Mechanical design and analysis of modular active magnetic bearing test rig

Tässä työssä on tutkittu modulaarisen aktiivimagneettilaakeroidun koelaitteen mekaanista suunnittelua ja analysointia. Suurnopeusroottorin suunnittelun teoria on esitelty. Lisäksi monia analyyttisiä mallinnusmenetelmiä mekaanisten kuormitusten mallintamiseksi on esitelty. Koska kyseessä on suurnopeussähkökone, roottoridynamiikka ja sen soveltuvuus suunnittelussa on esitelty. Magneettilaakerien rakenteeseen ja toimintaan on tutustuttu osana tätä työtä. Kirjallisuuskatsaus nykyisistä koelaitteista esimerkiksi komponenttien ominaisuuksien tunnistamiseen ja roottoridynamiikan tutkimuksiin on esitelty. Työn rajauksena on konseptisuunnittelu muunneltavalle magneettilaakeroidulle (AMB) koelaitteelle ja suunnitteluprosessin dokumentointi. Muunneltavuuteen päädyttiin, koska se mahdollistaa erilaisten komponenttiasetteluiden testaamisen erilaisille magneettilaakerikokoonpanoille ja roottoreille. Pääpaino tässä työssä on suurnopeus induktiokoneen roottorin suunnittelussa ja mallintamisessa. Modulaaristen toimilaitteiden kuten magneettilaakerien ja induktiosähkömoottorin rakenne on esitelty ja modulaarisen rakenteen käytettävyyden hyödyistä koelaitekäytössä on dokumentoitu. Analyyttisiä ja elementtimenetelmään perustuvia tutkimusmenetelmiä on käytetty tutkittaessa suunniteltua suurnopeusroottoria. Suunnittelun ja analysoinnin tulokset on esitelty ja verrattu keskenään eri mallinnusmenetelmien välillä. Lisäksi johtopäätökset sähkömagneettisten osien liittämisen monimutkaisuudesta ja vaatimuksista roottoriin ja toimilaitteisiin sekä mekaanisten että sähkömagneettisten ominaisuuksien optimoimiseksi on dokumentoitu.

Horizontal projections of area 17 in Cebus monkeys: metric features, and modular and laminar distribution

Metric features and modular and laminar distributions of intrinsic projections of area 17 were studied in Cebus apella. Anterogradely and retrogradely labeled cell appendages were obtained using both saturated pellets and iontophoretic injections of biocytin into the operculum. Laminar and modular distributions of the labeled processes were analyzed using Nissl counterstaining, and/or cytochrome oxidase and/or NADPH-diaphorase histochemistry. We distinguished three labeled cell types: pyramidal, star pyramidal and stellate cells located in supragranular cortical layers (principally in layers IIIa, IIIb a, IIIb ß and IIIc). Three distinct axon terminal morphologies were found, i.e., Ia, Ib and II located in granular and supragranular layers. Both complete and partial segregation of group I axon terminals relative to the limits of the blobs of V1 were found. The results are compatible with recent evidence of incomplete segregation of visual information flow in V1 of Old and New World primates

Designing sustainable industrial ecosystems : the case of a biogas-for-traffic solution

This thesis focuses on the development of sustainable industrial architectures for bioenergy based on the metaphors of industrial symbiosis and industrial ecosystems, which imply exchange of material and energy side-flows of various industries in order to improve sustainability of those industries on a system level. The studies on industrial symbiosis have been criticised for staying at the level of incremental changes by striving for cycling waste and by-flows of the industries ‘as is’ and leaving the underlying industry structures intact. Moreover, there has been articulated the need for interdisciplinary research on industrial ecosystems as well as the need to extend the management and business perspectives on industrial ecology. This thesis addresses this call by applying a business ecosystem and business model perspective on industrial symbiosis in order to produce knowledge on how industrial ecosystems can be developed that are sustainable environmentally and economically. A case of biogas business is explored and described in four research papers and an extended summary that form this thesis. Since the aim of the research was to produce a normative model for developing sustainable industrial ecosystems, the methodology applied in this research can be characterised as constructive and collaborative. A constructive research mode was required in order to expand the historical knowledge on industrial symbiosis development and business ecosystem development into the knowledge of what should be done, which is crucial for sustainability and the social change it requires. A collaborative research mode was employed through participating in a series of projects devoted to the development of a biogas-for-traffic industrial ecosystem. The results of the study showed that the development of material flow interconnections within industrial symbiosis is inseparable from larger business ecosystem restructuring. This included a shift in the logic of the biogas and traffic fuel industry and a subsequent development of a business ecosystem that would entail the principles of industrial symbiosis and localised energy production and consumption. Since a company perspective has been taken in this thesis, the role of an ecosystem integrator appeared as a crucial means to achieve the required industry restructuring. This, in turn, required the development of a modular and boundary-spanning business model that had a strong focus on establishing collaboration among ecosystem stakeholders and development of multiple local industrial ecosystems as part of business growth. As a result, the designed business model of the ecosystem integrator acquired the necessary flexibility in order to adjust to local conditions, which is crucial for establishing industrial symbiosis. This thesis presents a normative model for the development of a business model required for creating sustainable industrial ecosystems, which contributes to approaches at the policy-makers’ level, proposed earlier. Therefore, this study addresses the call for more research on the business level of industrial ecosystem formation and the implications for the business models of the involved actors. Moreover, the thesis increases the understanding of system innovation and innovation in business ecosystems by explicating how business model innovation can be the trigger for achieving more sustainable industry structures, such as those relying on industrial symbiosis.

Virtual Runtime Application Partitions for Resource Management in Massively Parallel Architectures

This thesis presents a novel design paradigm, called Virtual Runtime Application Partitions (VRAP), to judiciously utilize the on-chip resources. As the dark silicon era approaches, where the power considerations will allow only a fraction chip to be powered on, judicious resource management will become a key consideration in future designs. Most of the works on resource management treat only the physical components (i.e. computation, communication, and memory blocks) as resources and manipulate the component to application mapping to optimize various parameters (e.g. energy efficiency). To further enhance the optimization potential, in addition to the physical resources we propose to manipulate abstract resources (i.e. voltage/frequency operating point, the fault-tolerance strength, the degree of parallelism, and the configuration architecture). The proposed framework (i.e. VRAP) encapsulates methods, algorithms, and hardware blocks to provide each application with the abstract resources tailored to its needs. To test the efficacy of this concept, we have developed three distinct self adaptive environments: (i) Private Operating Environment (POE), (ii) Private Reliability Environment (PRE), and (iii) Private Configuration Environment (PCE) that collectively ensure that each application meets its deadlines using minimal platform resources. In this work several novel architectural enhancements, algorithms and policies are presented to realize the virtual runtime application partitions efficiently. Considering the future design trends, we have chosen Coarse Grained Reconfigurable Architectures (CGRAs) and Network on Chips (NoCs) to test the feasibility of our approach. Specifically, we have chosen Dynamically Reconfigurable Resource Array (DRRA) and McNoC as the representative CGRA and NoC platforms. The proposed techniques are compared and evaluated using a variety of quantitative experiments. Synthesis and simulation results demonstrate VRAP significantly enhances the energy and power efficiency compared to state of the art.

Modular Double-Cascade Converter

Medium-voltage motor drives extend the power rating of AC motor drives in industrial applications. Multilevel converters are gaining an ever-stronger foothold in this field. This doctoral dissertation introduces a new topology to the family of modular multilevel converters: the modular double-cascade converter. The modularity of the converter is enabled by the application of multiwinding mediumfrequency isolation transformers. Owing to the innovative transformer link, the converter presents many advantageous properties at a concept level: modularity, high input and output power quality, small footprint, and wide variety of applications, among others. Further, the research demonstrates that the transformer link also plays a key role in the disadvantages of the topology. An extensive simulation study on the new converter is performed. The focus of the simulation study is on the development of control algorithms and the feasibility of the topology. In particular, the circuit and control concepts used in the grid interface, the coupling configurations of the load inverter, and the transformer link operation are thoroughly investigated. Experimental results provide proof-of-concept results on the operation principle of the converter. This work concludes a research collaboration project on multilevel converters between LUT and Vacon Plc. The project was active from 2009 until 2014.

Readout architectures for hybrid pixel detector readout chips

The original contribution of this thesis to knowledge are novel digital readout architectures for hybrid pixel readout chips. The thesis presents asynchronous bus-based architecture, a data-node based column architecture and a network-based pixel matrix architecture for data transportation. It is shown that the data-node architecture achieves readout efficiency 99% with half the output rate as a bus-based system. The network-based solution avoids “broken” columns due to some manufacturing errors, and it distributes internal data traffic more evenly across the pixel matrix than column-based architectures. An improvement of > 10% to the efficiency is achieved with uniform and non-uniform hit occupancies. Architectural design has been done using transaction level modeling (TLM) and sequential high-level design techniques for reducing the design and simulation time. It has been possible to simulate tens of column and full chip architectures using the high-level techniques. A decrease of > 10 in run-time is observed using these techniques compared to register transfer level (RTL) design technique. Reduction of 50% for lines-of-code (LoC) for the high-level models compared to the RTL description has been achieved. Two architectures are then demonstrated in two hybrid pixel readout chips. The first chip, Timepix3 has been designed for the Medipix3 collaboration. According to the measurements, it consumes < 1 W/cm^2. It also delivers up to 40 Mhits/s/cm^2 with 10-bit time-over-threshold (ToT) and 18-bit time-of-arrival (ToA) of 1.5625 ns. The chip uses a token-arbitrated, asynchronous two-phase handshake column bus for internal data transfer. It has also been successfully used in a multi-chip particle tracking telescope. The second chip, VeloPix, is a readout chip being designed for the upgrade of Vertex Locator (VELO) of the LHCb experiment at CERN. Based on the simulations, it consumes < 1.5 W/cm^2 while delivering up to 320 Mpackets/s/cm^2, each packet containing up to 8 pixels. VeloPix uses a node-based data fabric for achieving throughput of 13.3 Mpackets/s from the column to the EoC. By combining Monte Carlo physics data with high-level simulations, it has been demonstrated that the architecture meets requirements of the VELO (260 Mpackets/s/cm^2 with efficiency of 99%).

Development of modular roll service concepts

The goal of this study was to find and develop new or improved service concepts for rolls in a paper machine and secondary targets were to find out what the KPIs and values of the concepts are. Two methodologies were utilized in researching this problem; firstly sales personnel were interviewed about customer values and KPIs and a questionnaire about service modules were sent out to four BSI (basic sales item) responsible persons. Throughout the research process differences in geographic regions were identified and several customer KPIs and values were discovered. The interviews showed that the main concern for customers is the cost of operations. The goal is to produce the same or in some cases more tons with smaller operating costs. The questionnaire standardized the data about service modules and made it possible to link these values, KPIs and concerns of customers to Valmet’s service offering. Eventually these service modules were used to create a service concepts that offer flexibility, cost savings, safety and peace of mind for the customers. With this new conceptual approach Valmet can more flexibly answer to customer quotations and modify the offering to better generate customer value and customer satisfaction. In addition a new BSI was defined and proposed for pilot projects.

Fundamentos epistemológicos da teoria modular da mente de Jerry A. Fodor

Este artigo é uma apresentação dos fundamentos da teoria modular desenvolvida por Jerry A. Fodor e uma reflexão sobre seus principais desafios. A noção de modularidade da mente de Fodor, por um lado, procura superar as insuficiências metodológicas e epistemológicas do associacionismo e do localizacionismo a respeito das explicações da estrutura e do funcionamento mental; por outro lado, é uma oposição à postura culturalista de Vygotsky, para o qual as funções superiores da mente, como a cognição, são produtos artificiais, culturais. A psicologia cognitiva de Chomsky converteu esse produto "artificial" em "natural", postulando a existência de módulos inatos para desempenhar funções cognitivas específicos. Com base nessa ideia de Chomsky, Fodor procura explicar a mente como um conjunto de módulos. No entanto, sua principal contribuição para as ciências cognitivas é a apresentação da arquitetura mental em dois níveis e a afirmação da existência de módulos centrais responsáveis pelas atividades cognitivas superiores, como criatividade, reflexão ou imaginação.

Investigating a dynamic modular framework for subjective well-being

According to Diener (1984), the three primary components of subjective well-being (SWB) are high life satisfaction (LS), frequent positive affect (P A), and infrequent negative affect (NA). The present dissertation extends previous research and theorizing on SWB by testing an innovative framework developed by Shmotkin (2005) in which SWB is conceptualized as an agentic process that promotes and maintains positive functioning. Two key components ofShmotkin's framework were explored in a longitudinal study of university students. In Part 1, SWB was examined as an integrated system of components organized within individuals. Using cluster analysis, five distinct configurations of LS, P A, and NA were identified at each wave. Individuals' SWB configurations were moderately stable over time, with the highest and lowest stabilities observed among participants characterized by "high SWB" and "low SWB" configurations, respectively. Changes in SWB configurations in the direction of a high SWB pattern, and stability among participants already characterized by high SWB, coincided with better than expected mental, physical, and interpersonal functioning over time. More positive levels of functioning and improvements in functioning over time discriminated among SWB configurations. However, prospective effects of SWB configurations on subsequent functioning were not observed. In Part 2, subjective temporal perspective "trajectories" were examined based on individuals' ratings of their past, present, and anticipated future LS. Upward subjective LS trajectories were normative at each wave. Cross-sectional analyses revealed consistent associations between upward subjective trajectories and lower levels of LS, as well as less positive mental, physical, and interpersonal functioning. Upward subjective LS trajectories were biased both with respect to underestimation of past LS and overestimation of future LS, demonstrating their illusional nature. Further, whereas more negative retrospective bias was associated with greater current distress and dysfunction, more positive prospective bias was associated with less positive functioning in the future. Prospective relations, however, were not consistently observed. Thus, steep upward subjective LS trajectory appeared to be a form of wishful-thinking, rather than an adaptive form of selfenhancement. Major limitations and important directions for future research are considered. Implications for Shmotkin's (2005) framework, and for research on SWB more generally, also are discussed

Automatic evolution of conceptual building architectures

This thesis describes research in which genetic programming is used to automatically evolve shape grammars that construct three dimensional models of possible external building architectures. A completely automated fitness function is used, which evaluates the three dimensional building models according to different geometric properties such as surface normals, height, building footprint, and more. In order to evaluate the buildings on the different criteria, a multi-objective fitness function is used. The results obtained from the automated system were successful in satisfying the multiple objective criteria as well as creating interesting and unique designs that a human-aided system might not discover. In this study of evolutionary design, the architectures created are not meant to be fully functional and structurally sound blueprints for constructing a building, but are meant to be inspirational ideas for possible architectural designs. The evolved models are applicable for today's architectural industries as well as in the video game and movie industries. Many new avenues for future work have also been discovered and highlighted.

Aprovechamiento del alumno de enseñanza media superior, en el área de matemáticas dentro del sistema modular: Un análisis de su dimensión psicopedagógica

Tesis ( Maestría en Enseñanza Superior) U.A.N.L.

Training deep convolutional architectures for vision

Les tâches de vision artificielle telles que la reconnaissance d’objets demeurent irrésolues à ce jour. Les algorithmes d’apprentissage tels que les Réseaux de Neurones Artificiels (RNA), représentent une approche prometteuse permettant d’apprendre des caractéristiques utiles pour ces tâches. Ce processus d’optimisation est néanmoins difficile. Les réseaux profonds à base de Machine de Boltzmann Restreintes (RBM) ont récemment été proposés afin de guider l’extraction de représentations intermédiaires, grâce à un algorithme d’apprentissage non-supervisé. Ce mémoire présente, par l’entremise de trois articles, des contributions à ce domaine de recherche. Le premier article traite de la RBM convolutionelle. L’usage de champs réceptifs locaux ainsi que le regroupement d’unités cachées en couches partageant les même paramètres, réduit considérablement le nombre de paramètres à apprendre et engendre des détecteurs de caractéristiques locaux et équivariant aux translations. Ceci mène à des modèles ayant une meilleure vraisemblance, comparativement aux RBMs entraînées sur des segments d’images. Le deuxième article est motivé par des découvertes récentes en neurosciences. Il analyse l’impact d’unités quadratiques sur des tâches de classification visuelles, ainsi que celui d’une nouvelle fonction d’activation. Nous observons que les RNAs à base d’unités quadratiques utilisant la fonction softsign, donnent de meilleures performances de généralisation. Le dernière article quand à lui, offre une vision critique des algorithmes populaires d’entraînement de RBMs. Nous montrons que l’algorithme de Divergence Contrastive (CD) et la CD Persistente ne sont pas robustes : tous deux nécessitent une surface d’énergie relativement plate afin que leur chaîne négative puisse mixer. La PCD à "poids rapides" contourne ce problème en perturbant légèrement le modèle, cependant, ceci génère des échantillons bruités. L’usage de chaînes tempérées dans la phase négative est une façon robuste d’adresser ces problèmes et mène à de meilleurs modèles génératifs.

Understanding deep architectures and the effect of unsupervised pre-training

Cette thèse porte sur une classe d'algorithmes d'apprentissage appelés architectures profondes. Il existe des résultats qui indiquent que les représentations peu profondes et locales ne sont pas suffisantes pour la modélisation des fonctions comportant plusieurs facteurs de variation. Nous sommes particulièrement intéressés par ce genre de données car nous espérons qu'un agent intelligent sera en mesure d'apprendre à les modéliser automatiquement; l'hypothèse est que les architectures profondes sont mieux adaptées pour les modéliser. Les travaux de Hinton (2006) furent une véritable percée, car l'idée d'utiliser un algorithme d'apprentissage non-supervisé, les machines de Boltzmann restreintes, pour l'initialisation des poids d'un réseau de neurones supervisé a été cruciale pour entraîner l'architecture profonde la plus populaire, soit les réseaux de neurones artificiels avec des poids totalement connectés. Cette idée a été reprise et reproduite avec succès dans plusieurs contextes et avec une variété de modèles. Dans le cadre de cette thèse, nous considérons les architectures profondes comme des biais inductifs. Ces biais sont représentés non seulement par les modèles eux-mêmes, mais aussi par les méthodes d'entraînement qui sont souvent utilisés en conjonction avec ceux-ci. Nous désirons définir les raisons pour lesquelles cette classe de fonctions généralise bien, les situations auxquelles ces fonctions pourront être appliquées, ainsi que les descriptions qualitatives de telles fonctions. L'objectif de cette thèse est d'obtenir une meilleure compréhension du succès des architectures profondes. Dans le premier article, nous testons la concordance entre nos intuitions---que les réseaux profonds sont nécessaires pour mieux apprendre avec des données comportant plusieurs facteurs de variation---et les résultats empiriques. Le second article est une étude approfondie de la question: pourquoi l'apprentissage non-supervisé aide à mieux généraliser dans un réseau profond? Nous explorons et évaluons plusieurs hypothèses tentant d'élucider le fonctionnement de ces modèles. Finalement, le troisième article cherche à définir de façon qualitative les fonctions modélisées par un réseau profond. Ces visualisations facilitent l'interprétation des représentations et invariances modélisées par une architecture profonde.

Approche efficace pour la conception des architectures multiprocesseurs sur puce électronique

Les systèmes multiprocesseurs sur puce électronique (On-Chip Multiprocessor [OCM]) sont considérés comme les meilleures structures pour occuper l'espace disponible sur les circuits intégrés actuels. Dans nos travaux, nous nous intéressons à un modèle architectural, appelé architecture isométrique de systèmes multiprocesseurs sur puce, qui permet d'évaluer, de prédire et d'optimiser les systèmes OCM en misant sur une organisation efficace des nœuds (processeurs et mémoires), et à des méthodologies qui permettent d'utiliser efficacement ces architectures. Dans la première partie de la thèse, nous nous intéressons à la topologie du modèle et nous proposons une architecture qui permet d'utiliser efficacement et massivement les mémoires sur la puce. Les processeurs et les mémoires sont organisés selon une approche isométrique qui consiste à rapprocher les données des processus plutôt que d'optimiser les transferts entre les processeurs et les mémoires disposés de manière conventionnelle. L'architecture est un modèle maillé en trois dimensions. La disposition des unités sur ce modèle est inspirée de la structure cristalline du chlorure de sodium (NaCl), où chaque processeur peut accéder à six mémoires à la fois et où chaque mémoire peut communiquer avec autant de processeurs à la fois. Dans la deuxième partie de notre travail, nous nous intéressons à une méthodologie de décomposition où le nombre de nœuds du modèle est idéal et peut être déterminé à partir d'une spécification matricielle de l'application qui est traitée par le modèle proposé. Sachant que la performance d'un modèle dépend de la quantité de flot de données échangées entre ses unités, en l'occurrence leur nombre, et notre but étant de garantir une bonne performance de calcul en fonction de l'application traitée, nous proposons de trouver le nombre idéal de processeurs et de mémoires du système à construire. Aussi, considérons-nous la décomposition de la spécification du modèle à construire ou de l'application à traiter en fonction de l'équilibre de charge des unités. Nous proposons ainsi une approche de décomposition sur trois points : la transformation de la spécification ou de l'application en une matrice d'incidence dont les éléments sont les flots de données entre les processus et les données, une nouvelle méthodologie basée sur le problème de la formation des cellules (Cell Formation Problem [CFP]), et un équilibre de charge de processus dans les processeurs et de données dans les mémoires. Dans la troisième partie, toujours dans le souci de concevoir un système efficace et performant, nous nous intéressons à l'affectation des processeurs et des mémoires par une méthodologie en deux étapes. Dans un premier temps, nous affectons des unités aux nœuds du système, considéré ici comme un graphe non orienté, et dans un deuxième temps, nous affectons des valeurs aux arcs de ce graphe. Pour l'affectation, nous proposons une modélisation des applications décomposées en utilisant une approche matricielle et l'utilisation du problème d'affectation quadratique (Quadratic Assignment Problem [QAP]). Pour l'affectation de valeurs aux arcs, nous proposons une approche de perturbation graduelle, afin de chercher la meilleure combinaison du coût de l'affectation, ceci en respectant certains paramètres comme la température, la dissipation de chaleur, la consommation d'énergie et la surface occupée par la puce. Le but ultime de ce travail est de proposer aux architectes de systèmes multiprocesseurs sur puce une méthodologie non traditionnelle et un outil systématique et efficace d'aide à la conception dès la phase de la spécification fonctionnelle du système.

Nouvelles architectures de type "rotaxanes-hôte" pour la catalyse supramoléculaire

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal