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Tailorability-focused recommendations for United States Air Force software acquisition policy | In order to adapt and respond to threats by near-peer-adversaries that are changing at an increasing pace, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) has been focused on reforming software acquisition for rapid development and deployment of software capabilities to the battlefield. Military leaders have been focused on accel... |
Development of VHH- and antibody- based imaging and diagnostic tools | The immune system distinguishes self from non-self to combat pathogenic incursions. Evasion tactics deployed by viruses, microbes, or malignant cells may impede an adequate response. In such cases, therapeutic interventions aid in the elimination of pathogens and the restoration of physiological homeostasis. A major ro... |
Temperature response of the ultra-high throughput mutational spectrometer | The Ultra-High Throughput Mutational Spectrometer is an instrument designed to separate mutant from wild type DNA through capillary electrophoresis. Since this technique uses the melting point of the molecule to distinguish between sequences of base pairs, temperature control is crucial to the success of the device. Th... |
High-speed continuous micro-contact printing | Micro-contact printing ([mu]CP) is a technology that prints directly off a patterned elastomeric stamp by transferring only a molecular monolayer of ink to a surface, providing a low-cost, high resolution and widely applicable method of nano-scale patterning. Roll to roll is recognized as one of the most promising mode... |
Characterization of a peptide biomaterial used for cell-seeded scaffolds with an analysis of relevant stem cell policy | (cont.) We describe the ethical debate and political climate that led to the decision. An examination of the publication data shows that researchers in the United States have in fact remained leaders in the field until this point, in part because U.S. federal funding has also been available to early mover international... |
Reconciling modal and time domain techniques in photonic simulation | Three dimensional Finite Difference Time Domain (3D-FDTD) simulation serves as the indisputable gold standard for device design and verification in silicon photonics. However, 3D-FDTD is prohibitively expensive for large devices let alone cascaded systems, leading to the pursuit of a diversified simulation toolkit to a... |
Secure public realm within a city of violence | With an increasing number of cities experiencing chronic violence and conflict within their boundaries, the question of how architecture can effectively intervene to create a secure public realm in pluralistic and fractious urban environments grows more vital. This thesis explores the spatial and social notion of sanct... |
Innovation in mature industries : recent impacts of the oil & gas and automobile technological trends on the steel industry | In order to survive, the steel industry has undergone traumatic changes in the last years. A thirty years old overcapacity combined with a slow growing market led to a steadily eroding profitability of steel companies, particularly in developed economies. These factors determined an industry profile delineated by a rel... |
Framework for communication planning in a media intensive society | In today's media intensive society, where consumers are well equipped to resist advertisers' strategies, creative and messages, it is becoming increasingly more difficult for advertisers to break through the concofany of noise to persuade the consumer that their product or service is worthy of a consumer's attention an... |
Acoustic landmark detection and segmentation using the McAulay-Quatieri Sinusoidal Model | The current method for phonetic landmark detection in the Spoken Language Systems Group at MIT is performed by SUMMIT, a segment-based speech recognition system. Under noisy conditions the system's segmentation algorithm has difficulty distinguishing between noise and speech components and often produces a poor alignme... |
Organizational structure in the hospitality industry : a comparative analysis of hotel real estate investment trusts (REITs) and hotel C-Corporations | Current legislation has made it possible for real estate investment trusts (REITs) to earn income beyond purely passive sources such as rents from real property or interest from mortgages on real property. As a result, both the number and market capitalization of hotel REITs have substantially increased, and the differ... |
System design and manufacturability of concrete spheres for undersea pumped hydro energy or hydrocarbon storage | Offshore wind and energy storage have both gained considerable attention in recent years as more wind turbine capacity is installed, less attractive/economical space remains for onshore wind, and load-leveling issues make integrating wind power into the existing electrical grid difficult. For depths greater than 50m, f... |
Additive manufacturing of microfluidics for evaluation of immunotherapy efficacy | This thesis presents the development of an entirely 3D-printed, monolithic microfluidic platform for evaluating the efficacy of immunotherapy treatments. The platform provides a dynamic microenvironment for perfusing and sustaining tumor samples extracted from a biopsy. The finely featured, non-cytotoxic, and transpare... |
A framework for quantifying complexity and understanding its sources : application to tow large-scale systems | The motivation for this work is to quantify the complexity of complex systems and to understand its sources. To study complexity, we develop a theoretical framework where the complex system of interest is embedded in a broader system: a complex large-scale system. In order to understand and show how the complexity of t... |
Adding identity to device-free localization systems | Recent advances in wireless localization systems show that by transmitting a wireless signal and analyzing its reflections, one can localize a person and track her vital signs without any wearables. These systems can localize with high accuracy even when multiple people are present in the environment. However, a primar... |
Sampling and quantization for optimal reconstruction | This thesis develops several approaches for signal sampling and reconstruction given different assumptions about the signal, the type of errors that occur, and the information available about the signal. The thesis first considers the effects of quantization in the environment of interleaved, oversampled multi-channel ... |
Design and characterization of artificial transcriptional terminators | Design and characterization of artificial transcriptional terminators. Ten new terminators were designed based on previous research of terminator structure and termination efficiency. The terminators were built by PCR extension, ligated into a BioBrick plasmid backbone, and transformed into TOP10 cells. Characterizatio... |
Thermal properties of granular silica aerogel for high-performance insulation systems | Based on mounting evidence in support of anthropogenic global climate change, there is an urgency for developments in high-performance building techniques and technologies. New construction projects provide substantial opportunities for energy efficiency measures, but they represent only a small portion of the building... |
Colloidal magnetic fluids as extractants for chemical processing applications | The feasibility of using high gradient magnetic separation (HGMS) to separate the Fe₃0₄ nanoparticles was studied in this work. We present a general model for nanoparticle capture based on calculating the limit of static nanoparticle buildup around the collection wires in an HGMS column. Model predictions were compared... |
Redefining the typology of land use in the age of big data | Land use classification is important as a standard for land use description and management. However, current land use classification systems are problematic. Labels such as "residential use" and "commercial use" do not fully reveal how the land use is used in terms of function, mix use and changes over time. As a resul... |
Biologically-plausible six-legged running : control and simulation | This thesis presents a controller which produces a stable, dynamic 1.4 meter per second run in a simulated twelve degree of freedom six-legged robot. The algorithm is relatively simple; it consists of only a few hand-tuned feedback loops and is defined by a total of 13 parameters. The control utilizes no vestibular-typ... |
Optical system for high-speed AFM | This thesis presents the design and development of an optical cantilever deflection sensor for a high speed Atomic Force Microscope (AFM). This optical sensing system is able to track a small cantilever while the X-Y scanner moves in the X-Y plane at 1KHz over a large range of 50x50 microns. To achieve these requiremen... |
Pattern classification of terrain during amputee walking | In this thesis I study the role of extrinsic (sensors placed on the body) versus intrinsic sensing (instruments placed on an artificial limb) and determine a robust set of sensors from physical and reliability constraints for a terrain adaptation in a robotic ankle prosthesis. Further, during this thesis I collect a no... |
Adaptive governance of contested rivers : a political journey into the uncertain | Governance of international rivers is characterized by complex institutional arrangements aimed at minimizing uncertainty and making it difficult for participants to avoid their responsibilities. However, as new information emerges, new impacts of activities on rivers are identified, new stakeholders emerge and new tec... |
Integrated feedback circuit for OLED display driver | Organic LEDs (OLEDs) offer the potential of ultra low power, portable display technology. The chief barrier to their usage lies in producing OLEDs that will emit light at predictable and consistent amplitudes. We propose the use of optical feedback to generate the desired luminosity pixel by pixel. We implement this te... |
Language for describing physics | Sensors embedded within hardware platforms such as smart-watches and cars read in streams of data. These sensor data may be related to each other by invariants or may have other value constraints, but computing in sensor platforms currently ignores these invariants between sensor data. If the programmer wanted to explo... |
Measuring elastic constants of laminated Copper/Niobium composites using resonant ultrasound spectroscopy | Layered copper/niobium (Cu/Nb) composites with small layer widths contain a high area per unit volume of solid-state interfaces. Interfaces have their own elasticity tensor, which affects the elastic properties of the composite as a whole. We have studied the elastic constants of Cu/Nb composites with different layer t... |
The global landscape of gender quotas on corporate boards : contexts for adoption and opposition in 2014 | There has been an acceleration in the adoption of gender quotas on boards since Norway pioneered legislation in 2003. Countries that have made parallel reforms have primarily been in the western European bloc, while other countries have displayed strong resistance to this measure. The reasons underlying support and res... |
Essays on individuals and organizations | This dissertation focuses on the dynamics of innovative industries; specifically how individual choices and actions impact the performance, founding, and death of firms. While most research examining these outcomes focuses on the role of organizational factors - such as strategy, capabilities, or resources - firms ulti... |
Phenomena that determine knock onset in spark-ignited engines | Experiments were carried out to collect in-cylinder pressure data and microphone signals from a single-cylinder test engine using spark timings before, at, and after knock onset for four different octane-rated toluene reference fuels. This data was then processed and analyzed in various ways to gain insight into the au... |
Electrochemical modulation of fluorescence of nitrogen vacancy centers in nanodiamonds for voltage sensing applications | The nitrogen vacancy (NV) color center in diamond has been used to sense environmental variables such as temperature and electric and magnetic fields. Most sensing protocols depend on the optically detectable magnetic resonance of the negatively charged NV- spin state. As such, fluctuations in the NV charge state prese... |
Novel transport regimes in graphene | Transport phenomena in solids -- such as energy and charge flows in response to external fields -- is a subject of fundamental interest for solid state physics. Carrier transport exhibits a wide variety of intriguing and potentially useful behaviors arising due to a rich and complex interplay between electron-disorder,... |
Online decision problems with large strategy sets | In an online decision problem, an algorithm performs a sequence of trials, each of which involves selecting one element from a fixed set of alternatives (the "strategy set") whose costs vary over time. After T trials, the combined cost of the algorithm's choices is compared with that of the single strategy whose combin... |
The role of ERO1 in oxidative protein folding in the endoplasmic reticulum | The formation of native disulfide bonds is critical for the folding and stability of many secreted proteins. We describe an essential S. cerevisiae gene, ER01, which encodes a conserved ER membrane protein required for disulfide bond formation in the er .doplasmic reticulum (ER). In a conditional ero 1-1 mutant, secret... |
Search for D⁰-D̄⁰ mixing in D⁰ --> K⁺ [pi]⁻ [pi]⁻ [pi]⁺ decays | We present results of a search for D⁰-D̄⁰ mixing by analyzing D⁰ --> K⁺ [pi]⁻ [pi]⁻ [pi]⁺ decays from events in 230.4 fb-1 e+e- data recorded by BABAR. Assuming CP conservation, we measure the time-integrated mixing rate RM = (0.0019 ... (stat.) ± 0.002 (syst.))%, and RM < 0.048% at 95% confidence. Using a frequentist ... |
Habitation model for Great Barrington, A suggested | Great Barrington, Massachusetts. A naturally beautiful setting combined with four distinct weather seasons dictates a lifestyle for this small South Berkshire town's residents and visitors alike. This thesis proposes that it is desirable and possible for a dwelling to be unique to an area, and as such, to reflect and e... |
Methods and devices for noninvasive physiologic fluid volume assessment | Fluid volume status is a physiologic parameter that currently lacks a reliable diagnostic tool. Volume control becomes an issue during sickness and/or stress (physical and mental) in a wide range of populations. Unfortunately, current diagnostics suffer from being imprecise, invasive, and/or easily confounded and canno... |
A comprehensive system for non-intrusive load monitoring and diagnostics | Energy monitoring and smart grid applications have rapidly developed into a multi-billion dollar market. The continued growth and utility of monitoring technologies is predicated upon the ability to economically extract actionable information from acquired data streams. One of the largest roadblocks to effective analyt... |
Computers at home, new spatial needs? : a case study | This thesis investigates five families in Boston who have introduced computers into their homes. The analysis is interdisciplinary and each case has been considered in terms of psycho-social and architectural terms. The conclusions address issues of control, gender relations, feelings toward computers, and architectura... |
Families of p̳-adic Galois representations | In this thesis, I first generalize Kisin's theory of finite slope subspaces to arbitrary p-adic fields, and then apply it to the generic fibers of Galois deformation spaces. I study the finite slope deformation rings in details by computing the dimensions of their Zariski cotangent spaces via Galois cohomologies. It tu... |
Learning commonsense categorical knowledge in a thread memory system | If we are to understand how we can build machines capable of broad purpose learning and reasoning, we must first aim to build systems that can represent, acquire, and reason about the kinds of commonsense knowledge that we humans have about the world. This endeavor suggests steps such as identifying the kinds of knowle... |
Evaluating alternatives for housing India's urban poor : design studies, model and application in Ahmedabad | The study evaluates the three alternatives identified by the (National) Planning Commission for housing the Urban Poor in India: Upgrading, site and services, and housing. The basis for evaluation is the relationship of the cost of development to the cost of each of the components in development and the number of benef... |
The use of Bluetooth in Linux and location aware computing | The Bluetooth specification describes a robust and powerful technology for short-range wireless communication. Unfortunately, the specification is immense and complicated, presenting a formidable challenge for novice developers. Currently, there is a lack of satisfactory technical documentation describing Bluetooth app... |
Validating performance and simplicity of highly concurrent data structures utilitizing the ATAC broadcast mechanism | I evaluate the ATAC broadcast mechanism as the foundation for a new paradigm in the design of highly scalable concurrent data structures. Shared memory communication is replaced, alleviating the contention that prevents data structures from achieving high performance on the next generation of manycore computers. The al... |
Generation of sand ripples and sand bars by surface waves | Part I Generation of Sand Ripples by Surface Waves In Chapter 1, we study the sand ripple instability under partially standing surface waves in constant water depth. For gently sloped ripples, the approximate flow field is· worked out. By invoking an empirical formula of sediment transport rate, an eigenvalue problem i... |
Computational comparative genomics : genes, regulation, evolution | Understanding the biological signals encoded in a genome is a key challenge of computational biology. These signals are encoded in the four-nucleotide alphabet of DNA and are responsible for all molecular processes in the cell. In particular, the genome contains the blueprint of all protein-coding genes and the regulat... |
Portfolio evaluation of advanced coal technology : research, development, and demonstration | This paper evaluates the advanced coal technology research, development and demonstration programs at the U.S. Department of Energy since the 1970s. The evaluation is conducted from a portfolio point of view and derives implications for future program design and implementation. The evaluation framework consists of four... |
Prognostic models for mesothelioma : variable selection and machine learning | Malignant pleural mesothelioma is a rare and lethal form of cancer affecting the external lining of the lungs. Extrapleural pneumonectomy (EPP), which involves the removal of the affected lung, is one of the few treatments that has been shown to have some effectiveness in treatment of the disease [39], but this procedu... |
Improving project timelines using artificial intelligence/ machine learning to detect forecasting errors | This project focuses on the creation of a novel tool to detect and flag potential errors within Amgen's capacity management forecast data, in an automated manner using statistical analysis, artificial intelligence and machine learning. User interaction allows the tool to learn from experience, improving over time. Whil... |
Architectural practice and the planning of minor palaces in Renaissance Italy, 1510-1570 | This dissertation proposes to study how the commission and design of minor palaces contribute to the understanding of architectural practice in early 16th century Italy. The particular nature of the small urban palace as a reduced and less expensive version of larger palaces and its recurrent nature in the practice of ... |
Neural VAD and its practical use | The task of producing a Voice Activity Detector (VAD) that is robust in the presence of non-stationary background noise has been an active area of research for several decades. Historically, many of the proposed VAD models have been highly heuristic in nature. More recently, however, statistical models, including Deep ... |
First-principles investigation of Li intercalation kinetics in phospho-olivines | This thesis focuses broadly on characterizing and understanding the Li intercalation mechanism in phospho-olivines, namely LiFePO₄ and Li(Fe,Mn)PO₄, using first-principles calculations. Currently Li-ion battery technology is critically relied upon for the operation of electrified vehicles, but further improvements main... |
Social perspective of mobility sharing : understanding, utilizing, and shaping preference | Advances in information and communications technologies are enabling the growth of real-time ride sharing-whereby drivers and passengers or fellow passengers are paired up on car trips with similar origin-destinations and proximate time windows-to improve system efficiency by moving more people in fewer cars. Lesser kn... |
Usability and game design : improving the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Augmented Reality Game Editor | Creating MIT Augmented Realty (MITAR) games can be a daunting task. MITAR game designers require a usable game editor to simplify this process. The MITAR Game Editor was the first editor to provide game designers with the means to effectively create MITAR games, however, there were several areas that needed improvement... |
Small molecule binding to electrophilic trigonal pyramidal platinum, palladium, and nickel | Chapter 1 A general introduction to the concepts and background of several types of transition metal complexes that motivate and inform the research described herein. These include a-complexes and molecular adducts of dinitrogen, dihydrogen, and carbon dioxide. Chapter 2 Trigonal bipyramidal platinum(II) complexes of t... |
Migration from electronics to photonics in multicore processor | Twenty - first opportunities for Gigascale Integration will be governed in part by a hierarchy of physical limits on interconnect. Microprocessor performance is now limited by the poor delay and bandwidth performance of the on - chip global wiring layer. This thesis is envisioned as a critical showstopper of electronic... |
Sharing school of architecture | Pedagogical experiments played very important role in shaping architectural discourse and practice in the second half of the 20th century. Along the history, the architecture discipline developed and struggled for new territories by articulating its relationship to the technological, socio-political and cultural transf... |
Topics in non-convex optimization and learning | Non-convex optimization and learning play an important role in data science and machine learning, yet so far they still elude our understanding in many aspects. In this thesis, I study two important aspects of non-convex optimization and learning: Riemannian optimization and deep neural networks. In the first part, I d... |
Should we stay or should we go? : managing justice and retreat in the resilient city | In recent years, scholars and planning practitioners have turned to managed retreat as an adaptation response to climate change. This provokes questions about how equity and justice are addressed in the relocation of people because historic planning practice has led to the marginalization of already vulnerable populati... |
Reverse logistics and large-scale material recovery from electronics waste | Waste consolidation is a crucial step in the development of cost-effective, nation-wide material reclamation networks. This thesis project investigates typical and conformational tendencies of a hypothetical end-of-life electronics recycling system based in the United States. Optimal waste processor configurations, alo... |
Measurement and device design of left-handed metamaterials | The properties of a variety of left-handed metamaterial (LHM) structures are analyzed and measured to verify consistent behavior between theory an measurements. The structures are simulated using a commercial software program and a retrieval algorithm is used to determine the effective constitutive parameters. The cons... |
Contribution of three-dimensional sound to the human-computer interface | Sound inherently has a spatial quality, an ability to be localized in three dimensions. This is the essence of 3-D, or spatial, sound. A system capable of recording sounds as digitized samples and playing them back in a localized fashion was developed in the course of this research. This sound system combines special h... |
Architectural epidemiology : a computational framework | Architecture affects our health, especially in hospitals. However, our ability to learn from existing hospitals to design buildings that improve patient outcomes is limited. If we want to leverage large datasets of health outcomes to build knowledge about how architecture affects health, then we need new methods for an... |
Decentralized detection in sensor network architectures with feedback | We investigate a decentralized detection problem in which a set of sensors transmit a summary of their observations to a fusion center, which then decides which one of two hypotheses is true. The focus is on determining the value of feedback in improving performance in the regime of asymptotically many sensors. We form... |
Computational bounce flash for indoor portraits | Portraits taken with direct flash look harsh and unflattering because the light source comes from a small set of angles very close to the camera. Advanced photographers address this problem by using bounce flash, a technique where the flash is directed towards other surfaces in the room, creating a larger, virtual ligh... |
Uncovering the dynamics of everyday life through playful modeling | It is not easy to understand the dynamics underlying everyday life. The change around us is so ubiquitous; the processes governing change are invisible; the relationships between cause & effect are usually disconnected in time or space, and probabilistic causation adds uncertainty to the mix. This dissertation is about... |
Construction trades training facility for the eastern Canadian Arctic | On April 1, 1999, the Inuit of the Eastern Canadian Arctic achieved sovereignty over a new territory, Nunavut, envisioning economic self-reliance, political self-determination, and renewal of confidence in Inuit community. Life in Nunavut, however, remains circumscribed by adversities: poverty, crowded houses, and long... |
Sustainable and equitable urban environments in Asia | This study identifies some of the factors and conditions that can encourage the development of sustainable and equitable urban environments. It argues that cities will continue to grow and that it is not productive to view that growth as a crisis or a tragedy; instead it must be seen as a challenge for the future. The ... |
Nonadiabatic electron transfer in the condensed phase, via semiclassical and Langevin equation approach | In this dissertation, we discuss two methods developed during my PhD study to simulate electron transfer systems. The first method, the semi-classical approximation, is derived from the stationary phase approximation to the path integral in the spin-coherent representation. The resulting equation of motion is a classic... |
Field induced orientation of semicrystalline and non-crystallne block copolymer microdomain patterns | Various block copolymer microdomain structures are controlled in bulk as well as in thin film by employing flow fields, directional solidification, and substrates. In bulk systems, flow fields generated by the 'roll casting' process orient amorphous cylindrical microdomains along the flow direction in a semicrystalline... |
Symplectic isotopy for cuspidal curves | This work has three purposes. The first one is to prove unobstructedness of deformation of pseudoholomorphic curves with cusps and tacnodes. We show that if the first Chern class of a 4-dimensional symplectic manifold is sufficiently positive then the deformation is unobstructed. We prove this result when the curves ha... |
Understanding the active sites and reaction mechanism of water oxidation on metal oxides | Solar energy irradiating the Earth's surface exceeds human energy consumption by four orders of magnitude and the key to alleviating the global energy crisis lies in efficiently harnessing it. An ideal means of storing surplus energy from solar is to convert it to hydrogen using proton exchange membrane water electroly... |
Simulation development and analysis of attitude-control system architectures for an astronaut mobility unit | Control-moment gyroscopes (CMGs) are spacecraft attitude-control actuators which control the spacecraft's orientation and pointing. CMGs operate on electrical power and therefore obey the the conservation of angular momentum. Single-gimbal CMGs are equipped with a high-speed flywheel which can be gimbaled to impart gyr... |
Novel approaches to Newtonian noise suppression in interferometric gravitational wave detection | The Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) attempts to detect ripples in the curvature of spacetime using two large scale interferometers. These detectors are several kilometer long Michelson interferometers with Fabry-Perot cavities between two silica test masses in each arm. Given Earth's proximit... |
Analysis of the accessory business : focus on electromechanical grips | Today, many manufacturing companies are facing numerous challenges that had not been present in the past. The paradigm of how companies must perform has dramatically changed over the years. Back in the 1980's customer service was used as a tool to gain competitive advantage. Now, good customer service is expected from ... |
Topological Hochschild homology of twisted group algebras | Let G be a group and A be a ring. There is a stable equivalence of orthogonal spectra ... between the topological Hochschild homology of the group algebra A[G] and the smash product of the topological Hochschild homology of A and the cyclic bar construction of G. This thesis generalizes this result to a twisted group a... |
Studies of exon scrambling and mutually exclusive alternative splicing | The goals of this thesis work were to study two special alternative splicing events: exon scrambling at the RNA splicing level and mutually exclusive alternative splicing (MEAS) by computational and experimental methods. Chapter 1 presents work on the study of exon scrambling, in which exons are spliced at canonical sp... |
Noncommutative ring spectra | Let A be an Ax ring spectrum. We give an explicit construction of topological Hochschild homology and cohomology of A using the Stasheff associahedra and another family of polyhedra called cyclohedra. Using this construction we can then study how THH(A) varies over the moduli space of AO structures on A, a problem whic... |
Ship collision and the OFNP : analysis of possible threats and security measures | The OFNP research group in the Nuclear Science and Engineering Department at MIT is developing a power plant that combines two well-established technologies -- light water reactors and offshore platforms -- into a new design called the Offshore Floating Nuclear Plant (OFNP). Deploying a nuclear reactor aboard a floatin... |
Interdiffusivity in titanium-tantalum alloys processed at 1473 K | Titanium-tantalum (Ti-Ta) alloys are likely to have a high biocompatibility and corrosion resistance that renders them novel materials of interest for biomedical applications[7, 14, 2]. With high strength and a low elastic modulus, Ti-Ta alloys have attracted attention as candidates for such uses as hip replacements[2]... |
High throughput three-dimensional tissue cytometry | This thesis presents the ongoing technological development of high throughput 3-D tissue cytometry.and its applications in biomedicine. 3-D tissue cytometry has been developed in our laboratory based on two-photon microscopy (TPM) that is capable of in situ 3-D imaging of tissue up to a volume of several mm3 with subce... |
Multiple-part-type production scheduling for high volume manufacturing (time-based approach) | An effective production scheduling strategy would lead to efficient production line performance as well as increased profit. However, there is no fixed or generalized solution. In this thesis, Nonlinear Programming and time-based Control Point Policy were applied in sequence to solve the production scheduling problems ... |
Somatic retrotransposition in the cancer genome | Cancer is a complex disease of the genome exhibiting myriad somatic mutations, from single nucleotide changes to various chromosomal rearrangements. The technological advances of next-generation sequencing enable high-throughput identification and characterization of these events genome-wide using computational algorit... |
Understanding the effect of protonation on the self-assembly of a model polyelectrolyte-neutral block copolymer | Charge-containing polymers are used in a wide variety of commercial products including fuel cell membranes, heat sealing packages, and golf ball covers. Traditionally made as random copolymers of charged and uncharged monomers, morphological understanding and control is limited due to the lack of long range order and s... |
Pricing bundles of products and services in the high-tech industry | The High-Tech industry faces tremendous complexity in product design because of the large number of different products that can be offered and the mix of products and services that exists. Information Technology (IT) products and services available in the market are increasing exponentially. Bundling appears in this in... |
The impact of the geographic distribution of design engineers on the pace of engineering development | The increasing use of digital design tools and broadband information networks is creating an environment that permits the geographic distribution of design engineers. In order to successfully distributed engineering the consequences need to be understood. Through the examination of records of project execution, this th... |
Analysis of open-loop pointing and closed-loop tracking with noisy platform attitude information | U.S. military assets' increasing need for secure global communications has led to the design and fabrication of airborne satellite communication terminals that operate under protected security protocol. Protected transmission limits the closed-loop tracking options to eliminate pointing error in the open-loop pointing ... |
Design and process/measurement for immersed element control in a reconfigurable vertically falling soap film | Reinforcement learning has proven successful at harnessing the passive dynamics of underactuated systems to achieve least energy solutions. However, coupled fluid-structural models are too computationally intensive for in-the-loop control in viscous flow regimes. My vertically falling soap film will provide a reconfigu... |
The urban waterfront in flux : accommodating uncertainty in Brooklyn | Urban waterfronts are host to every shade of a city's development. Once pulsating with trade and production, the very reason for the city's existence, the mid 20th century brought jarring macroeconomic shifts and technological change that left this vibrant edge largely abandoned. Nothing remains static at the shore; ne... |
Improving Tale Blazer analytics | TaleBlazer is a platform for creating and playing augmented reality location-based mobile games. TaleBlazer Analytics is an automated system for collecting and analyzing anonymized player data from these games. This thesis presents additions and improvements made to TaleBlazer Analytics to allow for a more in-depth vie... |
Design, fabrication and implementation of a flexure-based micropositioner for Dip Pen Nanolithography | Dip Pen Nanolithography (DPN) takes the concept of a quill-tip pen and shrinks it to the nanometer scale. DPN uses a machine to pick up and deposit proteins and liquids in arrays. A problem with the machine however is aligning the pen tip relative to the machine. Currently, it is aligned manually, which is time and lab... |
A real-time 256 x 256 pixel parallel image processing system by Zubair Aman Talib. | This thesis explores how a Pixel-Parallel Image Processor (PPIP) chip serves as the basis for a real-time low-level image processing system as used in a machine vision based intelligent vehicle control application. Utilizing a processor-per-pixel scheme, the PPIP integrates 64 x 64 Processing Elements (PEs) on a single... |
energy efficient complementary metal oxide semiconductors interface to CNT sensor arrays | A carbon nanotube is considered as a candidate for a next-generation chemical sensor. CNT sensors are attractive as they allow room-temperature sensing of chemicals. From the system perspective, this signifies that the sensor system does not require any micro hotplates, which are one of the major sources of power dissi... |
Information technology adoption in hospitals : social networking, governance and the clockspeed of change | The healthcare industry is expanding swiftly and total healthcare expenditures are expected to reach 18% of GDP by 2008. However there exist steep variances in quality of care and high incidences of medical error. This has given impetus to efforts at progressively evolving the healthcare delivery system. The role of in... |
Long-term contracts for new investments in power generation capacity : pain or gain? | In recent years, a debate has ensued regarding the role of long-term power purchase agreements for securing investments in power generation capacity in organized wholesale markets. This thesis illuminates the issues surrounding the debate and provides a framework for understanding the nature and use of long-term contra... |
Spectral methods for circuit analysis | Harmonic balance (HB) methods are frequency-domain algorithms used for high accuracy computation of the periodic steady-state of circuits. Matrix-implicit Krylov-subspace techniques have made it possible for these methods to simulate large circuits more efficiently. However, the harmonic balance methods are not so effi... |
Sediment-water exchange of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in the lower Hudson Estuary | Polyethylene devices (PEDs), which rely on the partitioning of hydrophobic organic contaminants (HOCs) between water and polyethylene, were shown to be useful for the measurement of dissolved HOCs like polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in natural waters. These PEDs allow for the measurement of the fugacity or "fl... |
Creation of "place" by Mexicans and Mexican Americans in East Los Angeles | In this thesis I will examine how residents of East Los Angeles use their front yards and streets to create a sense of "place." The environment created in this way I call "enacted." People are both users and creators of a place and thus become "texture" in the urban landscape. People activate environments merely by the... |
Design of a hydraulic bulge test apparatus | The various equi-biaxial tension tests for sheet metal were studied and compared to determine the most appropriate equipping in the Impact and Crashworthiness Laboratory, MIT, for the testing of Advanced High Strength Steel. The hydraulic bulge test was identified as the most economical solution. The equipment was desi... |
Case studies in protein folding and adaptation to time-varying fields | In this thesis, we use the methods of statistical physics to provide quantitative insights into the behavior of biological systems. In the first half of the thesis, we use equilibrium statistical physics to develop a phenomenological model of how the hydrophobic effect impacts the structure of proteins, and in the seco... |
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