Modelling energy utilisation in broiler breeder hens

1. The objective of this study was to determine a metabolisable energy ( ME) requirement model for broiler breeder hens. The influence of temperature on ME requirements for maintenance was determined in experiments conducted in three environmental rooms with temperatures kept constant at 13, 21 and 30 degrees C using a comparative slaughter technique. The energy requirements for weight gain were determined based upon body energy content and efficiency of energy utilisation for weight gain. The energy requirements for egg production were determined on the basis of egg energy content and efficiency of energy deposition in the eggs.2. The following model was developed using these results: ME = kgW(0.75)(806.53 - 26.45T + 0.50T(2)) + 31.90G + 10.04EM, where kgW(0.75) is body weight (kg) raised to the power 0.75, T is temperature (degrees C), G is weight gain (g) and EM is egg mass (g).3. A feeding trial was conducted using 400 Hubbard Hi-Yield broiler breeder hens and 40 Peterson males from 31 to 46 weeks of age in order to compare use of the model with a recommended feeding programme for this strain of bird. The application of the model in breeder hens provided good productive and reproductive performance and better results in feed and energy conversion than in hens fed according to strain recommendation. In conclusion, the model evaluated predicted an ME intake which matched breeder hens' requirements.

Modeling a spatially restricted distribution in the Neotropics: How the size of calibration area affects the performance of five presence-only methods

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Performance of tau-lepton reconstruction and identification in CMS

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Investigation into the impact of embedded generators on distribution system performance using theorem of superposition

Since the 1980s, huge efforts have been made to utilise renewable energy sources to generate electric power. One of the interesting issues about embedded generators is the question of optimal placement and sizing of the embedded generators. This paper reports an investigation of impact of the integration of embedded generators on the overall performances of the distribution networks in the steady state, using theorem of superposition. Set of distribution system indices is proposed to observe performances of the distribution networks with embedded generators. Results obtained from the case study using IEEE test network are presented and discussed.

Missing transverse energy performance of the CMS detector

Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)

Modelling energy utilization in poultry

Models of daily energy requirement can help to establish better and more profitable feeding programs for poultry. Studies have been conducted at UNESP-Jaboticabal-Brazil with the aim of studying energy utilization in broiler breeders, laying hens, and broilers, and to establish metabolisable energy requirement models. The factorial approach was used to partition the energy requirements into maintenance, growth, and production components. The resulting models consider body weight, weight gain, egg production, and environmental temperature for the determination of the energy requirements of poultry. These models were evaluated in performance trials and provided good estimates. Therefore, they can be used to establish nutritional programs. The aim of this chapter is to describe the development of these models and to outline the results of our studies at UNESP.

A model of road effect using line integrals and a test of the performance of two new road indices using the distribution of small mammals in an Atlantic Forest landscape

Effects of roads on wildlife and its habitat have been measured using metrics, such as the nearest road distance, road density, and effective mesh size. In this work we introduce two new indices: (1) Integral Road Effect (IRE), which measured the sum effects of points in a road at a fixed point in the forest; and (2) Average Value of the Infinitesimal Road Effect (AVIRE), which measured the average of the effects of roads at this point. IRE is formally defined as the line integral of a special function (the infinitesimal road effect) along the curves that model the roads, whereas AVIRE is the quotient of IRE by the length of the roads. Combining tools of ArcGIS software with a numerical algorithm, we calculated these and other road and habitat cover indices in a sample of points in a human-modified landscape in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest, where data on the abundance of two groups of small mammals (forest specialists and habitat generalists) were collected in the field. We then compared through the Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) a set of candidate regression models to explain the variation in small mammal abundance, including models with our two new road indices (AVIRE and IRE) or models with other road effect indices (nearest road distance, mesh size, and road density), and reference models (containing only habitat indices, or only the intercept without the effect of any variable). Compared to other road effect indices, AVIRE showed the best performance to explain abundance of forest specialist species, whereas the nearest road distance obtained the best performance to generalist species. AVIRE and habitat together were included in the best model for both small mammal groups, that is, higher abundance of specialist and generalist small mammals occurred where there is lower average road effect (less AVIRE) and more habitat. Moreover, AVIRE was not significantly correlated with habitat cover of specialists and generalists differing from the other road effect indices, except mesh size, which allows for separating the effect of roads from the effect of habitat on small mammal communities. We suggest that the proposed indices and GIS procedures could also be useful to describe other spatial ecological phenomena, such as edge effect in habitat fragments. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Modelling shared attention through relational reinforcement learning

Shared attention is a type of communication very important among human beings. It is sometimes reserved for the more complex form of communication being constituted by a sequence of four steps: mutual gaze, gaze following, imperative pointing and declarative pointing. Some approaches have been proposed in Human-Robot Interaction area to solve part of shared attention process, that is, the most of works proposed try to solve the first two steps. Models based on temporal difference, neural networks, probabilistic and reinforcement learning are methods used in several works. In this article, we are presenting a robotic architecture that provides a robot or agent, the capacity of learning mutual gaze, gaze following and declarative pointing using a robotic head interacting with a caregiver. Three learning methods have been incorporated to this architecture and a comparison of their performance has been done to find the most adequate to be used in real experiment. The learning capabilities of this architecture have been analyzed by observing the robot interacting with the human in a controlled environment. The experimental results show that the robotic head is able to produce appropriate behavior and to learn from sociable interaction.

Reduced-order modelling, circuit-level design and SOI fabrication of microelectromechanical resonators

This thesis deals with two important research aspects concerning radio frequency (RF) microresonators and switches. First, a new approach for compact modeling and simulation of these devices is presented. Then, a combined process flow for their simultaneous fabrication on a SOI substrate is proposed. Compact models for microresonators and switches are extracted by applying mathematical model order reduction (MOR) to the devices finite element (FE) description in ANSYS c° . The behaviour of these devices includes forms of nonlinearities. However, an approximation in the creation of the FE model is introduced, which enables the use of linear model order reduction. Microresonators are modeled with the introduction of transducer elements, which allow for direct coupling of the electrical and mechanical domain. The coupled system element matrices are linearized around an operating point and reduced. The resulting macromodel is valid for small signal analysis around the bias point, such as harmonic pre-stressed analysis. This is extremely useful for characterizing the frequency response of resonators. Compact modelling of switches preserves the nonlinearity of the device behaviour. Nonlinear reduced order models are obtained by reducing the number of nonlinearities in the system and handling them as input to the system. In this way, the system can be reduced using linear MOR techniques and nonlinearities are introduced directly in the reduced order model. The reduction of the number of system nonlinearities implies the approximation of all distributed forces in the model with lumped forces. Both for microresonators and switches, a procedure for matrices extraction has been developed so that reduced order models include the effects of electrical and mechanical pre-stress. The extraction process is fast and can be done automatically from ANSYS binary files. The method has been applied for the simulation of several devices both at devices and circuit level. Simulation results have been compared with full model simulations, and, when available, experimental data. Reduced order models have proven to conserve the accuracy of finite element method and to give a good description of the overall device behaviour, despite the introduced approximations. In addition, simulation is very fast, both at device and circuit level. A combined process-flow for the integrated fabrication of microresonators and switches has been defined. For this purpose, two processes that are optimized for the independent fabrication of these devices are merged. The major advantage of this process is the possibility to create on-chip circuit blocks that include both microresonators and switches. An application is, for example, aswitched filter bank for wireless transceiver. The process for microresonators fabrication is characterized by the use of silicon on insulator (SOI) wafers and on a deep reactive ion etching (DRIE) step for the creation of the vibrating structures in single-crystal silicon and the use of a sacrificial oxide layer for the definition of resonator to electrode distance. The fabrication of switches is characterized by the use of two different conductive layers for the definition of the actuation electrodes and by the use of a photoresist as a sacrificial layer for the creation of the suspended structure. Both processes have a gold electroplating step, for the creation of the resonators electrodes, transmission lines and suspended structures. The combined process flow is designed such that it conserves the basic properties of the original processes. Neither the performance of the resonators nor the performance of the switches results affected by the simultaneous fabrication. Moreover, common fabrication steps are shared, which allows for cheaper and faster fabrication.

Analisi e valutazione delle performance acustiche degli aeromobili nella fase di atterraggio

Nella tesi si analizzano le principali fonti del rumore aeronautico, lo stato dell'arte dal punto di vista normativo, tecnologico e procedurale. Si analizza lo stato dell'arte anche riguardo alla classificazione degli aeromobili, proponendo un nuovo indice prestazionale in alternativa a quello indicato dalla metodologia di certificazione (AC36-ICAO) Allo scopo di diminuire l'impatto acustico degli aeromobili in fase di atterraggio, si analizzano col programma INM i benefici di procedure CDA a 3° rispetto alle procedure tradizionali e, di seguito di procedure CDA ad angoli maggiori in termini di riduzione di lunghezza e di area delle isofoniche SEL85, SEL80 e SEL75.

Evaluation of the power production performance of the wavepiston, wave energy converter

In the early 1970 the community has started to realize that have as a main principle the industry one, with the oblivion of the people and health conditions and of the world in general, it could not be a guideline principle. The sea, as an energy source, has the characteristic of offering different types of exploitation, in this project the focus is on the wave energy. Over the last 15 years the Countries interested in the renewable energies grew. Therefore many devices have came out, first in the world of research, then in the commercial one; these converters are able to achieve an energy transformation into electrical energy. The purpose of this work is to analyze the efficiency of a new wave energy converter, called WavePiston, with the aim of determine the feasibility of its actual application in different wave conditions: from the energy sea state of the North Sea, to the more quiet of the Mediterranean Sea. The evaluation of the WavePiston is based on the experimental investigation conducted at the University of Aalborg, in Denmark; and on a numerical modelling of the device in question, to ascertain its efficiency regardless the laboratory results. The numerical model is able to predict the laboratory condition, but it is not yet a model which can be used for any installation, in fact no mooring or economical aspect are included yet. È dai primi anni del 1970 che si è iniziato a capire che il solo principio dell’industria con l’incuranza delle condizioni salutari delle persone e del mondo in generale non poteva essere un principio guida. Il mare, come fonte energetica, ha la caratteristica di offrire diverse tipologie di sfruttamento, in questo progetto è stata analizzata l’energia da onda. Negli ultimi 15 anni sono stati sempre più in aumento i Paesi interessati in questo ambito e di conseguenza, si sono affacciati, prima nel mondo della ricerca, poi in quello commerciale, sempre più dispositivi atti a realizzare questa trasformazione energetica. Di tali convertitori di energia ondosa ne esistono diverse classificazioni. Scopo di tale lavoro è analizzare l’efficienza di un nuovo convertitore di energia ondosa, chiamato WavePiston, al fine si stabilire la fattibilità di una sua reale applicazione in diverse condizioni ondose: dalle più energetiche del Mare del Nord, alle più quiete del Mar Mediterraneo. La valutazione sul WavePiston è basata sullo studio sperimentale condotto nell’Università di Aalborg, in Danimarca; e su di una modellazione numerica del dispositivo stesso, al fine di conoscerne l’efficienza a prescindere dalla possibilità di avere risultati di laboratorio. Il modello numerico è in grado di predirre le condizioni di laboratorio, ma non considera ancora elementi come gli ancoraggi o valutazione dei costi.

Modelling and analysis of internally BFRP reinforced beams at elevated temperatures

The aim of the work is to conduct a finite element model analysis on a small – size concrete beam and on a full size concrete beam internally reinforced with BFRP exposed at elevated temperatures. Experimental tests performed at Kingston University have been used to compare the results from the numerical analysis for the small – size concrete beam. Once the behavior of the small – size beam at room temperature is investigated and switching to the heating phase reinforced beams are tested at 100°C, 200°C and 300°C in loaded condition. The aim of the finite element analysis is to reflect the three – point bending test adopted into the oven during the exposure of the beam at room temperature and at elevated temperatures. Performance and deformability of reinforced beams are straightly correlated to the material properties and a wide analysis on elastic modulus and coefficient of thermal expansion is given in this work. Develop a good correlation between the numerical model and the experimental test is the main objective of the analysis on the small – size concrete beam, for both modelling the aim is also to estimate which is the deterioration of the material properties due to the heating process and the influence of different parameters on the final result. The focus of the full – size modelling which involved the last part of this work is to evaluate the effect of elevated temperatures, the material deterioration and the deflection trend on a reinforced beam characterized by a different size. A comparison between the results from different modelling has been developed.

Dynamic thermal performance of building components and application to the experimental and theoretical analysis of a ventilated façade

The general aim of this work is to contribute to the energy performance assessment of ventilated façades by the simultaneous use of experimental data and numerical simulations. A significant amount of experimental work was done on different types of ventilated façades with natural ventilation. The measurements were taken on a test building. The external walls of this tower are rainscreen ventilated façades. Ventilation grills are located at the top and at the bottom of the tower. In this work the modelling of the test building using a dynamic thermal simulation program (ESP-r) is presented and the main results discussed. In order to investigate the best summer thermal performance of rainscreen ventilated skin façade a study for different setups of rainscreen walls was made. In particular, influences of ventilation grills, air cavity thickness, skin colour, skin material, orientation of façade were investigated. It is shown that some types of rainscreen ventilated façade typologies are capable of lowering the cooling energy demand of a few percent points.

Electrothermal characterization and nonlinear modelling of GaN transistors for telecommunication circuit design

This thesis starts showing the main characteristics and application fields of the AlGaN/GaN HEMT technology, focusing on reliability aspects essentially due to the presence of low frequency dispersive phenomena which limit in several ways the microwave performance of this kind of devices. Based on an equivalent voltage approach, a new low frequency device model is presented where the dynamic nonlinearity of the trapping effect is taken into account for the first time allowing considerable improvements in the prediction of very important quantities for the design of power amplifier such as power added efficiency, dissipated power and internal device temperature. An innovative and low-cost measurement setup for the characterization of the device under low-frequency large-amplitude sinusoidal excitation is also presented. This setup allows the identification of the new low frequency model through suitable procedures explained in detail. In this thesis a new non-invasive empirical method for compact electrothermal modeling and thermal resistance extraction is also described. The new contribution of the proposed approach concerns the non linear dependence of the channel temperature on the dissipated power. This is very important for GaN devices since they are capable of operating at relatively high temperatures with high power densities and the dependence of the thermal resistance on the temperature is quite relevant. Finally a novel method for the device thermal simulation is investigated: based on the analytical solution of the tree-dimensional heat equation, a Visual Basic program has been developed to estimate, in real time, the temperature distribution on the hottest surface of planar multilayer structures. The developed solver is particularly useful for peak temperature estimation at the design stage when critical decisions about circuit design and packaging have to be made. It facilitates the layout optimization and reliability improvement, allowing the correct choice of the device geometry and configuration to achieve the best possible thermal performance.

Numerical Modelling of Graphene Nanoribbon-fets for Analog and Digital Applications

Graphene, that is a monolayer of carbon atoms arranged in a honeycomb lattice, has been isolated only recently from graphite. This material shows very attractive physical properties, like superior carrier mobility, current carrying capability and thermal conductivity. In consideration of that, graphene has been the object of large investigation as a promising candidate to be used in nanometer-scale devices for electronic applications. In this work, graphene nanoribbons (GNRs), that are narrow strips of graphene, for which a band-gap is induced by the quantum confinement of carriers in the transverse direction, have been studied. As experimental GNR-FETs are still far from being ideal, mainly due to the large width and edge roughness, an accurate description of the physical phenomena occurring in these devices is required to have valuable predictions about the performance of these novel structures. A code has been developed to this purpose and used to investigate the performance of 1 to 15-nm wide GNR-FETs. Due to the importance of an accurate description of the quantum effects in the operation of graphene devices, a full-quantum transport model has been adopted: the electron dynamics has been described by a tight-binding (TB) Hamiltonian model and transport has been solved within the formalism of the non-equilibrium Green's functions (NEGF). Both ballistic and dissipative transport are considered. The inclusion of the electron-phonon interaction has been taken into account in the self-consistent Born approximation. In consideration of their different energy band-gap, narrow GNRs are expected to be suitable for logic applications, while wider ones could be promising candidates as channel material for radio-frequency applications.