685 research outputs found

    AFIT School of Engineering Contributions to Air Force Research and Technology. Calendar Year 1971

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    This report contains abstracts of Master of Science theses and Doctoral Dissertations completed during the 1971 calendar year at the School of Engineering, Air Force Institute of Technology

    Real-time Operational Response Methodology for Reducing Failure Impacts in Water Distribution Systems

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    Interruption to water services and low water pressure conditions are commonly observed problems in water distribution systems (WDSs). Of particular concern are the unplanned events, such as pipe bursts. The current regulation in the UK requires water utilities to provide reliable water service to consumers resulting in as little as possible interruptions and of as short possible duration. All this pushes water utilities toward developing and using smarter responses to these events, based on advanced tools and solutions. All with the aim to change network management style from reactive to a proactive, and reduce water losses, optimize energy use and provide better services for consumers. This thesis presents a novel methodology for efficient and effective operational, short time response to an unplanned failure event (such as pipe burst) in a WDS. The proposed automated, near real-time operational response methodology consists of isolating the failure event followed by the recovery of the affected system area by restoring the flows and pressures to normal conditions. The isolation is typically achieved by manipulating the relevant on/off valves that are located closely to the event location. The recovery involves selecting an optimal combination of suitable operational network interventions. These are selected from a number of possible options with the aim to reduce the negative impact of the failure over a pre-specified time horizon. The intervention options considered here include isolation valve manipulations, changing the pressure reducing valve’s (PRV) outlet pressure and installation and use of temporary overland bypasses from a nearby hydrant(s) in an adjacent, unaffected part of the network. The optimal mix of interventions is identified by using a multi-objective optimization approach driven by the minimization of the negative impact on the consumers and the minimization of the corresponding number of operational interventions (which acts as a surrogate for operational costs). The negative impact of a failure event was quantified here as a volume of water undelivered to consumers and was estimated by using a newly developed pressure-driven model (PDM) based hydraulic solver. The PDM based hydraulic solver was validated on a number of benchmark and real-life networks under different flow conditions. The results obtained clearly demonstrate its advantages when compared to a number of existing methods. The key advantages include the simplicity of its implementation and the ability to predict network pressures and flows in a consistently accurate, numerically stable and computationally efficient manner under both pressure-deficient and normal-flow conditions and in both steady-state and extended period simulations. The new real-time operational response methodology was applied to a real world water distribution network of D-Town. The results obtained demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed methodology in identifying the Pareto optimal network type intervention strategies that could be ultimately presented to the control room operator for making a suitable decision in near real-time.Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq, Ministry of High Education and Scientific Research, Human Capacity Development Program (HCDP)

    Investigating personal insolvency : a progression of studies into individual voluntary arrangements

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    This doctoral submission represents over ten years of focused research that has resulted in a unique collection of academic and professional articles. The epithet "unique" is adopted to reflect that over those years this area of study has been relatively untouched by other academic researchers. This submission presents a total of eight academic and seven professional journal publications that chronicle the major output of numerous research projects undertaken between 1992 and 2002. The publications adhere to a central aim - to investigate the practical use and complex interactions between stakeholders of the individual insolvency rescue vehicle the Individual Voluntary Arrangement (IVA). The research projects employed a variety of relevant methodologies to populate an emerging conceptual model of the prime factors affecting the incidence, usage and outcomes of IVA cases. The first five articles report and develop the data collected during the various projects. The articles build on each other, analysing results and comparing these with previous studies to underline reliability in the data. The final three articles draw threads from the research data and develop the conceptual model further. As a research progression this submission contains all of the necessary ingredients of a doctoral thesis. It focuses on a discrete body of knowledge, builds on a conceptual model, gathers valuable data and tests it, draws strong conclusions and, finally, establishes and contributes new theory in this area of study

    Managing Innovation and Creativity

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    As businesses become more lean in the future they will have to do everything to gain a competitive advantage. People are the biggest resource and many times the biggest expense in an organization. Many experts are of the opinion that the single most effective way to insure a companies longevity is by having high output employees. There are many proven techniques in workforce motivation. Most managers and educators think higher production is the result of better motivation techniques. A normal motivation plan is designed to increase production in the employees \u27 current job under the same set of rules and ideas. Paradigm shifts in business are happening at a faster pace than ever before. When a paradigm shift takes place, all the rules and perceptions that a business operated under are now invalid. These shifts in thinking drive the need for business to motivate and foster creative and entrepreneurial thinking in their employees, Older techniques to motivate are useless in getting employees to find creative solutions to problems or invent new products or services. American business managers are in a race for ideas to make products more innovative. How can managers set up an atmosphere and a reward system that encourages, and more importantly produces, new ideas to flow like the assembly lines of mass production in the past? This is an idea that has rarely been focused on. Managers have been more interested in controlling and directing major duties under the old paradigm. The new paradigm of business is getting employees thinking out of the box of business as usual. Many studies have not focused on the importance of creativity and innovation. Measuring the results of creativity and innovation is difficult. The culture of the business has to change and open up to promote , encourage and measure creativity. The purpose of this study is research what managers and employees should do to gain a new perspective on the ways they do business. Hopefully this study will reveal the need for management emphasis in the creative and innovative area. Along with the need, the study will show what types of people tend to have the qualities that managers must look for in their recruitment. The people who tend to exhibit traits for creativity and innovation are driven by things that are very different than other employees and the two groups can not be managed using the same set of rules. The study will l show what will drive these people in a direction to keep the ideas flowing and keep them focused on the current business problems . The study will identify creative and innovative behaviors and give insight into what others are doing to stay ahead of competition by developing new products or improving procedures and services. The hypothesis of this study is that innovation is important for businesses to grow and to improve productivity. Cameron\u27s study showed an increase in economic growth was directly related to innovation. Many of the other articles and studies supported this hypothesis. This research focused on two primary areas for creativity and innovation. Programs and leadership initiatives from management and understanding what creative people are looking for in their careers. Knowledge can easily be spread among people with time and some effort, while creativity and innovation has to develop from within a person based on their experiences and environment. The previous studies, and this study are strong evidence that business will be well served to keep creativity and innovation in the culture or their organizations. Their competitive positions will require growth, and much growth comes from creative and innovative employees. The conclusion of this study is that innovation and creativity have been shown to increase a company \u27 s value and improve growth. Innovative and creative companies have been more successful at hiring and retaining employees

    An investigation into the qualitative characteristics of large infrastructure and project finance ventures in Southern Africa

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    A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, University of the Witwatersrand in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Wits Business School 4 November 2016Sub-Saharan Africa faces severe infrastructure deficits including in power generation, water facilities, transportation, and telecommunications. These deficits compound the socio-economic challenges of the most impoverished region in the world. It is estimated that funding of US$ 90 billion per annum is required to address infrastructure deficiencies. Other developing regions including Asia, the Middle East, and South America, have with varying degrees of success utilised the project finance framework to address similar infrastructure deficiencies, and also develop other commercial ventures. Africa has lagged behind in this respect, and still accounts for less than 3% of international project finance flows. The ability to attract and access international and domestic project finance capital, and execute the underlying ventures is an important opportunity to address the challenges noted above. The study contributes to knowledge by deepening our understanding of project finance in South Africa, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe in the following ways. Firstly, it offers a model through which to monitor key contextual factors that influence the success, failure, and shaping of project and infrastructure ventures. Secondly, it interrogates the main capital structure theories including the static trade off and pecking order theories, and their applicability and relevance for project and infrastructure finance in the selected jurisdictions. It then compares capital structure theory with actual practice of capital structure formulation in the 7 cases studies investigated. This yields important insights as to the most important factors influencing capital structure in project finance in the three selected countries. In particular the constrained supply of capital is observed as the top factor determining capital structure. It further enhances our understanding of why ventures using project finance in these countries may have significantly lower leverage than other similar ventures in developed regions of the world. Thirdly, the study extracts key insights into how stakeholder interactions evolve in the projects by applying stakeholder agency theory to project sponsors, managers, contractors, state institutions, and community organisations. Collectively these insights should contribute to attracting increased capital to project finance in Sub-Saharan Africa, and arranging projects with greater prospects of operational success.MT 201

    Commercial Vehicle Research Buggy For Active Driver Assistance Systems

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    This is the Final Design Report for Daimtronics, a senior project team sponsored by Professor Charles Birdsong of Cal Poly and by Daimler Trucks North America. This team integrated mechatronic systems into a scale semi-truck chassis using existing mechanical and software systems from three separate Cal Poly senior projects over the recent years: Daimscale, MicroLaren, and ProgreSSIV. The goal was to have a user-friendly platform capable of executing autonomous driving algorithms that are programmable at a high level in Simulink and Robotic Operating System (ROS). Advanced driver assistance and autonomous vehicle algorithms were not within the scope of this project, but the capability to upload the platform with such software was. Through research on existing products and technologies in the field today, as well as through communication with the sponsors, Daimtronics has compiled a list of customer needs and resulting engineering specifications that will verify whether the needs are met or not. Included is both the preliminary design direction, encompassing the selection of a motor, a computing platform and a middleware framework, as well as the final design direction as the project evolved. The sensor suite for object detection and detailed plans for the integration of the electronic, computing, and mechanical components are described. The proposed and final design of the motherboard integrating the electronic and computing platforms of the system is detailed. A description of the current state of the project is included, as well as suggested next steps for future teams who will be working on this platform. A timeline of key deliverables and their due dates throughout the 2018-2019 academic school year is included

    Counselor Education Doctoral Students’ Research Self-Efficacy: A Concept Mapping Approach

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    Research self-efficacy (RSE) is a key concept not only for counselor educators as successful researchers but also for the advancement of counselor education field. In the literature, researchers have studied multiple factors (e.g., research interest, productivity) to understand the complex nature of RSE phenomenon. Despite being informative, these studies only focused on partial aspects of the multilayered RSE, showing methodological and conceptual limitations. Particularly, we do not have a holistic understanding of RSE and the interrelated relationship among the factors informing RSE. In the current study, the researcher used a mixedmethods design, Concept Mapping (Kane & Trochim, 2007) to explore the factors influencing counselor education doctoral students’ RSE in CACREP-accredited doctoral programs. Current study findings yielded 17 clusters represented in six regions describing the intrapersonal, interpersonal, and systemic levels of Ecological Model (McLeroy et al., 1988). The researcher discussed the findings in the view of the current literature along with implications for researcher training and future research practices as well as with the limitations of current study

    The Trojan Horse

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    This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. The Trojan Horse traces the growth of commercial sponsorship in the public sphere since the 1960s, its growing importance for the arts since 1980 and its spread into areas such as education and health. The authors’ central argument is that the image of sponsorship as corporate benevolence has served to routinize and legitimate the presence of commerce within the public sector. The central metaphor is of such sponsorship as a Trojan Horse helping to facilitate the hollowing out of the public sector by private agencies and private finance. The authors place the study in the context of the more general colonization of the state by private capital and the challenge posed to the dominance of neo-liberal economics by the recent global financial crisis. After considering the passage from patronage to sponsorship and outlining the context of the post-war public sector since 1945, it analyses sponsorship in relation to Thatcherism, enterprise culture and the restructuring of public provision during the 1980s. It goes on to examine the New Labour years, and the ways in which sponsorship has paved the way for the increased use of private-public partnerships and private finance initiatives within the public sector in the UK

    Final Design Report: Polymer Fatigue Characterization Test Method

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    Polylogix is a team dedicated to the design, build, and testing of a fatigue machine to simulate cyclic loading on a biomedical polymer. This project is sponsored by Endologix, Inc. to provide test data characterizing mechanical material properties of various formulations of polymer used in abdominal aortic aneurysm surgeries. With this project goal, the machine must be able to test the polymer at body conditions; these include a testing temperature of 37°C and a cycling frequency ranging from 1 Hz to 10 Hz. This report proposes the following solution to this design challenge: an AC motor-driven mechanism utilizing a planetary gearbox and pulley system to reduce the speed of the motor to those necessary to achieve testing frequencies of 1 Hz, 2 Hz, 5 Hz, 8 Hz, and 10 Hz. From the drive mechanism, a shaft-mounted cam translates the rotational motion to linear motion through a cam follower. This cam follower carries a load cell and test specimen grip fixtures which clamp onto the specimen to apply cyclic loading. To vary the percent elongation applied to the test specimen, the cam has been designed to be interchangeable to accomplish a range of elongations: 10%, 20%, 30%, 40%, and 50%
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