· · · Institutional Repository

The project is aimed at using landscape proposals to inspire public participation changing their own living environment in shrinking cities. The strategy shows a landscape urbanism process, works at different scales and provides different possibilities towards a prospective future.

Located between the Andes Mountains and the southwestern coastline of Peru, the irrigation district of La Joya Antigua has a typical sub-tropical desert climate with very little annual precipitation. Study on this irrigation district shows sufficient irrigation water on most of the farms in a wet year but a deficit of irrigation water in a dry year. In order to cope with water shortage, strategies such as focusing on irrigating certain crops, reducing the irrigation area, changing crops to less water demand crops, etc are applied by the local farmers. The farmers' strategies have been proved to be a very effective way of reducing the crop water demand in the irrigation district of La Joya Antigua.

This graduate project is called “Freedom VIC for Urban VIC Team”, which is dealing with the Village in the City (VIC) transformation in Shenzhen China, focusing on the transformation of VIC (the “ghetto” area), in Shenzhen’s current society. This project derives from the current situation that there are 251 VICs in the inner city of Shenzhen, and those areas are always be regarded as a negative place, “ghetto” place from official perspective. As a result, government always make “Top-down” transformation in VIC area which aims to improve the physical qualities in VIC but erase all the values of VIC. Therefore, the project is aiming to find out better approach for VIC transformation by finding both the negative and positive values of VIC from social, physical and cultural aspects.

Confidential report. Only a part of the thesis is presented in the repository.

This graduate project is called “Freedom VIC for Urban VIC Team”, which is dealing with the Village in the City (VIC) transformation in Shenzhen China, focusing on the transformation of VIC (the “ghetto” area), in Shenzhen’s current society. This project derives from the current situation that there are 251 VICs in the inner city of Shenzhen, and those areas are always be regarded as a negative place, “ghetto” place from official perspective. As a result, government always make “Top-down” transformation in VIC area which aims to improve the physical qualities in VIC but erase all the values of VIC. Therefore, the project is aiming to find out better approach for VIC transformation by finding both the negative and positive values of VIC from social, physical and cultural aspects.

Increasingly, the phytoplankton blooms (algal blooms) become a public health concern and a worldwide ecological problem. The Generic ecological model (GEM) plays a very important role to assess ecological quality of the Dutch coastal waters and the southern North Sea. Algal blooms can also be predicted by the GEM model mainly through chlorophyll-a concentration. However, GEM contains large uncertainties caused by errors in both the model itself and the input. Data assimilation techniques are being used to reduce these uncertainties and improve the model forecast for chlorophyll-a concentration. In the meantime, data assimilation also provides an efficient approach to estimate the parameters. Several data assimilation schemes based on the dual Ensemble Kalman Filter will be compared with each other in this work. Based on the synthetic measurement, the superior scheme will be carried out to assess the data assimilation result for a longer period. The forecasting result from proposed data assimilation scheme will be compared with deterministic GEM forecasting output from different point of view. Based on the comparison result analysis, the proposed data assimilation scheme is proved to be successfully implemented and satisfactory results are achieved.

As headquarters for sustainability of the United Nation, it earns a high value of representing this evolution and stands for fairness and responsibility as well. This offers it a great value to be a graceful monumental building, to which the expansive site area and a great river next to also provide beneficial condition. Then, compare to the industrial revolution, the new alteration is also about the value orientation of human beings except for science and technology. As a result, it would not be a building to tell people what is sustainable in a technical method; instead, it would show how delightful in future if it is a sustainable world in a placid way. In other words, it is a carrier of wish, belief and eternity.

Nowadays, energy saving for wireless communication is more important than before. Lots of wireless devices are battery operated, like devices used in WLAN, ad hoc mode, sensor network, cellular network and so on. For example, Ad hoc networks which are composed of these wireless mobile devices can automatically establish peer to peer communication networks without using fixed infrastructure. Meanwhile, a lot of functions are added to the mobile devices. GPS and camera functions are integrated into the mobile phones. Energy consumed for the communication functions also grows more and more due to rapid improvement of communication technology and the demand for more communication between people, which means that we need larger battery capacity to increase the service time. Unfortunately, the battery technology does not improve much recently. Therefore in this thesis, we propose an energy saving method to extend the service time of wireless device.

Direct drive generators applied to large wind turbines present some problems, such as very heavy and expensive price. The use of magnetic bearings has a possibility to reduce the weight of the direct drive generator. The control system for such magnetic bearings is considered. In the beginning, the thesis discusses the problems of direct drive generators in large wind turbines, introduces a hybrid concept of active magnetic bearings, gives a demonstrator of magnetic bearings used in this project, and presents a basic control system of active magnetic bearings. For the purpose of support such magnetic bearings in wind turbines, this thesis gives a complete control system. This control system includes electrical circuits and decentralized control method. The implementation of the electrical circuits is distributed into two PCBs. The decentralized control method is designed with six PID controllers. Finally, in order to improve the stability of the system, the H-infinity control method is suggested to magnetic bearing system in wind turbine applications.

The huger and huger imbalance of cargo flows between continents or between countries, such as the imbalance trade between East Asia and western world, pushes the repositioning cost of empty containers higher and higher. The problem of reducing the cost of empty repositioning becomes more and more essential in containerization. Among many solutions, the concept of ‘Foldable Container’ is promising and effective in decrease handling, storage and transportation costs of empty containers, but its potential impacts on the existing logistic chain is not so clear yet that for investors and actors involved, risk are high to really apply this new product into market. The goal of this research study is to improve the insight in the foldable containers’ implementation in the logistic chain, by comparing its economical and logistical performance to standard containers’. Research approach used here is system engineering and specific research method is Discrete Modeling using the software of Arena. In this way, the real issue of foldable containers’ application and logistic performance can be simulated on computer. Besides assisting problem forecasting, these simulation models can also help to obtain quantitative data for problem analysis.

Conventional RF power amplifiers are normally designed for peak efficiency at maximum output power. However, for WCDMA application, the power amplifier often operates at 6-8 dB power back-off. Consequently, when the power is backed-off from its peak point, the efficiency of conventional power amplifier drops sharply. The envelope elimination and restoration (EER) and envelope tracking (ET) systems are two of the most promising techniques that can provide high efficiency at power back-off point. In this project, a RF power amplifier optimized for average efficiency according to the PDF of WCDMA signal has been designed using NXP generation 7 LDMOS. In addition, to meet the increasing demand for wireless communication terminals to handle wideband operation, a 1GHz bandwidth power amplifier optimized for efficiency at power back-off has been designed and fabricated. The measurement results are proved to have a good agreement with simulation results.

BitTorrent has turned into the most popular P2P file sharing protocol and is used for various purposes such as Video on demand and Media Streaming. The fundamental problem with P2P networks in general is that quality of service highly depends on altruistic resource sharing by participating peers. Many peers freeride on the good intentions of others and BitTorrent is no exception. Current solutions like reputation systems and sharing ratio enforcement are complex, exploitable, inaccurate or unfair at times. The need to design scalable mechanisms that mitigate such problems is evident. We demonstrate through measurements that BitTorrent peers are able to barter pieces of different files (indirect interaction) which is a previously unknown property of the BitTorrent protocol. We introduce a centralized extension for the BitTorrent protocol which we refer to as the indirect interaction mechanism (IIM). IIM incentivizes seeding and mitigates problems of unfairness and exploitation while at the same time achieving linear scalability. We provide game theoretical models of the mechanism and demonstrate through analysis and simulations that IIM improves BitTorrent performance for certain cases and that it does not degrade performance for others. We conclude that IIM is a practical solution to the fundamental problem of P2P networks like BitTorrent.

Our project starts from a practical specific application of stereo vision (matching) on a robot arm, which is first building up a vision system for a robot arm to make it obtain the capability of detecting the objects 3D information on a plane. The kernel of the vision system is stereo matching. Stereo matching(correspondence) problem has been studied for a few decades; it is one of the most investigated topics in computer vision. A lot of algorithms have been developed, but only a few can be applied in practice because of the constraint from either accuracy or speed requirement. After the vision system is built, one can get some insights from it, and determine which part of the vision system needs to be improved through experiments. The result shows that the accuracy of current block matching algorithm is enough to be applied in specific environment. Thus, the focus of the afterwards optimization for the currently built vision system is mainly from speed acceleration aspect. After measuring each stage time cost of 3D sensing part of the vision system, the most time consuming stage is from the stereo matching which generates the disparity map or depth map. At last, the stereo matching part is executed on GPU(Graphic Processing Unit) in order to get some performance enhancement, the final result demonstrates that GPU can make the algorithm run in real time, and it is an ideal platform for the further application development of stereo matching algorithm. Because the original speedup of GPU against to CPU is round 35 times at least for desktop GPU, and the optimized speedup of GPU against to CPU can be more than 100 times at least for desktop GPU.

The connectivity between SAGD pair-wells is the key for success of SAGD processes. The bituminous sands of Corner field situate in middle McMurray, where tidal influenced meandering fluvial point bar dominate the deposits. Thus, to characterize the internal structure of point bar deposit is essential to optimize SAGD production in Corner field. The aim of this thesis is to investigate correspondences between point bar internal structures and VSP responses. Since VSP preserve higher frequency than surface seismic thus VSP data would provide more precise identification and characterization of internal structures if we can recognize them from data. These investigations are done by comparing actual data, synthetic data and targets part in the model. Prior to the comparisons, we need to build a model that preserves the characteristics of our targets in subsurface as accurate as possible. We decompose the segment of logging data corresponding to the thickness of point bar deposits into a function which is able to represent the influence of gravity on deposition and a function that is able to imply the affect of current. After examining relation between borehole and inclined units of point bar structure, two scaled functions are combined in a way which can produce structures of point bar deposits. As soon as a realistic model is constructed, VSP simulations proceed. Based on the comparison of plane wave source VSP data with the model, it is found that variation of travel-time difference between two levels indicate heterogeneities between these levels. Since finite difference used in this thesis is based on acoustic wave propagation, only travel-time is investigated. While if an elastic modeling is available, the results will be more fruitful with respect to amplitudes variation and wave conversion.

The aim of this thesis project is to design and fabricate a high efficiency on chip cooling device based on the Peltier effect. Bismuth telluride (Bi2Te3) and antimony telluride (Sb2Te3) are employed to form thermocouple for their high Seebeck coefficient and high figure of merit. The models of the devices are simulated in the software program COMSOL, and based on simulation results, a set of masks are designed. The patterning methods are investigated, and wet etching is chosen for its simplicity and smooth edge, although the lateral undercut is 4-5 times of the layer thickness. The wet etchant is HCl: HNO3: H2O =3:1:2 for Bi2Te3, and HNO3: H2O =1:1 for Sb2Te3. The devices are tested on the probe station and under the thermal camera. The combined Seebeck coefficient is 282μV/K. A maximum cooling temperature of 3.3K is observed.

Since the second half of last century, traffic congestion on road network has become a predominant phenomenon due to the rapid increases in transport demand and number of vehicles. It starts to become clear until later that century traffic congestion cannot be solved single-handedly by expansions of road network. During peak hours, besides recurrent congestion caused by insatiable demand, non-recurrent congestion caused by incidents, adverse weather conditions and work zones, are becoming more problematic with their temporary disturbances causing traffic breakdowns. Developments and deployments of traffic control strategies come into effect to solve recurrent and non-recurrent congestions with a synthesis combining technologies, traffic theories, mathematics and kinematics. Although ITS control measures are relatively new, they transform into the backbones of a prevailing type of traffic management, Dynamic Traffic Management. When coordination and integration between DTM control measures is introduced as the advanced approach to restore the utilization of road network, great hope is placed on Coordinated Network Management to improve the effectiveness of traffic management. The Field Test Integrated Traffic Management Amsterdam aims at investigating the effect and the control concept of coordinated network wide traffic management for the implementation in 2013. The graduation project is to develop an assessment methodology framework for modelling and ex-ante evaluation of CNM. This methodology is applied to the kidney shaped network of southern Amsterdam region in order to perform ex-ante evaluation on realizing and testing dynamic coordinated network management. Evaluations and validations of the above modelling are presented to show the effect of individual DTM and coordinated DTM, also known as CNM, under recurrent and non-recurrent congestions. A test solution towards advanced deployment strategies and methodologies based on an incident-induced empirical case is contrived later using Matlab. Simulation results are also presented in order to assess this test solution and the effect of CNM under its coordination strategies and methodologies. Finally, findings, conclusions, recommendations and future directions are drawn to bring the thesis project to completion. Hopefully, this thesis work could be referred to for the future implementation of CNM in the PPA project and it could be informative to other CNM related researches.

Sponsored by the Consumer Science department in Groupe Danone France, this design project is aiming to use a Multisensory Design (MSD) approach in developing a new packaging for the ‘Replenishment’ platform in Danone water division. The main design goal is to create a particular drinking experience that could better communicate the most relevant effect of Replenishment to consumers. The project follows a special and logic approach: it starts from understanding the meaning of Replenishment that Optimism is selected as the appropriate experience to communicate Replenishment. The second phase is the sensory exploration to define the particular expression of Optimism. Through intuitively sensing the material world, the designer defines three sensory expressions based on the different physical work of the sensory stimuli. The expression ‘off the track’ is selected concerning the brand image, design goal and consumer’s expectation. The concept, a packaging for bottled water, is developed based on the knowledge from the 1st and 2nd phase that it communicates the expression ‘off the track’ under a specific interaction in all senses. The designed experience is stronger than the product developed under other design approaches that it stimulates the senses of vision, touch, sound and smell. For the users, the new concept can change the traditional drinking experience into fun and brings inspirations in the simple everyday life, and it encourages people to explore and be creative that help them to become open-minded and appealing to other people around. For the target brand, the new concept can help it to enhance the brand identity and to differentiate its brand from other competitors. For the company Groupe Danone, the new concept brings it fresh and interesting things that can support it in the future development.