Doctor of Philosophy

dissertationSupercritical carbon dioxide is injected into underground formations to enhance oil recovery and for subsurface sequestration to minimize the impact of CO2 emissions due to global warming. The complex phase behavior of CO2 with oil determines the effectiveness of the CO2 injection for enhanced oil recovery. The injection of CO2 into the subsurface is also affected by the large and small scale heterogeneities in the formations. These two aspects of CO2 injection are examined in this research. Development of multiple-contact miscibility is important in the success of a carbon dioxide enhanced oil recovery. CO2 displacements are often designed to operate above the minimum miscibility pressure (MMP) to ensure the development of multiple contact miscibility between the oil and CO2. Compositional histories in different parts of a two-dimensional domain are examined in this study in relation to displacement pressure employed. The second part of this dissertation deals with the effect of faults on the CO2 sequestration process and on the integrity of storage. Outcrop-based studies of faulted, aeolian Navajo sandstone provide detailed, quantitative insight regarding the range of fault characteristics that might be encountered as injected CO2 migrates through the faulted aquifer. Faults can act as barriers, conduits, or integrated barrier-conduit systems. Uncertainty in knowing whether a subsurface fault will act as a barrier or conduit leads to uncertainty in evaluating the likelihood for economically sequestering CO2 in sandstone aquifers. EclipseR black oil reservoir simulator is used to explore how different, 3-D, fault-related permeability/porosity structures might impact CO2 injection into, migration through, and leakage from a sequestration aquifer. Sandstone permeability values range from 10s to 1000s of mD. Simulator output shows how fault conduits and barriers can restrict migration of CO2 through the aquifer as a consequence of bypassing (conduits) or compartmentalization (barriers). In addition, the simulation results reveal how the geoscientists' ability to quantify and discriminate between high-permeability versus low-permeability faults in sandstone aquifers can play an important role in designing CO2 sequestration operations

A Robust Decentralized Controller Design for Interconnected Power System with Random Load Perturbations using SDO Software

AbstractBecause of increase in load, size and change in power system structure, the response of load frequency control problem of the interconnected power system is more complex. This paper deals with Load Frequency Control of three area interconnected Power system having Reheat, Non-reheat and Reheat turbines in all areas respectively. The response of the load frequency control problem in a multi-area interconnected power system is improved by designing a PID controller using different tuning techniques and proved that the proposed controller, which was designed by Simulink Design Optimization Software gives the superior performance than other controllers for both Step load and Random load perturbations. Finally the validity and robustness of the proposed controller was checked against various Step load and Random load perturbations

A Comprehensive Analysis of Literature Reported Mac and Phy Enhancements of Zigbee and its Alliances

Wireless communication is one of the most required technologies by the common man. The strength of this technology is rigorously progressing towards several novel directions in establishing personal wireless networks mounted over on low power consuming systems. The cutting-edge communication technologies like bluetooth, WIFI and ZigBee significantly play a prime role to cater the basic needs of any individual. ZigBee is one such evolutionary technology steadily getting its popularity in establishing personal wireless networks which is built on small and low-power digital radios. Zigbee defines the physical and MAC layers built on IEEE standard. This paper presents a comprehensive survey of literature reported MAC and PHY enhancements of ZigBee and its contemporary technologies with respect to performance, power consumption, scheduling, resource management and timing and address binding. The work also discusses on the areas of ZigBee MAC and PHY towards their design for specific applications

O cuidado de enfermagem no pré-natal com competência a partir do olhar de gestantes

Orientadora: Profa. Dra. Marilene Loewen WallCoorientadora: Profa. Dra. Deisi Cristine Forlin BenedetDissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Federal do Paraná, Setor de Ciências da Saúde, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Enfermagem. Defesa : Curitiba, 11/02/2022Inclui referências: p. 111-122Resumo: Introdução: A atenção à saúde da mulher sofreu diversas mudanças ao longo do tempo, caminhando para estratégias e melhorias no cuidado, a fim de superar o modelo biomédico e cuidar da saúde materna e infantil em todos os seus aspectos. O pré-natal visa a assegurar acompanhamento de qualidade, com identificação precoce de fatores de risco e complicações que venham repercutir na saúde da mãe e do bebê. Intervenções precoces qualificam a atenção e reduzem as taxas de morbidade e mortalidade materna e fetal. Objetivos: Descrever as vivências e expectativas da gestante em relação ao pré-natal na Atenção Primária à Saúde. Apreender a competência da enfermeira no cuidado pré-natal sob a ótica da gestante. Método: Trata-se de uma pesquisa qualitativa e descritiva. O estudo foi conduzido em um município da região metropolitana de Curitiba/PR. Os critérios de inclusão foram gestantes maiores de 18 anos, em acompanhamento com enfermeira e ou médico, de qualquer risco gestacional, primíparas ou multíparas, no 2º ou 3º trimestre gestacional. Foram excluídas gestantes no 1º trimestre de gestação ou que não tinham compreensão do idioma português. A coleta de dados foi mediante entrevista semiestruturada com 27 participantes analisadas com base nos passos sugeridos de Creswell e apoio do software Iramuteq® para organização dos dados. Resultados: Foram identificadas duas categorias centrais: 1 - "O cuidado esperado e idealizado no pré-natal a partir das vivências e expectativas das gestantes", que evidenciou as vivências que estão ligadas ao contexto de vida e experiências passadas da gestação e pré-natal, expectativas e idealização do cuidado na Atenção Primária à Saúde, satisfação da atenção recebida no pré-natal e a influência da pandemia por Covid-19. A segunda categoria, intitulada 2 - "O cuidado recebido no pré-natal a partir das vivências e expectativas das gestantes", permitiu discutir aspectos relacionados aos cuidados recebidos na gestação pela identificação da competência da enfermeira, englobando a consulta de vinculação e subsequentes, rotinas, orientações e atenção despendida. Considerações finais: A percepção do cuidado vivenciado e as expectativas frente ao pré-natal são influenciadas por aspectos da gestação. Como potencialidades da prática da enfermeira identificadas pela gestante, estão o vínculo, o acolhimento e a escuta ativa, por vezes ofuscada pela hegemonia do cuidado médico, que ainda permeia o âmbito da atenção à saúde, limitando a visão do cuidar com qualidade. A formação da enfermeira e o contínuo desenvolvimento de competência para uma prática centrada na individualidade da gestante e promoção à saúde fortalecem o cuidado realizado e permitem avanços para um cuidado integral e para visibilidade da profissão.Abstract: Introduction: Woman health care has undergone several changes over the time leading to strategies and improvements of care, in order to overcome the biomedical model and take care of mother and child health na all its aspects. The goal of prenatal is to ensure quality follow-up, with early identification of risk factors and complications that may affect the health of the mother and baby. Early interventions qualify care and reduce maternal and fetal morbidity and mortality rates. Objectives: To describe the experiences and expectations of pregnant women in relation to prenatal care in Primary Health Care. To understand the nurse's competence in prenatal care from the perspective of the pregnant woman. Methods: This is a qualitativa and descriptive research. The study was performed in a city of the metropolitan region of Curitiba/PR. He inclusion criteria were in pregnant women older than 18 years, in follow-up with nurse and/or doctor, of any gestacional risk, primiparous ou multiparous, in the 2nd or 3rd gestational trimester. Pregnant women in the 1st trimester of pregnancy or those who did not understand the Portuguese language were excluded. Data was obtained by semi-structured interviews with 27 participants analyzed based on steps of Creswell and supported by Iramuteq® software for data organization. Results: Two main categories was identified: 1 – "The expected and idealized prenatal care based on experiences and expectations of pregnant Woman" which evidenced the experiences that are linked to the context of life and past experiences of pregnancy and prenatal care, expectations and idealization of care in primary health care, satisfaction with the care received in prenatal care and the influence of the Covid-19 pandemic. The second category, entitled 2 - "The care received in prenatal care from the experiences and expectations of pregnant women", allowed to discuss aspects related to the care received during pregnancy from the identification of the nurse's competence, covering the bonding consultation and subsequents, routines, orientations and attention spent. Final considerations: The perception of experienced care and expectations regarding prenatal care are influenced by aspects of pregnancy. As potentialities of the nurse's practice identified by the pregnant woman are the bond, reception and active listening, sometimes overshadowed by the hegemony of medical care that still permeates the scope of health care, limiting the vision of quality care. The training of nurses and the continuous development of competence for a practice centered on the pregnant woman's individuality and health promotion strengthen the care provided and allow advances towards comprehensive care and visibility of the profession

Seismic response control of structures using novel adaptive passive and semi-active variable stiffness and negative stiffness devices

Current seismic design practice promotes inelastic response in order to reduce the design forces. By allowing the structure to yield while increasing the ductility of the structure, the global forces can be kept within the limited bounds dictated by the yield strength. However, during severe earthquakes, the structures undergo significant inelastic deformations leading to stiffness and strength degradation, increased interstory drifts, and damage with residual drift. The research presented in this thesis has three components that seek to address these challenges. To prevent the inelastic effects observed in yielding systems, a new concept “apparent weakening” is proposed and verified through shake table studies in this thesis. “Apparent weakening” is introduced in the structural system using a complementary “adaptive negative stiffness device” (NSD) that mimics "yielding” of the global system thus attracting it away from the main structural system. Unlike the concept of weakening and damping, where the main structural system strength is reduced, the new system does not alter the original structural system, but produces effects compatible with an early yielding. Response reduction using NSD is achieved in a two step sequence. First the NSD, which is capable of exhibiting nonlinear elastic stiffness, is developed based on the properties of the structure. This NSD is added to the structure resulting in reduction of the stiffness of the structure and NSD assembly or “apparent weakening”-thereby resulting in the reduction of the base shear of the assembly. Then a passive damper, designed for the assembly to reduce the displacements that are caused due to the “apparent weakening”, is added to the structure-thereby reducing the base shear, acceleration and displacement in a two step process. The primary focus of this thesis is to analyze and experimentally verify the response reduction attributes of NSD in (a) elastic structural systems (b) yielding systems and (3) multistory structures. Experimental studies on 1:3 scale three-story frame structure have confirmed that consistent reductions in displacements, accelerations and base shear can be achieved in an elastic structure and bilinear inelastic structure by adding the NSD and viscous fluid damper. It has also been demonstrated that the stiffening in NSD will prevent the structure from collapsing. Analogous to the inelastic design, the acceleration and base shear and deformation of the structure and NSD assembly can be reduced by more than 20% for moderate ground motions and the collapse of structure can be prevented for severe ground motions. Simulation studies have been carried on an inelastic multistoried shear building to demonstrate the effectiveness of placing NSDs and dampers at multiple locations along the height of the building; referred to as “distributed isolation”. The results reported in this study have demonstrated that by placing a NSD in a particular story the superstructure above that story can be isolated from the effects of ground motion. Since the NSDs in the bottom floors will undergo large deformations, a generalized scheme to incorporate NSDs with different force deformation behavior in each storey is proposed. The properties of NSD are varied to minimize the localized inter-story deformation and distribute it evenly along the height of the building. Additionally, two semi-active approaches have also been proposed to improve the performance of NSD in yielding structures and also adapt to varying structure properties in real time. The second component of this thesis deals with development of a novel device to control the response of structural system using adaptive length pendulum smart tuned mass damper (ALP-STMD). A mechanism to achieve the variable pendulum length is developed using shape memory alloy wire actuator. ALP-STMD acts as a vibration absorber and since the length is tuned to match the instantaneous frequency, using a STFT algorithm, all the vibrations pertaining to the dominant frequency are absorbed. ALP-STMD is capable of absorbing all the energy pertaining to the tuned-frequency of the system; the performance is experimentally verified for forced vibration (stationary and non-stationary) and free vibration. The third component of this thesis covers the development of an adaptive control algorithm to compensate hysteresis in hysteretic systems. Hysteretic system with variable stiffness hysteresis is represented as a quasi-linear parameter varying (LPV) system and a gain scheduled controller is designed for the quasi-LPV system using linear matrix inequalities approach. Designed controller is scheduled based on two parameters: linear time-varying stiffness (slow varying parameter) and the stiffness of friction hysteresis (fast varying parameter). The effectiveness of the proposed controller is demonstrated through numerical studies by comparing the proposed controller with fixed robust H∞ controller. Superior tracking performance of the LPV-GS over the robust H∞ controller in different displacement ranges and various stiffness switching cases is clearly evident from the results presented in this thesis. The LPV-GS controller is capable of adapting to the parameter changes and is effective over the entire range of parameter variations

A COMPETÊNCIA DA ENFERMEIRA NO CUIDADO PRÉ-NATAL SOB A ÓTICA DE GESTANTES

Objetivo: apreender a competência da enfermeira no cuidado pré-natal sob a ótica de gestantes e descrever os cuidados recebidos na perspectiva da competência da enfermeira obstetra com base no documento do International Confederation of Midwives (ICM). Método: pesquisa qualitativa, descritiva, realizada mediante entrevista semiestruturada com 27 gestantes, analisadas com base nos passos sugeridos por Creswell e apoio do software Iramuteq®. Resultados: os cuidados realizados durante o pré-natal pela ótica das gestantes se enquadraram em atitudes e habilidades da enfermeira no pré-natal no contexto das competências definidas pelo documento do ICM, majoritariamente presentes como vínculo, acolhimento e escuta ativa. Considerações finais: os aspectos relevantes da consulta realizada pela enfermeira são, por vezes, ofuscados pela hegemonia do modelo biomédico. A formação e o contínuo desenvolvimento de competência, para uma prática individualizada, fortalecem e permitem avanços na integralidade do cuidado e visibilidade da profissão. Descritores: Pré-natal. Enfermeira. Cuidado de enfermagem. Atenção Primária à Saúde. Competência profissional

Effect of lockdown on activities of daily living in the built environment and wellbeing

In an effort to arrest the spread of coronavirus (COVID-19) infection, a nationwide lockdown was declared in India in March 2020. To assess how personal built environments affected the citizens in the first few weeks, an explorative online survey was conducted, eliciting responses about work habits before the lockdown, psychological wellbeing, time spent in various activities, characteristics of those who worked from home, and food and sleep patterns. We received 121 (76 male and 45 female) responses with an average age of 35.5 years [max: 70 years, min: 18 years, standard deviation (SD): 12.9 years]. The major difference caused by the lockdown was a reduction in the time taken and distance travelled of the commute to workplaces, which was an average of 30 minutes and 9.5 km, respectively. In terms of diet, subjects who were vegetarian did not experience any difference, unlike those who were non-vegetarians (p < 0.05). The results show an association of the dependent variable of ‘feeling in general’ with predictor variables of ‘energy, pep, vitality’ and ‘feel healthy to work’ during the pandemic, whereas the predictor variables of ‘energy, pep, vitality’, ‘happy and satisfied personal life’, ‘feel healthy to work’ show an association with the dependent variable of ‘feeling in general’ before the lockdown with a significance of p < 0.02 and R2 = 0.51 and R2 = 0.60, respectively. Among those who worked from home in constrained environments, people found spaces and seemed to adapt reasonably well to the built environment with employees showing a preference for working from bedrooms and students for working from ‘sit-out’ (outside) spaces (p < 0.05). There was no change in the quality or quantity of sleep during the lockdown. This study in the early weeks of the lockdown documents the way in which individuals lived through it in terms of the built environment at home

Facile Synthesis of Ordered Mesoporous Orthorhombic Niobium Oxide (T-Nb2_2O5_5) for High-Rate Li-Ion Storage with Long Cycling Stability

Herein, we describe the synthesis and evaluation of hierarchical mesoporous orthorhombic niobium oxide (T-Nb$_2$O$_5$) as an anode material for rechargeable lithium-ion batteries (LIB). The as-synthesized material addresses key challenges such as beneficial porous structure, poor rate capability, and cycling performance of the anode for Li-ion devices. The physicochemical characterization results reveal hierarchical porous nanostructure morphology with agglomerated particles and a 20 to 25 nm dimension range. Moreover, the sample has a high specific surface area (~65 m$^2$ g$^{−1}$) and pore volume (0.135 cm3 g$^{−1}$). As for the application in Li-ion devices, the T-Nb$_2$O$_5$ delivered an initial discharging capacity as high as 225 mAh g$^{−1}$ at 0.1 A g$^{−1}$ and higher rate capability as well as remarkable cycling features (~70% capacity retention after 300 cycles at 250 mA g$^{−1}$) with 98% average Coulombic efficiency (CE). Furthermore, the scan rate-dependent charge storage mechanism of the T-Nb$_2$O$_5$ electrode material was described, and the findings demonstrate that the electrode shows an evident and highly effective pseudocapacitive Li intercalation behaviour, which is crucial for understanding the electrode process kinetics. The origin of the improved performance of T-Nb$_2$O$_5$ results from the high surface area and mesoporous structure of the nanoparticles

MeltingPlot, a user-friendly online tool for epidemiological investigation using High Resolution Melting data

BACKGROUND: The rapid identification of pathogen clones is pivotal for effective epidemiological control strategies in hospital settings. High Resolution Melting (HRM) is a molecular biology technique suitable for fast and inexpensive pathogen typing protocols. Unfortunately, the mathematical/informatics skills required to analyse HRM data for pathogen typing likely limit the application of this promising technique in hospital settings.RESULTS: MeltingPlot is the first tool specifically designed for epidemiological investigations using HRM data, easing the application of HRM typing to large real-time surveillance and rapid outbreak reconstructions. MeltingPlot implements a graph-based algorithm designed to discriminate pathogen clones on the basis of HRM data, producing portable typing results. The tool also merges typing information with isolates and patients metadata to create graphical and tabular outputs useful in epidemiological investigations and it runs in a few seconds even with hundreds of isolates.AVAILABILITY: https://skynet.unimi.it/index.php/tools/meltingplot/ .CONCLUSIONS: The analysis and result interpretation of HRM typing protocols can be not trivial and this likely limited its application in hospital settings. MeltingPlot is a web tool designed to help the user to reconstruct epidemiological events by combining HRM-based clustering methods and the isolate/patient metadata. The tool can be used for the implementation of HRM based real time large scale surveillance programs in hospital settings