As research into the dynamic characteristics of job performance across time has continued to accumulate, associated implications for performance appraisal have become evident. At present, several studies have demonstrated that systematic trends in job performance across time influence how performance is ultimately judged. However, little research has considered the processes by which the performance trend-performance rating relationship occurs. In the present study, I addressed this gap. Specifically, drawing on attribution theory, I proposed and tested a model whereby the performance trend-performance rating relationship occurs through attributions to ability and effort. The results of this study indicated that attributions to ability, but not effort, mediate the relationship between performance trend and performance ratings and that this relationship depends on attribution-related cues. Implications for performance appraisal research and theory are discussed.

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In this dissertation, I study two topics in the context of revenue management. The First topic involves building a mathematical model to analyze the competition between many retailers who can change the price of their respective products in real time. I develop a game-theoretic model for the dynamic price competition where each retailer's objective is to maximize its own expected total revenue. I use the Nash equilibrium to predict market equilibrium and provide managerial insights into how each retailer should take into account its competitors' behavior when setting the price. The second topic involves working with Amtrak, the national railroad passenger corporation, to develop a revenue management model. The revenue management department of Amtrak provides the sales data of Auto Train, a service of Amtrak that allows passengers to bring their vehicles on the train. I analyze the demand structure from sales data and build a mathematical model to describe the sales process for Auto Train. I further develop an algorithm to calculate the optimal pricing strategy that yields the maximum revenue. Because of the distinctive service provided by Auto Train, my findings make important contribution to the revenue management literature. / Ph. D.

The emergence of the Internet has sparked a tremendous explosion in the special class of systems called mission critical systems. These systems are so vital to their intended tasks that they must operate continuously. Two problems affect them: unplanned, and therefore disastrous, downtime and planned downtime for software maintenance. As the pressure to keep these systems operating continuously increases, scheduling downtime becomes complex. However, dynamically modifying the mission critical systems without disruption can reduce the need for a planned downtime. Every executing process has an executing code tightly coupled with an associated state, which continuously changes as the code executes. A dynamic modification at this juncture involves modifying the executable code and the state present within the binary image of the associated process. An ill-timed modification can create runtime incompatibilities that are hard to rectify and eventually cause a system crash. The purpose of the research in this thesis is to examine the causes for incompatibilities and propose the design of a dynamic modification technique: Software Hot Swapping. To achieve these objectives, the researcher proposes mechanisms which these incompatibilities can prevent, examines the characteristics and the implementation issues of such mechanisms, and demonstrates dynamic modification with a simple prototype Hot Swapping program. / Master of Science

A technique for measuring fluid velocities by means of neutrally-buoyant, phophorescent particles was investigated in a small-scale water jet facility. A nitrogen laser briefly illuminated the flow, exciting only those particles resident within the pulsed beam. The particles luminesce for a short while following excitation, during which time they also move with the flow. This creates a visible particle streak, the intensity of which decays along the direction of motion. A strobe illuminates the particles again a known time following the laser pulse. The magnitude and direction of a particle's velocity in the plane of view are deduced from an image of it streak captured by a video camera and recorded by a digital image processing system.

ITC/USA 2007 Conference Proceedings / The Forty-Third Annual International Telemetering Conference and Technical Exhibition / October 22-25, 2007 / Riviera Hotel & Convention Center, Las Vegas, Nevada / The Edwards Air Force Base Undergraduate Clinic Team at Harvey Mudd College designed, built and tested a laser-based telemetry system for use on test aircraft at the EAFB Flight Test Center. The system was designed to communicate from an aircraft to a stationary, terrestrial receiver at a distance of up to 60 miles while traveling at speeds up to 230 mph. The transmitter system is restricted to the size of a standard 4’ tall 19" wide equipment rack. The transmitter is designed to maintain a constant laser footprint diameter of 100 meters at the receiver and use both coarse acquisition and closed-loop fine tracking systems. The minimum data rate is 10 Mbps. Sub-system testing and integration was not completed. Completed sub-systems included GPS/INS-based tracking (for coarse-tracking), position-sensitive-detector (PSD) optics (a finetracking system component), a transmitter gimbal assembly, software used to integrate and control hardware at the transmitter and receiver, and a complete receiver system. A PSD-based tracking system and an automatic collimation system were designed and constructed, but only partially tested.

published_or_final_version / Mechanical Engineering / Master / Master of Science in Engineering

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