Comparisons of Neural Networks, Shewhart ‾x, and CUSUM Control Charts Under the Condition of Nonnormality

In this study, neural networks are developed under conditions of nonnormality as alternatives to standard control charts, and their performance is compared with those of standard ‾x and CUSUM control charts

Cross-modal Effects In Tactile And Visual Signaling

Using a wearable tactile display three experiments were conducted in which tactile messages were created emulating five standard US Army and Marine arm and hand signals for the military commands, namely: Attention , Halt , Rally , Move Out , and Nuclear Biological or Chemical event (NBC) . Response times and accuracy rates were collected for novices responding to visual and tactile representations of these messages, which were displayed either alone or together in congruent or incongruent combinations. Results indicated synergistic effects for concurrent, congruent message presentations showing superior response times when compared to individual presentations in either modality alone. This effect was mediated by participant strategy. Accuracy similarly improved when both the tactile and visual presentation were concurrently displayed as opposed to separately. In a low workload condition, participants could largely attend to a particular modality, with little interference from competing signals. If participants were not given instructions as to which modality to attend to, participants chose that modality which was received first. Lastly, initial learning and subsequent training of intuitive tactile signals occurred rapidly with large gains in performance in short training periods. These results confirm the promise for tactile messages to augment visual messaging in challenging and stressful environments particularly when visual messaging is maybe preferred but is not always feasible or possible

Statistical process control by quantile approach.

Most quality control and quality improvement procedures involve making assumptions about the distributional form of data it uses; usually that the data is normally distributed. It is common place to find processes that generate data which is non-normally distributed, e.g. Weibull, logistic or mixture data is increasingly encountered. Any method that seeks to avoid the use of transformation for non-normal data requires techniques for identification of the appropriate distributions. In cases where the appropriate distributions are known it is often intractable to implement.This research is concerned with statistical process control (SPC), where SPC can be apply for variable and attribute data. The objective of SPC is to control a process in an ideal situation with respect to a particular product specification. One of the several measurement tools of SPC is control chart. This research is mainly concerned with control chart which monitors process and quality improvement. We believe, it is a useful process monitoring technique when a source of variability is present. Here, control charts provides a signal that the process must be investigated. In general, Shewhart control charts assume that the data follows normal distribution. Hence, most of SPC techniques have been derived and constructed using the concept of quality which depends on normal distribution. In reality, often the set of data such as, chemical process data and lifetimes data, etc. are not normal. So when a control chart is constructed for x or R, assuming that the data is normal, if in reality, the data is nonnormal, then it will provide an inaccurate results.Schilling and Nelson has (1976) investigated under the central limit theory, the effect of non-normality on charts and concluded that the non-normality is usually not a problem for subgroup sizes of four or more. However, for smaller subgroup sizes, and especially for individual measurements, non-normality can be serious problem.The literature review indicates that there are real problems in dealing with statistical process control for non-normal distributions and mixture distributions. This thesis provides a quantile approach to deal with non-normal distributions, in order to construct median rankit control chart. Here, the quantile approach will also be used to calculate process capability index, average run length (ARL), multivariate control chart and control chart for mixture distribution for non-normal situations. This methodology can be easily adopted by the practitioner of statistical process control

A Comparison of Student Health Knowledge in Michigan and Selected New York State Schools

The purpose of this study was twofold: first, to determine the Health knowledge levels of a selected sample of New York State students in grades four, seven and ten. Second, to compare these knowledge levels, represented by student test scores on the standardized HEAP test for Health education, with scores of Michigan students in similar grades levels on the same test. Six hundred twelve students (156 fourth graders, 152 seventh graders and 304 tenth graders) from three selected New York State school districts responded to multiple choice questions (99 questions in fourth grade, 102 questions in seventh and tenth grades) related to ten health topic areas. A Health Topic Attainment Rate (HTAR) of 75 percent is considered to be a satisfactory level of mastery in each of the ten topic areas. New York State students achieved a satisfactory HTAR in seven topic areas out of a possible thirty at the fourth, seventh and tenth grade levels in comparison to only two for Michigan students at the same grade levels. Selected New York State students showed significantly higher knowledge levels (Grade 4 F = 1339.0645; P \u3c .01, Grade 7 F = 944.594; P \u3c .01, Grade 10 F = 394.512; P \u3c .01) than did students from the state of Michigan. The results of this investigation lend support to the conclusion that knowledge based health education programs can result in high student test scores

Soil reclamation and reforestation at oil and gas well sites in northeastern British Columbia.

With over 1,400 oil and gas wells drilled in northeast British Columbia (BC) in 2005 alone, cumulative reductions in future timber supply may occur if well sites (~1 ha in size) are not reforested. Well sites resemble forestry landings in their challenges to soil productivity and reforestation, which include adverse physical conditions (i.e., compact soils), low organic matter content, and limited nutrient supply. Previous research in BC on forest soil rehabilitation techniques has developed practical methods for ameliorating adverse soil physical, chemical, and biological conditions in forestry landings. This project focused on the application of these techniques to typical abandoned well sites in the Peace River region of BC as part of achieving successful reforestation. Five abandoned well sites were selected within the Boreal White and Black Spruce biogeoclimatic zone near Fort St. John and Dawson Creek, BC. Treatments consisted of tillage, wood chip mulch, tillage + wood chip mulch, tillage + incorporated wood chips, brush mats, and an untreated control. Treatments were implemented between fall 2003 and spring 2004, and sites were subsequently planted with alternating seedlings of lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta var. latifolia Dougl. ex Loud) and white spruce (Picea glauca [Moench] Voss). Soils at all sites were fine to medium in texture with average coarse fragment contents ranging from 3% to 10%. Soil conditions were monitored throughout the 2004 and 2005 growing seasons. Response variables include soil physical parameters (bulk density, soil mechanical resistance, moisture content, air-filled porosity, water retention characteristics), nutrient availability, and seedling survival and growth. Soil physical property data (i.e., soil mechanical resistance, air-filled porosity, and water retention) indicated soils on control plots were in a potentially physically degraded state with respect to theoretical growth-limiting thresholds. These results suggested they were good candidates for rehabilitation. TreatmeThe original print copy of this thesis may be available here: http://wizard.unbc.ca/record=b159864