New products--Management; Consumer satisfaction; Marketing--Management
A constant flow of innovative products which meets the needs of customers and therefore is a monetary success for the inventing organization is important for the long term success of organizations, especially in modem dynamic markets. As resources...
Image processing; Computer vision; Pattern recognition systems
Image segmentation is one of the most important problems in image processing, object recognition, computer vision, medical imaging, etc. In general, the objective of the segmentation is to partition the image into the meaningful areas using the...
Swarm Intelligence (SI) techniques were inspired by bee swarms, ant colonies, and most
recently, bird flocks. Flock-based Swarm Intelligence (FSI) has several unique features, namely
decentralized control, collaborative learning, high exploration...
Simplified modeling generates a great deal of interest in the area of crashworthiness analysis. Modeling methods used to create simplified computer models for crashworthiness have been well developed. In advanced simplified models, researchers...
Municipal government--Japan--Case studies; Administrative agencies--Reorganization; Globalization--Political aspects; Globalization--Government policy; Globalization--Japan; Tokyo (Japan); Osaka (Japan)
This study examines the effects of globalization on state restructuring and the status of cities and local governments. I conduct a comparative case study of two Japanese world cities, Tokyo and Osaka, Japan. Existing globalization theories offer...
Estimating and analysis of deformation, either rigid or non-rigid, is an active area of research in various medical imaging and computer vision applications. Its importance stems from the inherent inter- and intra-variability in biological and...
Student evaluation of teachers; College teachers--Rating of; College students--Attitudes; Teacher-student relationships
This dissertation explored the relationship between student, course, and
instructor-level variables and student course ratings. The selection of predictor variables
was based on a thorough review of the extensive body of existing literature on...
Many dedicated-use computer systems sold as complete products require a turn-key design delivered to the customer. This requires a system which is stable, secure, and serviceable. Adaptability of the system to existing software applications is a...
A system for analysis of the traffic flow on public streets and highways through the use of Floating Car Data (FCD) relies completely on the number of simultaneously contributing vehicles, a fact that is no barrier for the phases of conception and...
A wireless sensor network consists of a large number of low-power nodes equipped with wireless radio. For two nodes not in mutual transmission range, message exchanges need to be relayed through a series of intermediate nodes, which is a process...
Supervisory control systems--Security measures; Automatic data collection systems--Security measures
This thesis describes the development of a prototype security hardened field device (such as a remote terminal unit) based on commodity hardware and implementing a previously developed security architecture. This security architecture has not been...
Grading and marking (Students)--Data processing; Discourse analysis--Data processing; Instructional systems--Design
In recent years the use of Tablet PCs in education has received a great deal of attention. Improved note-taking and lecture presentation have been the main focus of Tablet PCs in education. Currently, grading of student work collected as digital...
Electronic commerce--Corrupt practices--Prevention; Internet advertising--Corrupt practices; Internet fraud
Online search advertising is currently the greatest source of revenue for many Internet giants such as Google™, Yahoo!™, and Bing™. The increased number of specialized websites and modern profiling techniques have all contributed to an...
Coal-fired power plants--Environmental aspects--United States; Mercury wastes--Environmental aspects--United States
This dissertation tests whether or not mercury emissions from electric power plants are not a significant contributor to mercury measurements in rainfall and argues that the current United States (U.S.) Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)...
The game of Snake has been selected to provide a unique application of the
TD( ) algorithm as proposed by Sutton. A reinforcement learning technique for
producing computer controlled players is documented. Using value function
approximation with...
Existing treatment programs and procedures are incapable of addressing the complications encountered with patients who experience spasticity and hypertonia related joint contractures. Current passive therapy procedures and devices are only capable...
For complex classification systems, data is usually gathered from multiple sources of information that have varying degree of reliability. In fact, assuming that the different sources have the same relevance in describing all the data might lead to...
Rootkits are stealthy, malicious software that allow an attacker to gain and maintain control of a system, attack other systems, destroy evidence, and decrease the chance of detection. Existing detection methods typically rely on a priori knowledge...
Heuristic; Production management; Personnel management--Data processing
The Naval Surface Warfare Center wishes to create a task assignment schedule
with a minimal training cost for workers to raise their skills to the required levels. As the
number of workers, skills, and tasks increase, the problem quickly becomes...
In this dissertation, we study the performance evaluation of two automated warehouse material handling (MH) technologies - automated storage/retrieval system (AS/RS) and autonomous vehicle storage/retrieval system (AVS/RS). AS/RS is a traditional...
