Thesis (M.S. in Information Systems and Operations)--Naval Postgraduate School, March 2003. / Thesis advisor(s): Alex Bordetsky, Randy J. Hess. Includes bibliographical references (p. 101-105). Also available online.

Thesis (M.A.)--Marshall University, 2003. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains vi, 65 p. Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 41-45).

Thesis (M.S. in Computer Science)--Naval Postgraduate School, June 2003. / Thesis advisor(s): Cynthia Irvine, Timothy Levin. Includes bibliographical references (p. 91-92). Also available online.

During unstart, the rapid upstream propagation of a hypersonic engine's inlet shock system can be clearly seen through inlet pressure measurements. Specifically, the magnitude of the pressure readings suddenly and dramatically increases as soon as the leading edge of the shock system passes the measurement location. A change detection algorithm can monitor the pressure time history at a given sensing location and determine when an abrupt pressure rise occurs. If this kind of information can be obtained at various sensing locations distributed throughout the inlet then a feedback control scheme has an improved basis upon which to make actuation decisions for preventing unstart. In this thesis a variety of change detection algorithms have been implemented and tested on multiple sources of experimental high-speed pressure transducer data. The performance of these algorithms is compared and suitability of each algorithm for the general unstart problem is discussed. Attempts to model the transient dynamics governing the unstart process have also been made through the use of system identification techniques. The result of these system identification efforts is a partially nonlinear mathematical model that describes shock motion through pressure signals. The process reveals that the nonlinear behavior can be separated from the linear with relative ease. Related attempts are then made to create a model where the nonlinear portion has been specified leaving only the linear portion to be determined by system identification. The modeling and identification process specific to the unstart data used is discussed and successful models are presented for both cases. / text

In 2010, for the first time since 1895, the Argentine census asked those living within its national territory if they were of African descent. While the inclusion of this question followed broader regional shifts to integrate questions on race and ethnicity into national censuses, this historic disjuncture is most astounding in Argentina. No country in Latin America has more successfully constructed itself as a nation donde no hay negros, where there are no blacks, than Argentina. Through a frame analysis of digital texts produced in Argentina between 2010 and 2012 regarding the new census question, this Master's thesis uncovers how government, media and Afro organizational actors understood the meaning of Afrodescendant and the purposes of the census question. As such, this research seeks to expand research on the African diaspora in the Americas by analyzing how racial politics of identification work in a nation-state of hegemonic whiteness. / text

Research on identity fusion (Swann, Gomez, Seyle, & Morales, 2009), a recent phenomenological approach to social identification, suggests that some people have a deep personal bond with a group that they belong to. Evidence shows that fused people have a persistent connection between their group identity and personal selves. The notion of a social identity that is deeply entwined with the personal self stands in contrast to traditional views of social identification (e.g. Self-Categorization Theory; Turner, Oakes, Haslam, & McGarty, 1994), which tend to see group membership as something that is only important in particular group-related situations. Whereas most people are able to compartmentalize their identities based on the context they are in, a fused group identity can be active even in situations that are unrelated to it. The ability to compartmentalize may be beneficial in some cases, however. Downplaying an identity that is not active can allow people to insulate themselves from negative information about the group and can improve the quality of social interactions. Without the ability to compartmentalize, people who are fused with a group may have trouble with both of these things. Three studies tested whether fused people do indeed experience such repercussions. The first study presented University of Texas students with a fake news story describing the school hurting local family farmers. Participants who were highly identified with UT were more likely to feel guilty after reading the story, while participants who were highly fused with UT were more likely to engage in a subsequent charitable task (whether they read the news story or were in a control condition). In the second study, UT students were asked to chat with each other about a variety of topics, and have the quality of their interactions linguistically analyzed. The final study had UT students write about either their relationship with UT or with their immediate family. Participants who were more highly fused with UT were less likely to use words signifying negative emotion or uncertainty, but were more likely to use inclusive pronouns. Implications for future research on identity fusion are discussed. / text

Wireless technology nowadays is developing rapidly throughout the world and also in Hong Kong. The Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology is a mature technology which has been applied in a lot of industries in recent years, such as retail, airline, healthcare, pharmaceuticals, logistics, and libraries etc. RFID technology acts as an electronic labelling and data-collection system to identify and track equipment. RFID is a more robust technology than bar coding and does not require line-of-sight to operate. It is able to provide not only the electronic data for unique identification, but also provides a paperless workflow automation solution. The application of palm and wireless technology using the RFID in conjunction with a Web Based Maintenance Service Management System in the Facility Management (FM) has the following advantages: (i) It improves operations and facilitates day-to-day maintenance activities and management of works. (ii) The RFID system helps to improve the management of facilities, decision-making and control of quality by providing enhanced processes and equipment visibility. The RFID system offers a dynamic and centralized approach to facilitate the above FM processes. The objective of this study is to quantify the benefits of RFID technology for the FM. Throughout the study of RFID pilot project carried out by the HKHA, we evaluate the factors that affect the application of RFID system in Hong Kong FM industry. Questionnaires were given out to explore maintenance professionals’ opinions on the satisfaction of RFID system for maintenance of Air Conditioning (A/C) system. The data and hypotheses are analysed by using the statistical methods. The survey concluded that RFID system can improve the user satisfaction rating in FM compared with the paper based system. From the regression analysis, we found that the processes of improvement, quantities of A/C equipment and training & education are more important in determining the satisfaction of RFID system and have positive effect on the use of RFID system. The analysis of various regression models helped to discover the key significant variables that correlated to the satisfaction of using the RFID system. According to the survey findings, the RFID system has proved to be very useful for FM as it offered significant benefits over traditional paper based approaches. From the survey result, we also found that the “Insufficient training for use of RFID system” is the important obstacle to the adoption of RFID system. As education and training are critical for development of staff capability to handle new process requirements and achieve better performance of using the RFID system, HKHA is highly recommended to strengthen the training and education in order to improve their work satisfaction and support the continued use of RFID system. This dissertation offers HKHA managers a valuable perspective on the RFID implementation in their organization. The findings also highlighted the significant potential and obstacle of RFID system for FM. To encourage the use and expand the benefits of RFID system in FM industry, the Government policy is crucial in driving the adoption of RFID system so as to accelerate its diffusion and stimulate the growth of related industries. / published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

Counterfeit products, particularly pharmaceuticals, electronic devices, and apparels, are widespread. They threaten consumer safety and cause huge economic losses to licit supply chain partners and governments. Although a number of traditional anti-counterfeiting technologies, such as holograms and chemical tags, are available to combat counterfeiting, they are vulnerable to imitation or being reused. Besides, these technologies are intended to protect individual items, rather than to safeguard an entire supply chain. As such, fake products may likely be injected into the supply chain to hurt end-consumers. Track-and-trace technology based on Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) has recently emerged as a promising tool to combat counterfeiting, because of its automatic and non-line-of-sight capability to identify massive product items. By maintaining an electronic pedigree (e-pedigree) that records the transaction information of product items along the supply chain, this approach stands out for protecting the supply chain against infiltration, eliminating theft and fraud, facilitating recall of defective products, and supporting remote authentication. However, a number of technical and critical issues have yet to be solved for practical implementation of RFID-based track-and-trace anti-counterfeiting. These include generation of accurate initial product e-pedigree in fast moving manufacturing lines, precise e-pedigree updating in batch product distributing and receiving, and fast e- pedigree queries for remote and real-time product authentication from end-customers. Without fully addressing these issues, the accumulated product e-pedigree data would be untrustworthy, rendering any subsequent operations of track-and-trace and product authentication unreliable. This thesis investigates the crucial implementation issues in RFID-based track-and-trace anti-counterfeiting. It firstly presents an innovative track-and-trace anti-counterfeiting system, based on which a TDPS algorithm is proposed for generation of initial product e-pedigree in fast moving production lines. The TDPS overcomes many practical issues, such as tag writing error and tag locking failure, and helps identify the bottleneck of initial product e-pedigree generation. To tackle the bottleneck, the TDPS is further optimized by incorporating a block writing method to enhance the tag EPC writing efficiency and an integration method to balance the overhead of RFID equipment. In product distributing and receiving, a mechanized 3D scanning method is proposed to improve bulk item identification rate and enhance the accuracy and completeness of product e-pedigree. Indeed, RFID-based track-and-trace anti-counterfeiting mandates a relatively high bulk item identification rate for product authentication and e-pedigree updating. Experimental results demonstrate that the mechanized 3D scanning can achieve a bulk item reading rate of up to 98.9%, which largely outperforms the widely documented bulk reading rate (70%) in real applications. In retailing level, the efficiency of e-pedigree queries would hugely impact on customer shopping experience and the effectiveness of track-and-trace anti-counterfeiting. A partition-based method is therefore developed to cluster product e-pedigree data to improve the speed of e-pedigree queries. This approach partitions the accumulated e-pedigree data into fixed and dynamic groups, such that queries are conducted mainly on active data, rather than on the whole historical data sets. By addressing the above key issues, this thesis contributes to making implementation of RFID-based track-and-trace anti-counterfeiting practically viable and reliable. / published_or_final_version / Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering / Master / Master of Philosophy

A gimbal is a pivoted device that decouples movements of a platform from its payload. The payload is a camera which must be stabilized to capture video without motion disturbances. A challenge with this type of gimbal is that a wide span of cameras with different sizes and weights can be used. The change of camera has significant effect on the dynamics of the gimbal and therefore the control system must be retuned. This tuning is inconvenient, especially for someone without knowledge of control engineering. This thesis reviews suitable methods to perform an automatic controller tuning directly on the gimbal's hardware.This tuning starts by exciting the system and then using data to estimate a model. This model is then used to control the gimbal, thus removing the need for manual tuning of the system. The foundation of this thesis is a physical model of the gimbal, derived through the Lagrange equation. The physical model has undetermined parameters such as inertias, centre of gravity and friction constants. System identification is used to determine these parameters. A problem discussed is how the system should be excited in order to achieve data with as much information as possible about the dynamics. This problem is approached by formulating an optimization problem that can be used find suitable trajectories. The identified model is then used to control the gimbal. Different methods for model based-control are discussed. By using a method called feedback linearisation all of the parameter-dependant dynamics of the gimbal can be compensated for. Apart from being independent of model parameters the new outer system is also decoupled and linear. A PID controller is used for feedback control of the outer system. The uncertainty of the feedback linearisation is analysed to find the effects of model errors.To assure robustness of the closed loop system a Lyapunov redesign controller is used to compensate for these model errors. Some experimental results are also presented. The quality of the estimated model is evaluated. Additionally, the reference tracking performance of the control system is tested and results reveal issues with the estimated model's performance.

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