A method is proposed to fuse the information from two navigation systems whose relative position is unknown, but where there exists an upper limit on how far apart the two systems can be. The proposed information fusion method is applied to a scenario in which a pedestrian is equipped with two foot-mounted zero-velocity-aided inertial navigation systems; one system on each foot. The performance of the method is studied using experimental data. The results show that the method has the capability to significantly improve the navigation performance when compared to using two uncoupled foot-mounted systems. / <p>QC 20121221</p>

Technological development and regulations are gradually making buildings and appliances more energy efficient but household electricity use remains at relatively high levels and does not seem to be decreasing despite improvements in equipment. The point of departure in this paper is the potential for more energy efficient behaviour where household activities are concerned and how that can be studied. It focuses on public housing companies that have built passive houses, in which appliance use is an integral part of maintaining a comfortable indoor climate. The purpose of this paper is to introduce a model called energy orders for analysing household activities in passive houses and identifying restrictions and opportunities for energy efficient behaviour connected to laundry activities. Qualitative interviews have been conducted with public housing residents on their everyday activities and use of appliances. Results show that activities may be realised in very different ways, and they may result in more or less electricity use depending on the resources households use. However, households are affected by various restrictions that prevent them from making better choices energy wise. Also, opportunities for taking certain actions vary between households. While individual choices do matter the households are undoubtedly limited by restrictions shaped by housing companies and other organisations. Identifying the obstacles that deter households from acting more energy efficiently may increase the potential of the passive house to further reduce household electricity use. Housing companies need to provide more flexible solutions in order to create better opportunities for households to act in more energy efficient ways.

Structural equation models are systems of simultaneous linear equations that are generalizations of linear regression, and have many applications in the social, behavioural and biological sciences. A serious barrier to applications is that it is easy to specify models for which the parameter vector is not identifiable from the distribution of the observable data, and it is often difficult to tell whether a model is identified or not. In this thesis, we study the most straightforward method to check for identification – solving a system of simultaneous equations. However, the calculations can easily get very complex. Grobner basis is introduced to simplify the process. The main idea of checking identification is to solve a set of finitely many simultaneous equations, called identifying equations, which can be transformed into polynomials. If a unique solution is found, the model is identified. Grobner basis reduces the polynomials into simpler forms making them easier to solve. Also, it allows us to investigate the model-induced constraints on the covariances, even when the model is not identified. With the explicit solution to the identifying equations, including the constraints on the covariances, we can (1) locate points in the parameter space where the model is not identified, (2) find the maximum likelihood estimators, (3) study the effects of mis-specified models, (4) obtain a set of method of moments estimators, and (5) build customized parametric and distribution free tests, including inference for non-identified models.

As the important of global data sharing is widely utilized in many corporations, it is well know as multidatabase. However, the system occurs and interesting issue. It is global constraint checking. It is mandatory to set up a potential checking application inside; therefore, global constraint checking needs these following essential characteristics such as 1) mobility 2) heterogeneity and 3) robustness. The effective way to implement the checking is using Aglets which is well recognized as one of the good mobile agent. Aglets is very appropriate because it contains the ability of mobility, and it is 100% Java compatible and open source. In this thesis, we construct the application of global constraint checking following these steps. To begin with starting step, user enters the insert statement. The system then receives the input, and then connection with Global Metadatabase begins. It will optimize the proper route for checking. Its optimized data will be sent out with the mobile agents to the remote sites. Eventually, results will be collected and show to user.

Many previous studies suggest that agency costs and information asymmetry are signifi-cant factors that affect the relationship between the investment expenditures of firms and the availability of cash from internal operations. Some other studies show that dividing firms in terms of the degree of ownership concentration further explains the relationship. However, the findings of previous studies are not consistent suggesting that other firm characteristics may be affecting the results. We propose that additional attention to the nature of ownership control of firms may explain the inconsistency. In this study, we examine the investment behaviour of family-controlled firms, institu-tion-controlled firms and widely-held firms. We distinguish between these three kinds of firms as they represent different levels of market imperfection. Therefore, we expect diverse investment behaviours among the three groups. Compared with family-controlled and institution-controlled firms, widely held firms have dispersed ownership structures. The greatest weakness of a widely-held ownership structure is the lack of shareholder monitoring due to the unmatched benefit and cost of control for small shareholders. The existence of at least one large shareholder will reduce the agency costs and asymmetric information. On one hand, enhanced monitoring will decrease the waste of free cash flows by managers. On the other hand, large shareholders are willing to spend time and effort to collect more information on management performance or to estimate the firms investment projects and thus reduce the information asymmetry. Both family-controlled firms and institution-controlled firms have large shareholders. However, whether or not the shareholders are playing an active monitoring role is still an important issue. From the point of aligning the interests of managers and shareholders, the family-controlled group is superior to the institution-controlled group as family-controlled firms generally assign influential positions to family members whose focus is in line with that of the family group. Even though a non family member may be appointed as the manager, the level of monitoring is significant given the high ownership concentration by the family. On the other hand, significant family ownership may lead to agency costs of its own. The main disadvantage of owner-managers is that they may lack the expertise to manage their firms although their position in the family may make it natural for them to be the manager. Another advantage of the family-controlled firm is that the family may divert company resources for its own benefit despite the presence of a manager who may or may not be a family member. Essentially, the family and the manager can all collude to spend on perks and personal benefits at the expense of minority shareholders. Therefore, as we move from widely-held to institution-controlled the level of agency costs may decrease but as we move further into higher control, as may be suggested by family ownership, the level of agency costs may increase again. Although previous studies have noticed the influence of ownership structure, no analysis has been carried out to explore the investment behaviour of firms controlled by the three differ-ent kinds of shareholders. Our first motivation is to fill this gap. Splitting our sample into three representative groups enables us to study the financing constraints and investment behaviour of firms that are family-controlled, institution-controlled, and widely held. The focus of this study is on Canadian firms. The Canadian evidence is worth particular attention because the Canadian business environment is similar to the US business environment in terms of legal, regulatory, and market institutions but it is similar to European or Asian firms in terms of ownership structure. Therefore, a study of Canadian firms can provide a useful and rational assessment of the investment behaviour of firms that follow the ownership structures of Europe and Asia but operate in a business environment and institutional setting similar to those of the US. Further, a large number of Canadian firms have controlling shareholders and a large proportion, approximately 60%, of Canadian firms can be categorized as having concentrated ownership structure. Among the firms with concentrated ownership, over 1/3 of them can be dis-tinguished as family-controlled. This dataset provides an ideal setting to study the investment behaviours of firms according to the nature of their controllers. Our results illustrate that the intensity of investments of widely-held firms is higher than the intensity of investments of concentrated ownership firms and that the intensity of investments of widely-held firms is positively and significantly affected by the availability of funds from internal sources. In contrast, for concentrated ownership firms the intensity is positively and significantly affected by the availability of growth opportunities. These observations suggest that in comparison with the concentrated ownership firms, the widely-held firms face higher levels of financing constraints and exhibit less value maximizing behaviour. However, once we separate the family-controlled firms from the institution-controlled firms, we find that the investment expenditures of the family-controlled firms and the institution-controlled firms are not significantly different in terms of their dependence on internal cash flows or on the market-to-book ratios. We also find that widely-held firms tend to invest in projects that payoff quickly. This preference may be the result of these firms desires to ease their external funding constraints by generating funds internally.

Structural equation models are systems of simultaneous linear equations that are generalizations of linear regression, and have many applications in the social, behavioural and biological sciences. A serious barrier to applications is that it is easy to specify models for which the parameter vector is not identifiable from the distribution of the observable data, and it is often difficult to tell whether a model is identified or not. In this thesis, we study the most straightforward method to check for identification – solving a system of simultaneous equations. However, the calculations can easily get very complex. Grobner basis is introduced to simplify the process. The main idea of checking identification is to solve a set of finitely many simultaneous equations, called identifying equations, which can be transformed into polynomials. If a unique solution is found, the model is identified. Grobner basis reduces the polynomials into simpler forms making them easier to solve. Also, it allows us to investigate the model-induced constraints on the covariances, even when the model is not identified. With the explicit solution to the identifying equations, including the constraints on the covariances, we can (1) locate points in the parameter space where the model is not identified, (2) find the maximum likelihood estimators, (3) study the effects of mis-specified models, (4) obtain a set of method of moments estimators, and (5) build customized parametric and distribution free tests, including inference for non-identified models.

No description available.

Production scheduling is a common problem that occurs in multi-product manufacturing facilities where a wide range of products are produced in small quantities, resulting in frequent changeovers. A plastics compounding plant offering tailor-made resins is a representative case. This kind of scheduling problem has already been extensively researched and published in the past. However, the concept of incorporating quality of the finished product has never been visited previously. There are many different factors that may affect the quality of polymer resins produced by extrusion. One such factor is temperature. A production schedule cannot be related to the temperature or quality in any direct manner, and any other indirect relationships are not very apparent. The key to a correlation between the temperature of the processed material and the production schedule is the extruder flow rate. The flow rate affects the temperature of the molten plastic inside the extruder barrel, which means it also directly affects the quality of the final resin. Furthermore, the extruder is the critical machine in the extrusion process. Therefore, it determines the processing time of an order, serving as the basis for the scheduling problem. The extruded polymer resin must undergo quality control testing to ensure that quantitative quality measurements must meet specifications. This is formulated as a constraint, where the extruder flow rate is determined to generate an optimized production schedule while ensuring the quality is within range. The general scheduling problem at a plastics compounding plant is formulated as a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) model for a semi-continuous, multi-product plant with parallel production lines. The incorporation of quality considerations renders the problem a mixed integer nonlinear program (MINLP). Another objective of the proposed research deals with providing insight into the economic aspects of the scheduling process under consideration. The scheduling problem is analyzed and relations for its various cost components are developed. A total opportunity cost function was suggested for use as the comprehensive criterion of optimality in scheduling problems. Sensitivity analysis showed that none of the individual criteria gives optimal or near optimal results when compared to the total opportunity cost.

Production scheduling is a common problem that occurs in multi-product manufacturing facilities where a wide range of products are produced in small quantities, resulting in frequent changeovers. A plastics compounding plant offering tailor-made resins is a representative case. This kind of scheduling problem has already been extensively researched and published in the past. However, the concept of incorporating quality of the finished product has never been visited previously. There are many different factors that may affect the quality of polymer resins produced by extrusion. One such factor is temperature. A production schedule cannot be related to the temperature or quality in any direct manner, and any other indirect relationships are not very apparent. The key to a correlation between the temperature of the processed material and the production schedule is the extruder flow rate. The flow rate affects the temperature of the molten plastic inside the extruder barrel, which means it also directly affects the quality of the final resin. Furthermore, the extruder is the critical machine in the extrusion process. Therefore, it determines the processing time of an order, serving as the basis for the scheduling problem. The extruded polymer resin must undergo quality control testing to ensure that quantitative quality measurements must meet specifications. This is formulated as a constraint, where the extruder flow rate is determined to generate an optimized production schedule while ensuring the quality is within range. The general scheduling problem at a plastics compounding plant is formulated as a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) model for a semi-continuous, multi-product plant with parallel production lines. The incorporation of quality considerations renders the problem a mixed integer nonlinear program (MINLP). Another objective of the proposed research deals with providing insight into the economic aspects of the scheduling process under consideration. The scheduling problem is analyzed and relations for its various cost components are developed. A total opportunity cost function was suggested for use as the comprehensive criterion of optimality in scheduling problems. Sensitivity analysis showed that none of the individual criteria gives optimal or near optimal results when compared to the total opportunity cost.

Many previous studies suggest that agency costs and information asymmetry are signifi-cant factors that affect the relationship between the investment expenditures of firms and the availability of cash from internal operations. Some other studies show that dividing firms in terms of the degree of ownership concentration further explains the relationship. However, the findings of previous studies are not consistent suggesting that other firm characteristics may be affecting the results. We propose that additional attention to the nature of ownership control of firms may explain the inconsistency. In this study, we examine the investment behaviour of family-controlled firms, institu-tion-controlled firms and widely-held firms. We distinguish between these three kinds of firms as they represent different levels of market imperfection. Therefore, we expect diverse investment behaviours among the three groups. Compared with family-controlled and institution-controlled firms, widely held firms have dispersed ownership structures. The greatest weakness of a widely-held ownership structure is the lack of shareholder monitoring due to the unmatched benefit and cost of control for small shareholders. The existence of at least one large shareholder will reduce the agency costs and asymmetric information. On one hand, enhanced monitoring will decrease the waste of free cash flows by managers. On the other hand, large shareholders are willing to spend time and effort to collect more information on management performance or to estimate the firms investment projects and thus reduce the information asymmetry. Both family-controlled firms and institution-controlled firms have large shareholders. However, whether or not the shareholders are playing an active monitoring role is still an important issue. From the point of aligning the interests of managers and shareholders, the family-controlled group is superior to the institution-controlled group as family-controlled firms generally assign influential positions to family members whose focus is in line with that of the family group. Even though a non family member may be appointed as the manager, the level of monitoring is significant given the high ownership concentration by the family. On the other hand, significant family ownership may lead to agency costs of its own. The main disadvantage of owner-managers is that they may lack the expertise to manage their firms although their position in the family may make it natural for them to be the manager. Another advantage of the family-controlled firm is that the family may divert company resources for its own benefit despite the presence of a manager who may or may not be a family member. Essentially, the family and the manager can all collude to spend on perks and personal benefits at the expense of minority shareholders. Therefore, as we move from widely-held to institution-controlled the level of agency costs may decrease but as we move further into higher control, as may be suggested by family ownership, the level of agency costs may increase again. Although previous studies have noticed the influence of ownership structure, no analysis has been carried out to explore the investment behaviour of firms controlled by the three differ-ent kinds of shareholders. Our first motivation is to fill this gap. Splitting our sample into three representative groups enables us to study the financing constraints and investment behaviour of firms that are family-controlled, institution-controlled, and widely held. The focus of this study is on Canadian firms. The Canadian evidence is worth particular attention because the Canadian business environment is similar to the US business environment in terms of legal, regulatory, and market institutions but it is similar to European or Asian firms in terms of ownership structure. Therefore, a study of Canadian firms can provide a useful and rational assessment of the investment behaviour of firms that follow the ownership structures of Europe and Asia but operate in a business environment and institutional setting similar to those of the US. Further, a large number of Canadian firms have controlling shareholders and a large proportion, approximately 60%, of Canadian firms can be categorized as having concentrated ownership structure. Among the firms with concentrated ownership, over 1/3 of them can be dis-tinguished as family-controlled. This dataset provides an ideal setting to study the investment behaviours of firms according to the nature of their controllers. Our results illustrate that the intensity of investments of widely-held firms is higher than the intensity of investments of concentrated ownership firms and that the intensity of investments of widely-held firms is positively and significantly affected by the availability of funds from internal sources. In contrast, for concentrated ownership firms the intensity is positively and significantly affected by the availability of growth opportunities. These observations suggest that in comparison with the concentrated ownership firms, the widely-held firms face higher levels of financing constraints and exhibit less value maximizing behaviour. However, once we separate the family-controlled firms from the institution-controlled firms, we find that the investment expenditures of the family-controlled firms and the institution-controlled firms are not significantly different in terms of their dependence on internal cash flows or on the market-to-book ratios. We also find that widely-held firms tend to invest in projects that payoff quickly. This preference may be the result of these firms desires to ease their external funding constraints by generating funds internally.