<p>This master thesis studies how much the cycle time, i.e. the time it takes for an industrial robot to perform a given task, can be reduced if an extra degree of freedom (DOF) is added to the robot system. The extra DOF consists of a linear track, which is supposed to be used in an optimal way. The problem has been studied using simulations in the robot simulation tool RobotStudio. </p><p>To be able to run an optimization in Matlab, with the RobotStudio simulation cycle time as the object function, communication between Matlab and RobotStudio has been set up with an interface written in Visual Basic. An algorithm has been developed to solve the problem. Two different optimization methods have been examined and compared. </p><p>The resulting algorithm has been applied to test cases. The results show that the cycle time in several cases can be reduced by 20-30 percent, if the movements along the track are optimized with the suggested method.</p>

Self-bearing machines for kinetic energy storage have the advantage of integrating the magnetic bearing in the stator/rotor configuration, which reduces the number of mechanical components needed compared with using separated active magnetic bearings. This master's thesis focus on building a MATLAB/Simulink simulation model for a self-bearing cone-shaped Lorenz-type electrical machine. The concept has already been verified analytically but no dynamic simulations have been made. The system was modeled as a negative feedback system with PID controllers to balance the rotor. Disturbances as signal noise, external forces and torques were added to the system to estimate system robustness. Simulations showed stability and promising dynamics, the next step would be to build a prototype.

This master thesis studies how much the cycle time, i.e. the time it takes for an industrial robot to perform a given task, can be reduced if an extra degree of freedom (DOF) is added to the robot system. The extra DOF consists of a linear track, which is supposed to be used in an optimal way. The problem has been studied using simulations in the robot simulation tool RobotStudio. To be able to run an optimization in Matlab, with the RobotStudio simulation cycle time as the object function, communication between Matlab and RobotStudio has been set up with an interface written in Visual Basic. An algorithm has been developed to solve the problem. Two different optimization methods have been examined and compared. The resulting algorithm has been applied to test cases. The results show that the cycle time in several cases can be reduced by 20-30 percent, if the movements along the track are optimized with the suggested method.

ABSTRACT Human Resources Management of Elevating Service Quality of Junior Service Personnel and Customers¡¦ Degree of Satisfaction ¡V Using the Junior Service Personnel of Banks in Kaohsiung City as the Scope of Case Study In 1990, the restriction on the establishment of new banks was lifted, and 16 new private-operated banks came into existence, extending the competitive market dimension of the financial service industry. This would absolutely throw a revolutionary impact upon banks. Furthermore, since Taiwan was acceded to the global WTO in 2002, large foreign-based financial institutions have entered Taiwan local financial market with tremendous capital and advanced services and products. In the foreseeable future, they will bring up unprecedented pressures of operation and survival upon the banks in the financial service industry that has an annual productivity of 1200 billion dollars. This research began with the human resources management perspective that is performance oriented and development oriented and set out to investigate the relevancy and objective of the case junior financial and service personnel who worked under the operation of this management dimension system, through the conveyance of personal service quality, to achieve the elevation of overall service quality and customers¡¦ degrees of satisfaction. After literature investigation and the compilation and review of relevant theories, a questionnaire survey was conducted, and by using PZB model as the basis, the obtained data underwent a factor analysis and the SPSS 12.0 for Windows XP software package was used to conduct statistical analysis of these data. Then Kaiser Varimax of main factor analysis was used as the rotation axis to extract the dimension factors of this research. Finally, one-way ANOVA and canonical correlation were used to analyze and investigate the differences between the variables and correlations, which would be used as the viable theoretical foundation of the hypotheses of this research. In addition, after conducting statistical analysis of the data about the case banks, this research found that in the two aspects of human resources management, the junior employees had higher degrees of approval of development orientation that those of performance orientation, which seemed to overthrow the long-standing traditional concept ¡V using ¡§performance orientation¡¨ of realistic or tangible feedback as the prime basis for selection. On the contrary, although the junior personnel work in the employment market of unfavorable and competitive financial service industry of various kinds, this research has found that as a matter of fact, junior personnel of banks still have high degrees of approval of ¡§development orientation¡¨ and vision for ¡§development orientation,¡¨ in spite of the threats posed by the WTO globalization and the waning trend of the ¡§golden bowl.¡¨ This seems to provide bank management, amid celebration, with a new thinking of establishing better and forward human resources management procedures and regulations related to loyal, committed and competent employees.

The aim of this study was to investigate the effects web-based multimedia annotated vocabulary learning in context model and in spaced repetitions on vocabulary retention of intermediate level English language learners. The research study encompassed two main faces which was related to development of the material and implementation of it. In WEBVOCLE, which stands for web-based vocabulary learning material, the contextual presentation of vocabulary were enriched with audible online dictionary, pictures and animations / target words were repeated by the learners with interactive exercises, such as gap-filling, cloze and multiple choice test, games, puzzles, in &lsquo / spaced repetitions&rsquo / . In the study both qualitative and quantitative data were gathered through attitude questionnaires, checklists, interviews, focus group interviews and through vocabulary retention tests. The qualitative data were analyzed according to qualitative data analysis techniques and quantitative data were analyzed using SPSS statistics software. Feedback obtained from the learners demonstrated that they not only developed a positive attitude toward English vocabulary language learning but also increased their vocabulary retention level of the target vocabulary through spaced repetitions.

Straight cooling channels are the most common method of controlling part temperature in injection molding process. However, straight cooling channels are not enough to manage temperature uniformity of the parts. In this work, a numerical study is conducted to decrease cycle time and cost of the injection molded parts by using conformal cooling channels. For this purpose, the commercial injection molding simulation program Moldflow is used. The governing physical equations for injection molding were derived and presented. The assumptions of the model were checked for simple geometries by comparing analytical results and numerical results of Moldflow. Then, the effect of conformal cooling channels is investigated for injection molding of a half cylinder shell part. It was seen that conformal cooling channels cools part faster and more uniform than straight cooling channels without corruption on the surface appearance. Finally, a real life case study was presented. For this purpose, a refrigerator shelf that is manufactured by the Ar&ccedil / elik Company was studied. The process was simulated using actual process parameters and simulation results were compared with production results. Then, the process was simulated using conformal cooling channels and compared with production results. It is seen that the cycle time of the refrigerator shelf was decreased considerably while preserving surface quality appearance.

ABSTRACT THE EFFECTS OF COGNITIVE LOAD IN LEARNING FROM GOAL BASED SCENARIO DESIGNED MULTIMEDIA LEARNING ENVIRONMENT FOR LEARNERS HAVING DIFFERENT WORKING MEMORY CAPACITIES Kili&ccedil / , Eylem Ph.D., Department of Computer Education and Instructional Technology Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Zahide Yildirim December 2009, 201 pages The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of principles aiming to reduce extraneous cognitive load in learning from goal based scenario designed multimedia learning environment for learners having different working memory capacities. In addition, the effects of goal based scenario and the principles of cognitive load theory on students&rsquo / perception, motivation and satisfaction has been explored. Two versions of the multimedia were developed for this study. In the first version (+CLT), the principles such as split attention, multimedia, modality, redundancy, coherence and signaling was applied. In the second version (-CLT), these principles were violated. Mixed method was used and two studies were conducted for this study. The first study was conducted with 82 ninth grade students from one of the Anatolian High School in Ankara. However, the participants&rsquo / working memory capacities were found very close to each other. Therefore, the second study was conducted with 54 11th grade students having different working memory capacity from the same school. The result of the first study showed that the cognitive load principles aim at reducing extraneous cognitive load increased learning gains, decreased invested mental effort and affected students&rsquo / motivation and satisfaction in positive ways. On the other hand, when cognitive load principles were not considered, this decreased learning gains, increased invested mental effort and affected students&rsquo / motivation and satisfaction in negative ways. The result of the second study showed that the only difference between high and low WMC students found on the number of errors made in sequencing meiosis sub phases in favor of the first version (+CLT). This might be explained by the task characteristics in that the difference between high and low WMC individuals can be observed when task demanded attention. It can be concluded that students benefited from the cognitive load principles reducing extraneous cognitive based on the findings of both studies.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the contribution of 11th grade Turkish students&rsquo / chemistry self-efficacy for cognitive skills (CSCS), and self-efficacy for chemistry laboratory (SCL), mastery-approach goals, mastery-avoidance goals, performance-approach goals, and performance-avoidance goals to their chemistry achievement. The sample of the study included 604 students (343 females and 261 males) from seven different general public high schools in &Ccedil / ankaya, a district of Ankara. High School Chemistry Self-efficacy Scale which was developed by &Ccedil / apa Aydin and Uzuntiryaki (2009), Achievement Goal Questionnaire which was developed by Elliot and McGregor (2001), and Chemistry Achievement Test (CAT) which was developed by the researcher were used to collect the data in the study. The simultaneous multiple regression analysis was used to analyze the data of the study. Results revealed that the students&rsquo / CSCS, mastery-approach goal, performance-approach goal were a positive significant predictors and performance-avoidance goal was a negative significant predictor of their scores on the CAT. Students&rsquo / CSCS had the largest unique contribution to explaining the students&rsquo / chemistry achievement. These four independent variables explained a significant 9.1 % of variance in the students&rsquo / chemistry achievement.

The primary goal of this thesis was to test the validity of the Full Transfer Full Access (FTFA) Hypothesis on the acquisition of island constraints by Turkish learners of English. The FTFA Hypothesis claims that L2ers have access to UG even at the initial state, which is assumed to be the final state of L1, and there is a gradual restructuring of L2 grammar. The second goal was to investigate whether Turkish learners of English employ the same parsing strategies in bi-clausal wh-questions. If so, the results would support the Continuity Hypothesis arguing that Universal Parser is available in SLA. Four experiments were conducted in this study. The first two experiments were devised to shed light on the acquisition and processing of island constraints. Two experimental groups (30 intermediate and 30 advanced learners of English) and a control group (30 native speakers of English) were employed for these tests. The third and fourth experiments were administered to display whether there were similarities between the way native speakers of Turkish and English resolve ambiguities and whether island constraints were operative in Turkish. 30 native speakers of Turkish participated in these experiments. The results showed that different processing strategies for the resolution of ambiguities were employed in English and Turkish and island constraints were not operative in Turkish. Besides, Turkish learners of English had access to UG and there was a developmental pattern for the restructuring of L2 grammar. Furthermore, a gradual approximation to the native speakers&rsquo / parsing strategies was observed.

It is a well established fact, that – in the case of classical random graphs like variants of Gn,p or random regular graphs – spectral methods yield efficient algorithms for clustering (e. g. colouring or bisec- tion) problems. The theory of large networks emerging recently provides convincing evidence that such networks, albeit looking random in some sense, cannot sensibly be described by classical random graphs. A vari- ety of new types of random graphs have been introduced. One of these types is characterized by the fact that we have a fixed expected degree sequence, that is for each vertex its expected degree is given. Recent theoretical work confirms that spectral methods can be success- fully applied to clustering problems for such random graphs, too – pro- vided that the expected degrees are not too small, in fact &ge; log⁶ n. In this case however the degree of each vertex is concentrated about its expectation. We show how to remove this restriction and apply spectral methods when the expected degrees are bounded below just by a suitable constant. Our results rely on the observation that techniques developed for the classical sparse Gn,p random graph (that is p = c/n) can be transferred to the present situation, provided we consider a suitably normalized ad- jacency matrix: We divide each entry of the adjacency matrix by the product of the expected degrees of the incident vertices. Given the host of spectral techniques developed for Gn,p this observation should be of independent interest.