Browsing by Author "Gage, Thomas"
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Item Demand-Side Management(Resilient Communities Project (RCP), University of Minnesota, 2013) Annoni, Jen; Chandra, Devesh; Gage, Thomas; Lather, Kanwar Sameer; Monson-Miller, JennyThis project was completed as part of the 2013-2014 Resilient Communities Project (rcp.umn.edu) partnership with the City of North St. Paul. The City of North St. Paul is unique in that it operates its own electric utility, in cooperation with Minnesota Municipal Power Agency. The city sought assistance investigating and providing information to residents, businesses, and elected officials about alternative energy and energy conservation initiatives, as well as identifying strategies for dedicating electric utility revenue toward green energy initiatives such as wind, solar, and geothermal. North St. Paul Electric Utility Director Brian Frandle partnered with five teams of students in PA 5271: Energy and Environmental Policy, to investigate such opportunities. A memo and presentation prepared by student group 3 are available. A video produced by the students is available at https://youtu.be/A60tPY1R43c. (Student deliverables from the other four student teams are catalogued separately.).Item The Increasing Importance of Vehicle Based Risk Assessment for the Vehicle Insurance Industry(Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology, 2015) Gage, Thomas; Bishop, Richard; Morris, JonathanInsurance is a data driven world of actuarial analysis. Insurance carriers rate drivers and price coverage based on past driving performance, credit score (which is highly correlated to, but obviously not causal of, driving behavior), and increasingly Usage Based Insurance (UBI). Insurance carriers also factor in annual mileage, where the vehicle is garaged and driven, and the type and value of the vehicle. Modest increases in data and analysis can provide one insurance company with an important advantage over its competitors. Now a new opportunity (and challenge) awaits the insurance industry. Crash Avoidance (CA) technologies such as electronic stability control, lane departure avoidance, and forward collision avoidance are poised to revolutionize auto safety. These crash avoidance technologies are fast becoming widely available and are aimed at reducing the approximately six million annual vehicle crashes on U.S. roads. Each auto manufacturer is developing its own versions of CA technologies, with different capabilities and likely different degrees of efficacy. This means that different makes and models of vehicles with different CA technologies, and different generations of the technologies, will perform differently. Soon, knowing about the driver’s driving behavior will be insufficient for insurance companies. It will be vital to know what type and generation of CA technology is on the driver’s vehicle and how that technology performs in various driving environments. It will be many decades before the entire U.S. vehicle fleet is equipped with CA technologies of one generation or another. And even longer before most of the fleet is fully automated. This interim period provides an opportunity for insurers to move beyond just understanding drivers to also better understanding vehicles and their CA effectiveness.Item Probing the Crystallization Process and Morphology of Thin Films of Yttrium Iron Garnet on Non-Garnet Substrates with in situ TEM Methods(2018-10) Gage, ThomasThin films of yttrium iron garnet (YIG) are of high interest for promising photonics and spintronics applications. Integration challenges with current silicon processing technology have limited device geometries and caused reduced performance largely arising from crystallization issues of as-deposited films. In order to gain understanding of the amorphous to crystalline phase transformation of YIG thin films on non-garnet substrates, plan-view TEM and in situ laser annealing TEM methods were utilized. Thin YIG films were sputtered onto SiO2 TEM window membranes. These films were initially annealed ex situ using standard RTA annealing methods. A nanocrystalline matrix phase between YIG crystallites was discovered where previous studies had reported uncrystallized material. Preliminary in situ laser annealing led to the serendipitous discovery of a 2-step rapid thermal anneal which improved garnet phase formation in the films. To investigate YIG crystallization kinetics on SiO2, temperature dependent in situ laser annealing TEM diffraction experiments were conducted. Avrami constants and apparent activation energy for the nanocrystalline phase formation is reported. In situ bright-field TEM was also used to investigate the growth of the YIG crystallites and indicated they enter a stress limited growth phase after reaching a critical dimension. Additionally, considerable effort was put into instrument development for in situ TEM methods, including optimization of single-shot pump probe capability. A range for optimized cathode to Wehnelt aperture distance and photoelectron inducing laser fluence are reported. Demonstrations of single-shot capabilities in both diffraction and imaging modes with current equipment are shown.