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關係行銷或是一對一行銷是目前行銷領域上廣泛被討論的議 題，企業要如何透過有效的辨識、區隔、互動以及客制化來量身打造 顧客專屬的個人化產品與服務內容，並強化其重複消費動機及忠誠， 為目前各種產業爭相積極追求的目標，此外，由於微利時代風暴，各 產業無不希望透過顧客價值的辨識與經營，實現以更有效、更低的成 本的差異化行銷策略來創造高收益的企業經營目標，以航空產業如此 資本密集，高固定成本，低變動成本以及不對稱的供需平衡，誰掌握 低成本領導與差異化策略優勢，便能決戰存續於二十一世紀超競爭時 代之中。 由於資訊科技、網際網路以及資料探勘技術的臻於成熟， 充份 發揮了跨國、即時、深度滲透與互動的特性，使得關係行銷、一對一 行銷的實現變得更加有效而可行。本研究希望從顧客價值的認定、顧 客忠誠策略以及資料探勘技術的探討，來思考如何運用於航空公司會 員系統的顧客區隔，同時，希能透過航空公司產業通路架構、全球旅 行社訂位系統(CRS)的發展現狀、微妙的航空公司間策略聯盟以及不 同航空公司所提供的會員酬賓計劃內容的探討與陳述，初略地對個案 公司的所在環境進行策略性分析，以建議其所需採取投入關係行銷的 主要焦點客層。 緊接著， 利用資料探勘工具中的分群技術， 選定有效的指標變 數，針對某一區間的會員交易資料進行分群，藉由研究各群會員所蘊 含的特殊屬性，如營收貢獻、產品特性、通路喜好以及消費行為等等， 依據前述所定義的目標客層，以創造顧客價值為目標，精確建立目標 客戶群，並據以設計不同的行銷策略與產品組合，逐步深耕建立完整 會員關係行銷資料庫。 最後， 對於本研究所無法觸及的研究議題， 概略指出後續可能 的研究方向與建議。 / Customer Relationship Management and data mining in this hyper-competitive era have revealed a lot of interesting and innovative opportunities to enrich the capability of company to realize and provide customer value. They touch the most critical issue of the enterprise, “How can we create and sustain successful advantage, and maximize profitability by leveraging new technologies ?＂In this thesis, we will focus on the application of data mining in the FFP of the airlines industry, and look over the differences among FFP members to discover the implicative needs of FFP customers. First of all, we start discussion on literature review in chapter two, which was divided into three parts: customer loyalty strategy, customer value and data mining. In this chapter, we put emphasis on the concepts and definitions of above topics, and they would be helpful to us to select and decide key variables in the following data mining practice. Chapter three of this thesis is to introduce the structure and characteristics of the airlines industry, the history of Computerized Reservation System(CRS), the airlines strategy alliance and the FFP system, and to figure out the way to understand the existing threats and opportunities. Chapter four, which was abode by the steps of data mining process, defines business issues and collects around one year's FFP historical transaction data to establish the target data and perform an actual data mining practice. In this real practice, we use the demographic cluster function of IBM Intelligent Mining tool to do member clustering. We select net revenue, first and business class spending rate, reservation booking designator and customer activation as analytical variables to perform FFP member clustering. Each variable has been well equipped with weight and method to produce best cluster pattern. Finally, according to the mining results we have explored and interpreted, we provide our draft recommendations about marketing planning and mix activities from the perspectives of FFP members clustering.

Two micro air vehicles, namely Sapthami and Sapthami-flyer, are developed in this thesis. Their total weight is less than 200grams each. They fit inside a 30cm and 32cm sphere respectively and carry the commercially available Kestrel autopilot hardware. The vehicles have an endurance of around 20-30 minutes. The stall speed of Sapthami is around 7m/s and that of Sapthami-flyer is around 5m/s as found by nonlinear modeling. The low stall speed makes it possible for them to be launched by hand. This enhances their portability as they do not require any launching equipment. The vehicle installed with Kestrel autopilot system is capable of many modes of operations. It is capable of fully autonomous flight with the aid of a variety of sensors like the GPS unit, heading sensor, 2-axis magnetometer, 3-axis accelerometer and 3-axis gyros. The vehicle carrying the Kestrel autopilot hardware is capable of autonomous and semi-autonomous flights after installation and tuning of feedback loops. Sapthami, is a tailless flying wing with an inverse zimmermann profile. A flying wing is a preferred configuration for the MAV as it maximizes the lifting area for a given size constraint. For a maximum size constraint of 30cm and aspect ratio around 1, the vehicle operates at Reynolds number between 100,000 to 250,000, at flight velocity 7 m/s to 15 m/s. The Inverse Zimmerman profile has a higher lift coefficient, CL, in comparison to the other planforms such as rectangular, elliptical and Zimmermann, for aspect ratio 1 to 1.25 and tested at Reynolds number of 100,000. The configuration of Sapthami is clean as there is no fuselage and all the components like autopilot hardware and battery are housed inside the wing. A thick reflex Martin Hepperle (MH) airfoil MH18 is chosen which gives sufficient space to place the components. This airfoil is specially used for tailless configurations due to its negative camber at the trailing edge. This negative camber helps in reducing the negative pitching moment of the wing, since no separate horizontal tail is available on a tailless aircraft to compensate for it. The vehicle is fabricated using the blue foam, having a density of 30kg/m3 . The wing is fabricated by CNC machining after which slots are cut manually to embed the electronics. The vehicle is found to have stable flying characteristics. Limited flight trials are done for Sapthami. It takes large time to fabricate the vehicle due to limited availability of CNC machining facility. Therefore, a new tailless, wing-fuselage configuration, which can be fabricated with balsa wood, is designed. Sapthami-flyer is the second vehicle designed in this thesis. Its wing span is slightly more than Sapthami. Since it is a wing-fuselage configuration, therefore there is no need for a thick airfoil. Mark drela’s AG airfoils are found to have better lift than MH airfoils for the inverse Zimmerman profile. The thickness of the airfoils is reduced to 1% so that the wing can be made by a 1.5mm thick balsa sheet to reduce weight. The inverse Zimmermann profile wing with the AG09 airfoil is found to have best lift-to-drag ratio when compared to AG36, MH45 and MH18. The analysis is done using commercially available AVL software. AG09 with 1% thickness is used in the final configuration. This configuration has better short period damping than Sapthami. It also has slower modes of operation than Sapthami. The operating modes of most of the MAVs, including Sapthami and Sapthami-flyer, are lowly damped but fast. This makes it difficult for the pilot to fly the vehicle. To improve the flying qualities of the vehicle artificial stabilization is required. The feedback is implemented on the Kestrel autopilot hardware. It allows only PID based feedback structures to be implemented, hence gives no choice to the designer to implement higher order control. The digital integrator and differentiator implementation for feedback are non-ideal. This further reduces the effectiveness of control. The problem is dealt with by incorporating the additional dynamics introduced by these implementation while formulating the control problem. Further the modeling of the micro air vehicle is done by using vortex lattice simulation based softwares. The fidelity of the obtained dynamics is low. Therefore, there is high uncertainty in the plant model. The controller also needs to reject the wind gust disturbances which are of the order of the flight speed of the vehicle. All the above stated requirements from the control design can be best addressed by a robust control design. Sapthami-flyer uses aileron and elevator for control. There is no rudder in the configuration in order to reduce weight. In the longitudinal dynamics, pitch rate and pitch error feedback to elevator are used to increase the short period and phugoid damping respectively. In the lateral dynamics, a combination of roll rate, yaw rate and roll error feedback is given to aileron to improve the dutch roll damping and stabilize the spiral mode. The feedback loops for both longitudinal and lateral dynamics are multi-output single input design problems, therefore simultaneous tuning of loops is beneficial. The PID control is designed by first converting the actual plant to a static output feedback equivalent plant. The dynamics introduced by non-ideal differentiator and integrator implementation on the autopilot hardware are incorporated in the open loop static output feedback formulation. The robust pole placement for the SOF plant is done by using the modified iterative matrix inequality algorithm developed in this thesis. It is capable of multi-loop, multi-objective feedback design for SOF plants. The algorithm finds the optimal solution by simultaneously putting constraints on the H2 performance, pole placement, gain and phase margin of the closed loop system. The pole placement is done to minimize the real part of largest eigenvalue. A single controller is designed at a suit-able operating point and constraints are put on the gain and phase margin of the closed loop plant at other operating points. The designed controller is tested in flight on board Sapthami-flyer. The vehicle is also capable of tracking commanded pitch and roll attitude with the help of pitch error, roller or feedbacks. This is shown in the flight when the pilot leaves the RC stick and the vehicle tracks the desired attitude. The vehicle has shown improved flying characteristics in the closed loop mode.

Since the introduction of frequent flyer miles (e.g. Voyager miles) in South Africa, the concept has evolved in a number of ways. Currently, loyalty programmes are widely used in the consumer industry. Despite the fact that these programmes have been in place for several years, the South African Revenue Service (hereafter referred to as SARS) has failed to issue any legislation or guidance with regard to the treatment of these miles from an employees’ tax perspective. The fringe benefit implications of frequent flyer miles have been the topic of research both in South Africa and abroad. However, little research has been identified on the tax implications of loyalty programmes. This study re-examined past studies and literature identified on frequent flyer miles and analysed the impact these have on loyalty points earned on personal and corporate credit cards from an employees’ tax perspective. The study also extended past research and investigated loyalty points awarded to employees as an incentive from an employees’ tax perspective. The study had three specific objectives. The first objective was to analyse past research studies, court cases and other literature in order to establish the theoretical construct of this study. Secondly, it compared the treatment of frequent flyer miles earned by, or awarded to, employees in South Africa to the treatment of these in Australia and Canada. The third objective was to analyse the employees’ tax implications of loyalty points earned by, or awarded to, employees in specific scenarios. These scenarios were limited to loyalty points earned by employers on corporate credit cards and which are awarded to employees for personal use; loyalty points earned on personal credit cards as a result of business expenditure incurred by employees; and loyalty points awarded to an employee, as part of a loyalty programme operated by the employer, as an incentive. The concluding argument of this study was that loyalty points earned on corporate or personal credit cards, which are used for the benefit of employees, may be considered not to be taxable and that consequently, no employees’ tax obligation will arise. However, this argument is plagued by uncertainties and it is questionable as to whether this view will be supported by the South African courts and SARS. In the scenario where loyalty points are awarded as an incentive to employees, it may clearly be argued that these should be taxable with the result that an employees’ tax obligation will arise. However, the nature and value of the benefit, as well as the point at which the tax event occurs, may create inequities and is therefore uncertain. All these uncertainties highlight the need for guidance in this area from SARS. AFRIKAANS : Sedert gereelde vlugmyle (bv. Voyager miles) in Suid-Afrika in plek gestel is, het hierdie konsep in verskeie vorms ontwikkel. Vandag word lojaliteitsprogramme algemeen in die verbruikersbedryf gebruik. Ten spyte van die feit dat hierdie programme vir baie jare reeds in plek is, het die Suid-Afrikaanse Inkomstediens (hierna verwys na as SAID) steeds geen wetgewing of leiding uitgereik oor die hantering van hierdie myle uit ’n werknemersbelastingsoogpunt nie. Alhoewel die byvoordeelimplikasies van gereelde vlugmyle die onderwerp was van navorsing in Suid-Afrika sowel as oorsee is min navorsing geïdentifiseer oor die belastingimplikasies van lojaliteitsprogramme. Hierdie studie heroorweeg bestaande studies en literatuur oor gereelde vlugmyle en analiseer die impak daarvan op lojaliteitspunte verdien op persoonlike en sakekredietkaarte uit ’n werknemersbelastingsoogpunt. Die studie sal ook bestaande navorsing uitbrei deur lojaliteitspunte, wat as ’n aansporing aan werknemers gegee word, uit ’n werknemersbelastingsoogpunt te analiseer. Die studie het drie spesifieke oogmerke. In die eerste plek is dit om bestaande navorsingstudies, hofsake en ander literatuur te analiseer om ’n teoretiese basis te vestig. Tweedens is dit om die belastinghantering van gereelde vlugmyle verdien deur of toegeken aan werknemers in Suid-Afrika te vergelyk met die hantering hiervan in Australië en Kanada. Die derde oogmerk is om die werknemersbelastingimplikasies van lojaliteitspunte toegeken aan of verdien deur werknemers in spesifieke scenario’s krities te analiseer. Hierdie scenario’s is beperk tot lojaliteitspunte verdien deur werkgewers op sakekredietkaarte en toegeken aan werknemers vir persoonlike gebruik; lojaliteitspunte verdien deur werknemers weens sake-uitgawes aangegaan op persoonlike kredietkaarte; en lojaliteitspunte, wat deel vorm van ’n lojaliteitsprogram wat deur die werkgewer bedryf word, gegee aan werknemers as ’n aansporingsbonus. Volgens die studie se bevindinge kan daar aangevoer word dat lojaliteitspunte verdien op sake- en persoonlike kredietkaarte vir werknemers se persoonlike gebruik nie belasbaar is nie en gevolglik geen werknemersbelastingverpligting teweeg bring nie. Nietemin gaan hierdie siening gepaard met baie onsekerhede en word bevraagteken of dit deur die Suid-Afrikaanse howe en SAID ondersteun sal word. In die scenario waar lojaliteitspunte aan werknemers as ’n aansporing gegee word, kan dit duidelik aangevoer word dat hierdie voordeel belasbaar is en dus ’n werknemersbelastingverpligting teweegbring. Daar is egter onsekerheid oor die tydstip waarop die voordeel belas moet word, asook die aard en waarde van die belasbare byvoordeel. Hierdie onsekerhede onderstreep die behoefte aan leiding op hierdie onderwerp vanaf SAID. / Dissertation (MCom)--University of Pretoria, 2010. / Taxation / unrestricted

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This work focuses on understanding the impact-initiated combustion of aluminum powder compacts. Aluminum is typically one of the components of intermetallic-forming structural energetic materials (SEMs), which have the desirable combination of rapid release of thermal energy and high yield strength. Aluminum powders of various sizes and different levels of mechanical pre-activation are investigated to determine their reactivity under uniaxial stress rod-on-anvil impact conditions, using a 7.62 mm gas gun. The compacts reveal light emission due to combustion upon impact at velocities greater than 170 m/s. Particle size and mechanical pre-activation influence the initiation of aluminum combustion reaction through particle-level processes such as localized friction, strain, and heating, as well as continuum-scale effects controlling the amount of energy required for compaction and deformation of the powder compact during uniaxial stress loading. Compacts composed of larger diameter aluminum particles (~70µm) are more sensitive to impact initiated combustion than those composed of smaller diameter particles. Additionally, mechanical pre-activation by high energy ball milling (HEBM) increases the propensity for reaction initiation. Direct imaging using high-speed framing and IR cameras reveals light emission and temperature rise during the compaction and deformation processes. Correlations of these images to meso-scale CTH simulations reveal that initiation of combustion reactions in aluminum powder compacts is closely tied to mesoscale processes, such as particle-particle interactions, pore collapse, and particle-level deformation. These particle level processes cannot be measured directly because traditional pressure and velocity sensors provide spatially averaged responses. In order to address this issue, quantum dots (QDs) are investigated as possible meso-scale pressure sensors for probing the shock response of heterogeneous materials directly. Impact experiments were conducted on a QD-polymer film using a laser driven flyer setup at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). Time-resolved spectroscopy was used to monitor the energy shift and intensity loss as a function of pressure over nanosecond time scales. Shock compression of a QD-PVA film results in an upward shift in energy (or a blueshift in the emission spectra) and a decrease in emission intensity. The magnitude of the shift in energy and the drop in intensity are a function of the shock pressure and can be used to track the particle scale differences in the shock pressure. The encouraging results illustrate the possible use of quantum dots as mesoscale diagnostics to probe the mechanisms involved in the impact initiation of combustion or intermetallic reactions.