<p>The need for an aviation navigation system is established from examining the phase out of current systems and the delay in the development of replacement systems. The systems engineering approach has been applied to ensure that a capable system is developed. After establishing the need, two GPS based methods of creating an aviation navigation system are examined. A system based on the differential GPS method is chosen as the most feasible.</p> <p> The functional analysis, operational requirements and maintenance concept are defined based on the differential GPS choice. A conceptual system design is then described for each system element, the ground beacon element and the aircraft element. The allocation of requirements, element architecture and element reliability are examined in the conceptual design.</p> / Master of Science

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<p>The purpose of this project was to gather and present information that allows the Virginia Tech Athletic Department to make an informed decision on the best choice of a new multi-use playing surface. The project provides information on initial costs, different types of surfaces and maintenance costs of five different potential surfaces.</p> / Master of Science

<p>The cost of putting on major sporting events and running athletic departments continues to escalate. This produces a need for new ways to generate money; one way is through corporate sponsorship. To garner a sponsorship there must be a match between the sponsor and the university, sport. or event that is receiving the sponsorship. Sara Lee is the type of corporation that has the make up and interest to explore the sponsorship of a female athletic program. They are already in a partnership with the NCAA. Virginia Tech is striving to reach a level of compliance with Title IX and the mandates of the NCAA regarding gender-equity. At the present time Virginia Tech fields seven women sports at the varsity level and has proposed the addition of two - three additional sports for women in the next four years. In order for this growth to occur, the athletic department budget will increase by between twelve and twenty percent.(Virginia Tech Equity Plan) With a strong support from corporate sponsorship the students will not have to incur this great cost and other programs funded by the Athletic Department will not have to suffer substantial cuts. The following is a proposal for sponsorship of several of Virginia Tech's women's sports by the SARA LEE corporation.</p> / Master of Science

The complexity of the behavior of parallel and distributed programs is the major reason for the difficulties in the analysis and diagnosis of their performance. Complex systems such as these have frequently been studied using models as abstractions of such systems. By capturing only the details of the system which are considered essential, a model is a replica of the complex system which is simpler and easier to understand than the real system. CHITRA92, the second generation of the performance analysis tool CHITRA, builds a continuous time semi-Markov chain to model program behavior. However, this model is limited to representing relationships between states which are only immediate predecessors or successors of each other. This project introduces and implements a new empirical model of the behavior of software programs which is able to represent dependencies between nonsequential program states. The implementation combines deterministic and probabilistic modeling and is based on the Chi Automatic Interaction Detection (CHAID) statistical technique designed for investigating categorical data. The empirical model, constructed by analyzing an ensemble of program execution sequences, is stochastic and non-Markovian in the form of an N -step Transition Matrix. The algorithm is integrated as one of the modeling subsystems of CHITRA93, the third generation of CHITRA. / Master of Science

The newspaper industry is undergoing changes to its' revenue base that appear to be leading the industry away from its traditional mission. Throughout history newspapers have had a mission to research, print and deliver news. The better a newspaper was at presenting the news, the greater its' circulation, the greater its' circulation the more revenue it could generate from printed advertisements. Indeed, until the 1970's all of a newspaper's revenues were tied to its' printing process. Beginning in the late 1960's, newspapers began to insert pre-printed advertisements into their products. This inserting has continued to grow steadily over the past twenty years. Recently the growth rate of advertising revenue generated by many major newspaper's internal printed advertising has become stagnant. Meanwhile newspaper inserting revenue continues to grow steadily and it appears that the newspapers are facing the possible need to re-define their mission. This new mission appears to be: "to distribute varieties of desirable printed products to subscribers." The word "desirable" is key. Advertisers want to direct their information to market "niches" and correspondingly, the advertiser wants to reach only the reader segments most likely to respond positively to the advertisement, i.e. make a purchase. <p>One important facility that gives newspapers a potential advantage over other distributors of printed matter is the newspaper's delivery system. Unlike products delivered through the mail, a newspaper's circulation organization can deliver printed material within as little as a twenty-four hour notice. This research will examine certain production process changes that could potentially take advantage of a modern newspaper's production and distribution strengths. <p>The research considers trends in magazine production and models a number of production line scenarios that have the potential of enhancing revenue by inserting greater varieties of pre-prints into an individually addressed package. It lists a number of changes that will probably be required for many design up-grade and recommends future research that would lead to a possible major change in business strategy. / Master of Science

<p>These two service-oriented entities, First Union and Virginia Tech, both stand to benefit by teaming up to form a partnership in service. First Union would gain exposure in markets they need to strengthen as well as markets they are interested in entering. First Union would receive access to all incoming students as well as those already at Virginia Tech in addition to all alumni. Virginia Tech's positive influence on southwest Virginia could help reestablish First Union's service oriented image in this area after the merger with Dominion Bank. In return, Virginia Tech can receive a financial commitment from First Union, as well as the association with one of the premiere banks in the nation. / Master of Science

Master of Science

An important characteristic of all systems is availability. Availability is the probability that a system or piece of equipment will operate in a prescribed manner when used under specified conditions. It is primarily a design dependent parameter. Availability derives from a systems reliability and maintainability. Reliability is the probability that a system will operate for a specified time under specified operating conditions. It is commonly measured by the mean-time-between-failure (MTBF). Maintainability is the ability of a system to be maintained. For this report, maintainability is measured by the mean maintenance down time (MDT). The MDT is a function of several variables, including the mean-time-to-repair (MTIR) and Logistics Delay Time (LDT). MTIR is the time that active maintenance is being performed. The LDT is the time delay due to spare part availability, transportation, repair facility availability, traveling to the location of the malfunction, etc. LDT is a major portion of the MDT. In order to meet a requirement of improved system availability, the MTBF and/or the MDT must be improved. Decreasing the distance between the repair organization and the location of the failure may have a significant impact on LDT, assuming that the system's LDT is positively correlated to the distance traveled. An improvement in the LDT corresponds to an improvement in the MDT, hence the availability. For a situation where the repair function (referred to as the repair unit) travels to the location of the failed component, the deployment location may have a critical impact on a system's availability. In a system where the operating components are located over a wide area and the repair organization must travel to the component to effect a repair, there are numerous ways to deploy the servicing units. The systems maintenance concept addresses this issue. The deployment of the repair units is the central focus of this report. / Master of Science

Master of Science