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- Kaiserslautern - Fachbereich Informatik (19)
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Synapses are the fundamental structures that regulate the functionality of the neural circuit. The ability of the synapse to modulate its structure and function at a fast rate due to various sensory inputs provides the strength to the nervous system to incorporate new adaptations and behaviors in the animal. The synapses are very dynamic throughout the life of the animal starting from early development. Continuous events of formation and elimination of synapse, activation and inhibition of synaptic function are observed in almost all synapses. These processes occur at a high speed and require controlled cellular mechanisms. Imbalance in these processes results in defective nervous system and has been reported in many neurological disorders. Thus, it is important to understand the mechanisms that regulate process of synapse development maintenance and function.
Kinases and phosphatases are the key regulators of cellular mechanisms. Understanding the function of these molecules in the neuron will shed light on the molecular mechanisms of synaptic plasticity. Using Drosophila melanogaster larval neuromuscular junction as a model, Bulat et al. (2014) performed a large RNAi based screen targeting kinome and phosphatome of Drosophila to identify the essential kinases and phosphatases and found Myeloid leukemia factor-1 adaptor molecule (Madm) and Protein phosphatase 4 (PP4) as novel regulators of synapse development and maintenance. The function of these molecules in the nervous system has not been reported and hence I investigated on the role of Madm and PP4 in the regulation of synapse development, maintenance and function.
Myeloid leukemia factor-1 adaptor molecule (Madm), a ubiquitously expressing psuedokinase essentially functions to regulate synaptic growth, stability and function. Using a combination of genetic and high throughput imaging, I could demonstrate that Madm functions to regulate the synaptic growth and stability from the presynapse and synaptic organization form the postsynapse. Also, I could demonstrate that Madm functions in association with mTOR pathway to regulate synapse growth acting downstream of 4E-BP. In addition, using electrophysiology, we could demonstrate that Madm is essential for the basic synaptic transmission with an additive function of retrograde synaptic potentiation. In summary, I could demonstrate that Madm is a novel regulator of synaptic development, maintenance and function.
Protein phosphatase 4 (PP4), a ubiquitously expressing protein phosphatase is involved in the regulation of multiple aspects of the nervous system. I could demonstrate that PP4 is essential for the development of nervous system and the metamorphosis. Using genetics and imaging analysis, I could demonstrate that loss of PP4 results in the abnormal morphology of cell organelles. In addition, I could show that loss of PP4 results in defective brain development with poorly developed structures.
Altogether, in this study, I could demonstrate the importance of novel molecules, a pesudokinase Madm and protein phosphatases PP4 in the nervous system to regulate distinct aspects of the neuron.
Wetted contacts play an important role in many fields. A prominent example in engineering is the lubricated contact between tool and workpiece in machining processes with cutting liquids. In such contacts, highly dynamic processes occur in the fluid at small length scales under extreme conditions regarding temperature, pressure, and shear. Experimental studies of these phenomena are generally not feasible. Thus, only little information on the actual processes in the contact zone is available. A tractable route for obtaining such information is molecular dynamics (MD) simulation. As input for these simulations, only a potential model that describes the interactions on the atomistic scale, is needed. On that basis also complex processes can be predicted. In the present work, a simple model potential was used, i.e. the Lennard-Jones truncated and shifted potential (LJTS), which was parameterized to describe the solids, the fluid, and their interactions. A novel method for determining fluid properties with non-equilibrium MD simulations was developed, which yields thermal, caloric and transport properties in a single simulation run. It can also be used for studying the influence of shear on these properties. With the new method, a comprehensive study of properties of the LJTS fluid was carried out. Furthermore, it was investigated how these fluid properties change near the solid-fluid interface and how these changes affect the conductive heat transfer between the solid and the fluid. Finally, a nanotribological process was studied, in which all these phenomena occur simultaneously.
Glycine constitutes the major neurotransmitter at inhibitory synapses of lower brain regions.
A rapid removal of glycine from the synaptic cleft and consequent recycling is crucial for
synaptic transmission in systems with high effort on temporal precision. This is mainly
achieved by glycine translocation via two glycine transporters (GlyTs), namely GlyT1 and
GlyT2. At inhibitory synapses, GlyT2 was found to be specifically expressed by neurons,
supplying the presynapse with glycine needed for vesicle filling. In contrast, GlyT1 is attributed
to astrocytes and primarily mediates the termination of synaptic transmission by glycine
removal from the synaptic cleft. Employing patch-clamp recordings from principal neurons of
the lateral superior olive (LSO) in acute brainstem slices of GlyT1b/c knockout (KO) mice and
wildtype (WT) littermates at postnatal day 20, I analyzed how postsynaptic responses are
changed in a GlyT1-depleted environment. During spontaneous vesicle release I found no
change of postsynaptic responses, contradicting my initial hypothesis of prolonged decay
times. Electrical stimulation of fibers of the medial nucleus of the trapezoid body (MNTB),
which are known to form fast, reliable and highly precise synapses with LSO principal neurons,
revealed that GlyT1 is involved in proper synaptic function during sustained, high frequent
synaptic transmission. Stimulation with 50 Hz led to a stronger decay time and latency
prolongation in GlyT1b/c KO, accelerating to 60% longer decay times and 30% longer latencies.
Additionally, a more pronounced frequency-dependent depression and fidelity decrease was
observed during stimulation with 200 Hz in GlyT1b/c KO, resulting in 67% smaller amplitudes
and only 25% of WT fidelity at the end of the challenge. Basic properties like readily releasable
pool, release probability, and quantal size (q) were not altered in GlyT1b/c KO, but
interestingly q decreased during 50 Hz and 100 Hz challenges to about 84%, which was not
observed in WT. I conclude that stronger accumulation of extracellular glycine due to GlyT1
loss leads to prolonged activation of postsynaptic glycine receptors (GlyRs). As a further
consequence, activation of presynaptic GlyRs in the vicinity of the synaptic cleft might be
enhanced, accompanied by a stronger occurrence of shunting inhibition. Furthermore, I
assume a GlyT1-dependent glycine shuttle, which is absent at GlyT1b/c KO synapses. This
could result in a diminished glycine supply to GlyT2 located at more distant sites, causing a
disturbed replenishment during periods with excess release of glycine. Conclusively, my study
reveals a contribution of astrocytes in fast and reliable synaptic transmission at the MNTB-LSO
synapse, which in turn is crucial for proper sound source localization.
Private data analytics systems preferably provide required analytic accuracy to analysts and specified privacy to individuals whose data is analyzed. Devising a general system that works for a broad range of datasets and analytic scenarios has proven to be difficult.
Despite the advent of differentially private systems with proven formal privacy guarantees, industry still uses inferior ad-hoc mechanisms that provide better analytic accuracy. Differentially private mechanisms often need to add large amounts of noise to statistical results, which impairs their usability.
In my thesis I follow two approaches to improve the usability of private data analytics systems in general and differentially private systems in particular. First, I revisit ad-hoc mechanisms and explore the possibilities of systems that do not provide Differential Privacy or only a weak version thereof. Based on an attack analysis I devise a set of new protection mechanisms including Query Based Bookkeeping (QBB). In contrast to previous systems QBB only requires the history of analysts’ queries in order to provide privacy protection. In particular, QBB does not require knowledge about the protected individuals’ data.
In my second approach I use the insights gained with QBB to propose UniTraX, the first differentially private analytics system that allows to analyze part of a protected dataset without affecting the other parts and without giving up on accuracy. I show UniTraX’s usability by way of multiple case studies on real-world datasets across different domains. UniTraX allows more queries than previous differentially private data analytics systems at moderate runtime overheads.
Model uncertainty is a challenge that is inherent in many applications of mathematical models in various areas, for instance in mathematical finance and stochastic control. Optimization procedures in general take place under a particular model. This model, however, might be misspecified due to statistical estimation errors and incomplete information. In that sense, any specified model must be understood as an approximation of the unknown "true" model. Difficulties arise since a strategy which is optimal under the approximating model might perform rather bad in the true model. A natural way to deal with model uncertainty is to consider worst-case optimization.
The optimization problems that we are interested in are utility maximization problems in continuous-time financial markets. It is well known that drift parameters in such markets are notoriously difficult to estimate. To obtain strategies that are robust with respect to a possible misspecification of the drift we consider a worst-case utility maximization problem with ellipsoidal uncertainty sets for the drift parameter and with a constraint on the strategies that prevents a pure bond investment.
By a dual approach we derive an explicit representation of the optimal strategy and prove a minimax theorem. This enables us to show that the optimal strategy converges to a generalized uniform diversification strategy as uncertainty increases.
To come up with a reasonable uncertainty set, investors can use filtering techniques to estimate the drift of asset returns based on return observations as well as external sources of information, so-called expert opinions. In a Black-Scholes type financial market with a Gaussian drift process we investigate the asymptotic behavior of the filter as the frequency of expert opinions tends to infinity. We derive limit theorems stating that the information obtained from observing the discrete-time expert opinions is asymptotically the same as that from observing a certain diffusion process which can be interpreted as a continuous-time expert. Our convergence results carry over to convergence of the value function in a portfolio optimization problem with logarithmic utility.
Lastly, we use our observations about how expert opinions improve drift estimates for our robust utility maximization problem. We show that our duality approach carries over to a financial market with non-constant drift and time-dependence in the uncertainty set. A time-dependent uncertainty set can then be defined based on a generic filter. We apply this to various investor filtrations and investigate which effect expert opinions have on the robust strategies.
In this dissertation we apply financial mathematical modelling to electricity markets. Electricity is different from any other underlying of financial contracts: it is not storable. This means that electrical energy in one time point cannot be transferred to another. As a consequence, power contracts with disjoint delivery time spans basically have a different underlying. The main idea throughout this thesis is exactly this two-dimensionality of time: every electricity contract is not only characterized by its trading time but also by its delivery time.
The basis of this dissertation are four scientific papers corresponding to the Chapters 3 to 6, two of which have already been published in peer-reviewed journals. Throughout this thesis two model classes play a significant role: factor models and structural models. All ideas are applied to or supported by these two model classes. All empirical studies in this dissertation are conducted on electricity price data from the German market and Chapter 4 in particular studies an intraday derivative unique to the German market. Therefore, electricity market design is introduced by the example of Germany in Chapter 1. Subsequently, Chapter 2 introduces the general mathematical theory necessary for modelling electricity prices, such as Lévy processes and the Esscher transform. This chapter is the mathematical basis of the Chapters 3 to 6.
Chapter 3 studies factor models applied to the German day-ahead spot prices. We introduce a qualitative measure for seasonality functions based on three requirements. Furthermore, we introduce a relation of factor models to ARMA processes, which induces a new method to estimate the mean reversion speed.
Chapter 4 conducts a theoretical and empirical study of a pricing method for a new electricity derivative: the German intraday cap and floor futures. We introduce the general theory of derivative pricing and propose a method based on the Hull-White model of interest rate modelling, which is a one-factor model. We include week futures prices to generate a price forward curve (PFC), which is then used instead of a fixed deterministic seasonality function. The idea that we can combine all market prices, and in particular futures prices, to improve the model quality also plays the major role in Chapter 5 and Chapter 6.
In Chapter 5 we develop a Heath-Jarrow-Morton (HJM) framework that models intraday, day-ahead, and futures prices. This approach is based on two stochastic processes motivated by economic interpretations and separates the stochastic dynamics in trading and delivery time. Furthermore, this framework allows for the use of classical day-ahead spot price models such as the ones of Schwartz and Smith (2000), Lucia and Schwartz (2002) and includes many model classes such as structural models and factor models.
Chapter 6 unifies the classical theory of storage and the concept of a risk premium through the introduction of an unobservable intrinsic electricity price. Since all tradable electricity contracts are derivatives of this actual intrinsic price, their prices should all be derived as conditional expectation under the risk-neutral measure. Through the intrinsic electricity price we develop a framework, which also includes many existing modelling approaches, such as the HJM framework of Chapter 5.
The main focus of the research lies in the interpretation and application of results and correlations of soil properties from in situ testing and subsequent use in terramechanical applications. The empirical correlations and current procedures were mainly developed for medium to large depths, and therefore they were re-evaluated and adjusted herein to reflect the current state of knowledge for the assessment of near-surface soil. For testing technologies, a field investigation to a moon analogue site was carried out. Focus was placed in the assessment of the near surface soil properties. Samples were collected for subsequent analysis in laboratory conditions. Further laboratory experiments in extraterrestrial soil simulants and other terrestrial soils were conducted and correlations with relative density and shear strength parameters were attempted. The correlations from the small scale laboratory experiments, and the new re-evaluated correlation for relative density were checked against the data from the field investigation. Additionally, single tire-soil tests were carried out, which enable the investigation of the localized soil response in order to advance current wheel designs and subsequently the vehicle’s mobility. Furthermore, numerical simulations were done to aid the investigation of the tire-soil interaction. Summing up, current relationships for estimating relative density of near surface soil were re-evaluated, and subsequently correlated to shear strength parameters that are the main input to model soil in numerical analyses. Single tire-soil tests were carried out and were used as a reference to calibrate the interaction of the tire and the soil and subsequently were utilized to model rolling scenarios which enable the assessment of soil trafficability and vehicle’s mobility.
Planar force or pressure is a fundamental physical aspect during any people-vs-people and people-vs-environment activities and interactions. It is as significant as the more established linear and angular acceleration (usually acquired by inertial measurement units). There have been several studies involving planar pressure in the discipline of activity recognition, as reviewed in the first chapter. These studies have shown that planar pressure is a promising sensing modality for activity recognition. However, they still take a niche part in the entire discipline, using ad hoc systems and data analysis methods. Mostly these studies were not followed by further elaborative works. The situation calls for a general framework that can help push planar pressure sensing into the mainstream.
This dissertation systematically investigates using planar pressure distribution sensing technology for ubiquitous and wearable activity recognition purposes. We propose a generic Textile Pressure Mapping (TPM) Framework, which encapsulates (1) design knowledge and guidelines, (2) a multi-layered tool including hardware, software and algorithms, and (3) an ensemble of empirical study examples. Through validation with various empirical studies, the unified TPM framework covers the full scope of application recognition, including the ambient, object, and wearable subspaces.
The hardware part constructs a general architecture and implementations in the large-scale and mobile directions separately. The software toolkit consists of four heterogeneous tiers: driver, data processing, machine learning, visualization/feedback. The algorithm chapter describes generic data processing techniques and a unified TPM feature set. The TPM framework offers a universal solution for other researchers and developers to evaluate TPM sensing modality in their application scenarios.
The significant findings from the empirical studies have shown that TPM is a versatile sensing modality. Specifically, in the ambient subspace, a sports mat or carpet with TPM sensors embedded underneath can distinguish different sports activities or different people's gait based on the dynamic change of body-print; a pressure sensitive tablecloth can detect various dining actions by the force propagated from the cutlery through the plates to the tabletop. In the object subspace, swirl office chairs with TPM sensors under the cover can be used to detect the seater's real-time posture; TPM can be used to detect emotion-related touch interactions for smart objects, toys or robots. In the wearable subspace, TPM sensors can be used to perform pressure-based mechanomyography to detect muscle and body movement; it can also be tailored to cover the surface of a soccer shoe to distinguish different kicking angles and intensities.
All the empirical evaluations have resulted in accuracies well-above the chance level of the corresponding number of classes, e.g., the `swirl chair' study has classification accuracy of 79.5% out of 10 posture classes and in the `soccer shoe' study the accuracy is 98.8% among 17 combinations of angle and intensity.
Topological insulators (TI) are a fascinating new state of matter. Like usual insulators, their band structure possesses a band gap, such that they cannot conduct current in their bulk. However, they are able to conduct current along their edges and surfaces, due to edge states that cross the band gap. What makes TIs so interesting and potentially useful are these robust unidirectional edge currents. They are immune to significant defects and disorder, which means that they provide scattering-free transport.
In photonics, using topological protection has a huge potential for applications, e.g. for robust optical data transfer [1-3] – even on the quantum level [4, 5] – or to make devices more stable and robust [6, 7]. Therefore, the field of topological insulators has spread to optics to create the new and active research field of topological photonics [8-10].
Well-defined and controllable model systems can help to provide deeper insight into the mechanisms of topologically protected transport. These model systems provide a vast control over parameters. For example, arbitrary lattice types without defects can be examined, and single lattice sites can be manipulated. Furthermore, they allow for the observation of effects that usually happen at extremely short time-scales in solids. Model systems based on photonic waveguides are ideal candidates for this.
They consist of optical waveguides arranged on a lattice. Due to evanescent coupling, light that is inserted into one waveguide spreads along the lattice. This coupling of light between waveguides can be seen as an analogue to electrons hopping/tunneling between atomic lattice sites in a solid.
The theoretical basis for this analogy is given by the mathematical equivalence between Schrödinger and paraxial Helmholtz equation. This means that in these waveguide systems, the role of time is assigned to a spatial axis. The field evolution along the waveguides' propagation axis z thus models the temporal evolution of an electron's wave-function in solid states. Electric and magnetic fields acting on electrons in solids need to be incorporated into the photonic platform by introducing artificial fields. These artificial gauge fields need to act on photons in the same way that their electro-magnetic counterparts act on electrons. E.g., to create a photonic analogue of a topological insulator the waveguides are bent helically along their propagation axis to model the effect of a magnetic field [3]. This means that the fabrication of these waveguide arrays needs to be done in 3D.
In this thesis, a new method to 3D micro-print waveguides is introduced. The inverse structure is fabricated via direct laser writing, and subsequently infiltrated with a material with higher refractive index contrast. We will use these model systems of evanescently coupled waveguides to look at different effects in topological systems, in particular at Floquet topological systems.
We will start with a topologically trivial system, consisting of two waveguide arrays with different artificial gauge fields. There, we observe that an interface between these trivial gauge fields has a profound impact on the wave vector of the light traveling across it. We deduce an analog to Snell's law and verify it experimentally.
Then we will move on to Floquet topological systems, consisting of helical waveguides. At the interface between two Floquet topological insulators with opposite helicity of the waveguides, we find additional trivial interface modes that trap the light. This allows to investigate the interaction between trivial and topological modes in the lattice.
Furthermore, we address the question if topological edge states are robust under the influence of time-dependent defects. In a one-dimensional topological model (the Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model [11]) we apply periodic temporal modulations to an edge wave-guide. We find Floquet copies of the edge state, that couple to the bulk in a certain frequency window and thus depopulate the edge state.
In the two-dimensional Floquet topological insulator, we introduce single defects at the edge. When these defects share the temporal periodicity of the helical bulk waveguides, they have no influence on a topological edge mode. Then, the light moves around/through the defect without being scattered into the bulk. Defects with different periodicity, however, can – likewise to the defects in the SSH model – induce scattering of the edge state into the bulk.
In the end we will briefly highlight a newly emerging method for the fabrication of waveguides with low refractive index contrast. Moreover, we will introduce new ways to create artificial gauge fields by the use of orbital angular momentum states in waveguides.
Under the notion of Cyber-Physical Systems an increasingly important research area has
evolved with the aim of improving the connectivity and interoperability of previously
separate system functions. Today, the advanced networking and processing capabilities
of embedded systems make it possible to establish strongly distributed, heterogeneous
systems of systems. In such configurations, the system boundary does not necessarily
end with the hardware, but can also take into account the wider context such as people
and environmental factors. In addition to being open and adaptive to other networked
systems at integration time, such systems need to be able to adapt themselves in accordance
with dynamic changes in their application environments. Considering that many
of the potential application domains are inherently safety-critical, it has to be ensured
that the necessary modifications in the individual system behavior are safe. However,
currently available state-of-the-practice and state-of-the-art approaches for safety assurance
and certification are not applicable to this context.
To provide a feasible solution approach, this thesis introduces a framework that allows
“just-in-time” safety certification for the dynamic adaptation behavior of networked
systems. Dynamic safety contracts (DSCs) are presented as the core solution concept
for monitoring and synthesis of decentralized safety knowledge. Ultimately, this opens
up a path towards standardized service provision concepts as a set of safety-related runtime
evidences. DSCs enable the modular specification of relevant safety features in
networked applications as a series of formalized demand-guarantee dependencies. The
specified safety features can be hierarchically integrated and linked to an interpretation
level for accessing the scope of possible safe behavioral adaptations. In this way, the networked
adaptation behavior can be conditionally certified with respect to the fulfilled
DSC safety features during operation. As long as the continuous evaluation process
provides safe adaptation behavior for a networked application context, safety can be
guaranteed for a networked system mode at runtime. Significant safety-related changes
in the application context, however, can lead to situations in which no safe adaptation
behavior is available for the current system state. In such cases, the remaining DSC
guarantees can be utilized to determine optimal degradation concepts for the dynamic
applications.
For the operationalization of the DSCs approach, suitable specification elements and
mechanisms have been defined. Based on a dedicated GUI-engineering framework it is
shown how DSCs can be systematically developed and transformed into appropriate runtime
representations. Furthermore, a safety engineering backbone is outlined to support
the DSC modeling process in concrete application scenarios. The conducted validation
activities show the feasibility and adequacy of the proposed DSCs approach. In parallel,
limitations and areas of future improvement are pointed out.
Many loads acting on a vehicle depend on the condition and quality of roads
traveled as well as on the driving style of the motorist. Thus, during vehicle development,
good knowledge on these further operations conditions is advantageous.
For that purpose, usage models for different kinds of vehicles are considered. Based
on these mathematical descriptions, representative routes for multiple user
types can be simulated in a predefined geographical region. The obtained individual
driving schedules consist of coordinates of starting and target points and can
thus be routed on the true road network. Additionally, different factors, like the
topography, can be evaluated along the track.
Available statistics resulting from travel survey are integrated to guarantee reasonable
trip length. Population figures are used to estimate the number of vehicles in
contained administrative units. The creation of thousands of those geo-referenced
trips then allows the determination of realistic measures of the durability loads.
Private as well as commercial use of vehicles is modeled. For the former, commuters
are modeled as the main user group conducting daily drives to work and
additional leisure time a shopping trip during workweek. For the latter, taxis as
example for users of passenger cars are considered. The model of light-duty commercial
vehicles is split into two types of driving patterns, stars and tours, and in
the common traffic classes of long-distance, local and city traffic.
Algorithms to simulate reasonable target points based on geographical and statistical
data are presented in detail. Examples for the evaluation of routes based
on topographical factors and speed profiles comparing the influence of the driving
style are included.
In computer graphics, realistic rendering of virtual scenes is a computationally complex problem. State-of-the-art rendering technology must become more scalable to
meet the performance requirements for demanding real-time applications.
This dissertation is concerned with core algorithms for rendering, focusing on the
ray tracing method in particular, to support and saturate recent massively parallel computer systems, i.e., to distribute the complex computations very efficiently
among a large number of processing elements. More specifically, the three targeted
main contributions are:
1. Collaboration framework for large-scale distributed memory computers
The purpose of the collaboration framework is to enable scalable rendering
in real-time on a distributed memory computer. As an infrastructure layer it
manages the explicit communication within a network of distributed memory
nodes transparently for the rendering application. The research is focused on
designing a communication protocol resilient against delays and negligible in
overhead, relying exclusively on one-sided and asynchronous data transfers.
The hypothesis is that a loosely coupled system like this is able to scale linearly
with the number of nodes, which is tested by directly measuring all possible
communication-induced delays as well as the overall rendering throughput.
2. Ray tracing algorithms designed for vector processing
Vector processors are to be efficiently utilized for improved ray tracing performance. This requires the basic, scalar traversal algorithm to be reformulated
in order to expose a high degree of fine-grained data parallelism. Two approaches are investigated: traversing multiple rays simultaneously, and performing
multiple traversal steps at once. Efficiently establishing coherence in a group
of rays as well as avoiding sorting of the nodes in a multi-traversal step are the
defining research goals.
3. Multi-threaded schedule and memory management for the ray tracing acceleration structure
Construction times of high-quality acceleration structures are to be reduced by
improvements to multi-threaded scalability and utilization of vector processors. Research is directed at eliminating the following scalability bottlenecks:
dynamic memory growth caused by the primitive splits required for high-
quality structures, and top-level hierarchy construction where simple task par-
allelism is not readily available. Additional research addresses how to expose
scatter/gather-free data-parallelism for efficient vector processing.
Together, these contributions form a scalable, high-performance basis for real-time,
ray tracing-based rendering, and a prototype path tracing application implemented
on top of this basis serves as a demonstration.
The key insight driving this dissertation is that the computational power necessary
for realistic light transport for real-time rendering applications demands massively
parallel computers, which in turn require highly scalable algorithms. Therefore this
dissertation provides important research along the path towards virtual reality.
While the design step should be free from computational related constraints and operations due to its artistic aspect, the modeling phase has to prepare the model for the later stages of the pipeline.
This dissertation is concerned with the design and implementation of a framework for local remeshing and optimization. Based on the experience gathered, a full study about mesh quality criteria is also part of this work.
The contributions can be highlighted as: (1) a local meshing technique based on a completely novel approach constrained to the preservation of the mesh of non interesting areas. With this concept, designers can work on the design details of specific regions of the model without introducing more polygons elsewhere; (2) a tool capable of recovering the shape of a refined area to its decimated version, enabling details on optimized meshes of detailed models; (3) the integration of novel techniques into a single framework for meshing and smoothing which is constrained to surface structure; (4) the development of a mesh quality criteria priority structure, being able to classify and prioritize according to the application of the mesh.
Although efficient meshing techniques have been proposed along the years, most of them lack the possibility to mesh smaller regions of the base mesh, preserving the mesh quality and density of outer areas.
Considering this limitation, this dissertation seeks answers to the following research questions:
1. Given that mesh quality is relative to the application it is intended for, is it possible to design a general mesh evaluation plan?
2. How to prioritize specific mesh criteria over others?
3. Given an optimized mesh and its original design, how to improve the representation of single regions of the first, without degrading the mesh quality elsewhere?
Four main achievements came from the respective answers:
1. The Application Driven Mesh Quality Criteria Structure: Due to high variation in mesh standards because of various computer aided operations performed for different applications, e.g. animation or stress simulation, a structure for better visualization of mesh quality criteria is proposed. The criteria can be used to guide the mesh optimization, making the task consistent and reliable. This dissertation also proposes a methodology to optimize the criteria values, which is adaptable to the needs of a specific application.
2. Curvature Driven Meshing Algorithm: A novel approach, a local meshing technique, which works on a desired area of the mesh while preserving its boundaries as well as the rest of the topology. It causes a slow growth in the overall amount of polygons by making only small regions denser. The method can also be used to recover the details of a reference mesh to its decimated version while refining it. Moreover, it employs a geometric fast and easy to implement approach representing surface features as simple circles, being used to guide the meshing. It also generates quad-dominant meshes, with triangle count directly dependent on the size of the boundary.
3. Curvature-based Method for Anisotropic Mesh Smoothing: A geometric-based method is extended to 3D space to be able to produce anisotropic elements where needed. It is made possible by mapping the original space to another which embeds the surface curvature. This methodology is used to enhance the smoothing algorithm by making the nearly regularized elements follow the surface features, preserving the original design. The mesh optimization method also preserves mesh topology, while resizing elements according to the local mesh resolution, effectively enhancing the design aspects intended.
4. Framework for Local Restructure of Meshed Surfaces: The combination of both methods creates a complete tool for recovering surface details through mesh refinement and curvature aware mesh smoothing.
In this thesis we consider the directional analysis of stationary point processes. We focus on three non-parametric methods based on second order analysis which we have defined as Integral method, Ellipsoid method, and Projection method. We present the methods in a general setting and then focus on their application in the 2D and 3D case of a particular type of anisotropy mechanism called geometric anisotropy. We mainly consider regular point patterns motivated by our application to real 3D data coming from glaciology. Note that directional analysis of 3D data is not so prominent in the literature.
We compare the performance of the methods, which depends on the relative parameters, in a simulation study both in 2D and 3D. Based on the results we give recommendations on how to choose the methods´ parameters in practice.
We apply the directional analysis to the 3D data coming from glaciology, which consist in the locations of air-bubbles in polar ice cores. The aim of this study is to provide information about the deformation rate in the ice and the corresponding thinning of ice layers at different depths. This information is substantial for the glaciologists in order to build ice dating models and consequently to give a correct interpretation of the climate information which can be found by analyzing ice cores. In this thesis we consider data coming from three different ice cores: the Talos Dome core, the EDML core and the Renland core.
Motivated by the ice application, we study how isotropic and stationary noise influences the directional analysis. In fact, due to the relaxation of the ice after drilling, noise bubbles can form within the ice samples. In this context we take two classification algorithms into consideration, which aim to classify points in a superposition of a regular isotropic and stationary point process with Poisson noise.
We introduce two methods to visualize anisotropy, which are particularly useful in 3D and apply them to the ice data. Finally, we consider the problem of testing anisotropy and the limiting behavior of the geometric anisotropy transform.
In this thesis, we consider the problem of processing similarity queries over a dataset of top-k rankings and class constrained objects. Top-k rankings are the most natural and widely used technique to compress a large amount of information into a concise form. Spearman’s Footrule distance is used to compute the similarity between rankings, considering how well rankings agree on the positions (ranks) of ranked items. This setup allows the application of metric distance-based pruning strategies, and, alternatively, enables the use of traditional inverted indices for retrieving rankings that overlap in items. Although both techniques can be individually applied, we hypothesize that blending these two would lead to better performance. First, we formulate theoretical bounds over the rankings, based on Spearman's Footrule distance, which are essential for adapting existing, inverted index based techniques to the setting of top-k rankings. Further, we propose a hybrid indexing strategy, designed for efficiently processing similarity range queries, which incorporates inverted indices and metric space indices, such as M- or BK-trees, resulting in a structure that resembles both indexing methods with tunable emphasis on one or the other. Moreover, optimizations to the inverted index component are presented, for early termination and minimizing bookkeeping. As vast amounts of data are being generated on a daily bases, we further present a distributed, highly tunable, approach, implemented in Apache Spark, for efficiently processing similarity join queries over top-k rankings. To combine distance-based filtering with inverted indices, the algorithm works in several phases. The partial results are joined for the computation of the final result set. As the last contribution of the thesis, we consider processing k-nearest-neighbor (k-NN) queries over class-constrained objects, with the additional requirement that the result objects are of a specific type. We introduce the MISP index, which first indexes the objects by their (combination of) class belonging, followed by a similarity search sub index for each subset of objects. The number of such subsets can combinatorially explode, thus, we provide a cost model that analyzes the performance of the MISP index structure under different configurations, with the aim of finding the most efficient one for the dataset being searched.
Visualization is vital to the scientific discovery process.
An interactive high-fidelity rendering provides accelerated insight into complex structures, models and relationships.
However, the efficient mapping of visualization tasks to high performance architectures is often difficult, being subject to a challenging mixture of hardware and software architectural complexities in combination with domain-specific hurdles.
These difficulties are often exacerbated on heterogeneous architectures.
In this thesis, a variety of ray casting-based techniques are developed and investigated with respect to a more efficient usage of heterogeneous HPC systems for distributed visualization, addressing challenges in mesh-free rendering, in-situ compression, task-based workload formulation, and remote visualization at large scale.
A novel direct raytracing scheme for on-the-fly free surface reconstruction of particle-based simulations using an extended anisoptropic kernel model is investigated on different state-of-the-art cluster setups.
The versatile system renders up to 170 million particles on 32 distributed compute nodes at close to interactive frame rates at 4K resolution with ambient occlusion.
To address the widening gap between high computational throughput and prohibitively slow I/O subsystems, in situ topological contour tree analysis is combined with a compact image-based data representation to provide an effective and easy-to-control trade-off between storage overhead and visualization fidelity.
Experiments show significant reductions in storage requirements, while preserving flexibility for exploration and analysis.
Driven by an increasingly heterogeneous system landscape, a flexible distributed direct volume rendering and hybrid compositing framework is presented.
Based on a task-based dynamic runtime environment, it enables adaptable performance-oriented deployment on various platform configurations.
Comprehensive benchmarks with respect to task granularity and scaling are conducted to verify the characteristics and potential of the novel task-based system design.
A core challenge of HPC visualization is the physical separation of visualization resources and end-users.
Using more tiles than previously thought reasonable, a distributed, low-latency multi-tile streaming system is demonstrated, being able to sustain a stable 80 Hz when streaming up to 256 synchronized 3840x2160 tiles and achieve 365 Hz at 3840x2160 for sort-first compositing over the internet, thereby enabling lightweight visualization clients and leaving all the heavy lifting to the remote supercomputer.
Topology-Based Characterization and Visual Analysis of Feature Evolution in Large-Scale Simulations
(2019)
This manuscript presents a topology-based analysis and visualization framework that enables the effective exploration of feature evolution in large-scale simulations. Such simulations pose additional challenges to the already complex task of feature tracking and visualization, since the vast number of features and the size of the simulation data make it infeasible to naively identify, track, analyze, render, store, and interact with data. The presented methodology addresses these issues via three core contributions. First, the manuscript defines a novel topological abstraction, called the Nested Tracking Graph (NTG), that records the temporal evolution of features that exhibit a nesting hierarchy, such as superlevel set components for multiple levels, or filtered features across multiple thresholds. In contrast to common tracking graphs that are only capable of describing feature evolution at one hierarchy level, NTGs effectively summarize their evolution across all hierarchy levels in one compact visualization. The second core contribution is a view-approximation oriented image database generation approach (VOIDGA) that stores, at simulation runtime, a reduced set of feature images. Instead of storing the features themselves---which is often infeasable due to bandwidth constraints---the images of these databases can be used to approximate the depicted features from any view angle within an acceptable visual error, which requires far less disk space and only introduces a neglectable overhead. The final core contribution combines these approaches into a methodology that stores in situ the least amount of information necessary to support flexible post hoc analysis utilizing NTGs and view approximation techniques.
Various physical phenomenons with sudden transients that results into structrual changes can be modeled via
switched nonlinear differential algebraic equations (DAEs) of the type
\[
E_{\sigma}\dot{x}=A_{\sigma}x+f_{\sigma}+g_{\sigma}(x). \tag{DAE}
\]
where \(E_p,A_p \in \mathbb{R}^{n\times n}, x\mapsto g_p(x),\) is a mapping, \(p \in \{1,\cdots,P\}, P\in \mathbb{N}
f \in \mathbb{R} \rightarrow \mathbb{R}^n , \sigma: \mathbb{R} \rightarrow \{1,\cdots, P\}\).
Two related common tasks are:
Task 1: Investigate if above (DAE) has a solution and if it is unique.
Task 2: Find a connection among a solution of above (DAE) and solutions of related
partial differential equations.
In the linear case \(g(x) \equiv 0\) the task 1 has been tackeled already in a
distributional solution framework.
A main goal of the dissertation is to give contribution to task 1 for the
nonlinear case \(g(x) \not \equiv 0\) ; also contributions to the task 2 are given for
switched nonlinear DAEs arising while modeling sudden transients in water
distribution networks. In addition, this thesis contains the following further
contributions:
The notion of structured switched nonlinear DAEs has been introduced,
allowing also non regular distributions as solutions. This extend a previous
framework that allowed only piecewise smooth functions as solutions. Further six mild conditions were given to ensure existence and uniqueness of the solution within the space of piecewise smooth distribution. The main
condition, namely the regularity of the matrix pair \((E,A)\), is interpreted geometrically for those switched nonlinear DAEs arising from water network graphs.
Another contribution is the introduction of these switched nonlinear DAEs
as a simplication of the PDE model used classically for modeling water networks. Finally, with the support of numerical simulations of the PDE model it has been illustrated that this switched nonlinear DAE model is a good approximation for the PDE model in case of a small compressibility coefficient.
Shared memory concurrency is the pervasive programming model for multicore architectures
such as x86, Power, and ARM. Depending on the memory organization, each architecture follows
a somewhat different shared memory model. All these models, however, have one common
feature: they allow certain outcomes for concurrent programs that cannot be explained
by interleaving execution. In addition to the complexity due to architectures, compilers like
GCC and LLVM perform various program transformations, which also affect the outcomes of
concurrent programs.
To be able to program these systems correctly and effectively, it is important to define a
formal language-level concurrency model. For efficiency, it is important that the model is
weak enough to allow various compiler optimizations on shared memory accesses as well
as efficient mappings to the architectures. For programmability, the model should be strong
enough to disallow bogus “out-of-thin-air” executions and provide strong guarantees for well-synchronized
programs. Because of these conflicting requirements, defining such a formal
model is very difficult. This is why, despite years of research, major programming languages
such as C/C++ and Java do not yet have completely adequate formal models defining their
concurrency semantics.
In this thesis, we address this challenge and develop a formal concurrency model that is very
good both in terms of compilation efficiency and of programmability. Unlike most previous
approaches, which were defined either operationally or axiomatically on single executions,
our formal model is based on event structures, which represents multiple program executions,
and thus gives us more structure to define the semantics of concurrency.
In more detail, our formalization has two variants: the weaker version, WEAKEST, and the
stronger version, WEAKESTMO. The WEAKEST model simulates the promising semantics proposed
by Kang et al., while WEAKESTMO is incomparable to the promising semantics. Moreover,
WEAKESTMO discards certain questionable behaviors allowed by the promising semantics.
We show that the proposed WEAKESTMO model resolve out-of-thin-air problem, provide
standard data-race-freedom (DRF) guarantees, allow the desirable optimizations, and can be
mapped to the architectures like x86, PowerPC, and ARMv7. Additionally, our models are
flexible enough to leverage existing results from the literature to establish data-race-freedom
(DRF) guarantees and correctness of compilation.
In addition, in order to ensure the correctness of compilation by a major compiler, we developed
a translation validator targeting LLVM’s “opt” transformations of concurrent C/C++
programs. Using the validator, we identified a few subtle compilation bugs, which were reported
and were fixed. Additionally, we observe that LLVM concurrency semantics differs
from that of C11; there are transformations which are justified in C11 but not in LLVM and
vice versa. Considering the subtle aspects of LLVM concurrency, we formalized a fragment
of LLVM’s concurrency semantics and integrated it into our WEAKESTMO model.
The systems in industrial automation management (IAM) are information systems. The management parts of such systems are software components that support the manufacturing processes. The operational parts control highly plug-compatible devices, such as controllers, sensors and motors. Process variability and topology variability are the two main characteristics of software families in this domain. Furthermore, three roles of stakeholders -- requirement engineers, hardware-oriented engineers, and software developers -- participate in different derivation stages and have different variability concerns. In current practice, the development and reuse of such systems is costly and time-consuming, due to the complexity of topology and process variability. To overcome these challenges, the goal of this thesis is to develop an approach to improve the software product derivation process for systems in industrial automation management, where different variability types are concerned in different derivation stages. Current state-of-the-art approaches commonly use general-purpose variability modeling languages to represent variability, which is not sufficient for IAM systems. The process and topology variability requires more user-centered modeling and representation. The insufficiency of variability modeling leads to low efficiency during the staged derivation process involving different stakeholders. Up to now, product line approaches for systematic variability modeling and realization have not been well established for such complex domains. The model-based derivation approach presented in this thesis integrates feature modeling with domain-specific models for expressing processes and topology. The multi-variability modeling framework includes the meta-models of the three variability types and their associations. The realization and implementation of the multi-variability involves the mapping and the tracing of variants to their corresponding software product line assets. Based on the foundation of multi-variability modeling and realization, a derivation infrastructure is developed, which enables a semi-automated software derivation approach. It supports the configuration of different variability types to be integrated into the staged derivation process of the involved stakeholders. The derivation approach is evaluated in an industry-grade case study of a complex software system. The feasibility is demonstrated by applying the approach in the case study. By using the approach, both the size of the reusable core assets and the automation level of derivation are significantly improved. Furthermore, semi-structured interviews with engineers in practice have evaluated the usefulness and ease-of-use of the proposed approach. The results show a positive attitude towards applying the approach in practice, and high potential to generalize it to other related domains.
The usage of sensors in modern technical systems and consumer products is in a rapid increase. This advancement can be characterized by two major factors, namely, the mass introduction of consumer oriented sensing devices to the market and the sheer amount of sensor data being generated. These characteristics raise subsequent challenges regarding both the consumer sensing devices' reliability and the management and utilization of the generated sensor data. This thesis addresses these challenges through two main contributions. It presents a novel framework that leverages sentiment analysis techniques in order to assess the quality of consumer sensing devices. It also couples semantic technologies with big data technologies to present a new optimized approach for realization and management of semantic sensor data, hence providing a robust means of integration, analysis, and reuse of the generated data. The thesis also presents several applications that show the potential of the contributions in real-life scenarios.
Due to the broad range, growing feature set and fast release pace of new sensor-based products, evaluating these products is very challenging as standard product testing is not practical. As an alternative, an end-to-end aspect-based sentiment summarizer pipeline for evaluation of consumer sensing devices is presented. The pipeline uses product reviews to extract the sentiment at the aspect level and includes several components namely, product name extractor, aspects extractor and a lexicon-based sentiment extractor which handles multiple sentiment analysis challenges such as sentiment shifters, negations, and comparative sentences among others. The proposed summarizer's components generally outperform the state-of-the-art approaches. As a use case, features of the market leading fitness trackers are evaluated and a dynamic visual summarizer is presented to display the evaluation results and to provide personalized product recommendations for potential customers.
The increased usage of sensing devices in the consumer market is accompanied with increased deployment of sensors in various other fields such as industry, agriculture, and energy production systems. This necessitates using efficient and scalable methods for storing and processing of sensor data. Coupling big data technologies with semantic techniques not only helps to achieve the desired storage and processing goals, but also facilitates data integration, data analysis, and the utilization of data in unforeseen future applications through preserving the data generation context. This thesis proposes an efficient and scalable solution for semantification, storage and processing of raw sensor data through ontological modelling of sensor data and a novel encoding scheme that harnesses the split between the statements of the conceptual model of an ontology (TBox) and the individual facts (ABox) along with in-memory processing capabilities of modern big data systems. A sample use case is further introduced where a smartphone is deployed in a transportation bus to collect various sensor data which is then utilized in detecting street anomalies.
In addition to the aforementioned contributions, and to highlight the potential use cases of sensor data publicly available, a recommender system is developed using running route data, used for proximity-based retrieval, to provide personalized suggestions for new routes considering the runner's performance, visual and nature of route preferences.
This thesis aims at enhancing the integration of sensing devices in daily life applications through facilitating the public acquisition of consumer sensing devices. It also aims at achieving better integration and processing of sensor data in order to enable new potential usage scenarios of the raw generated data.
Linking protistan community shifts along salinity gradients with cellular haloadaptation strategies
(2019)
Salinity is one of the most structuring environmental factors for microeukaryotic communities. Using eDNA barcoding, I detected significant shifts in microeukaryotic community compositions occurring at distinct salinities between brackish and marine conditions in the Baltic Sea. I, furthermore, conducted a metadata analysis including my and other marine and hypersaline community sequence data to confirm the existence of salinity-related transition boundaries and significant changes in alpha diversity patterns along a brackish to hypersaline gradient. One hypothesis for the formation of salinity-dependent transition boundaries between brackish to hypersaline conditions is the use of different cellular haloadaptation strategies. To test this hypothesis, I conducted metatranscriptome analyses of microeukaryotic communities along a pronounced salinity gradient (40 – 380 ‰). Clustering of functional transcripts revealed differences in metabolic properties and metabolic capacities between microeukaryotic communities at specific salinities, corresponding to the transition boundaries already observed in the taxonomic eDNA barcoding approach. In specific, microeukaryotic communities thriving at mid-hypersaline conditions (≤ 150 ‰) seem to predominantly apply the ‘low-salt – organic-solutes-in’ strategy by accumulating compatible solutes to counteract osmotic stress. Indications were found for both the intracellular synthesis of compatible solutes as well as for cellular transport systems. In contrast, communities of extreme-hypersaline habitats (≥ 200 ‰) may preferentially use the ‘high-salt-in’ strategy, i. e. the intracellular accumulation of inorganic ions in high concentrations, which is implied by the increased expression of Mg2+, K+, Cl- transporters and channels.
In order to characterize the ‘low-salt – organic-solutes-in’ strategy applied by protists in more detail, I conducted a time-resolved transcriptome analysis of the heterotrophic ciliate Schmidingerothrix salinarum serving as model organism. S. salinarum was thus subjected to a salt-up shock to investigate the intracellular response to osmotic stress by shifts of gene expression. After increasing the external salinity, an increased expression of two-component signal transduction systems and MAPK cascades was observed. In an early reaction, the expression of transport mechanisms for K+, Cl- and Ca2+ increased, which may enhance the capacity of K+, Cl- and Ca2+ in the cytoplasm to compensate possibly harmful Na+ influx. Expression of enzymes for the synthesis of possible compatible solutes, starting with glycine betaine, followed by ectoine and later proline, could imply that the inorganic ions K+, Cl- and Ca2+ are gradually replaced by the synthesized compatible solutes. Additionally, expressed transporters for choline (precursor of glycine betaine) and proline could indicate an intracellular accumulation of compatible solutes to balance the external salinity. During this accumulation, the up-regulated ion export mechanisms may increase the capacity for Na+ expulsion from the cytoplasm and ion compartmentalization between cell organelles seem to happen.
The results of my PhD project revealed first evidence at molecular level for the salinity-dependent use of different haloadaptation strategies in microeukaryotes and significantly extend existing knowledge about haloadaptation processes in ciliates. The results provide ground for future research, such as (comparative) transcriptome analysis of ciliates thriving in extreme-hypersaline habitats or experiments like qRT-PCR to validate transcriptome results.
On the Effect of Nanofillers on the Environmental Stress Cracking Resistance of Glassy Polymers
(2019)
It is well known that reinforcing polymers with small amounts of nano-sized fillers is one of the most effective methods for simultaneously improving their mechanical and thermal properties. However, only a small number of studies have focused on environ-mental stress cracking (ESC), which is a major issue for premature failures of plastic products in service. Therefore, the contribution of this work focused on the influence of nano-SiO2 particles on the morphological, optical, mechanical, thermal, as well as envi-ronmental stress cracking properties of amorphous-based nanocomposites.
Polycarbonate (PC), polystyrene (PS) and poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) nanocom-posites containing different amounts and sizes of nano-SiO2 particles were prepared using a twin-screw extruder followed by injection molding. Adding a small amount of nano-SiO2 caused a reduction in optical properties but improved the tensile, toughness, and thermal properties of the polymer nanocomposites. The significant enhancement in mechanical and thermal properties was attributed to the adequate level of dispersion and interfacial interaction of the SiO2 nanoparticles in the polymer matrix. This situation possibly increased the efficiency of stress transfer across the nanocomposite compo-nents. Moreover, the data revealed a clear dependency on the filler size. The polymer nanocomposites filled with smaller nanofillers exhibited an outstanding enhancement in both mechanical properties and transparency compared with nanocomposites filled with larger particles. The best compromise of strength, toughness, and thermal proper-ties was achieved in PC-based nanocomposites. Therefore, special attention to the influ-ence of nanofiller on the ESC resistance was given to PC.
The ESC resistance of the materials was investigated under static loading with and without the presence of stress-cracking agents. Interestingly, the incorporation of nano-SiO2 greatly enhanced the ESC resistance of PC in all investigated fluids. This result was particularly evident with the smaller quantities and sizes of nano-SiO2. The enhancement in ESC resistance was more effective in mild agents and air, where the quality of the deformation process was vastly altered with the presence of nano-SiO2. This finding confirmed that the new structural arrangements on the molecular scale in-duced by nanoparticles dominate over the ESC agent absorption effect and result in greatly improving the ESC resistance of the materials. This effect was more pronounced with increasing molecular weight of PC due to an increase in craze stability and fibril density. The most important and new finding is that the ESC behavior of polymer-based nanocomposites/ stress-cracking agent combinations can be scaled using the Hansen solubility parameter. Thus allowed us to predict the risk of ESC as a function of the filler content for different stress-cracking agents without performing extensive tests. For a comparison of different amorphous polymer-based nanocomposites at a given nano-SiO2 particle content, the ESC resistance of materials improved in the following order: PMMA/SiO2 < PS/SiO2 < low molecular weight PC/SiO2 < high molecular weight PC/SiO2. In most cases, nanocomposites with 1 vol.% of nano-SiO2 particles exhibited the largest improvement in ESC resistance.
However, the remarkable improvement in the ESC resistance—particularly in PC-based nanocomposites—created some challenges related to material characterization because testing times (failure time) significantly increased. Accordingly, the superposition ap-proach has been applied to construct a master curve of crack propagation model from the available short-term tests at different temperatures. Good agreement of the master curves with the experimental data revealed that the superposition approach is a suitable comparative method for predicting slow crack growth behavior, particularly for long-duration cracking tests as in mild agents. This methodology made it possible to mini-mize testing time.
Additionally, modeling and simulations using the finite element method revealed that multi-field modeling could provide reasonable predictions for diffusion processes and their impact on fracture behavior in different stress cracking agents. This finding sug-gests that the implemented model may be a useful tool for quick screening and mitigat-ing the risk of ESC failures in plastic products.
Most modern multiprocessors offer weak memory behavior to improve their performance in terms of throughput. They allow the order of memory operations to be observed differently by each processor. This is opposite to the concept of sequential consistency (SC) which enforces a unique sequential view on all operations for all processors. Because most software has been and still is developed with SC in mind, we face a gap between the expected behavior and the actual behavior on modern architectures. The issues described only affect multithreaded software and therefore most programmers might never face them. However, multi-threaded bare metal software like operating systems, embedded software, and real-time software have to consider memory consistency and ensure that the order of memory operations does not yield unexpected results. This software is more critical as general consumer software in terms of consequences, and therefore new methods are needed to ensure their correct behavior.
In general, a memory system is considered weak if it allows behavior that is not possible in a sequential system. For example, in the SPARC processor with total store ordering (TSO) consistency, all writes might be delayed by store buffers before they eventually are processed by the main memory. This allows the issuing process to work with its own written values before other processes observed them (i.e., reading its own value before it leaves the store buffer). Because this behavior is not possible with sequential consistency, TSO is considered to be weaker than SC. Programming in the context of weak memory architectures requires a proper comprehension of how the model deviates from expected sequential behavior. For verification of these programs formal representations are required that cover the weak behavior in order to utilize formal verification tools.
This thesis explores different verification approaches and respectively fitting representations of a multitude of memory models. In a joint effort, we started with the concept of testing memory operation traces in regard of their consistency with different memory consistency models. A memory operation trace is directly derived from a program trace and consists of a sequence of read and write operations for each process. Analyzing the testing problem, we are able to prove that the problem is NP-complete for most memory models. In that process, a satisfiability (SAT) encoding for given problem instances was developed, that can be used in reachability and robustness analysis.
In order to cover all program executions instead of just a single program trace, additional representations are introduced and explored throughout this thesis. One of the representations introduced is a novel approach to specify a weak memory system using temporal logics. A set of linear temporal logic (LTL) formulas is developed that describes all properties required to restrict possible traces to those consistent to the given memory model. The resulting LTL specifications can directly be used in model checking, e.g., to check safety conditions. Unfortunately, the derived LTL specifications suffer from the state explosion problem: Even small examples, like the Peterson mutual exclusion algorithm, tend to generate huge formulas and require vast amounts of memory for verification. For this reason, it is concluded that using the proposed verification approach these specifications are not well suited for verification of real world software. Nonetheless, they provide comprehensive and formally correct descriptions that might be used elsewhere, e.g., programming or teaching.
Another approach to represent these models are operational semantics. In this thesis, operational semantics of weak memory models are provided in the form of reference machines that are both correct and complete regarding the memory model specification. Operational semantics allow to simulate systems with weak memory models step by step. This provides an elegant way to study the effects that lead to weak consistent behavior, while still providing a basis for formal verification. The operational models are then incorporated in verification tools for multithreaded software. These state space exploration tools proved suitable for verification of multithreaded software in a weak consistent memory environment. However, because not only the memory system but also the processor are expressed as operational semantics, some verification approach will not be feasible due to the large size of the state space.
Finally, to tackle the beforementioned issue, a state transition system for parallel programs is proposed. The transition system is defined by a set of structural operational semantics (SOS) rules and a suitable memory structure that can cover multiple memory models. This allows to influence the state space by use of smart representations and approximation approaches in future work.
Cell migration is essential for embryogenesis, wound healing, immune surveillance, and
progression of diseases, such as cancer metastasis. For the migration to occur, cellular
structures such as actomyosin cables and cell-substrate adhesion clusters must interact.
As cell trajectories exhibit a random character, so must such interactions. Furthermore,
migration often occurs in a crowded environment, where the collision outcome is deter-
mined by altered regulation of the aforementioned structures. In this work, guided by a
few fundamental attributes of cell motility, we construct a minimal stochastic cell migration
model from ground-up. The resulting model couples a deterministic actomyosin contrac-
tility mechanism with stochastic cell-substrate adhesion kinetics, and yields a well-defined
piecewise deterministic process. The signaling pathways regulating the contractility and
adhesion are considered as well. The model is extended to include cell collectives. Numer-
ical simulations of single cell migration reproduce several experimentally observed results,
including anomalous diffusion, tactic migration, and contact guidance. The simulations
of colliding cells explain the observed outcomes in terms of contact induced modification
of contractility and adhesion dynamics. These explained outcomes include modulation
of collision response and group behavior in the presence of an external signal, as well as
invasive and dispersive migration. Moreover, from the single cell model we deduce a pop-
ulation scale formulation for the migration of non-interacting cells. In this formulation,
the relationships concerning actomyosin contractility and adhesion clusters are maintained.
Thus, we construct a multiscale description of cell migration, whereby single, collective,
and population scale formulations are deduced from the relationships on the subcellular
level in a mathematically consistent way.
Hardware Contention-Aware Real-Time Scheduling on Multi-Core Platforms in Safety-Critical Systems
(2019)
While the computing industry has shifted from single-core to multi-core processors for performance gain, safety-critical systems (SCSs) still require solutions that enable their transition while guaranteeing safety, requiring no source-code modifications and substantially reducing re-development and re-certification costs, especially for legacy applications that are typically substantial. This dissertation considers the problem of worst-case execution time (WCET) analysis under contentions when deadline-constrained tasks in independent partitioned task set execute on a homogeneous multi-core processor with dynamic time-triggered shared memory bandwidth partitioning in SCSs.
Memory bandwidth in multi-core processors is shared across cores and is a significant cause of performance bottleneck and temporal variability of multiple-orders in task’s execution times due to contentions in memory sub-system. Further, the circular dependency is not only between WCET and CPU scheduling of others cores, but also between WCET and memory bandwidth assignments over time to cores. Thus, there is need of solutions that allow tailoring memory bandwidth assignments to workloads over time and computing safe WCET. It is pragmatically infeasible to obtain WCET estimates from static WCET analysis tools for multi-core processors due to the sheer computational complexity involved.
We use synchronized periodic memory servers on all cores that regulate each core’s maximum memory bandwidth based on allocated bandwidth over time. First, we present a workload schedulability test for known even-memory-bandwidth-assignment-to-active-cores over time, where the number of active cores represents the cores with non-zero memory bandwidth assignment. Its computational complexity is similar to merge-sort. Second, we demonstrate using a real avionics certified safety-critical application how our method’s use can preserve an existing application’s single-core CPU schedule under contentions on a multi-core processor. It enables incremental certification using composability and requires no-source code modification.
Next, we provide a general framework to perform WCET analysis under dynamic memory bandwidth partitioning when changes in memory bandwidth to cores assignment are time-triggered and known. It provides a stall maximization algorithm that has a complexity similar to a concave optimization problem and efficiently implements the WCET analysis. Last, we demonstrate dynamic memory assignments and WCET analysis using our method significantly improves schedulability compared to the stateof-the-art using an Integrated Modular Avionics scenario.
Large-scale distributed systems consist of a number of components, take a number of parameter values as input, and behave differently based on a number of non-deterministic events. All these features—components, parameter values, and events—interact in complicated ways, and unanticipated interactions may lead to bugs. Empirically, many bugs in these systems are caused by interactions of only a small number of features. In certain cases, it may be possible to test all interactions of \(k\) features for a small constant \(k\) by executing a family of tests that is exponentially or even doubly-exponentially smaller than the family of all tests. Thus, in such cases we can effectively uncover all bugs that require up to \(k\)-wise interactions of features.
In this thesis we study two occurrences of this phenomenon. First, many bugs in distributed systems are caused by network partition faults. In most cases these bugs occur due to two or three key nodes, such as leaders or replicas, not being able to communicate, or because the leading node finds itself in a block of the partition without quorum. Second, bugs may occur due to unexpected schedules (interleavings) of concurrent events—concurrent exchange of messages and concurrent access to shared resources. Again, many bugs depend only on the relative ordering of a small number of events. We call the smallest number of events whose ordering causes a bug the depth of the bug. We show that in both testing scenarios we can effectively uncover bugs involving small number of nodes or bugs of small depth by executing small families of tests.
We phrase both testing scenarios in terms of an abstract framework of tests, testing goals, and goal coverage. Sets of tests that cover all testing goals are called covering families. We give a general construction that shows that whenever a random test covers a fixed goal with sufficiently high probability, a small randomly chosen set of tests is a covering family with high probability. We then introduce concrete coverage notions relating to network partition faults and bugs of small depth. In case of network partition faults, we show that for the introduced coverage notions we can find a lower bound on the probability that a random test covers a given goal. Our general construction then yields a randomized testing procedure that achieves full coverage—and hence, find bugs—quickly.
In case of coverage notions related to bugs of small depth, if the events in the program form a non-trivial partial order, our general construction may give a suboptimal bound. Thus, we study other ways of constructing covering families. We show that if the events in a concurrent program are partially ordered as a tree, we can explicitly construct a covering family of small size: for balanced trees, our construction is polylogarithmic in the number of events. For the case when the partial order of events does not have a "nice" structure, and the events and their relation to previous events are revealed while the program is running, we give an online construction of covering families. Based on the construction, we develop a randomized scheduler called PCTCP that uniformly samples schedules from a covering family and has a rigorous guarantee of finding bugs of small depth. We experiment with an implementation of PCTCP on two real-world distributed systems—Zookeeper and Cassandra—and show that it can effectively find bugs.
Wine and alcoholic fermentations are complex and fascinating ecosystems. Wine aroma is shaped by the wine’s chemical compositions, in which both microbes and grape constituents play crucial roles. Activities of the microbial community impact the sensory properties of the final product, therefore, the characterisation of microbial diversity is essential in understanding and predicting sensory properties of wine. Characterisation has been challenging with traditional approaches, where microbes are isolated and therefore analyzed outside from their natural environment. This causes a bias in the observed microbial composition structure. In addition, true community interactions cannot be studied using isolates. Furthermore, the multiplex ties between wine chemical and sensory compositions remain evasive due to their multivariate and nonlinear nature. Therefore, the sensorial outcome arising from different microbial communities has remained inconclusive.
In this thesis, microbial diversity during Riesling wine fermentations is investigated with the aim to understand the roles of microbial communities during fermentations and their links to sensory properties. With the advancement of high-throughput tools based ‘omic methods, such as next-generation sequencing (NGS) technologies, it is now possible to study microbial communities and their functions without isolation by culturing. This developing field and its potential to wine community is reviewed in Chapter 1. The standardisation of methods remains challenging in the field. DNA extraction is a key step in capturing the microbial diversity in samples for generating NGS data, therefore, DNA extraction methods are evaluated in Chapter 2. In Chapter 3, machine learning is utilized in guiding raw data mining generated by the untargeted GC-MS analysis. This step is crucial in order to take full advantages of the large scope of data generated by ‘omic methods. These lay a solid foundation for Chapters 4 and 5 where microbial community structures and their outputs - chemical and sensory compositions are studied by using approaches and tools based on multiple ‘omics methods.
The results of this thesis show first that by using novel statistical approaches, it is possible to extract meaningful information from heterogeneous biological, chemical and sensorial data. Secondly, results suggest that the variation in wine aroma, might be related
to microbial interactions taking place not only inside a single community, but also the
IV
interactions between communities, such as vineyard and winery communities. Therefore, the true sensory expression of terroir might be masked by the interaction between two microbial communities, although more work is needed to uncover this potential relationship. Such potential interaction mechanisms were uncovered between non- Saccharomyces yeast and bacteria in this work and unexpected novel bacterial growth was observed during alcohol fermentation. This suggests new layers in understanding of wine fermentations. In the future, multi-omic approaches could be applied to identify biological pathways leading to specific wine aroma as well as investigate the effects upon specific winemaking conditions. These results are relevant not just for the wine industry, but also to other industries where complex microbial networks are important. As such, the approaches presented in this thesis might find widely use in the food industry.
Ranking lists are an essential methodology to succinctly summarize outstanding items, computed over database tables or crowdsourced in dedicated websites. In this thesis, we propose the usage of automatically generated, entity-centric rankings to discover insights in data. We present PALEO, a framework for data exploration through reverse engineering top-k database queries, that is, given a database and a sample top-k input list, our approach, aims at determining an SQL query that returns results similar to the provided input when executed over the database. The core problem consist of finding selection predicates that return the given items, determining the correct ranking criteria, and evaluating the most promising candidate queries first. PALEO operates on subset of the base data, uses data samples, histograms, descriptive statistics, and further proposes models that assess the suitability of candidate queries which facilitate limitation of false positives. Furthermore, this thesis presents COMPETE, a novel approach that models and computes dominance over user-provided input entities, given a database of top-k rankings. The resulting entities are found superior or inferior with tunable degree of dominance over the input set---a very intuitive, yet insightful way to explore pros and cons of entities of interest. Several notions of dominance are defined which differ in computational complexity and strictness of the dominance concept---yet, interdependent through containment relations. COMPETE is able to pick the most promising approach to satisfy a user request at minimal runtime latency, using a probabilistic model that is estimating the result sizes. The individual flavors of dominance are cast into a stack of algorithms over inverted indices and auxiliary structures, enabling pruning techniques to avoid significant data access over large datasets of rankings.
Function of two redox sensing kinases from the methanogenic archaeon Methanosarcina acetivorans
(2019)
MsmS is a heme-based redox sensor kinase in Methanosarcina acetivorans consisting of alternating PAS and GAF domains connected to a C-terminal kinase domain. In addition to MsmS, M. acetivorans possesses a second kinase, MA0863 with high sequence similarity. Interestingly, MA0863 possesses an amber codon in its second GAF domain, encoding for the amino acid pyrrolysine. Thus far, no function of this residue has been resolved. In order to examine the heme iron coordination in both proteins, an improved method for the production of heme proteins was established using the Escherichia coli strain Nissle 1917. This method enables the complete reconstitution of a recombinant hemoprotein during protein production, thereby resulting in a native heme coordination. Analysis of the full-length MsmS and MA0863 confirmed a covalently bound heme cofactor, which is connected to one conserved cysteine residue in each protein. In order to identify the coordinating amino acid residues of the heme iron, UV/vis spectra of different variants were measured. These studies revealed His702 in MsmS and the corresponding His666 in MA0863 as the proximal heme ligands. MsmS has previously been described as a heme-based redox sensor. In order to examine whether the same is true for MA0863, redox dependent kinase assays were performed. MA0863 indeed displays redox dependent autophosphorylation activity, which is independent of heme ligands and only observed under oxidizing conditions. Interestingly, autophosphorylation was shown to be independent of the heme cofactor but rather relies on thiol oxidation. Therefore, MA0863 was renamed in RdmS (redox dependent methyltransferase-associated sensor). In order to identify the phosphorylation site of RdmS, thin layer chromatography was performed identifying a tyrosine as the putative phosphorylation site. This observation is in agreement with the lack of a so-called H-box in typical histidine kinases. Due to their genomic localization, MsmS and RdmS were postulated to form two-component systems (TCS) with vicinal encoded regulator proteins MsrG and MsrF. Therefore, protein-protein interaction studies using the bacterial adenylate two hybrid system were performed suggesting an interaction of RdmS and MsmS with the three regulators MsrG/F/C. Due to these multiple interactions these signal transduction pathways should rather be considered multicomponent system instead of two component systems.
Wearable activity recognition aims to identify and assess human activities with the help
of computer systems by evaluating signals of sensors which can be attached to the human
body. This provides us with valuable information in several areas: in health care, e.g. fluid
and food intake monitoring; in sports, e.g. training support and monitoring; in entertainment,
e.g. human-computer interface using body movements; in industrial scenarios, e.g.
computer support for detected work tasks. Several challenges exist for wearable activity
recognition: a large number of nonrelevant activities (null class), the evaluation of large
numbers of sensor signals (curse of dimensionality), ambiguity of sensor signals compared
to the activities and finally the high variability of human activity in general.
This thesis develops a new activity recognition strategy, called invariants classification,
which addresses these challenges, especially the variability in human activities. The
core idea is that often even highly variable actions include short, more or less invariant
sub-actions which are due to hard physical constraints. If someone opens a door, the
movement of the hand to the door handle is not fixed. However the door handle has to
be pushed to open the door. The invariants classification algorithm is structured in four
phases: segmentation, invariant identification, classification, and spotting. The segmentation
divides the continuous sensor data stream into meaningful parts, which are related
to sub-activities. Our segmentation strategy uses the zero crossings of the central difference
quotient of the sensor signals, as segment borders. The invariant identification finds
the invariant sub-activities by means of clustering and a selection strategy dependent on
certain features. The classification identifies the segments of a specific activity class, using
models generated from the invariant sub-activities. The models include the invariant
sub-activity signal and features calculated on sensor signals related to the sub-activity. In
the spotting, the classified segments are used to find the entire activity class instances in
the continuous sensor data stream. For this purpose, we use the position of the invariant
sub-activity in the related activity class instance for the estimation of the borders of the
activity instances.
In this thesis, we show that our new activity recognition strategy, built on invariant
sub-activities, is beneficial. We tested it on three human activity datasets with wearable
inertial measurement units (IMU). Compared to previous publications on the same
datasets we got improvement in the activity recognition in several classes, some with a
large margin. Our segmentation achieves a sensible method to separate the sensor data in
relation to the underlying activities. Relying on sub-activities makes us independent from
imprecise labels on the training data. After the identification of invariant sub-activities,
we calculate a value called cluster precision for each sensor signal and each class activity.
This tells us which classes can be easily classified and which sensor channels support
the classification best. Finally, in the training for each activity class, our algorithm selects
suitable signal channels with invariant sub-activities on different points in time and
with different length. This makes our strategy a multi-dimensional asynchronous motif
detection with variable motif length.
Study 1 (Chapter 2) is an empirical case study that concerns the nature of teaching–learning transactions that facilitate self-directed learning in vocational education and training of young adults in England. It addresses in part the concern that fostering the skills necessary for self-directed learning is an important endeavor of vocational education and training in many contexts internationally. However, there is a distinct lack of studies that investigate the extent to which facilitation of self-directed learning is present within vocational education and training in different contexts. An exploratory thematic qualitative analysis of inspectors’ comments within general Further Education college Ofsted inspection reports was conducted to investigate the balance of control of the learning process between teacher and learner within vocational education and training of young adults in England. A clear difference between outstanding and inadequate provision is reported. Inadequate provision was overwhelmingly teacher-directed. Outstanding provision reflected a collaborative relationship between teacher and learner in directing the learning process, despite the Ofsted framework not explicitly identifying the need for learner involvement in directing the learning process. The chapter offers insight into the understanding of how an effective balance of control of learning between teacher and learner may be realized in vocational education and training settings and highlights the need to consider the modulating role of contextual factors.
Following the further research directions outlined in Chapter 2, study 2 (Chapter 3) is a theoretical chapter that addresses the issue that fostering adult learners’ competence to adapt appropriately to our ever-changing world is a primary concern of adult education. The purpose of the chapter is novel and examines whether the consideration of modes of learning (instruction, performance, and inquiry) could assist in the design of adult education that facilitates self-directed learning and enables learners to think and perform adaptively. The concept of modes of learning originated from the typology of Houle (1980). However, to date, no study has reached beyond this typology, especially concerning the potential of using modes of learning in the design of adult education. Specifically, an apparent oversight in adult learning theory is the foremost importance of the consideration of whether inquiry is included in the learning process: its inclusion potentially differentiates the purpose of instruction, the nature of learners’ performance, and the underlying epistemological positioning. To redress this concern, two models of modes of learning are proposed and contrasted. The reinforcing model of modes of learning (instruction, performance, without inquiry) promotes teacher-directed learning. A key consequence of employing this model in adult education is that learners may become accustomed to habitually reinforcing patterns of perceiving, thinking, judging, feeling, and acting—performance that may be rather inflexible and represented by a distinct lack of a perceived need to adapt to social contextual changes: a lack of motivation for self-directed learning. Rather, the adapting model of modes of learning (instruction, performance, with inquiry) may facilitate learners to be adaptive in their performance—by encouraging an enhanced learner sensitivity toward changing social contextual conditions: potentially enhancing learners’ motivation for self-directed learning.
In line with the further research directions highlighted in Chapter 3, concerning the need to consider the nature and treatment of educational experiences that are conductive to learner growth and development, study 3 (Chapter 4) presents a systematic review of the experiential learning theory; a theory that perhaps cannot be uncoupled from self-directed learning theory, especially in regard to understanding the cognitive aspect of self-directed learning, which represents an important direction for further research on self-directed learning. D. A. Kolb’s (1984) experiential learning cycle is perhaps the most scholarly influential and cited model regarding experiential learning theory. However, a key issue in interpreting Kolb’s model concerns a lack of clarity regarding what constitutes a concrete experience, exactly. A systematic literature review was conducted in order to examine: what constitutes a concrete experience and what is the nature of treatment of a concrete experience in experiential learning? The analysis revealed five themes: learners are involved, active, participants; knowledge is situated in place and time; learners are exposed to novel experiences, which involves risk; learning demands inquiry to specific real-world problems; and critical reflection acts as a mediator of meaningful learning. Accordingly, a revision to Kolb’s model is proposed: experiential learning consists of contextually rich concrete experience, critical reflective observation, contextual-specific abstract conceptualization, and pragmatic active experimentation. Further empirical studies are required to test the model proposed. Finally, in Chapter 5 key findings of the studies are summarized, including that the models proposed in Chapters 3 and 4 (Figures 2 and 4, respectively) may be important considerations for further research on self-directed learning.
In this thesis, we deal with the worst-case portfolio optimization problem occuring in discrete-time markets.
First, we consider the discrete-time market model in the presence of crash threats. We construct the discrete worst-case optimal portfolio strategy by the indifference principle in the case of the logarithmic utility. After that we extend this problem to general utility functions and derive the discrete worst-case optimal portfolio processes, which are characterized by a dynamic programming equation. Furthermore, the convergence of the discrete worst-case optimal portfolio processes are investigated when we deal with the explicit utility functions.
In order to further study the relation of the worst-case optimal value function in discrete-time models to continuous-time models we establish the finite-difference approach. By deriving the discrete HJB equation we verify the worst-case optimal value function in discrete-time models, which satisfies a system of dynamic programming inequalities. With increasing degree of fineness of the time discretization, the convergence of the worst-case value function in discrete-time models to that in continuous-time models are proved by using a viscosity solution method.
Graphs and flow networks are important mathematical concepts that enable the modeling and analysis of a large variety of real world problems in different domains such as engineering, medicine or computer science. The number, sizes and complexities of those problems permanently increased during the last decades. This led to an increased demand of techniques that help domain experts in understanding their data and its underlying structure to enable an efficient analysis and decision making process.
To tackle this challenge, this work presents several new techniques that utilize concepts of visual analysis to provide domain scientists with new visualization methodologies and tools. Therefore, this work provides novel concepts and approaches for diverse aspects of the visual analysis such as data transformation, visual mapping, parameter refinement and analysis, model building and visualization as well as user interaction.
The presented techniques form a framework that enriches domain scientists with new visual analysis tools and help them analyze their data and gain insight from the underlying structures. To show the applicability and effectiveness of the presented approaches, this work tackles different applications such as networking, product flow management and vascular systems, while preserving the generality to be applicable to further domains.
The simulation of physical phenomena involving the dynamic behavior of fluids and gases
has numerous applications in various fields of science and engineering. Of particular interest
is the material transport behavior, the tendency of a flow field to displace parts of the
medium. Therefore, many visualization techniques rely on particle trajectories.
Lagrangian Flow Field Representation. In typical Eulerian settings, trajectories are
computed from the simulation output using numerical integration schemes. Accuracy concerns
arise because, due to limitations of storage space and bandwidth, often only a fraction
of the computed simulation time steps are available. Prior work has shown empirically that
a Lagrangian, trajectory-based representation can improve accuracy [Agr+14]. Determining
the parameters of such a representation in advance is difficult; a relationship between the
temporal and spatial resolution and the accuracy of resulting trajectories needs to be established.
We provide an error measure for upper bounds of the error of individual trajectories.
We show how areas at risk for high errors can be identified, thereby making it possible to
prioritize areas in time and space to allocate scarce storage resources.
Comparative Visual Analysis of Flow Field Ensembles. Independent of the representation,
errors of the simulation itself are often caused by inaccurate initial conditions,
limitations of the chosen simulation model, and numerical errors. To gain a better understanding
of the possible outcomes, multiple simulation runs can be calculated, resulting in
sets of simulation output referred to as ensembles. Of particular interest when studying the
material transport behavior of ensembles is the identification of areas where the simulation
runs agree or disagree. We introduce and evaluate an interactive method that enables application
scientists to reliably identify and examine regions of agreement and disagreement,
while taking into account the local transport behavior within individual simulation runs.
Particle-Based Representation and Visualization of Uncertain Flow Data Sets. Unlike
simulation ensembles, where uncertainty of the solution appears in the form of different
simulation runs, moment-based Eulerian multi-phase fluid simulations are probabilistic in
nature. These simulations, used in process engineering to simulate the behavior of bubbles in
liquid media, are aimed toward reducing the need for real-world experiments. The locations
of individual bubbles are not modeled explicitly, but stochastically through the properties of
locally defined bubble populations. Comparisons between simulation results and physical
experiments are difficult. We describe and analyze an approach that generates representative
sets of bubbles for moment-based simulation data. Using our approach, application scientists
can directly, visually compare simulation results and physical experiments.
Economics of Downside Risk
(2019)
Ever since establishment of portfolio selection theory by Markowitz (1952), the use of Standard deviation as a measure of risk has heavily been criticized. The aim of this thesis is to refine classical portfolio selection and asset pricing theory by using a downside deviation risk measure. It is defined as below-target semideviation and referred to as downside risk.
Downside efficient portfolios maximize expected payoff given a prescribed upper bound for downside risk and, thus, are analogs to mean-variance efficient portfolios in the sense of Markowitz. The present thesis provides an alternative proof of existence of downside efficient portfolios and identifies a sufficient criterion for their uniqueness. A specific representation of their form brings structural similarity to mean-variance efficient portfolios to light. Eventually, a separation theorem for the existence and uniqueness of portfolios that maximize the trade-off between downside risk and return is established.
The notion of a downside risk asset market equilibrium (DRAME) in an asset market with finitely many investors is introduced. This thesis addresses the existence and uniqueness Problem of such equilibria and specifies a DRAME pricing formula. In contrast to prices obtained from the mean-variance CAPM pricing formula, DRAME prices are arbitrage-free and strictly positive.
The final part of this thesis addresses practical issues. An algorithm that allows for an effective computation of downside efficient portfolios from simulated or historical financial data is outlined. In a simulation study, it is revealed in which scenarios downside efficient portfolios
outperform mean-variance efficient portfolios.
Carotenoids are organic lipophilic tetraterpenes ubiquitously present in Nature and found across the three domains of life (Archaea, Bacteria and Eukaryotes). Their structure is characterized by an extensive conjugated double-bond system, which serves as a light-absorbing chromophore, hence determining its colour, and enables carotenoids to absorb energy from other molecules and to act as antioxidant agents. Humans obtain carotenoids mainly via the consumption of fruits and vegetables, and to a smaller extent from other food sources such as fish and eggs. The concentration of carotenoids in the human plasma and tissues has been positively associated with a lower incidence of several chronic diseases including, cancer, diabetes, macular degeneration and cardiovascular conditions, likely due to their antioxidant properties. However, an important aspect of carotenoids, namely β- and α-carotene and β-cryptoxanthin, in human health and development, is their potential to be converted by the body into Vitamin A.
Yet, bioavailability of carotenoids is relatively low (< 30%) and dependent, among others, on dietary factors, such as amount and type of dietary lipids and the presence of dietary fibres. One dietary factor that has been found to negatively impact carotenoid bioaccessibility and cellular uptake in vitro is high concentrations of divalent cations during simulated gastro-intestinal digestion. Nevertheless, the mechanism of action of divalent cations remains unclear. The goal of this thesis was to better understand how divalent cations act during digestion and modulate carotenoid bioavailability. In vitro trials of simulated gastro-intestinal digestion and cellular uptake were run to investigate how varying concentrations of calcium, magnesium and zinc affected the bioaccessibility of both pure carotenoids and carotenoids from food matrices. In order to validate or refute results obtained in vitro, a randomized and double blinded placebo controlled cross-over postprandial trial (24 male participants) was carried out, testing the effect of 3 supplementary calcium doses (0 mg, 500 mg and 1000 mg) on the bioavailability of carotenoids from a spinach based meal. In vitro trials showed that addition of the divalent cations significantly decreased the bioaccessibility of both pure carotenoids (P < 0.001) and those from food matrices (P < 0.01). This effect was dependent on the type of mineral and its concentration. Strongest effects were seen for increasing concentrations of calcium followed by magnesium and zinc. The addition of divalent cations also altered the physico-chemical properties, i.e. viscosity and surface tension, of the digestas. However, the extent of this effect varied according to the type of matrix. The effects on bioaccessibility and physico-chemical properties were accompanied by variations of the zeta-potential of the particles in solution. Taken together, results from the in vitro trials strongly suggested that divalent cations were able to bind bile salts and other surfactant agents, affecting their solubility. The observed i) decrease in macroviscosity, ii) increase in surface tension, and the iii) reduction of the zeta-potential of the digesta, confirmed the removal of surfactant agents from the system, most likely due to precipitation as a result of the lower solubility of the mineral-surfactant complexes. As such, micellarization of carotenoids was hindered, explaining their reduced bioaccessibility. As for the human trial, results showed that there was no significant influence of supplementation with either 500 or 1000 mg of supplemental calcium (in form of carbonate) on the bioavailability of a spinach based meal, as measured by the area-under curve of carotenoid concentrations in the plasma-triacylglycerol rich fraction, suggesting that the in vitro results are not supported in such an in vivo scenario, which may be explained by the initial low bioaccessibility of spinach carotenoids and the dissolution kinetics of the calcium pills. Further investigations are necessary to understand how divalent cations act during in vivo digestion and potentially interact with lipophilic nutrients and food constituents.
Magnetoelastic coupling describes the mutual dependence of the elastic and magnetic fields and can be observed in certain types of materials, among which are the so-called "magnetostrictive materials". They belong to the large class of "smart materials", which change their shape, dimensions or material properties under the influence of an external field. The mechanical strain or deformation a material experiences due to an externally applied magnetic field is referred to as magnetostriction; the reciprocal effect, i.e. the change of the magnetization of a body subjected to mechanical stress is called inverse magnetostriction. The coupling of mechanical and electromagnetic fields is particularly observed in "giant magnetostrictive materials", alloys of ferromagnetic materials that can exhibit several thousand times greater magnitudes of magnetostriction (measured as the ratio of the change in length of the material to its original length) than the common magnetostrictive materials. These materials have wide applications areas: They are used as variable-stiffness devices, as sensors and actuators in mechanical systems or as artificial muscles. Possible application fields also include robotics, vibration control, hydraulics and sonar systems.
Although the computational treatment of coupled problems has seen great advances over the last decade, the underlying problem structure is often not fully understood nor taken into account when using black box simulation codes. A thorough analysis of the properties of coupled systems is thus an important task.
The thesis focuses on the mathematical modeling and analysis of the coupling effects in magnetostrictive materials. Under the assumption of linear and reversible material behavior with no magnetic hysteresis effects, a coupled magnetoelastic problem is set up using two different approaches: the magnetic scalar potential and vector potential formulations. On the basis of a minimum energy principle, a system of partial differential equations is derived and analyzed for both approaches. While the scalar potential model involves only stationary elastic and magnetic fields, the model using the magnetic vector potential accounts for different settings such as the eddy current approximation or the full Maxwell system in the frequency domain.
The distinctive feature of this work is the analysis of the obtained coupled magnetoelastic problems with regard to their structure, strong and weak formulations, the corresponding function spaces and the existence and uniqueness of the solutions. We show that the model based on the magnetic scalar potential constitutes a coupled saddle point problem with a penalty term. The main focus in proving the unique solvability of this problem lies on the verification of an inf-sup condition in the continuous and discrete cases. Furthermore, we discuss the impact of the reformulation of the coupled constitutive equations on the structure of the coupled problem and show that in contrast to the scalar potential approach, the vector potential formulation yields a symmetric system of PDEs. The dependence of the problem structure on the chosen formulation of the constitutive equations arises from the distinction of the energy and coenergy terms in the Lagrangian of the system. While certain combinations of the elastic and magnetic variables lead to a coupled magnetoelastic energy function yielding a symmetric problem, the use of their dual variables results in a coupled coenergy function for which a mixed problem is obtained.
The presented models are supplemented with numerical simulations carried out with MATLAB for different examples including a 1D Euler-Bernoulli beam under magnetic influence and a 2D magnetostrictive plate in the state of plane stress. The simulations are based on material data of Terfenol-D, a giant magnetostrictive materials used in many industrial applications.
This thesis addresses several challenges for sustainable logistics operations and investigates (1) the integration of intermediate stops in the route planning of transportation vehicles, which especially becomes relevant when alternative-fuel vehicles with limited driving range or a sparse refueling infrastructure are considered, (2) the combined planning of the battery replacement infrastructure and of the routing for battery electric vehicles, (3) the use of mobile load replenishment or refueling possibilities in environments where the respective infrastructure is not available, and (4) the additional consideration of the flow of goods from the end user in backward direction to the point of origin for the purpose of, e.g., recapturing value or proper disposal. We utilize models and solution methods from the domain of operations research to gain insights into the investigated problems and thus to support managerial decisions with respect to these issues.
The focus of this work is to provide and evaluate a novel method for multifield topology-based analysis and visualization. Through this concept, called Pareto sets, one is capable to identify critical regions in a multifield with arbitrary many individual fields. It uses ideas found in graph optimization to find common behavior and areas of divergence between multiple optimization objectives. The connections between the latter areas can be reduced into a graph structure allowing for an abstract visualization of the multifield to support data exploration and understanding.
The research question that is answered in this dissertation is about the general capability and expandability of the Pareto set concept in context of visualization and application. Furthermore, the study of its relations, drawbacks and advantages towards other topological-based approaches. This questions is answered in several steps, including consideration and comparison with related work, a thorough introduction of the Pareto set itself as well as a framework for efficient implementation and an attached discussion regarding limitations of the concept and their implications for run time, suitable data, and possible improvements.
Furthermore, this work considers possible simplification approaches like integrated single-field simplification methods but also using common structures identified through the Pareto set concept to smooth all individual fields at once. These considerations are especially important for real-world scenarios to visualize highly complex data by removing small local structures without destroying information about larger, global trends.
To further emphasize possible improvements and expandability of the Pareto set concept, the thesis studies a variety of different real world applications. For each scenario, this work shows how the definition and visualization of the Pareto set is used and improved for data exploration and analysis based on the scenarios.
In summary, this dissertation provides a complete and sound summary of the Pareto set concept as ground work for future application of multifield data analysis. The possible scenarios include those presented in the application section, but are found in a wide range of research and industrial areas relying on uncertainty analysis, time-varying data, and ensembles of data sets in general.
Novel image processing techniques have been in development for decades, but most
of these techniques are barely used in real world applications. This results in a gap
between image processing research and real-world applications; this thesis aims to
close this gap. In an initial study, the quantification, propagation, and communication
of uncertainty were determined to be key features in gaining acceptance for
new image processing techniques in applications.
This thesis presents a holistic approach based on a novel image processing pipeline,
capable of quantifying, propagating, and communicating image uncertainty. This
work provides an improved image data transformation paradigm, extending image
data using a flexible, high-dimensional uncertainty model. Based on this, a completely
redesigned image processing pipeline is presented. In this pipeline, each
step respects and preserves the underlying image uncertainty, allowing image uncertainty
quantification, image pre-processing, image segmentation, and geometry
extraction. This is communicated by utilizing meaningful visualization methodologies
throughout each computational step.
The presented methods are examined qualitatively by comparing to the Stateof-
the-Art, in addition to user evaluation in different domains. To show the applicability
of the presented approach to real world scenarios, this thesis demonstrates
domain-specific problems and the successful implementation of the presented techniques
in these domains.
Destructive diseases of the lung like lung cancer or fibrosis are still often lethal. Also in case of fibrosis in the liver, the only possible cure is transplantation.
In this thesis, we investigate 3D micro computed synchrotron radiation (SR\( \mu \)CT) images of capillary blood vessels in mouse lungs and livers. The specimen show so-called compensatory lung growth as well as different states of pulmonary and hepatic fibrosis.
During compensatory lung growth, after resecting part of the lung, the remaining part compensates for this loss by extending into the empty space. This process is accompanied by an active vessel growing.
In general, the human lung can not compensate for such a loss. Thus, understanding this process in mice is important to improve treatment options in case of diseases like lung cancer.
In case of fibrosis, the formation of scars within the organ's tissue forces the capillary vessels to grow to ensure blood supply.
Thus, the process of fibrosis as well as compensatory lung growth can be accessed by considering the capillary architecture.
As preparation of 2D microscopic images is faster, easier, and cheaper compared to SR\( \mu \)CT images, they currently form the basis of medical investigation. Yet, characteristics like direction and shape of objects can only properly be analyzed using 3D imaging techniques. Hence, analyzing SR\( \mu \)CT data provides valuable additional information.
For the fibrotic specimen, we apply image analysis methods well-known from material science. We measure the vessel diameter using the granulometry distribution function and describe the inter-vessel distance by the spherical contact distribution. Moreover, we estimate the directional distribution of the capillary structure. All features turn out to be useful to characterize fibrosis based on the deformation of capillary vessels.
It is already known that the most efficient mechanism of vessel growing forms small torus-shaped holes within the capillary structure, so-called intussusceptive pillars. Analyzing their location and number strongly contributes to the characterization of vessel growing. Hence, for all three applications, this is of great interest. This thesis provides the first algorithm to detect intussusceptive pillars in SR\( \mu \)CT images. After segmentation of raw image data, our algorithm works automatically and allows for a quantitative evaluation of a large amount of data.
The analysis of SR\( \mu \)CT data using our pillar algorithm as well as the granulometry, spherical contact distribution, and directional analysis extends the current state-of-the-art in medical studies. Although it is not possible to replace certain 3D features by 2D features without losing information, our results could be used to examine 2D features approximating the 3D findings reasonably well.