This report contains a programming improvement work in a LabVIEW™ fire testing furnace control system for SP Fire Technology in Borås. Here materials and products behaviour are tested and evaluated, being exposed to fire. For this task, UGNET is being used for control and surveillance of the testing furnace system. System hardware has been updated gradually through the years, while the software has been neglected. The task consisted of gaining knowledge of LabVIEW™ and the control system in whole. A further necessary measure is needed concerning program interface and localisation and elimination of useless code and program errors. Documentation from the work is presented in this report.The project group have approach these problems by analyzing code structure, searching and eliminating errors within the program and creating useful functions. All the updates has carefully been tested and checked during live furnace tests in the laboratory. Improvements have been made continuously in consultation with furnace operators and support from Benima.The work has resulted in a modern and well functioning UGNET program interface, eliminated useless code and a number of new useful program functions. / Uppsatsnivå: D

by Song, Jingyan. / "January 1999." / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1999. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 110-118). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Mode of access: World Wide Web. / Abstracts in English and Chinese.

<p>The thesis covered the creation and testing of a low cost and modular sorting system of pegs used in products by Lafayette Instruments. The system is designed to check peg dimensions through use of computer vision while sorting out nonconforming parts and counting ones that are conforming. Conforming parts are separated into bins of predetermined quantities so that they do not need manual counting. The developed system will save engineers and technicians at Lafayette instruments many man hours from manually sorting and counting the roughly 160,000 pegs a year. The system will be able to sort and count at a speed comparable to a human operator while achieving an overall average accuracy of 95% or higher.</p>

This thesis explores the consequences of 'increasingly capable machines' on earnings and employment. A new literature, the task-based approach, has been developed for this purpose. And this literature presents an optimistic account of the prospects for labour in the 21st century. The central claim in this literature is that "people tend to overstate the extent of machine substitution for labour and ignore the complementarities". This thesis challenges this optimism. I argue that such optimism is based on two assumptions, neither of which is justified. The first is that the supply-side analysis in this literature is based on outdated reasoning about how these machines operate. The result is that the models arbitrarily constrain what machines are capable of doing. The second is that the demand-side analysis in this literature is either altogether missing, or is carried out in a way that is constrained by the arbitrary supply-side assumption. In this thesis I build a new range of task-based models that are based on more justifiable assumptions. The first set of models show that updated reasoning about how machines operate leads to a pessimistic account of the prospects for labour. The second set of models show that the demand-side has an important role in either strengthening, or weakening, this pessimism that is reached when the supply-side is looked at in isolation. This analysis leads to the identification of an important new 'race' in the labour market.

This thesis argues for the need for a more comprehensive discussion of biodiversity use in relation to enhancing benefits of this use for biodiverse countries and promoting more equitable sharing of these benefits. The findings from this doctoral research reveal that biodiversity-based innovation is a social shaping process that has resulted in large benefits. The cumulative capability to use species from biodiversity gives meanings that contribute to the species shaping process, with organisations and institutional changes providing direction and increasing the rate of the shaping process. In showing how innovation takes place and how the appropriation of benefits occurs, this research contributes to studies on science policy and innovation in relation, especially, to biodiversity-based innovation. The thesis introduces the Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD) and the Nagoya Protocol as representing change to the governance of biodiversity. The theoretical approach draws on evolutionary and institutional economics, both of which inform and extend a question that is central in the sociology of technology: That is how are technology (innovation understood as an output) and social practices shaped collectively? Three cases are used to trace what occurs in the shaping process of species from biodiversity: (i) The Jersey cow is a breed within the species Bos Taurus or modern taurine cattle. The isolated character of Jersey delimited the scope of the breed at a point in time when it was being bred locally and allow us to identify its shaping as a ‘technology', and the broader diffusion of its use. The Jersey cow is used to introduce the theoretical framework and the analysis. (ii) Maca, originally from Peru, is a root crop with nutritional and, allegedly, fertility enhancing properties. It was domesticated in Peru and only a few world regions have conditions favouring its production. Maca is commercialised as flour and used as a raw material. (iii) Quinua has great potential as a staple food crop. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) declared 2013 to be the International Year of Quinoa on the basis of its unique and nutritious character. Three Andean countries (Bolivia, Ecuador and Peru) report exports of quinua grain, although dozens of countries around the world are engaged in performing agronomic testing for its commercial production. A comparative analysis of the three cases helps to identify the science and technology policy issues related to implementation of the CBD and the Nagoya Protocol. The case studies demonstrate the innovation process of species from biodiversity. Benefits arise from the diffusion of the use of the species (via commercialisation), which accrued to individuals or groups. The characterisation of the innovation process highlights how the voices and agency of actors and organisations affected the shaping process. The governance over the goods that emerged from the use of the species defined the appropriation of benefits.

Research and technological development processes increasingly entail inter-organisational collaboration for the access and integration of external complementary knowledge, especially within emergent technological innovation systems and small developing countries. Collaborative efforts aggregate capabilities of individual actors into system-level innovation capacity, fostering technological and innovation outcomes from both individual organisations and the technological system as a whole. Significant understanding of these interactive processes has been achieved by previous research on innovation systems, inter-organisational collaboration and networks, and studies of interdisciplinary scientific research. Nevertheless, further knowledge is required on how and why organisations may differ in their ability to collaboratively exploit potential complementarities. Consequently, this thesis examines institutional and organisational factors that influence the actual extent of knowledge integration achieved by public research organisations through collaborative research endeavours, within the agri-biotechnology innovation system in Uruguay. The research followed a mixed empirical method. Exploratory interviews with members of public R&D groups and firms were conducted in order to reach a preliminary understanding of the main forces affecting collaboration and knowledge integration. Quantitative indicators of the degree of knowledge-integration achieved by R&D groups' collaborative links were designed and computed using data gathered through a survey of R&D group members. Indicators were also developed to statistically assess how the extent of collaborative knowledge-integration achieved by an R&D group is influenced by system-level incentive institutions, by the absorptive and relational capacities of the group, and by the compliance of the group with local scientific assessment and reward mechanisms. This thesis makes various theoretical contributions and draws relevant policy implications. The results show that members of R&D groups may exert differing levels of influence on knowledge-integration. Specifically, postgraduate students were found to play a relevant bridging role, enhancing the ability of the group to access knowledge from complementary disciplines. The study also found consistent evidence of a negative relation between an R&D group's compliance with local scientific incentives, and the group's ability to collaboratively integrate complementary knowledge-assets. Therefore, formal incentive institutions are presumably affecting the exploitation of potential synergies among local knowledge resources and hence the learning and innovation capabilities and the cohesion of the entire agri-biotechnology innovation system. As a methodological contribution, this thesis develops novel indicators to assess the degree of inter-organisational complementarity that go beyond those used in previous research.

Digitized by Kansas Correctional Industries

Uma das atribuições da engenharia de automação é o desenvolvimento de solução de automação e controle de processos contínuos industriais. Para tanto, a principal ferramenta emprega para este controle é a ação de controle Proporcional-Integral-Derivativo (PID). Nas últimas décadas diversas empresas fabricantes de equipamentos de automação industrial têm desenvolvido e aprimorado seus controladores industriais. Estes, além de realizarem o controle de processo por lógica de intertravamento, também possuem a ação de controle PID com a finalidade de executar o controle de processo contínuo como controle de velocidade, controle de pressão, controle de nível, etc. Porém, devido a grande variedade de controladores industriais por conseqüência, a grande variedade de implementações instrução PID, implica, muitas vezes, em falta padronização da programação e operação do algoritmo da equação PID implementados nos mais diversos controladores industriais. Tal fato dificulta a engenharia de automação industrial em desenvolver controle de processos contínuos através de instruções PID. Este trabalho de pesquisa aborda o desenvolvimento de metodologia \"MAFPID\" como ferramenta de engenharia de automação para aferir o funcionamento da instrução de controle PID implementada em equipamentos de controle e automação. Esta metodologia é constituída de três Etapas de testes. A primeira Etapa constitui o estudo do equipamento testado a partir das documentações fornecidas pelo fabricante. A segunda Etapa constitui de teste dos parâmetros proporcional, integral e derivativo, realizados no controlador industrial isolado de qualquer processo. A terceira Etapa constitui de teste do controlador interagindo com um circuito analógico. Este circuito simula o comportamento de alguns processos industriais, fornecendo ao controlador aferido sinais de entradas e de saída semelhantes aos processos reais. Este trabalho também apresenta dois estudos de caso, nos quais foi aplicada a metodologia MAFPID. / One of attributions of the automation engineering is the development of automation solution and control of industrial continuous processes. For in such a way, the main tool uses for this control is the action of Proportional-Integral-Derivative control (PID). In the last diverse decades companies equipment manufacturers of industrial automation have developed and improved its industrial controllers. These, besides carrying through the control of process for interlocking logic, also possess the action of control PID with the purpose to execute the control of continuous process as control of speed, control of pressure, control of level, etc. However, due to great variety of industrial controllers for consequence, the great variety of implementations instruction PID, it implies in lack standardization of the programming and operation of the algorithm of equation PID implemented in the most diverse industrial controllers. Such fact, it makes difficult the engineering of industrial automation in developing control of continuous processes through instructions PID. This work of research approaches the development of methodology MAFPID as tool of engineering of automation to survey the functioning of the instruction of control PID implemented in control equipment and automation. This methodology is constituted of three stages of tests. The first stage constitutes the study of the equipment tested from the documentations supplied for the manufacturer. The second stage constitutes of test of the parameters proportional, integral and derivative, carried through in the isolated industrial controller of any process. The third stage constitutes of test of the controller interacting with an analogical circuit. This circuit simulates the behavior of some industrial processes, supplying signals of input and output to the surveyed controller of similar to the real processes. This work also presents two studies of case, in which was applied methodology MAFPID.

This dissertation concerns the development of market information technologies in the London Stock Exchange, c. 1945-1992. Based on archival research in London, Cambridge and Edinburgh, and 20 semistructured interviews with former technologists, brokers, and marketmakers, my dissertation identifies the social, technological and institutional factors that allowed dealings in bonds and equities to move off the trading floor of the Stock Exchange and onto competing electronic platforms. My dissertation utilises the history of market information technologies as an occasion for producing a multi-layered analysis of the material, social, and regulatory transformations of finance in the City of London between c. 1945 and the mid 1990s. In particular, my dissertation deals with the rise of the so-called ‘information age’ in relation to British finance. The analysis is carried out in three parts, each tackling a specific ‘myth’ on the role of information and communication technologies in contemporary finance. The first part (chapters 3-4) deals with the dematerialisation of finance, demonstrating the often ignored character of technologies, materialities and their associated expertise in the constitution of the market. The second part (chapter 5) deconstructs the concept of disintermediation by analysing the social history of broking and jobbing in post-war City of London. Specifically, this part argues that changes in financial practices amongst the membership of the Stock Exchange were neither determined by the adoption of computers nor defined by a pre-existing culture of gentlemanly capitalism. Rather, they derived from the adaptation of market participants to a changing economic and social environment. The third part of this thesis (chapter 6) engages with deregulation. In particular, it provides an account of three broad patterns of financial regulation in Britain and the emergence of the current understanding of financial markets as manageable entities. The dissertation finalises by exploring the role of ‘informational metaphors’ in mediating the practices, materialities and regulations of the London Stock Exchange.

Zheng, Wujie. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2011. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 128-141). / Electronic reproduction. Hong Kong : Chinese University of Hong Kong, [2012] System requirements: Adobe Acrobat Reader. Available via World Wide Web. / Abstract also in Chinese.