Segway has been a popular production as an alternative transporter since its invention at the end of 20th century. Millions of people like for its ergonomic design and high-tech elements. It is predicted to be an innovational product to change a person's life style. This thesis focuses on building a simple low cost, home-made Segway style scooter. This project uses two electric scooter motors, two 12V car batteries, one accelerometer and several microprocessors to build up the whole system. Significantly, this project also explains how to build a Brushed Direct Current (BDC) motor driver with a rated output power of more than 350W and the capability of coping with up to 120A transient peak current and up to 40A continuous current. Four-quadrant operation and eight modes of DC motor operation are discussed. A mathematical model of the Segway style scooter is also introduced in details. This including the modelling of a BDC motor, a two-wheeled inverted pendulum and their combination. The linearization of these models is used. At the end the linearized model is simulated in computer software.

This paper examines the interest rate sensitivity of Business Development Companies (BDCs). The results of this study are intended to lend insight to investors about the viability and timing of investments in BDCs during the business cycle. Similar to previous research that has examined interest rate sensitivity of financial companies, this paper employs a two-factor market model to see whether BDCs are responsive to changes in short, medium, and long-term interest rates. My particular interest in BDCs is motivated by their unique asset-liability structure and requirements, as well as their high dividend payouts. Monthly data is drawn from the period ranging from January 2004 through December 2012. Using a sample of 30 BDCs, I estimate the sensitivity of BDC stock returns to stock market and interest rate changes in general. I then proceed to test whether size and Small Business Investment Company (SBIC) licensure status affect these sensitivities.

This thesis is to investigate the power system operation strategy for an electrified mass rapid transit¡]MRT¡^network with the load transfer among main transformers by considering load growth and due to annual ridership increase, the loading factors of main transformers are improved so that the power system loss can be reduced. For the conventional planning of an electrified MRT system to serve the public transportation for the metropolitan area, the transformer capacity is often designed to meet the criterion of not only covering the peak demand but also providing the 100% fully capacity reserve for the system operation of target year. With such a high backup capability, the transformers are very lightly loaded for most of the operation time and significant core loss will be introduced over the lifecycle. In this thesis the train motion equation has been applied to find the mechanical power required, the proper strategy of unit commitment of main transformers and network reconfiguration by switching operation has been considered to enhance the operation efficiency of an MRT power system. To demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed methodology, the Taipei MRT network is selected for computer simulation. It is found that the loading factors of main transformers can be improved dramatically and the load balance among the transformers can be obtained by the proper switching operation. An efficient strategy for transformer planning by taking into account the growth rate of load so that the overall investment cost of main transformers can be justified. The load characteristics and load growth rate of mass rapid transit¡]MRT¡^are derived by an Energy Management Model (EMM) and the AC load flow analysis is used to solve the transformer copper loss and core loss over the study period. To obtain optimal planning and operation strategy of main transformers for the MRT power system, the transformers initial investment cost and depreciation cost, peak power loss and energy loss, and reliability cost of distribution transformers are combined to form the overall cost function .By performing the dynamic programming (DP) the unit commitment of main transformers by considering the annual peak and off peak power loading of whole MRT system is derived. It is found that more efficient system operation can be obtained by the proposed methodology.

Equivocation was introduced by Shannon in the late 1940’s in seminal papers that kick-started the whole field of information theory. Much ground has been covered on equivocation’s counterpart, channel capacity and in particular, its bounds. However, less work has been carried out on the evaluation of the equivocation of a code transmitted across a channel. The aim of the work covered in this thesis was to use a probabilistic approach to investigate and compare the equivocation of various codes across a range of channels. The probability and entropy of each output, given each input, can be used to calculate the equivocation. This gives a measure of the ambiguity and secrecy of a code when transmitted across a channel. The calculations increase exponentially in magnitude as both the message length and code length increase. In addition, the impact of factors such as erasures and deletions also serve to significantly complicate the process. In order to improve the calculation times offered by a conventional, linearly-programmed approach, an alternative strategy involving parallel processing with a CUDA-enabled (Compute Unified Device Architecture) graphical processor was employed. This enabled results to be obtained for codes of greater length than was possible with linear programming. However, the practical implementation of a CUDA driven, parallel processed solution gave rise to significant issues with both the software implementation and subsequent platform stability. By normalising equivocation results, it was possible to compare different codes under different conditions, making it possible to identify and select codes that gave a marked difference in the equivocation encountered by a legitimate receiver and an eavesdropper. The introduction of code expansion provided a novel method for enhancing equivocation differences still further. The work on parallel processing to calculate equivocation and the use of code expansion was published in the following conference: Schofield, M., Ahmed, M. & Tomlinson, M. (2015), Using parallel processing to calculate and improve equivocation, in ’IEEE Conference Publications - IEEE 16th International Conference on Communication Technology’. In addition to the novel use of a CUDA-enabled graphics process to calculated equivocation, equivocation calculations were also performed for expanded versions of the codes. Code expansion was shown to yield a dramatic increase in the achievable equivocation levels. Once methods had been developed with the Binary Symmetric Channel (BSC), they were extended to include work with intentional erasures on the BSC, intentional deletions on the BSC and work on the Binary Erasure Channel (BEC). The work on equivocation on the BSC with intentional erasures was published in: Schofield, M. et al, (2016), Intentional erasures and equivocation on the binary symmetric channel, in ’IEEE Conference Publications - International Computer Symposium’, IEEE, pp 233-235. The work on the BEC produced a novel outcome due to the erasure correction process employed. As the probability of an erasure occurring increases, the set of likely decoded outcomes diminishes. This directly impacts the output entropy of the system by decreasing it, thereby also affecting the equivocation value of the system. This aspect was something that had not been encountered previously. The work also extended to the consideration of intentional deletions on the BSC and the Binary Deletion Channel (BDC) itself. Although the methods used struggled to cope with the additional complexity brought by deletions, the use of Varshamov-Tenengolts codes on the BSC with intentional deletions showed that family of codes to be well suited to the channel arrangement as well as having the capability to be extended to enable the correction of multiple deletions.

Submitted by Automa??o e Estat?stica (sst@bczm.ufrn.br) on 2017-04-03T19:41:30Z No. of bitstreams: 1 ArthurFelipeDeFariasMonteiro_DISSERT.pdf: 6373857 bytes, checksum: d6418f0c51f873b10d6e15be186817d7 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Arlan Eloi Leite Silva (eloihistoriador@yahoo.com.br) on 2017-04-05T19:01:11Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 ArthurFelipeDeFariasMonteiro_DISSERT.pdf: 6373857 bytes, checksum: d6418f0c51f873b10d6e15be186817d7 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-04-05T19:01:11Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 ArthurFelipeDeFariasMonteiro_DISSERT.pdf: 6373857 bytes, checksum: d6418f0c51f873b10d6e15be186817d7 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-04-15 / Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cient?fico e Tecnol?gico (CNPq) / As Redes Metalorg?nicas (Metal Organic Frameworks ? MOF?s) s?o materiais h?bridos, geralmente cristalinos, constitu?dos por ?tomos ou clusters met?licos, coordenados ? ligantes org?nicos polifuncionais, geralmente, observando-se a presen?a de poros/canais de dimens?es nanom?tricas. Suas estruturas s?o de baixa densidade em fun??o da porosidade, e apresentam alta ?rea superficial, bem como um grande volume de poro, o que ?s levam a lugar de destaque do ponto vista cient?fico-tecnol?gico, sendo aplic?veis na cat?lise, adsor??o, separa??o, estocagem de gases, entrega de f?rmacos, etc. Cu-MOF?s foram sintetizadas via m?todo eletroqu?mico a partir de dois ligantes distintos, 1,3-H2BDC e 1,4-H2BDC. Os par?metros sint?ticos empregados, tais como, meio reacional (raz?o H2O/DMF), diferen?a de potencial e corrente el?trica, foram avaliados e sua influ?ncia sobre a estrutura cristalina determinada. Os materiais foram obtidos em uma hora, sugerindo que esta ? uma rota cineticamente vantajosa para a obten??o de redes metalorg?nicas de cobre. O produto da s?ntese da rede Cu(1,4-BDC) ? composto de duas estruturas cristalinas lamelares (em camadas) e microporosas. A cristaliza??o destas diferentes estruturas est? diretamente relacionada ao valor de corrente el?trica empregada. As duas estruturas se diferenciam basicamente pelo deslocamento entre camadas consecutivas, 60? e 120?, respectivamente. O deslocamento das camadas resultou em estruturas com diferentes volumes de canais, sendo a estrutura com deslocamento de 60? a que apresenta canais com maior volume, mais indicado para a adsor??o. Essa estrutura, denominada Cu(1,4-BDC) 2, foi aplicada na adsor??o de azul de metileno, sendo avaliadas as influ?ncias de pH, temperatura e concentra??o. Observou-se que valores de pH entre 5,0 e 6,0 promovem uma melhor adsor??o. Diferentes condi??es foram testadas, tais como concentra??es entre 25 e 250 mg/L e temperaturas entre 293,15 e 313,15 K. Adicionalmente, tamb?m foram avaliados fatores cin?ticos, termodin?micos e de equil?brio para a adsor??o. Constatou-se que o modelo cin?tico de pseudo-segunda ordem ? o mais compat?vel com o processo. Para os fatores termodin?micos, verificou-se que o processo ? exot?rmico, espont?neo e com maior efici?ncia ? uma temperatura de 293,15 K. Foram testados dois modelos de isotermas, o de Langmuir e o de Freundlich, sendo o modelo de Langmuir o que apresentou maior compatibilidade, prognosticando uma capacidade adsortiva m?xima te?rica de 76,63 ?mol/g, sendo que para as condi??es otimizadas (14 horas), a capacidade experimentalmente obtida foi de 75,91 ?mol/g, (99,06% do valor te?rico). Foram realizados ensaios de reuso do material, onde foi constatada uma efici?ncia superior ? 60% para at? quatro ciclos de adsor??o/dessor??o. / The metal organic frameworks (MOF's) are hybrid materials, generally crystalline, consisting of metallic atoms or metallic clusters, coordinated to polyfunctional organic ligands, generally observing the presence of pores/channels in nanometer dimensions. Their structures shows low density due to the porosity, have high surface area and a high pore volume, which lead to the prominent place of scientific-technological area, applicable in various fields as catalysis, adsorption, separation, gases storage, drug delivery, etc. Cu-MOFs were synthesized by the electrochemical method, using the 1,3-H2BDC and 1,4-H2BDC linkers in different H2O/DMF solvent proportions. The influence of electrochemical variables of process, such as voltage and electric current, and their influence on the final structure of the material was examined. The materials were obtained within one hour, showing that this method is kinetically advantageous for the preparation of the copper network. The product of the synthesis of Cu (1,4-BDC) network is composed of two lamellar (layered) and microporous crystalline structures. The formation of different structures are directly relate to the electrical current condition imposed on the synthesis. The two structures differ mainly by the displacement between subsequent layers, 60? and 120?, respectively. The displacement of the layers resulted in structures with different channels volumes, where the structure with 60? of displacement presents channels with greater volume, what may be applicable in adsorption. This structure, called Cu(1,4-BDC)2, was applied for the blue methylene adsorption, where the study of the influence of pH, temperature and concentration was performed. It revealed that for pH values between 5.0 and 6.0 there is an increased amount of the adsorbed dye. Different conditions were tested, such as concentrations between 25 and 250 mg/L and temperatures between 293.15 and 313.15 K. Varying concentrations of the dye solution, the kinetic factors, thermodynamic and equilibrium for adsorption, were evaluated. It was find that the kinetic model of pseudo-second order is the most compatible with the process. For the thermodynamic factors, it was find that the process is exothermic, spontaneous and has the highest efficiency at 293.15 K. Two models were tested for adsorption isotherm, the Langmuir and Freundlich, and the most compatible with the data was the Langmuir model, theoretically predicting a maximum adsorption capacity of 76.63 ?mol/g, and for the optimized conditions (14 hours), the capacity obtained experimentally was 75.91 ?mol/g, (99.06% theoretical). Reuse tests of the material were carried out and it was found that the material can reach the reuse efficiencies higher than 60% for up to four adsorption/desorption recycles.