Abstract: Different contract types means different incentives, burdens and relationships. The contract type responsibilities and price should be in accordance with the project needs and organization capacities, not knowing this could entail less project profitability and chances of success. It is necessary to understand the alternatives and how they behave, in order to develop the right strategies to avoid overruns and improve the project quality. The goal of this thesis is to develop a decision analysis model for contract type selection. This model will become a useful tool for contractor and client preferences in an easy and effective way. Decision analysis is a powerful tool that will help us to bring clarity of thought in this process; during this thesis it is described what is a project, its phases, activities and the components that understand it, in the same way it is presented the contract management life cycle. This model attempts to link and evaluate the contract types, differentiators, and the client and contractor preferences in order to quantify the costs and benefits of each type, which could be the best option. One priority of this thesis is to understand the synergetic relationship between contract type, contract management, project management and contract price, in order to take the best decision, increasing the probability to achieve a successful project execution. As application example, a contract type selection for the EPCI (Engineering, Procurement, Construction & Installation) of a topside for a semisubmersible platform is presented.Resumen: Diferentes tipos de contrato significa diferentes incentivos, cargas y relaciones. Las responsabilidades y el precio del tipo de contrato deben estar de acuerdo con las necesidades del proyecto y las capacidades de la organización, sin saber que esto podría implicar una menor rentabilidad del proyecto y posibilidades de éxito. Es necesario comprender las alternativas y la forma en que se comportan, a fin de desarrollar las estrategias correctas para evitar los excesos y mejorar la calidad del proyecto. El objetivo de esta tesis es desarrollar un modelo de análisis de decisión para la selección del tipo de contrato. Este modelo se convertirá en una herramienta útil para las preferencias de los contratistas y clientes de una manera fácil y efectiva. El análisis de decisiones es una herramienta poderosa que nos ayudará a tener claridad de pensamiento en este proceso; Durante esta tesis se describe qué es un proyecto, sus fases, actividades y los componentes que lo comprenden, de la misma manera que se presenta el ciclo de vida de gestión de contratos. Este modelo intenta vincular y evaluar los tipos de contrato, los diferenciadores y las preferencias del cliente y del contratista para cuantificar los costos y beneficios de cada tipo, lo que podría ser la mejor opción. Una de las prioridades de esta tesis es comprender la relación sinérgica entre el tipo de contrato, la gestión de contratos, la gestión de proyectos y el precio del contrato, para tomar la mejor decisión, aumentando la probabilidad de lograr una ejecución exitosa del proyecto. Como ejemplo de aplicación, se presenta una selección de tipo de contrato para el EPCI (Ingeniería, Aprovisionamiento, Construcción e Instalación) de un topside para una plataforma semisumergible.

Abstract: The Environmental Control System (ECS) allows the control of the environment within the cabin and flight deck for pilot and passenger comfort, and protects them from adverse weather conditions. This study presents a Matlab-Simulink® model developed to calculate the shaft power and ventilation required by the ECS during different flight conditions. The ECS model includes two blocks. The first block determines the requirements of the ECS by means of the analysis of thermal loads presented inside the helicopter. The second block computes the ECS air-conditioning pack of the helicopter (for cooling, heating and demisting). Two different ambient and flight conditions are simulated to find the power consumption of the air-conditioning pack once a comfortable cabin environment has been achieved. It is concluded that by using this model, the changes in the comfort level can be predicted in real time in order to intelligently reduce the ECS overall power consumption in a helicopter by choosing among five different ECS configurations the most appropriated, thus maintain the thermal comfort of the pilot and the passengers. Resumen: El Sistema de Control Ambiental (ECS por sus siglas en inglés) permite el control del ambiente dentro de la cabina y la consola de control del helicóptero, proporcionando confort y protección a los pilotos y pasajeros en condiciones climáticas adversas. Este estudio presenta un modelo en Matlab-Simulink® aplicable a diversas condiciones de vuelo para calcular la potencia mecánica y la ventilación requerida por el ECS. El modelo ECS incluye dos bloques. El primer bloque determina los requerimientos del ECS por medio del análisis de cargas térmicas presentadas en el interior del helicóptero. El segundo bloque computa el sistema de acondicionamiento de aire del ECS dentro de un helicoptero (para refrigeración, calefacción y desempañado). Dos condiciones diferentes de ambiente y de vuelo son simuladas para encontrar el consumo de potencia del sistema de acondicionamiento de aire una vez alcanzado un ambiente de cabina confortable. Se concluye que por medio de este modelo, los patrones de cambio próximos en el nivel de confort se pueden predecir en tiempo real con el fin de reducir de forma inteligente el consumo general de energía del ECS en un helicóptero al seleccionar entre 5 configuraciones la más apropiada, y asi mantener el confort térmico del piloto y los pasajeros.

As it has been proved in several researches carried out by different authors, riverine floods and the scour induced by these are one of the main causes of bridge collapse. More specifically, local scour causes a loss in the lateral resistance of bridge foundation, thus potentially increasing the seismic vulnerability of a bridge system. The present study assesses the combination of scour and earthquake effects for a bridge located in a road network crossing valleys in the Pyrenees Mountain range (France). The bridge spans over a river stream of trapezoidal cross-section, which is more able to capture actual physical behaviours than the rectangular section generally used for similar studies. The bridge consists in a continuous RC deck supported by two multi-column piers. Making use of the OpenSees software, a 3D finite-element model of the bridge is built and subjected to a suite of 312 ground motions (i.e., non-linear time history analyses). Fragility curves are developed for this multi-hazard case study, considering specific levels of damage that might be of interest, as well a comparison between fragility characteristics obtained in the absence and presence of scour. In order to fully study the potentially detrimental effects of scour on the dynamic behavior of the considered bridge, it is considered different scour combinations in the non-linear time-history analyses, such as: • Equal scour depth in all columns. • Same scour depth in the columns of the same pier. • Same scour depth in columns of different piers. • Scour depth concentrated in just one column of the bridge This study demonstrates the ability of a given numerical model to account for various hazard loadings and failure mechanisms, thus providing support to decision making regarding bridge management and monitoring.

Vectoring is a novel technology created to expand the capacity boundaries of Veryhigh- bit-rate DSL 2 (VDSL2) systems. It mitigates the reduction of data rate and reach in VDSL2 systems caused by the crosstalk interference that appears when multiple services share the telephone network’s infrastructure. However, the implementation of vectoring on real systems faces numerous challenges that limit its potential to enhance the data rate and reach of VDSL2 systems. Therefore, evaluating its performance in close-to-real scenarios considering different technological aspects has turned into an interesting field of research that also helps in the development of new and faster technologies. This thesis evaluates quantitatively the performance of vectoring on VDSL2 systems. It proposes the extension and parametrization of performance indicators to compare and measure the impact of six different aspects on vectoring systems: network topology, binder occupancy, background noise, channel estimation errors, complexity constraints, and precoding and canceling schemes. Their evaluation requires numerical results that are obtained through a simulation tool, which is designed and implemented as part of this thesis. The obtained results and the conducted analyses give concluding guidelines for the vectoring technology and can be taken into account by manufactures and service providers for the deployment of real systems. In addition, and as a result of the objective of providing an accurate evaluation that represents well the real systems’ performance, this thesis contributes with the statistical characterization of the Far-end Crosstalk (FEXT) in a 50-pair cable binder commonly used in Germany (DTAG-40) and constructs its stochastic model. The model and the results are verified through real systems measurements, reference documents of the Broadband Forum and existing literature. Thus, the simulation tool and the characterized channel model constitute a contribution for the evaluation of DSL systems that can be used in future works.

One of the effects of the globalisation of our society is that people travel more covering longer distances, live far from their work place and consume goods from all around the world. Therefore, it is no coincidence that the transport of people and goods represents more than 25\% of the energy consumption and is one of the principal sources of pollution worldwide. Several efforts must be done to reduce the oil dependence, the energy consumption and the environmental impact of transport systems. In this perspective, the French Army (DGA) has designed and constructed the Electrical Chain Components Evaluation vehicle (ECCE). It is a mobile laboratory to evaluate under real conditions the electric components of Hybrid Electrical Vehicles (HEVs) that reduce the energy consumption and the pollution emission of conventional vehicles. ECCE permits evaluating different energy sources such as batteries, fuel cells, internal combustion engines, ultracapacitors or flywheels. The ECCE project, nowadays in a second phase\footnote{The first phase of the ECCE project is explained in Chapter 1} is developed in joint cooperation with the FEMTO-ST laboratory of the University of Franche-Comté and two industrial partners, HELION and PANHARD General Defense. It aims to study the implementation, control and energy management of different hybrid sources. As a research developed along the second phase of the ECCE project, the principal objective of this thesis is to design, to implement and to evaluate an energy management supervision system in the ECCE HEV. This thesis proposes an original energy management strategy based on expert knowledge and type-2 fuzzy logic. The design of the fuzzy logic controller is done by using knowledge engineering. This technique allows extracting knowledge from several experts using surveys. The consideration of type-2 fuzzy logic systems enables modelling the uncertainty in the answers of the experts. This thesis presents a second application of type-2 fuzzy logic: the voltage regulation of a DC/DC power converter. The principal motivation for developing this application is that it is easier to implement in laboratory at a relatively low cost and it permits a viability evaluation of type-2 fuzzy logic before an implementation in the ECCE mobile laboratory. This is useful because one of the main challenges of this thesis is to reduce the time to experimentally validate the energy management system. This is required to respect the time schedule constraints and to reduce the costs associated to gather the partners of the project at PANHARD locations in Saint-Germain Laval.

Organic semiconductors are used in many fields of photonics. Displays fabricated using organic light emitting diodes (OLED) can be found in modern smartphones and tablets, whereas organic solar cells (OPV - organic photovoltaics) are emerging with demonstrated efficiencies above 10%. Organic photodetectors (OPD) are another very interesting domain, with ultrathin active layers (order of tens of nanometers) providing performance comparable to bulk inorganic devices. Thanks to a multitude of possible compounds, parameters such as response spectrum, cut-off wavelength etc. can be easily tuned. Because of very high absorption coefficient and low refractive index, issues such as crosstalk or reflection can be minimized. Another exciting feature is the low processing temperature and thus feasibility of using a flexible foil as substrate, leading to rollable or curved photodetector arrays.The performance of organic based photodetectors has grown considerably in the recent years in terms of high speed, high frequency response and detectivity so as to match the required custom specifications for practical applications such as imaging. However, further attention needs to go towards the understanding of the effects of scaling during miniaturization of these devices, while looking for the preservation and/or optimization of their opto-electrical properties. Therefore, in this thesis, emphasis is given on the photodetectors based on organic conjugated polymer materials for imaging applications. These organic photodetector devices normally suffer from a perimeter-to-area dark current density scaling, hence, special attention is on the understanding of this scaling effect as well as optimization of the fabrication process in order to get low leakage (dark) current, and therefore, large dynamic range of the OPDs. Photodetectors with different geometries and sizes from 0.08 cm2 down to 1.95E ?5 cm2 were fabricated, using two types of edge cover layer. Isolated islands of two different organic films were patterned with photolithography in order to study the dark current mechanisms. Electrical, optical and morphological properties were characterized for both patterned and non-patterned devices. The patterning process used to fabricate the isolated devices does not affect the optoelectrical and morphological characteristics of the photodetectors, and therefore their performance. Moreover, it does not induce or accelerate degradation of the organic films. The dark current density further decreases after full patterning is performed, while preserving all device characteristics. It is proposed to replace the semitransparent edge cover layer by the opaque, if thicker films can be achieved, as it might be possible to decrease the contribution of the perimeter leakage. Once the patterning process is performed, it is possible to implement these isolated devices as photodetectors arrays for imaging applications with an Ion/Ioff ratio of 6 orders of magnitude. It is proposed to perform a theoretical study of the dark current mechanism at the interface between the polymer and the metallic contact edges to model and simulate the perimeter recombination at reverse bias conditions. Moreover, further measurements such as electroluminescent and spectroscopy might aid to characterize the carrier transport in the OPDs. The project was aimed within the R&D department of large area electronics. Moreover, all the fabrication and characterization were performed in the facilities of IMEC.

Waste management is one of the growing problems in many highly populated cities around the world, and the amount of strategies designed to solve it has changed during the last decade. It passed from land filing to incineration and mechanical biotechnology; this quick change was partially induced by the threat that garbage is for the environment, and later on by the acceleration of climate change, since the public services industry was bound to comply with the emissions reduction targets. The newest technologies are being applied in Europe and North America, giving them a new way to face their waste issues. However, the industrialized States are not the only ones with these concerns, in the developing countries, it is a matter that is becoming an structural problem, because of the population growth and the dynamics of the capitalist practice; moreover, it is difficult to solve due to low budget or lack of knowledge on the topic. In Bogotá D.C, waste management became one of the most controversial topics due to the many problems presented during the implementation of the Zero-Waste program and the past administrative issues with the Landfill Doña Juana that led to many health and land predicaments for the population. As a consequence, this dissertation seeks to create a new strategy to fix the gaps of the original policy, by designing five time-limited specific objectives, a reform to the segregation strategy and proposing the construction Anaerobic Digestion plant as the best solution for the sustainable control of bio-waste. Therefore, this work will show throughout all the chapters the background of the waste management system, the new strategies to be taken into account by the local administration, the advantages of the AD technology and the possible financing channels for the renovation of the Basuras- Cero Policy. All the information above will be use to conclude, that for the case of Bogotá D.C, the use of bio-waste as a new energy source will strengthen the recycling industry (with the establishment of a better segregation system and the construction of and AD plant) reduce the amount of waste sent to Landfill and decrease GHG emissions; and even though it is a small step, it can become the foundation for fixing some weaknesses of the economic system and some social mores.

El trabajo presenta el diseño e implementación de un pie de tres dedos para robots bípedos. El sistema es capaz de medir el centro de presión sobre superficies planas e irregulares. El modelo ha sido creado para ser usado en robots bípedos, suministrando información sobre el centro de presión y el punto de momento cero. Dicha información es usada como entrada para un sistema de control, que asegurará la estabilidad del robot durante su caminata por diferentes superficies.

Se recogen las conferencias del curso de verano homónimo que se celebró en Zaragoza. El objetivo del curso y de la obra consiste en dar a conocer los últimos avances en Biomecánica y Mecanobiología, ciencias de reciente desarrollo que tratan del análisis y predicción de la mecánica de los seres vivos, y contribuyen así a caracterizar el comportamiento de tejidos y órganos vivos desde el punto de vista estructural, a predecir los cambios microestructurales que sufren por distintas alteraciones y a proponer y evaluar métodos de intervención artificial. Ambas ciencias requieren de un importante...

El presente texto incluye una serie de conceptos básicos de óptica, además de dar una visión general de tecnologías informáticas consideradas hoy en día como "no convencionales" al tener como fundamento la óptica. De esta forma, se tratan cuestiones relativas a los dispositivos electroópticos y acustoópticos, las comunicaciones por fibras ópticas, y la computación óptica.Se ha adecuado convenientemente el contenido del libro teniendo en cuenta que va dirigido a estudiantes de ingeniería, fundamentalmente de informática, tratando los distintos temas con un énfasis de especialización diferente al que se daría para otro tipo de estudiantes.