Robust power allocation algorithms for MIMO OFDM systems with imperfect CSI

This paper presents a Bayesian approach to the design of transmit prefiltering matrices in closed-loop schemes robust to channel estimation errors. The algorithms are derived for a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) system. Two different optimizationcriteria are analyzed: the minimization of the mean square error and the minimization of the bit error rate. In both cases, the transmitter design is based on the singular value decomposition (SVD) of the conditional mean of the channel response, given the channel estimate. The performance of the proposed algorithms is analyzed,and their relationship with existing algorithms is indicated. As withother previously proposed solutions, the minimum bit error rate algorithmconverges to the open-loop transmission scheme for very poor CSI estimates.

Power Consumption in Carbon Capture and Storage Systems (CCS) and Possibilities to Reduce Power Consumption with Variable Speed Drives

The aim of this master´s thesis is to study which processes increase the auxiliary power consumption in carbon capture and storage processes and if it is possible to reduce the auxiliary power consumption with variable speed drives. Also the cost of carbon capture and storage is studied. Data about auxiliary power consumption in carbon capture is gathered from various studies and estimates made by various research centres. Based on these studies a view is presented how the power auxiliary power consumption is divided between different processes in carbon capture processes. In a literary study, the operation of three basic carbon capture systems is described. Also different methods to transport carbon dioxide and carbon dioxide storage options are described in this section. At the end of the thesis processes that consume most of the auxiliary power are defined and possibilities to reduce the auxiliary power consumption are evaluated. Cost of carbon capture, transport and storage are also evaluated at this point and in the case that the carbon capture and storage systems are fully deployed. According to the results, it can be estimated what are the processes are where variable speed drives can be used and what kind of cost and power consumption reduction could be achieved. Results also show how large a project carbon capture and storage is if it is fully deployed.

Formal Power Analysis of Systems-on-Chip

The design methods and languages targeted to modern System-on-Chip designs are facing tremendous pressure of the ever-increasing complexity, power, and speed requirements. To estimate any of these three metrics, there is a trade-off between accuracy and abstraction level of detail in which a system under design is analyzed. The more detailed the description, the more accurate the simulation will be, but, on the other hand, the more time consuming it will be. Moreover, a designer wants to make decisions as early as possible in the design flow to avoid costly design backtracking. To answer the challenges posed upon System-on-chip designs, this thesis introduces a formal, power aware framework, its development methods, and methods to constraint and analyze power consumption of the system under design. This thesis discusses on power analysis of synchronous and asynchronous systems not forgetting the communication aspects of these systems. The presented framework is built upon the Timed Action System formalism, which offer an environment to analyze and constraint the functional and temporal behavior of the system at high abstraction level. Furthermore, due to the complexity of System-on-Chip designs, the possibility to abstract unnecessary implementation details at higher abstraction levels is an essential part of the introduced design framework. With the encapsulation and abstraction techniques incorporated with the procedure based communication allows a designer to use the presented power aware framework in modeling these large scale systems. The introduced techniques also enable one to subdivide the development of communication and computation into own tasks. This property is taken into account in the power analysis part as well. Furthermore, the presented framework is developed in a way that it can be used throughout the design project. In other words, a designer is able to model and analyze systems from an abstract specification down to an implementable specification.

Nanostructured systems containing an essential oil: protection against volatilization

The goal of this study was to evaluate the feasibility of preparing nanocapsules and nanoemulsions using tea tree oil as oily phase aiming to protect its volatilization. The nanostructures presented nanometric mean size (160-220 nm) with a polydispersity index below 0.25 and negative zeta potential. The pH values were 6.43 ± 0.37 and 5.98 ± 0.00 for nanoemulsions and nanocapsules, respectively. The oil content after preparation was 96%. The inclusion of tea tree oil in nanocapsules showed higher protection against volatilization. The analysis of mean size and polydispersity index of formulations presented no significant alteration during the storage time.

Mathematical analysis of maximum power generated by photovoltaic systems and fitting curves for standard test conditions

The rural electrification is characterized by geographical dispersion of the population, low consumption, high investment by consumers and high cost. Moreover, solar radiation constitutes an inexhaustible source of energy and in its conversion into electricity photovoltaic panels are used. In this study, equations were adjusted to field conditions presented by the manufacturer for current and power of small photovoltaic systems. The mathematical analysis was performed on the photovoltaic rural system I-100 from ISOFOTON, with power 300 Wp, located at the Experimental Farm Lageado of FCA/UNESP. For the development of such equations, the circuitry of photovoltaic cells has been studied to apply iterative numerical methods for the determination of electrical parameters and possible errors in the appropriate equations in the literature to reality. Therefore, a simulation of a photovoltaic panel was proposed through mathematical equations that were adjusted according to the data of local radiation. The results have presented equations that provide real answers to the user and may assist in the design of these systems, once calculated that the maximum power limit ensures a supply of energy generated. This real sizing helps establishing the possible applications of solar energy to the rural producer and informing the real possibilities of generating electricity from the sun.

Exploration and Design of Power-Efficient Networked Many-Core Systems

Multiprocessing is a promising solution to meet the requirements of near future applications. To get full benefit from parallel processing, a manycore system needs efficient, on-chip communication architecture. Networkon- Chip (NoC) is a general purpose communication concept that offers highthroughput, reduced power consumption, and keeps complexity in check by a regular composition of basic building blocks. This thesis presents power efficient communication approaches for networked many-core systems. We address a range of issues being important for designing power-efficient manycore systems at two different levels: the network-level and the router-level. From the network-level point of view, exploiting state-of-the-art concepts such as Globally Asynchronous Locally Synchronous (GALS), Voltage/ Frequency Island (VFI), and 3D Networks-on-Chip approaches may be a solution to the excessive power consumption demanded by today’s and future many-core systems. To this end, a low-cost 3D NoC architecture, based on high-speed GALS-based vertical channels, is proposed to mitigate high peak temperatures, power densities, and area footprints of vertical interconnects in 3D ICs. To further exploit the beneficial feature of a negligible inter-layer distance of 3D ICs, we propose a novel hybridization scheme for inter-layer communication. In addition, an efficient adaptive routing algorithm is presented which enables congestion-aware and reliable communication for the hybridized NoC architecture. An integrated monitoring and management platform on top of this architecture is also developed in order to implement more scalable power optimization techniques. From the router-level perspective, four design styles for implementing power-efficient reconfigurable interfaces in VFI-based NoC systems are proposed. To enhance the utilization of virtual channel buffers and to manage their power consumption, a partial virtual channel sharing method for NoC routers is devised and implemented. Extensive experiments with synthetic and real benchmarks show significant power savings and mitigated hotspots with similar performance compared to latest NoC architectures. The thesis concludes that careful codesigned elements from different network levels enable considerable power savings for many-core systems.

The improvement of enclosure protection class of power electronics device

Tässä diplomityössä tutkittiin vaihtoehtoja tehoelektroniikkalaitteiden kotelointiluokan kehittämiseksi. Haasteena paremman suojauksen suunnittelussa on laitteiden tuottama suuri määrä lämpöä, joka vaatii tehokkaan jäähdytyksen. Työn tuloksena saatu prototyyppi IP33 luokkaa varten täyttää standardissa SFS-EN 60529+A1 asetetut vaatimukset kyseiselle kotelointiluokalle. Rakenteessa ja valmistettavuudessa havaittiin muutama ongelma, jotka ovat korjattavissa pienillä muutoksilla. Korkeampia suojausluokkia varten testattiin IP54-luokiteltujen filtterituulettimien vaikutusta laitteen jäähdytykseen. Testien perusteella jäähdytysteho on riittävä ja filtterituulettimet todettiin toimivaksi ratkaisuksi korkeammille suojausluokille. Työn perusteella voidaan todeta, että nykyiset laitteet voidaan muokata vastaamaan IP33 luokan vaatimuksia kohtuullisen pienillä muutoksilla. Tätä korkeammat suojausluokat vaatisivat niin suuria muutoksia designiin, että todennäköisesti täysin uuden laitteen suunnittelu olis kannattavin vaihtoehto.

Critical infrastructure protection against cyber threats

A postgraduate seminar series with a title Critical Infrastructure Protection against Cyber Threats held at the Department of Military Technology of the National Defence University in the fall of 2013 and 2014. This book is a collection of some of talks that were presented in the seminar. The papers address origin of critical infrastructure protection, wargaming cyberwar in critical infrastructure defence, cyber-target categorization, supervisory control and data acquisition systems vulnerabilities, electric power as critical infrastructure, improving situational awareness of critical infrastructure and trust based situation awareness in high security cloud environment. This set of papers tries to give some insight to current issues of the network-centric critical infrastructure protection. The seminar has always made a publication of the papers but this has been an internal publication of the Finnish Defence Forces and has not hindered publication of the papers in international conferences. Publication of these papers in peer reviewed conferences has indeed been always the goal of the seminar, since it teaches writing conference level papers. We still hope that an internal publication in the department series is useful to the Finnish Defence Forces by offering an easy access to these papers.

Failure modes of passive decay heat removing safety systems of modern nuclear power plants

The purpose of this master’s thesis is to gain an understanding of passive safety systems’ role in modern nuclear reactors projects and to research the failure modes of passive decay heat removal safety systems which use phenomenon of natural circulation. Another purpose is to identify the main physical principles and phenomena which are used to establish passive safety tools in nuclear power plants. The work describes passive decay heat removal systems used in AES-2006 project and focuses on the behavior of SPOT PG system. The descriptions of the main large-scale research facilities of the passive safety systems of the AES-2006 power plant are also included. The work contains the calculations of the SPOT PG system, which was modeled with thermal-hydraulic system code TRACE. The dimensions of the calculation model are set according to the dimensions of the real SPOT PG system. In these calculations three parameters are investigated as a function of decay heat power: the pressure of the system, the natural circulation mass flow rate around the closed loop, and the level of liquid in the downcomer. The purpose of the calculations is to test the ability of the SPOT PG system to remove the decay heat from the primary side of the nuclear reactor in case of failure of one, two, or three loops out of four. The calculations show that three loops of the SPOT PG system have adequate capacity to provide the necessary level of safety. In conclusion, the work supports the view that passive systems could be widely spread in modern nuclear projects.

A Foucaultian analysis of power relations in child protection case work with youth and families

This thesis takes some steps in examining the child protection system from a position that is rarely discussed. Specifically, I explore how Foucault's concept of disciplinary power can be used to demonstrate how power operates within the client/worker relationship. This relationship is shown to be quite complex with power flowing bidirectionally, rather than hierarchically. Instead of viewing power imbalances as a function of state control, I show how the client/worker relationship is constituted by the worker, the client, the organization and the social body. A postmodern auto ethnography is used to document my journey as I expose the disciplinary practices and instruments that I was subject to and used with my clients. 2 Given that the child protection system is constantly shifting and changing in order to improve its ability to safeguard children a greater emphasis is required to examine how workers operate within this complex, overwhelming and multi-dimensional world. This thesis has shown that by engaging in a reflexive examination of my position of power different approaches to making intervention beneficial to all involved become available. This is important if child protection work aims to work with clients rather than on clients.

The placebo effect: international patent law and the protection of traditional plant medicine

Une préoccupation essentielle traverse cette thèse: l'indifférence systémique de la Loi internationale sur la propriété intellectuelle a l'égard des savoirs traditionnels autochtones. De manière générale, un écart semble d'ailleurs croissant entre l'importance des accords internationaux sur les questions d'intérêt commercial et ceux de nature sociale. Les savoirs traditionnels autochtones sur les plantes médicinales sont particulièrement désavantagés dans ce système dichotomique puisqu'ils sont non seulement à l'origine d'énormes profits commerciaux mais se trouvent aussi au cœur de multiples croyances propres à ces sociétés. L'Accord sur les aspects des droits de propriété intellectuelle qui touchent au commerce (ADPIC) de l'Organisation mondiale du commerce (OMC) a cristallisé le souci de la législation internationale à l'égard d'une protection efficace des intérêts commerciaux. Deux années auparavant, la Convention sur la diversité biologique (CDB) était signée, traduisant une préoccupation à l'égard du développement durable, et elle devenait le premier accord international à tenir compte des savoirs traditionnels autochtones. On considère souvent que ces deux accords permettent l'équilibre du développement commercial et durable, requis par l'économie internationale. Après plus ample examen, on a plutôt l'impression que l'idée d'une CDB défendant, avec succès et efficacité, la nécessité du développement durable et des savoirs traditionnels autochtones contre les pressions opposées de l'ADPIC et de l'OMC est, au mieux, simpliste. La thèse explore également la fonction de la Loi sur les brevets dans la création d’industries, notamment pharmaceutique, et la manière dont ces industries influencent la législation nationale et en particulier internationale. De même, elle traite du rôle que jouent les brevets dans l'affaiblissement et la dépossession des peuples autochtones dotés de savoirs traditionnels sur les plantes médicinales, conduisant à une situation ou ces savoirs sont marginalisés ainsi que leurs détenteurs. La thèse aborde les failles institutionnelles du système juridique international qui permet une telle situation et indique l'urgente nécessité d'examiner attentivement les inégalités économiques et sociales au Nord comme au Sud, et non seulement entre eux. Finalement, la thèse suggère que la législation internationale gagnerait à s'inspirer des diverses traditions juridiques présentes à travers le monde et, dans ce cas particulier, peut être les détenteurs des connaissances traditionnelles concernant les plantes médicinales seront mieux servi par le droit des obligations.

The Power and Promise of Developmental Systems Theory

I argue that it is time for many feminists to rethink their attitudes towards evolutionary biology, not because feminists have been wrong to be deeply sceptical about many of its claims, both explicit and implicit, but because biology itself has changed. A new appreciation for the importance of development in biology has become mainstream and a new ontology, associated with developmental systems theory (DST), has been introduced over the last two decades. This turn challenges some of the features of evolutionary biology that have most troubled feminists. DST undermines the idea of biologicales sence and challenges both nature /nurture and nature/culture distinctions. Freed from these conceptual constraints, evolutionary biology no longer poses the problems that have justified feminist scepticism. Indeed, feminists have already found useful applications for DST and I argue that they should expand their use of DST to support more radical and wide-ranging political theories.

A Numerically efficient power optimization scheme for coded OFDM systems in achieving minimum frame error rate

Coded OFDM is a transmission technique that is used in many practical communication systems. In a coded OFDM system, source data are coded, interleaved and multiplexed for transmission over many frequency sub-channels. In a conventional coded OFDM system, the transmission power of each subcarrier is the same regardless of the channel condition. However, some subcarrier can suffer deep fading with multi-paths and the power allocated to the faded subcarrier is likely to be wasted. In this paper, we compute the FER and BER bounds of a coded OFDM system given as convex functions for a given channel coder, inter-leaver and channel response. The power optimization is shown to be a convex optimization problem that can be solved numerically with great efficiency. With the proposed power optimization scheme, near-optimum power allocation for a given coded OFDM system and channel response to minimize FER or BER under a constant transmission power constraint is obtained

Synthesis, Characterization and Applications of Modified TiO2 Systems

This thesis is divided in to 9 chapters and deals with the modification of TiO2 for various applications include photocatalysis, thermal reaction, photovoltaics and non-linear optics. Chapter 1 involves a brief introduction of the topic of study. An introduction to the applications of modified titania systems in various fields are discussed concisely. Scope and objectives of the present work are also discussed in this chapter. Chapter 2 explains the strategy adopted for the synthesis of metal, nonmetal co-doped TiO2 systems. Hydrothermal technique was employed for the preparation of the co-doped TiO2 system, where Ti[OCH(CH3)2]4, urea and metal nitrates were used as the sources for TiO2, N and metals respectively. In all the co-doped systems, urea to Ti[OCH(CH3)2]4 was taken in a 1:1 molar ratio and varied the concentration of metals. Five different co-doped catalytic systems and for each catalysts, three versions were prepared by varying the concentration of metals. A brief explanation of physico-chemical techniques used for the characterization of the material was also presented in this chapter. This includes X-ray Diffraction (XRD), Raman Spectroscopy, FTIR analysis, Thermo Gravimetric Analysis, Energy Dispersive X-ray Analysis (EDX), Scanning Electron Microscopy(SEM), UV-Visible Diffuse Reflectance Spectroscopy (UV-Vis DRS), Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM), BET Surface Area Measurements and X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS). Chapter 3 contains the results and discussion of characterization techniques used for analyzing the prepared systems. Characterization is an inevitable part of materials research. Determination of physico-chemical properties of the prepared materials using suitable characterization techniques is very crucial to find its exact field of application. It is clear from the XRD pattern that photocatalytically active anatase phase dominates in the calcined samples with peaks at 2θ values around 25.4°, 38°, 48.1°, 55.2° and 62.7° corresponding to (101), (004), (200), (211) and (204) crystal planes (JCPDS 21-1272) respectively. But in the case of Pr-N-Ti sample, a new peak was observed at 2θ = 30.8° corresponding to the (121) plane of the polymorph brookite. There are no visible peaks corresponding to dopants, which may be due to their low concentration or it is an indication of the better dispersion of impurities in the TiO2. Crystallite size of the sample was calculated from Scherrer equation byusing full width at half maximum (FWHM) of the (101) peak of the anatase phase. Crystallite size of all the co-doped TiO2 was found to be lower than that of bare TiO2 which indicates that the doping of metal ions having higher ionic radius into the lattice of TiO2 causes some lattice distortion which suppress the growth of TiO2 nanoparticles. The structural identity of the prepared system obtained from XRD pattern is further confirmed by Raman spectra measurements. Anatase has six Raman active modes. Band gap of the co-doped system was calculated using Kubelka-Munk equation and that was found to be lower than pure TiO2. Stability of the prepared systems was understood from thermo gravimetric analysis. FT-IR was performed to understand the functional groups as well as to study the surface changes occurred during modification. EDX was used to determine the impurities present in the system. The EDX spectra of all the co-doped samples show signals directly related to the dopants. Spectra of all the co-doped systems contain O and Ti as the main components with low concentrations of doped elements. Morphologies of the prepared systems were obtained from SEM and TEM analysis. Average particle size of the systems was drawn from histogram data. Electronic structures of the samples were identified perfectly from XPS measurements. Chapter 4 describes the photocatalytic degradation of herbicides Atrazine and Metolachlor using metal, non-metal co-doped titania systems. The percentage of degradation was analyzed by HPLC technique. Parameters such as effect of different catalysts, effect of time, effect of catalysts amount and reusability studies were discussed. Chapter 5 deals with the photo-oxidation of some anthracene derivatives by co-doped catalytic systems. These anthracene derivatives come underthe category of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH). Due to the presence of stable benzene rings, most of the PAH show strong inhibition towards biological degradation and the common methods employed for their removal. According to environmental protection agency, most of the PAH are highly toxic in nature. TiO2 photochemistry has been extensively investigated as a method for the catalytic conversion of such organic compounds, highlighting the potential of thereof in the green chemistry. There are actually two methods for the removal of pollutants from the ecosystem. Complete mineralization is the one way to remove pollutants. Conversion of toxic compounds to another compound having toxicity less than the initial starting compound is the second way. Here in this chapter, we are concentrating on the second aspect. The catalysts used were Gd(1wt%)-N-Ti, Pd(1wt%)-N-Ti and Ag(1wt%)-N-Ti. Here we were very successfully converted all the PAH to anthraquinone, a compound having diverse applications in industrial as well as medical fields. Substitution of 10th position of desired PAH by phenyl ring reduces the feasibility of photo reaction and produced 9-hydroxy 9-phenyl anthrone (9H9PA) as an intermediate species. The products were separated and purified by column chromatography using 70:30 hexane/DCM mixtures as the mobile phase and the resultant products were characterized thoroughly by 1H NMR, IR spectroscopy and GCMS analysis. Chapter 6 elucidates the heterogeneous Suzuki coupling reaction by Cu/Pd bimetallic supported on TiO2. Sol-Gel followed by impregnation method was adopted for the synthesis of Cu/Pd-TiO2. The prepared system was characterized by XRD, TG-DTG, SEM, EDX, BET Surface area and XPS. The product was separated and purified by column chromatography using hexane as the mobile phase. Maximum isolated yield of biphenyl of around72% was obtained in DMF using Cu(2wt%)-Pd(4wt%)-Ti as the catalyst. In this reaction, effective solvent, base and catalyst were found to be DMF, K2CO3 and Cu(2wt%)-Pd(4wt%)-Ti respectively. Chapter 7 gives an idea about the photovoltaic (PV) applications of TiO2 based thin films. Due to energy crisis, the whole world is looking for a new sustainable energy source. Harnessing solar energy is one of the most promising ways to tackle this issue. The present dominant photovoltaic (PV) technologies are based on inorganic materials. But the high material, low power conversion efficiency and manufacturing cost limits its popularization. A lot of research has been conducted towards the development of low-cost PV technologies, of which organic photovoltaic (OPV) devices are one of the promising. Here two TiO2 thin films having different thickness were prepared by spin coating technique. The prepared films were characterized by XRD, AFM and conductivity measurements. The thickness of the films was measured by Stylus Profiler. This chapter mainly concentrated on the fabrication of an inverted hetero junction solar cell using conducting polymer MEH-PPV as photo active layer. Here TiO2 was used as the electron transport layer. Thin films of MEH-PPV were also prepared using spin coating technique. Two fullerene derivatives such as PCBM and ICBA were introduced into the device in order to improve the power conversion efficiency. Effective charge transfer between the conducting polymer and ICBA were understood from fluorescence quenching studies. The fabricated Inverted hetero junction exhibited maximum power conversion efficiency of 0.22% with ICBA as the acceptor molecule. Chapter 8 narrates the third order order nonlinear optical properties of bare and noble metal modified TiO2 thin films. Thin films were fabricatedby spray pyrolysis technique. Sol-Gel derived Ti[OCH(CH3)2]4 in CH3CH2OH/CH3COOH was used as the precursor for TiO2. The precursors used for Au, Ag and Pd were the aqueous solutions of HAuCl4, AgNO3 and Pd(NO3)2 respectively. The prepared films were characterized by XRD, SEM and EDX. The nonlinear optical properties of the prepared materials were investigated by Z-Scan technique comprising of Nd-YAG laser (532 nm,7 ns and10 Hz). The non-linear coefficients were obtained by fitting the experimental Z-Scan plot with the theoretical plots. Nonlinear absorption is a phenomenon defined as a nonlinear change (increase or decrease) in absorption with increasing of intensity. This can be mainly divided into two types: saturable absorption (SA) and reverse saturable absorption (RSA). Depending on the pump intensity and on the absorption cross- section at the excitation wavelength, most molecules show non- linear absorption. With increasing intensity, if the excited states show saturation owing to their long lifetimes, the transmission will show SA characteristics. Here absorption decreases with increase of intensity. If, however, the excited state has strong absorption compared with that of the ground state, the transmission will show RSA characteristics. Here in our work most of the materials show SA behavior and some materials exhibited RSA behavior. Both these properties purely depend on the nature of the materials and alignment of energy states within them. Both these SA and RSA have got immense applications in electronic devices. The important results obtained from various studies are presented in chapter 9.

The three systems for the protection of fundamental human rights in the European Union and exceptional measures against terrorism: the case of extraordinary extraditions (the CIA flights) with special reference to the Spanish case

This document is aimed first of all, make a small introductory reference on the three levels of protection of fundamental rights in Europe with the idea of helping to clarify and understand mainly to non-European systems that we are not talking. For that, based on this, going on to assess the impact generated in these systems suggest that the complaints alleged involvement of European countries in secret CIA flights to combat international terrorism, as well as investigate the responses that have given each protection of these areas to try to clarify them.