Advancing Human Rights Through the United Nations

Today's high oil prices and more stringent environmental requirements have led to that manufacturers of mobile construction equipment try to make their products more energy efficient. With this in mind a project about hybridization of hydraulic systems has been formed. The purpose of this project was to analyze the savings that can be achieved by hybridization of hydraulic systems. A reach stacker truck (Kalmar DRD450-80S4XS) were simulated in some load cases with conventional hydraulic systems and with three types of hybridized hydraulic systems. Different parts of the hydraulic systems were also analyzed separately. The analysis has shown that significant energy savings can be achieved by hybridizing hydraulic systems. The analysis showed that between 9-30% energy savings could be achieved by hybridizing the truck's various subsystems.Med dagens höga oljepriser och samhällets allt strängare miljökrav, stävar tillverkare av mobila entreprenadmaskiner efter att energieffektivisera sina produkter. Med detta i tanke formades ett projekt om att regenerera hydraulisk energi på entreprenadmaskiner. Syftet med detta projekt var att analysera vilka besparingar som kan åstakommas genom att hydraulsystemet på entrprenadmaskiner hybridiseras. En reachstacker truck (Kalmar DRD450-80S4XS) simulerades i några lastfall med konventionellt hydraulsystem samt med tre typer av hybridiserade hydraulsystem. Olika delar av de hydrauliska systemen analyserades även var för sig. Analysen har visat att stora energibesparingar kan åstakommas genom att hybridisera hydraulsystem. Den genomförda analysen visade på att mellan 9-30% energibesparing kunde uppnås genom att hybridisera truckens olika delsystem

Marginal scaling scenario and analytic results for a glassy compaction model

A diffusion-deposition model for glassy dynamics in compacting granular systems is treated by time scaling and by a method that provides the exact asymptotic (long time) behavior. The results include Vogel-Fulcher dependence of rates on density, inverse logarithmic time decay of densities, exponential distribution of decay times and broadening of noise spectrum. These are all in broad agreement with experiments. The main characteristics result from a marginal rescaling in time of the control parameter (density); this is argued to be generic for glassy systems.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Raking the Cocktail Party

We present the concept of an acoustic rake receiver---a microphone beamformer that uses echoes to improve the noise and interference suppression. The rake idea is well-known in wireless communications; it involves constructively combining different multipath components that arrive at the receiver antennas. Unlike spread-spectrum signals used in wireless communications, speech signals are not orthogonal to their shifts. Therefore, we focus on the spatial structure, rather than temporal. Instead of explicitly estimating the channel, we create correspondences between early echoes in time and image sources in space. These multiple sources of the desired and the interfering signal offer additional spatial diversity that we can exploit in the beamformer design. We present several "intuitive" and optimal formulations of acoustic rake receivers, and show theoretically and numerically that the rake formulation of the maximum signal-to-interference-and-noise beamformer offers significant performance boosts in terms of noise and interference suppression. Beyond signal-to-noise ratio, we observe gains in terms of the \emph{perceptual evaluation of speech quality} (PESQ) metric for the speech quality. We accompany the paper by the complete simulation and processing chain written in Python. The code and the sound samples are available online at \url{http://lcav.github.io/AcousticRakeReceiver/}.Comment: 12 pages, 11 figures, Accepted for publication in IEEE Journal on Selected Topics in Signal Processing (Special Issue on Spatial Audio

Fluctuation-dissipation relation and the Edwards entropy for a glassy granular compaction model

We analytically study a one dimensional compaction model in the glassy regime. Both correlation and response functions are calculated exactly in the evolving dense and low tapping strength limit, where the density relaxes in a $1/\ln t$ fashion. The response and correlation functions turn out to be connected through a non-equilibrium generalisation of the fluctuation-dissipation theorem. The initial response in the average density to an increase in the tapping strength is shown to be negative, while on longer timescales it is shown to be positive. On short time scales the fluctuation-dissipation theorem governs the relation between correlation and response, and we show that such a relationship also exists for the slow degrees of freedom, albeit with a different temperature. The model is further studied within the statistical theory proposed by Edwards and co-workers, and the Edwards entropy is calculated in the large system limit. The fluctuations described by this approach turn out to match the fluctuations as calculated through the dynamical consideration. We believe this to be the first time these ideas have been analytically confirmed in a non-mean-field model.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Dynamic serviceability design of attic room floors in modern timber frame houses

In this paper, the vibrational performance of roof trusses for constructing the attic room floors with various geometric configurations was investigated using commercial finite element software – SAP2000. Vibrational parameters included the mid-span deflections of the bottom chord under dead loads and unit point load, and modal frequencies up to 40 Hz and modal shapes. This study confirmed that increasing the bottom chord size and including composite bottom chord and fully composite roof truss members could largely enhance the dynamic serviceability performance of the attic room floors in timber frame houses

The Trades and Labor Congress of Canada and Political Action 1898-1908

An examination of the politics of the Trades and Labour Congress of Canada and its relationship with the radical political movement in English-speaking Canada between 1898 and 1908. The Congress moved left in the years around the turn of the Century and supported the principle of independent labour representation but refrained from endorsing the new Socialist movement. A Canadian Labour Party was launched in 1906 but socialists and independent laborities in the Congress remained unreconciled and the new party failed to get off the ground.Cette étude porte sur l'action politique du CMTC et sur ses relations avec le mouvement politique socialiste dans la partie anglophone du Canada entre 1898 et 1908. Sur le plan politique les chefs syndicaux du CMTC étaient plutôt de tendance libérale quand les partis travaillistes indépendants et socialistes apparurent vers 1898. Les activités des adhérents de ces partis à l'intérieur du mouvement ouvrier constitua un sérieux défi pour les chefs syndicaux et aussi pour leurs politiques partisanes traditionnelles.C'est du Manitoba et de la Colombie Britannique que vinrent les premières pressions pour l'adoption par le CMTC d'un engagement politique plus indépendant. En effet dans ces deux provinces des politiciens travaillistes radicaux avaient obtenu un certain succès. Un référendum sur la représentation ouvrière indépendante fut pris au congrès du CMTC en 1899 mais les résultats furent insatisfaisants. Une résolution adoptée au congrès de 1900 favorisait l'élection du président du CMTC Ralph Smith, à la Chambre des Communes en tant que représentant d'un parti ouvrier indépendant.A partir de ce moment l'engagement politique du CMTC se concrétisa et se développa rapidement. Au congrès de Brantford en 1901 l'exécutif du Congrès ratifia le principe de la représentation ouvrière indépendante et proposa une modernisation radicale des techniques de « lobbying ». Ce nouvel état d'esprit dans le CMTC s'amplifia l'année suivante au congrès de Berlin quand les Chevaliers du Travail, groupe conservateur d'unionistes, furent expulsés du CMTC et que Ralph Smith, sympathisant libéral fut remplacé par John Flett à la présidence du Congrès.Ce virement vers la gauche effectué par le Congrès ne sanctionnait pas pour autant le socialisme ou le mouvement socialiste auquel était associée une faible minorité à l'intérieur du CMTC. Celle-ci fit des tentatives pour lancer le mouvement syndical vers la gauche. Ces tentatives échouèrent parce que leurs promoteurs en Colombie Britannique favorisaient autant le syndicalisme industriel que le syndicalisme de métier. Cette prise de position fut interprétée par les membres du CMTC comme du socialisme politique et comme contribuant à diviser le mouvement ouvrier au lieu de l'unifier. C'est pour ces raisons que les chefs socialistes furent tenus à l'écart des congrès du CMTC. Dans les années qui suivirent le célèbre congrès de Berlin, le CMTC continua à soutenir le principe de la représentation indépendante mais évita d'endosser le nouveau mouvement socialiste ou de mettre sur pied un organisme pour créer un parti ouvrier national.En 1906 cependant la conjoncture était favorable à un affrontement entre les tenants de la représentation ouvrière et les socialistes à l'intérieur du Congrès. Il eut lieu au congrès de Victoria en Colombie Britannique. A ce congrès on vota en faveur de la création d'un parti ouvrier canadien et on rejeta le Parti socialiste du Canada et ce même si en Colombie Britannique il était considéré comme le « bras politique normal du mouvement ouvrier organisé ». Des congrès subséquents furent tenues par les sections provinciales du Parti ouvrier canadien en Alberta, au Manitoba, en Colombie Britannique et en Ontario. Les socialistes dominèrent les congrès qui eurent lieu en Alberta et en Colombie Britannique et c'est pourquoi ces mêmes congrès reconnurent le Parti Socialiste du Canada comme représentant le travail organisé sur le plan politique. On essaya en vain de légitimer cette ingérence socialiste aux congrès du CMTC en 1907 et en 1908. Dans les autres congrès qui précédèrent la première guerre mondiale, aucun effort ne fut fait pour relancer le Parti ouvrier canadien agonisant, reconnaître le Parti socialiste du Canada ou régler les chicanes entre les factions politiques traditionnelles

Enhancing Mobile Data Collection Applications with Sensing Capabilities

Over the past years, using smart mobile devices for data collection purposes has become ubiquitous in many application domains, replacing traditional pen-and-paper based data collection approaches. However, in many cases, modern approaches only aim to replicate traditional data collection instruments (e.g., paper-based questionnaires) in a digital from (e.g., smartphone surveys). Thereby, the full potential of smart mobile devices is often not fully exploited. Most modern smart mobile devices comprise a variety of sensing capabilities, which may provide valuable data, and thus insights. In addition, external sensors and devices may be easily connected to become part of the overall data collection process. In order to integrate sensing functionality into existing data collection applications, one has to address each desired sensor manually from within the application, which may cause severe development effort. Alternatively one can fall back on dedicated sensing frameworks to perform sensing operations. However, the latter are often targeted towards one specific mobile platform (e.g., iOS or Android) or lack required functionality, which may also lead to unnecessary development overhead when implementing mobile data collection applications. To cope with these issues, a cross-platform mobile sensing framework that can be used within large-scale mobile data collection scenarios was developed in the context of this thesis. Thereby, an in-depth look at existing mobile sensing frameworks as well as common use case scenarios is taken. Further, requirements derived from the latter are explicitly stated and were taken into consideration in the course of the overall development process. The latter is documented and discussed in detail in the course of this thesis, including the design of a framework architecture, implementation details and the integration of the framework into mobile data collection applications