Comparative Analysis of Alternative Hybrid Systems for Automotive Applications

The main objective of this work was to investigate the impact of different hybridization concepts and levels of hybridization on fuel economy of a standard road vehicle where both conventional and non-conventional hybrid architectures are treated exactly in the same way from the point of view of overall energy flow optimization. Hybrid component models were developed and presented in detail as well as the simulations results mainly for NEDC cycle. The analysis was performed on four different parallel hybrid powertrain concepts: Hybrid Electric Vehicle (HEV), High Speed Flywheel Hybrid Vehicle (HSF-HV), Hydraulic Hybrid Vehicle (HHV) and Pneumatic Hybrid Vehicle (PHV). In order to perform equitable analysis of different hybrid systems, comparison was performed also on the basis of the same usable system energy storage capacity (i.e. 625kJ for HEV, HSF and the HHV) but in the case of pneumatic hybrid systems maximal storage capacity was limited by the size of the systems in order to comply with the packaging requirements of the vehicle. The simulations were performed within the IAV Gmbh - VeLoDyn software simulator based on Matlab / Simulink software package. Advanced cycle independent control strategy (ECMS) was implemented into the hybrid supervisory control unit in order to solve power management problem for all hybrid powertrain solutions. In order to maintain State of Charge within desired boundaries during different cycles and to facilitate easy implementation and recalibration of the control strategy for very different hybrid systems, Charge Sustaining Algorithm was added into the ECMS framework. Also, a Variable Shift Pattern VSP-ECMS algorithm was proposed as an extension of ECMS capabilities so as to include gear selection into the determination of minimal (energy) cost function of the hybrid system. Further, cycle-based energetic analysis was performed in all the simulated cases, and the results have been reported in the corresponding chapters.

Novel tools for conservation genetics in marine fish: population structure and evolution of the European hake (Merluccius merluccius) inferred by SNP variation and applications to traceability

The research presented in my PhD thesis is part of a wider European project, FishPopTrace, focused on traceability of fish populations and products. My work was aimed at developing and analyzing novel genetic tools for a widely distributed marine fish species, the European hake (Merluccius merluccius), in order to investigate population genetic structure and explore potential applications to traceability scenarios. A total of 395 SNPs (Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms) were discovered from a massive collection of Expressed Sequence Tags, obtained by high-throughput sequencing, and validated on 19 geographic samples from Atlantic and Mediterranean. Genome-scan approaches were applied to identify polymorphisms on genes potentially under divergent selection (outlier SNPs), showing higher genetic differentiation among populations respect to the average observed across loci. Comparative analysis on population structure were carried out on putative neutral and outlier loci at wide (Atlantic and Mediterranean samples) and regional (samples within each basin) spatial scales, to disentangle the effects of demographic and adaptive evolutionary forces on European hake populations genetic structure. Results demonstrated the potential of outlier loci to unveil fine scale genetic structure, possibly identifying locally adapted populations, despite the weak signal showed from putative neutral SNPs. The application of outlier SNPs within the framework of fishery resources management was also explored. A minimum panel of SNP markers showing maximum discriminatory power was selected and applied to a traceability scenario aiming at identifying the basin (and hence the stock) of origin, Atlantic or Mediterranean, of individual fish. This case study illustrates how molecular analytical technologies have operational potential in real-world contexts, and more specifically, potential to support fisheries control and enforcement and fish and fish product traceability.

Nonlinear constrained and saturated control of power electronics and electromechanical systems

Power electronic converters are extensively adopted for the solution of timely issues, such as power quality improvement in industrial plants, energy management in hybrid electrical systems, and control of electrical generators for renewables. Beside nonlinearity, this systems are typically characterized by hard constraints on the control inputs, and sometimes the state variables. In this respect, control laws able to handle input saturation are crucial to formally characterize the systems stability and performance properties. From a practical viewpoint, a proper saturation management allows to extend the systems transient and steady-state operating ranges, improving their reliability and availability. The main topic of this thesis concern saturated control methodologies, based on modern approaches, applied to power electronics and electromechanical systems. The pursued objective is to provide formal results under any saturation scenario, overcoming the drawbacks of the classic solution commonly applied to cope with saturation of power converters, and enhancing performance. For this purpose two main approaches are exploited and extended to deal with power electronic applications: modern anti-windup strategies, providing formal results and systematic design rules for the anti-windup compensator, devoted to handle control saturation, and “one step” saturated feedback design techniques, relying on a suitable characterization of the saturation nonlinearity and less conservative extensions of standard absolute stability theory results. The first part of the thesis is devoted to present and develop a novel general anti-windup scheme, which is then specifically applied to a class of power converters adopted for power quality enhancement in industrial plants. In the second part a polytopic differential inclusion representation of saturation nonlinearity is presented and extended to deal with a class of multiple input power converters, used to manage hybrid electrical energy sources. The third part regards adaptive observers design for robust estimation of the parameters required for high performance control of power systems.

Bottle microresonators for applications in quantum optics and all-optical signal processing

This thesis reports on the experimental realization, characterization and application of a novel microresonator design. The so-called “bottle microresonator” sustains whispering-gallery modes in which light fields are confined near the surface of the micron-sized silica structure by continuous total internal reflection. While whispering-gallery mode resonators in general exhibit outstanding properties in terms of both temporal and spatial confinement of light fields, their monolithic design makes tuning of their resonance frequency difficult. This impedes their use, e.g., in cavity quantum electrodynamics (CQED) experiments, which investigate the interaction of single quantum mechanical emitters of predetermined resonance frequency with a cavity mode. In contrast, the highly prolate shape of the bottle microresonators gives rise to a customizable mode structure, enabling full tunability. The thesis is organized as follows: In chapter I, I give a brief overview of different types of optical microresonators. Important quantities, such as the quality factor Q and the mode volume V, which characterize the temporal and spatial confinement of the light field are introduced. In chapter II, a wave equation calculation of the modes of a bottle microresonator is presented. The intensity distribution of different bottle modes is derived and their mode volume is calculated. A brief description of light propagation in ultra-thin optical fibers, which are used to couple light into and out of bottle modes, is given as well. The chapter concludes with a presentation of the fabrication techniques of both structures. Chapter III presents experimental results on highly efficient, nearly lossless coupling of light into bottle modes as well as their spatial and spectral characterization. Ultra-high intrinsic quality factors exceeding 360 million as well as full tunability are demonstrated. In chapter IV, the bottle microresonator in add-drop configuration, i.e., with two ultra-thin fibers coupled to one bottle mode, is discussed. The highly efficient, nearly lossless coupling characteristics of each fiber combined with the resonator's high intrinsic quality factor, enable resonant power transfers between both fibers with efficiencies exceeding 90%. Moreover, the favorable ratio of absorption and the nonlinear refractive index of silica yields optical Kerr bistability at record low powers on the order of 50 µW. Combined with the add-drop configuration, this allows one to route optical signals between the outputs of both ultra-thin fibers, simply by varying the input power, thereby enabling applications in all-optical signal processing. Finally, in chapter V, I discuss the potential of the bottle microresonator for CQED experiments with single atoms. Its Q/V-ratio, which determines the ratio of the atom-cavity coupling rate to the dissipative rates of the subsystems, aligns with the values obtained for state-of-the-art CQED microresonators. In combination with its full tunability and the possibility of highly efficient light transfer to and from the bottle mode, this makes the bottle microresonator a unique tool for quantum optics applications.

Highly accurate quantum chemistry : spin-orbit splittings via multireference coupled-cluster methods and applications in heavy-atom main-group chemistry

Diese Dissertation demonstriert und verbessert die Vorhersagekraft der Coupled-Cluster-Theorie im Hinblick auf die hochgenaue Berechnung von Moleküleigenschaften. Die Demonstration erfolgt mittels Extrapolations- und Additivitätstechniken in der Single-Referenz-Coupled-Cluster-Theorie, mit deren Hilfe die Existenz und Struktur von bisher unbekannten Molekülen mit schweren Hauptgruppenelementen vorhergesagt wird. Vor allem am Beispiel von cyclischem SiS_2, einem dreiatomigen Molekül mit 16 Valenzelektronen, wird deutlich, dass die Vorhersagekraft der Theorie sich heutzutage auf Augenhöhe mit dem Experiment befindet: Theoretische Überlegungen initiierten eine experimentelle Suche nach diesem Molekül, was schließlich zu dessen Detektion und Charakterisierung mittels Rotationsspektroskopie führte. Die Vorhersagekraft der Coupled-Cluster-Theorie wird verbessert, indem eine Multireferenz-Coupled-Cluster-Methode für die Berechnung von Spin-Bahn-Aufspaltungen erster Ordnung in 2^Pi-Zuständen entwickelt wird. Der Fokus hierbei liegt auf Mukherjee's Variante der Multireferenz-Coupled-Cluster-Theorie, aber prinzipiell ist das vorgeschlagene Berechnungsschema auf alle Varianten anwendbar. Die erwünschte Genauigkeit beträgt 10 cm^-1. Sie wird mit der neuen Methode erreicht, wenn Ein- und Zweielektroneneffekte und bei schweren Elementen auch skalarrelativistische Effekte berücksichtigt werden. Die Methode eignet sich daher in Kombination mit Coupled-Cluster-basierten Extrapolations-und Additivitätsschemata dafür, hochgenaue thermochemische Daten zu berechnen.

High-speed acousto-optic shutter with no optical frequency shift

Acousto-optic modulators are widely used for rapid switching and shuttering of laser beams. In many applications, the concomitant frequency shift is undesirable and must be compensated for elsewhere in the system. Here we present a simple method of achieving rapid laser power switching without an accompanying laser frequency shift. The demonstrated acousto-optic shutter achieves a switching time of around 25 ns, an extinction ratio of 46 dB, and efficiency comparable to a conventional double-pass acousto-optical modulator configuration. (C) 2012 American Institute of Physics. [http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.4746292]

LIKELIHOOD ESTIMATION OF CONJUGACY RELATIONSHIPS IN LINEAR MODELS WITH APPLICATIONS TO HIGH-THROUGHPUT GENOMICS

In the simultaneous estimation of a large number of related quantities, multilevel models provide a formal mechanism for efficiently making use of the ensemble of information for deriving individual estimates. In this article we investigate the ability of the likelihood to identify the relationship between signal and noise in multilevel linear mixed models. Specifically, we consider the ability of the likelihood to diagnose conjugacy or independence between the signals and noises. Our work was motivated by the analysis of data from high-throughput experiments in genomics. The proposed model leads to a more flexible family. However, we further demonstrate that adequately capitalizing on the benefits of a well fitting fully-specified likelihood in the terms of gene ranking is difficult.

Optimized spectrally selective steady-state free precession sequences for cartilage imaging at ultra-high fields

OBJECT: Fat suppressed 3D steady-state free precession (SSFP) sequences are of special interest in cartilage imaging due to their short repetition time in combination with high signal-to-noise ratio. At low-to-high fields (1.5-3.0 T), spectral spatial (spsp) radio frequency (RF) pulses perform superiorly over conventional saturation of the fat signal (FATSAT pulses). However, ultra-high fields (7.0 T and more) may offer alternative fat suppression techniques as a result of the increased chemical shift. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Application of a single, frequency selective, RF pulse is compared to spsp excitation for water (or fat) selective imaging at 7.0 T. RESULTS: For SSFP, application of a single frequency selective RF pulse for selective water or fat excitation performs beneficially over the commonly applied spsp RF pulses. In addition to the overall improved fat suppression, the application of single RF pulses leads to decreased power depositions, still representing one of the major restrictions in the design and application of many pulse sequences at ultra-high fields. CONCLUSION: The ease of applicability and implementation of single frequency selective RF pulses at ultra-high-fields might be of great benefit for a vast number of applications where fat suppression is desirable or fat-water separation is needed for quantification purposes.

Electron microscopy of high pressure frozen samples: bridging the gap between cellular ultrastructure and atomic resolution

Transmission electron microscopy has provided most of what is known about the ultrastructural organization of tissues, cells, and organelles. Due to tremendous advances in crystallography and magnetic resonance imaging, almost any protein can now be modeled at atomic resolution. To fully understand the workings of biological "nanomachines" it is necessary to obtain images of intact macromolecular assemblies in situ. Although the resolution power of electron microscopes is on the atomic scale, in biological samples artifacts introduced by aldehyde fixation, dehydration and staining, but also section thickness reduces it to some nanometers. Cryofixation by high pressure freezing circumvents many of the artifacts since it allows vitrifying biological samples of about 200 mum in thickness and immobilizes complex macromolecular assemblies in their native state in situ. To exploit the perfect structural preservation of frozen hydrated sections, sophisticated instruments are needed, e.g., high voltage electron microscopes equipped with precise goniometers that work at low temperature and digital cameras of high sensitivity and pixel number. With them, it is possible to generate high resolution tomograms, i.e., 3D views of subcellular structures. This review describes theory and applications of the high pressure cryofixation methodology and compares its results with those of conventional procedures. Moreover, recent findings will be discussed showing that molecular models of proteins can be fitted into depicted organellar ultrastructure of images of frozen hydrated sections. High pressure freezing of tissue is the base which may lead to precise models of macromolecular assemblies in situ, and thus to a better understanding of the function of complex cellular structures.