My research makes three contributions to the literature. The first contribution is to find supportive evidence for the augmented Taylor rule model with orthogonalized bond market variables I build to more accurately describe and forecast the behavior the Federal Reserve, with improved model’s fit both in and out-of-sample. The second contribution to the existing literature is that I find supportive evidence for a macro explanation of industrial firm behavior in the United States. The third contribution of this paper is that I provide a new aspect to understand the monetary policy and the monetary policy transmission mechanism for both monetary policy practitioners and researchers. This research proceeds as the following: Essay one provides a literature review for the research in this dissertation discussing background and theories for both the empirical and theoretical applications of the Taylor rule, a tool for the setting of the federal funds rate. The second essay is designed to understand the setting of monetary policy by the Federal Reserve. I show that augment a simple Taylor rule with bond market information can significantly improve the model’s fit, both in and out-of-sample. The improvement is enough to produce lower forecast errors than those of non-linear policy models. In addition, the inclusion of these bond market variables resolves the parameter instability of the Taylor rule documented in the literature, and implies that the lagged federal funds rate plays a much smaller role than that suggested in the previous studies. The third essay examines the impact of monetary shocks on corporate cash holdings. I find evidence that small industrial firms hold onto cash when monetary policy is too tight and large industrial firms do the reverse both in the short-run and in the long-run. Further tests examine whether the long lasting loose monetary policy results in the pileup of corporate cash holdings. The evidence supports the assumption that industrial firms take the “long lasting lower interest rate” environment to hoard cash to buffer the monetary policy effectiveness.

The main contribution of this thesis is a new method of image compression based on a recently developed adaptive transform called Mixtures of Principal Components (MPC). Our multi-resolution extension of MPC-called Multi-Resolution Mixtures of Principal Components (MR-MPC) compresses and decompresses images in stages. The first stage processes the original images at very low resolution and is followed by stages that process the encoding errors of the previous stages at incrementally higher resolutions. To evaluate our multi-resolution extension of MPC we compared it with MPC and with the excellent performing wavelet based scheme called SPIHT. Fifty chest radiographs were compressed and compared to originals in two ways. First, Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR) and five distortion factors from a perceptual distortion measure called PQS were used to demonstrate that our multi-resolution extension of MPC can achieve rate distortion performance that is 220% to 720% better than MPC and much closer to that of SPIHT. And second, in a study involving 724 radiologists' evaluations of compressed chest radiographs, we found that the impact of MR-MPC and SPIHT at 25:1, 50:1, 75:1 on subjective image quality scores was less than the difference of opinion between four radiologists. / Thesis / Master of Science (MS)

No / This paper presents a framework for life prediction modelling and illustrates it with a case study of a plastic automotive component subjected to competing failure mechanisms: wear, leading to a soft failure-degradation of functional performance, and fatigue, leading to loss of function through fracture of a main sub-component. The paper focuses on developing a life prediction model for the fatigue failure mechanism. Structural and kinematic analysis of the component was conducted to identify a suitable substitute load characteristic for the failure mechanism. The aim is to develop an approximate model using limited testing data and when a baseline stress-life model is not available. The issues highlighted by the case study are generic to development of life models for non-critical automotive components, thus providing potentially wide scope for practical application of the approach.

Uma investigação sobre como a programação orientada a aspectos combinada com a tecnologia de componentes pode encapsular os interesses transversais de um sistema é apresentada. Como resultado desta investigação, um método para o desenvolvimento de software baseado em componentes e aspectos é proposto, cujas etapas, atividades e artefatos são mostrados por meio do exemplo de um Sistema de Reservas de Hotéis, juntamente com sua implementação nas linguagens JAsCO e AspectJ. O método é uma extensão do método UML Components e utiliza a UML com algumas adaptações. Além disso, uma estratégia de generalização e documentação de componentes transversais para que possam ser reusados em outras aplicações é proposta. Adicionalmente, o método proposto foi usado para o projeto de um Sistema de Locação de Carros e o resultado foi comparado com uma outra solução para o mesmo problema, baseada em UML Components e uma arquitetura geral para sistemas na Web. O resultado dessa comparação é apresentado e discutido. / An investigation about how aspect oriented programming combined with the components technology can encapsulate the crosscuting concerns of a system is presented. As result of this research, a method for the aspect and component based software development is proposed, whose phases, activities and design’s elements are shown by means of an example of a Hotel Reservation System, with its implementation in the JAsCO and AspectJ languages. The method is an extension of the UML Components method and uses UML with some adaptations. Moreover, a strategy to the generalization and documentation of crosscutting (or aspectual) components to be reused in other applications is proposed. Additionally, the proposed method was used to design a Car Rental System and the result was compared with another solution for the same problem, based on UML Components and a general architecture for Web systems. The results of the comparation are presented and discussed.

This thesis introduces enhancements over an existing Component Oriented CASE Tool (CoseCase). Constraint checking facility is implemented for the connections provided in the tool: A user programmable set of rules governing the allowed connections among different modeling elements is added as a capability. The previous implementation of the tool did not consider the semantics behind the elements and their interconnection. Also related connection types are tested against cycle formations. Other aspects of the tool have been enhanced such as the dynamic graphical presentation of connection handles and connectors. Deleting a sub-tree from the design diagram is made operational besides the correction of faulty operating routines especially related to attaching new elements to the diagram.

Uma investigação sobre como a programação orientada a aspectos combinada com a tecnologia de componentes pode encapsular os interesses transversais de um sistema é apresentada. Como resultado desta investigação, um método para o desenvolvimento de software baseado em componentes e aspectos é proposto, cujas etapas, atividades e artefatos são mostrados por meio do exemplo de um Sistema de Reservas de Hotéis, juntamente com sua implementação nas linguagens JAsCO e AspectJ. O método é uma extensão do método UML Components e utiliza a UML com algumas adaptações. Além disso, uma estratégia de generalização e documentação de componentes transversais para que possam ser reusados em outras aplicações é proposta. Adicionalmente, o método proposto foi usado para o projeto de um Sistema de Locação de Carros e o resultado foi comparado com uma outra solução para o mesmo problema, baseada em UML Components e uma arquitetura geral para sistemas na Web. O resultado dessa comparação é apresentado e discutido. / An investigation about how aspect oriented programming combined with the components technology can encapsulate the crosscuting concerns of a system is presented. As result of this research, a method for the aspect and component based software development is proposed, whose phases, activities and design’s elements are shown by means of an example of a Hotel Reservation System, with its implementation in the JAsCO and AspectJ languages. The method is an extension of the UML Components method and uses UML with some adaptations. Moreover, a strategy to the generalization and documentation of crosscutting (or aspectual) components to be reused in other applications is proposed. Additionally, the proposed method was used to design a Car Rental System and the result was compared with another solution for the same problem, based on UML Components and a general architecture for Web systems. The results of the comparation are presented and discussed.

Component-based Software Engineering describes a complex information system as a set of components. The thesis seeks to highlight the benefits of this approach. Also defines terms such as standard software, component software, and others. It provides an introduction to the modeling techniques of component-based systems in UML. The second half of the document describes the structure of the Eclipse Modeling Project. The reader by these lines should obtain a theoretical overview of the development of modeling tools under Eclipse. The document includes design and implementation process description of the tool for modeling component-based systems which has been developed using the Eclipse Modeling Framework and Graphical Modeling Framework.

Dentre as tecnologias de desenvolvimento de software que promovem o reuso com o objetivo de construir sistemas com prazos e custos menores, sem sacrificar a qualidade dos produtos, está o Desenvolvimento Baseado em Componentes (DBC). O Desenvolvimento Baseado em Componentes consiste na construção de sistemas pela composição de componentes de software de acordo com um processo de desenvolvimento específico. Para garantir a qualidade desses sistemas, é importante garantir a qualidade de seus componentes. A falta da garantia da qualidade dos componentes de software destinados à reutilização é um dos fatores de inibição do DBC, e existe certa carência de pesquisas sobre a qualidade de componentes de software. Desta maneira, o principal objetivo deste trabalho foi a definição de um modelo de qualidade específico para componentes de software, fornecendo a base para a especificação de requisitos de qualidade e para a avaliação de qualidade dos mesmos. O Modelo está embasado nas normas ISO/IEC 9126 e ISO/IEC 12119, e também na literatura especializada. Uma ferramenta para apoiar avaliações de componentes (e de produtos de software de forma geral) também foi desenvolvida. Foram realizadas ainda quatro avaliações de componentes através de estudos de casos para verificar a aplicabilidade e utilidade do modelo de qualidade e da ferramenta desenvolvida. Dois questionários foram respondidos pelos avaliadores responsáveis pelas avaliações coletando assim, suas considerações sobre o modelo de qualidade e sobre a ferramenta / Among the software development technologies that promote the reuse aiming to build systems with periods and smaller costs, without sacrificing the quality of products, is the Component-Based Development (CBD). The Component-Based Development consists on the construction of systems by the composition of software components according to a specific development process. To guarantee the quality of those systems, it is important to guarantee the quality of their components. The lack of warranty of the quality of the software components destined to reuse is one of the inhibition factors of CBD, and there is certain lack of researches about quality of software components. This way, the main objective of this work was the formalization of a specific quality model for software components, supplying the base for the specification of quality requirements and for the quality evaluation of the same ones. The model is based on the norms ISO/IEC 9126 and ISO/IEC 12119, and also in the specialized literature. A tool to support components evaluations (and software products in a general way) was also developed. It was realized four components evaluations through case studies to verify the applicability and usefulness of the quality model and the developed tool. Two questionnaires were answered by the appraisers responsible for the evaluations collecting thereby, their considerations on the quality model and the tool

It is widely believed and empirically shown that component reuse improves both the quality and productivity of software development. This brings the necessity of a graphical editor to model the projects by using components. A graphical editor was implemented for the development of Component Oriented software development. The editor facilitates modeling efforts through application of the graphical modeling language COSEML. Both design patterns and software components have come to play important roles in software development. The correlation between software components and design patterns is apparent. In the design phase of the projects design patterns are used widely both in component and object oriented projects. Design patterns can be used as super components in component-based development . Software reuse, software components, design patterns, use of design patterns in component-based development, and component architectures are studied in details to address the need for the approach. COSE modeling activity starts with the decomposition of the target system into building blocks in a top-down order. Next, interfaces between these blocks are defined. If required design patterns can be added to model as super components.

In order to use components that are developed for a domain, domain knowledge is required. If the default relations in a domain are offered by a framework, this can be a starting point for the application engineer as an important kind of domain knowledge. A generic design for creating and saving a domain is implemented in this thesis. This approach starts with creating a domain from components and relations among these components. The relations and components are saved once and used several times. In addition, this generic design helps for code generation by using components. A framework for this design is implemented and applied for GIS domain. A basic code generation approach is also implemented in this framework for demonstration purposes. This framework can be used by domain engineers in order to create a domain and by application engineers to develop custom applications. It has the ability to offer default relations and helps creating new relations between components. Parameters and sequence of function calls can be defined by using a GUI. All the relations including default and userdefined ones can be used for code generation. COSECASE, which offers a tool for component-oriented design is extended with domain operations such as creating domain, saving domain, loading domain, and generating domain code. As the starting point, domain analysis for GIS domain is completed to define the domain. Then the components that have been implemented for GIS domain and relations between these components are saved within the framework. Moreover, some basic applications are generated by using this framework in the GIS domain. Also a sample domain is created to prove that our approach can be applied to any domain. The relations in this sample domain are saved in the framework and same basic applications are generated.