between Bosnia and Hercegovina (BiH) and the European Union. The third level will be investigated by considering United States’ role and its frequent involvement in negotiations. The General Framework Dayton Peace Agreement (1995) that ended the four-year war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, along with additional political and economic involvement of the USA in BiH will be utilized to signify the existence of the third level. The argument of this paper has been developed using qualitative research methods, where interviews have been combined with an analysis of contents. The study’s findings have several implications for the existence of the third-level. First, results demonstrate that Bosnian political figures fail to recognize USA’s involvement in the negotiation process. Second, study indicates an indirect, but intense influence of the United States due to its strategic interests. Third, the study significantly contributes to the international negotiations by incorporating the events on all three levels that influence all negotiation outcomes. The use of qualitative methods in this study deepened theoretical understanding of the three-level game, provided useful application for practitioners and opened up an opportunity to provide even greater understanding of international negotiations as a whole.

Abstract C-Level Paper in Political Science, by David Olsson, Autumn 2008. Supervisor: Malin Stegman McCallion. “Regime Type and Trade Policy: Has Increased Democratization Contributed to Lower Trade Barriers Among Autocratic States?”   In this paper a new two-level game theory, based on previous research and deductive reasoning, is constructed and tested empirically. The purpose is to examine if developing new democracies, trading with developing autocracies, is an explanatory factor of trade liberalization among the latter. The research questions are: 1) Have tariff rates in developing autocratic countries followed the pattern of reduced tariffs among their developing new democratic trading partners? And; 2) If this is the case, is there a relative shift in trade flows that confirms this change to be an effect of the new democracies’ presumed influence?                       In order to sufficiently carry out an empirical scrutiny, seven other determinants found to have effects on trade policies in previous research, are accounted for using a “most similar systems design”. For reasons of delimitation, six autocracies and their fifteen most important trading partners, observed 1980-1999, have been paired and analyzed. Each pair consists of one autocracy that trades with new democracies and one that does not; regarding the other determinants they are as similar as possible. The used material is the World Development Indicators, the Polity IV Dataset, the Yearbook of International Trade Statistics, the World Economic Outlook Database, the Database of Political Institutions, statistics from the World Trade Organization, the Dataset of Armed Conflicts, and the Unweighted Average Tariffs Measurement.                          The conclusion is that there are no indicators that affirm the theory and research questions. However, the theory is not unambiguously falsified. Hence, studies on more countries and time spans are needed.

Submitted by Elesbão Santiago Neto (neto10uepb@cche.uepb.edu.br) on 2018-04-16T17:37:15Z No. of bitstreams: 1 PDF - Saulo Felipe Costa.pdf: 39300044 bytes, checksum: f6782ca64fbf0bdf0e899f17f6bf1d0f (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-04-16T17:37:15Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 PDF - Saulo Felipe Costa.pdf: 39300044 bytes, checksum: f6782ca64fbf0bdf0e899f17f6bf1d0f (MD5) Previous issue date: 2011-05-24 / CAPES / The research aimed to screen for evidence of the influence of ideals of the international medium on the pattern of public policies in Brazil and Colombia. Through an approach that linked the theory of two levels games and policy paradigm understanding in Kuhn and the mechanism of social learning, it was possible to develop a proxy for the degree of influence of international pressure for the adoption of a given policies. We attempted to analyze the influence of the proposed of solution to the state problems, issued by multilateral agencies, through what became known as the Washington Consensus. The choice of Brazil was due to an increased availability of data, while the choice of Colombia is its function in this country experience a long period of democratic rule, with jarring ideological profile of the Brazilian. For this, the research has focused on the behavior of public spending in both countries, was also performed a more specific case study on the deployment of the managerial model of public administration in Brazil, with the aim of better understanding how this process occurred import and export of ideas and solutions for different problems. The research showed that multilateral organizations have greater power to print your ideas in countries' policies when such changes are first and second order, by type built. In return, changes in third order are only induced by multilateral bodies, since the ideology of society plays a more decisive role for the incorporation or not of such ideas "exogenous”. / A pesquisa em tela buscou por evidências da influência de ideais do meio internacional sobre o padrão de oferta de políticas públicas no Brasil e na Colômbia. Através de uma abordagem que uniu a teoria dos jogos de dois níveis à compreensão de mudança de paradigma em Kuhn e ao mecanismo de aprendizagem social (social learning), foi possível elaborar uma proxy para o grau de influência das pressões internacionais pela adoção de determinado conjunto de políticas. Buscou-se analisar a influência das propostas de solução aos problemas estatais, emanadas por agências multilaterais, através do que ficou conhecido como Consenso de Washington. A escolha do Brasil se deu devido uma maior disponibilidade de dados, ao passo que a opção pela Colômbia se deu em função deste país experimentar um longo período democrático, com perfil ideológico destoante do brasileiro. Para tanto, a pesquisa se debruçou sobre o comportamento do gasto público em ambos os países, foi executado também um estudo de caso mais específico sobre a implantação do modelo gerencial de administração pública no Brasil, com o intuito de melhor compreender como se deu este processo de importação e exportação de ideais e soluções para os mais diversos problemas. A pesquisa evidenciou que os organismos multilaterais possuem um maior poder de imprimir seu ideário nas políticas dos países quando tais mudanças são de primeira e de segunda ordem, segundo a tipologia construída. Em contra partida, mudanças de terceira ordem são susceptíveis apenas de indução pelos organismos multilaterais, uma vez que a ideologia da sociedade desempenha um papel mais determinante para a incorporação ou não de tal ideário “exógeno”.

Autour de la question de la modernisation des bâtiments protégés, la thèse analyse comment les acteurs implémentent de tels ajustements contemporains sans pour autant dénaturer le Patrimoine véhiculé et personnifié par le bâtiment. Considéré comme la représentation matérielle de l’institution des Bâtiments Protégés – i.e. son instanciation – le bâtiment protégé trouve sa légitimité dans son authenticité dont le respect par les acteurs est primordial pour maintenir la protection institutionnelle. Cependant, parce que la majorité des bâtiments protégés actuels n’ont pas été pensés originellement pour perdurer, i.e. être transmis aux futures générations, les travaux d’intervention pour modifier cet artéfact bâtiment mènent à de nombreux débats entre les acteurs qui participent à ces projets de construction au regard de ce qui doit être ou non patrimonialement considéré. Selon l’approche constructiviste de la méthodologie dite de théorie ancrée, et dans l’optique de comprendre comment ces acteurs parviennent à produire un seul et unique artéfact, la thèse met en avant le processus de construction de l’instantiation au sein duquel les constructions matérielle et symbolique sont considérées. Pour se faire, l’étude propose de coupler l’Institutionnalisme Scandinave et le Bricolage Collectif. En effet, pour sélectionner les matériaux de construction pertinents pour modifier un bâtiment protégé existant, les acteurs doivent dans un premier temps concevoir un cadre interprétatif, commun et partagé, basé sur l’authenticité du bâtiment qu’ils pensent être nécessaire de respecter selon les trois piliers institutionnels en présence. Un tel cadre est en fait une étape préliminaire servant à implémenter un dialogue double-niveau permettant la matérialisation de l’ensemble des idées immatérielles: 1) entre les acteurs et le cadre interprétatif pour tester les solutions matérielles suggérées et 2) entre chaque répertoire de chaque acteur, comprenant leur ressources à disposition, grâce à six critères de sélection qui aident les acteurs à décider quel matériau il est utile ou non d’utiliser. / The dissertation studies how actors implement contemporary adjustments in listed buildings without disrupting their embodied Heritage. The listed building’s legitimacy relies on its authenticity whose respect by actors is essential to maintain the institutional protection, as it is the material representation, or instantiation, of the Listed-Buildings Institution. However, intervention works to change such an artifact lead to various debates among actors, as the majority of current listed buildings were not originally constructed to last, i.e. to be transmitted to future generations. One debate during intervention works tackles the issue of what needs to be or not to be considered in terms of Heritage. Through a constructivist grounded-theory methodology, the dissertation allows the understanding of how actors succeed in producing one unique outcome. I propose the instantiation construction process in which both symbolic but also material constructions are emphasised. And to do so, I intertwine Scandinavian Institutionalism and Collective Bricolage. Indeed, actors need first to design, with the help of the three institutional pillars, a shared interpretative frame to select relevant building materials. They could thus modify an existing building in regards to what building’s authenticity deserves to be respected. This frame acts in fact as a preliminary step to implement a simultaneous two-level dialogue enabling the materialisation of the intangible ideas: 1) between actors and the frame to test the material solutions actors suggest and 2) between each actors’ “resources at hand” repertoires by means of six selection criteria that help them to make decision on which material is relevant to use or not.

Depuis son introduction, la programmation mathématique à deux niveaux suscite un intérêt toujours croissant. En effet, vu ses applications dans une multitude de problèmes concrets (problèmes de gestion, planification économique, chimie, sciences environnementales,...), beaucoup de recherches ont été effectuées afin de contribuer à la résolution de cette classe de problèmes. Cette thèse est consacrée à l'étude de quelques classes de problèmes d'optimisation à deux niveaux, à savoir, les problèmes à deux niveaux forts, les problèmes à deux niveaux forts-faibles et les problèmes à deux niveaux semi-vectoriels. Le premier chapitre est consacré aux rappels de quelques définitions et résultats de topologie et d'analyse convexe que nous avons utilisé dans la suite. Dans le deuxième chapitre, nous avons rappelé quelques résultats théoriques et algorithmiques établis dans la littérature pour la résolution de quelques classes de problèmes d'optimisation à deux niveaux. Le troisième chapitre est consacré à l'étude d'un problème à deux niveaux fort-faible (SWBL). Vu la difficulté que présente cette classe de problèmes dans l'étude de l'existence de solutions, et afin de donner de nouvelles perspectives à leur résolution, nous avons procédé à une régularisation du problème. Sous des conditions suffisantes et via cette régularisation, nous avons montré que le problème (SWBL) admet au moins une solution. Dans le quatrième chapitre, nous avons donné une approche de dualité à un problème d'optimisation à deux niveaux fort (S). Cette approche est basée sur l'utilisation d'une régularisation et la dualité de Fenchel-Lagrange. En utilisant cette approche, nous avons donné des conditions nécessaires d'optimalité pour le problème (S). Enfin, des conditions suffisantes d'optimalité sont obtenues pour (S) sans utiliser l'approche. Une application concrète est donnée sur l'allocation de ressources. Dans le cinquième chapitre, nous avons étudié un problème à deux niveaux semi-vectoriel (SVBL). Pour ce problème, nous avons donné une approche de dualité en utilisant une régularisation, une scalarisation et la dualité de Fenchel-Lagrange. Puis, via cette approche et sous des hypothèses appropriées, nous avons donné des conditions nécessaires d'optimalité pour une classe de solutions du problème (SVBL). Finalement, des conditions suffisantes d'optimalité sont établies sont établies sans utiliser l'approche de dualité. / Since its introduction, the class of tao-level programming problems has attracted increasing interest. Indeed, because of its applications in a multitude of concrete problems (management problems, economic planning, chemistry, environmental sciences,...), several researchers have been interested in the study of such class of problems. This thesis deals with the study of some classes of two-level optimization problems, namely, strong two-level problems, strong-weak two-level problems and semi-vectorial two-level problems. In the first chapter, we have recalled some definitions and results related to topology and convex analysis that we have used in our study. In the second chapter, we have discussed some theoretical and algorithmic results established in the literature for solving some classes of two-level optimization problems. The third chapter deals with strong-weak Stackelberg problems. As it is well-known, such a class of problems presents difficulties in its study concerning the existence of solutions. So that, for a strong-weak two-level optimization problem, we have first given a regularization. Then, via this regularization and under appropriate assumptions we have shown the existence of solutions to such a problem. This result generalizes the one given in the literature for weak Stackelberg problems. In the fourth chapter, we have given a duality approach for a strong two-level programming problem (S). The duality approach is based on the use of a regularization and the Fenchel-Lagrange duality. Then, via this approach, we have given necessary optimality conditions for (S). Finally, sufficient optimality conditions are given for the initial problem (S). An application to a two-level resource allocation problem is given. In the fifth chapter, we have considered a semivectorial two-level programming problem (SVBL) where the upper and lower levels are vectorial and scalar respectively. For such a problem, we have given a duality approach based on the use of a regularization, a scalarization and the Fenchel-Lagrange duality. Then, via this approach we have established necessary optimality conditions for (SVBL). Finally, we have given sufficient optimality conditions without using the duality approach.

Concept of Two-level games is one of the most sophisticated approach for analysis of the process of international bargaining. Moreover, many research papers focused either on prediction of the outcome of international negotiations or on explanation of the outcomes of former negotiations are based on premises of this concept. However, its application on real example of the negotiation, specifically, on the SALT I talks between the Soviet Union and the United States shows that the Two-level games is not universally valid since many of its predictions have not been verified. There are certain limitations within crucial independent variables (defined by the concept) connected with domestic institutions and domestic preferences and their influence on the size of win-set which has direct impact on the results of the bargaining process. These limitations must be considered in the research. The analysis of the SALT I explores that heterogeneous preferences as well as relatively strong domestic institutions do not have to result in smaller win-set; that presence of no-agreement costs can reduce an influence of other variables, and; that presence of those non-expected (from the view of the original concept) consequences caused by the adjustment of the independent variables occurs within the negotiations...