This paper presents SIMQ, a method of simulation program generation through questionnaires. Simulation is a powerful technique for analyzing complex systems; Hut its, acceptance has been impeded by the high cost of computer simulations. The objective of SIMQ is to enhance the usefulness of computer simulation by reducing the cost of developing simulation programs. Related research is reviewed in order to outline the development of the concept of program generation and to provide a standard of comparison for SIMQ. The structure and use of SIMQ is explained and then illustrated through application to a demonstration problem. Initially, the discussion centers on a basic version of SIMQ. Subsequently an extension of SIMQ is presented which permits stochastic branching within the model. Finally, an interactive graphical front end for the SIMQ system is described. Several experiments were conducted to test SIMQ's efficiency and characteristics. Results of field tests are also reported. Possible further extensions to SIMQ are outlined in the final chapter. The major conclusion reached is that the concept of program generation through questionnaires is feasible and that the structure of the SIMQ system is valid and useful. / Business, Sauder School of / Graduate

A wide variety of tools exists for appraisal in general. There are, however, very few widely accepted guidelines governing their specific application in industrial projects. It would be useful to a practicing project appraiser to be able to discern which appraisal methods are most applicable to a particular situation. This research has therefore undertaken to investigate the relationship between the appraisal methods available and their application to industrial projects. As such, a number of specific objectives have been discerned. The first of these was to analyse the literature in order to determine the general views held. The second was to corroborate the views of literature with actual industrial trends. The final objective was to compare theory and practice in order to develop broad guidelines for future project appraisers. The procedure adopted to meet these objectives firstly involved conducting a survey of the literature. This yielded a number of conclusions which suggest a preferred approach to appraisal. To evaluate this approach an appropriate questionnaire was compiled. This questionnaire was then circulated to a representative target area, namely the industrial sector of the South Western Cape. The response to this survey provided a database of actual industrial projects. From this database trends were extracted using a number of statistical techniques, such as Analysis of Variance, Contingency Analysis and Log-linear Modelling. The results of this analysis were then used to complement the conclusions of literature and to confirm the preferred approach to project appraisal. The conclusions from the literature where consensus was found to exist involve the following issues: The chronological position of appraisal in the project life-cycle. The types of study that should be included in project appraisal. The chronological order of these studies. The extent to which formal techniques should be used. The background that the appraisers should have. The extent to which project characteristics influence the appraisal approach. The database provided by the industrial survey consisted of 173 projects conducted in 33 different organisations. Analysis conducted on this database yielded a number of simple one-to-one relationships between project success, appraisal method used and project characteristics. From these relationships a picture of the reality experienced in the South Western Cape could be formed. Such a picture was compared with literature in order to form an overall set of guidelines for use by the practising project appraiser. As a result of the analysis and the subsequent comparison between literature and practice, conclusions were drawn concerning a number of aspects in the research. Such aspects include the success of the research method, uncertainties of the industrial survey, consensus between literature and practice on appraisal procedures and the existence of a preferred approach to project appraisal. A number of recommendations could also be made with regard to two areas of interest. The first concerns recommendations for further research in the field of project appraisal. These include extending the database so as to accommodate multi-variate analysis, researching the formal techniques available for operational suitability and technical feasibility studies and adopting a different mode of survey to that of a posted questionnaire. The second area of interest recommends a set of broad guidelines to the practising project appraiser. These guidelines rationalise such issues as the influence of project characteristics on the use of appraisal methods, the chronological position of appraisal within the project life-cycle, the type and chronological order of studies that should be conducted in the appraisal procedure and the techniques and expertise that should be utilised within each study.

archives@tulane.edu / This thesis examines the qualitative behavior of solutions to a PDE model for chemotaxis; that is the existence, uniqueness and asymptotic behavior of solutions. We study initial-boundary value problems for a chemotaxis model with logarithmic sensitivity and logistic growth for the cell population density, and nonlinear growth of the chemical concentration. Extensive work has been done for this particular model without logistic growth on both bounded and unbounded domains. However, the model with logistic growth on a bounded domain has not been studied before. This case is of particular interest given its relevance for modeling tumor angiogenesis. We first establish global well-posedness of strong solutions for large initial data with no-flux boundary conditions and, moreover, establish the qualitative result that both the population density and chemical concentration asymptotically converge to constant states. The population density in particular converges to its carrying capacity. We additionally prove that the vanishing chemical diffusivity limit holds in this regime. Finally, we provide numerical confirmation of the rigorous qualitative results, as well as numerical simulations that demonstrate a separation of scales phenomenon. We then establish global well-posedness of strong solutions for large initial data with dynamic boundary conditions. Moreover, the solutions will asymptotically approach the boundary data under mild and natural assumptions on the boundary functions. We additionally show the formation of a boundary profile in the singular chemical zero diffusive limit. Lastly, we provide numerical simulations that confirm the boundary layer formation, as well as convergence towards certain steady states of the solution when relaxing the assumptions on the boundary data. The main tool developed in these results is a particular Lyapunov functional that helps overcome the mathematical challenges of the non-conservation of the mass due to the logistic growth. These results give a complete study of this particular system on bounded domains with both zero-flux and dynamic moving boundary conditions. / 1 / Padi Fuster Aguilera

Studies in social science fields have examined specific issues in (re)using archived records for qualitative research, though few have focused on the use of private archives in ethnographic research, especially when it comes to foregrounding participant perspectives. In this methodological dissertation I draw on two sets of archived records to demonstrate how an ethnographer can make visible insider knowledge and perspectives when conducting qualitative research with archived records. Utilizing an interactional ethnographic perspective, I construct a dataset for analysis, making my logic visible as I use mapping and transcription, domain and taxonomic analysis, and discourse analysis to foreground insider perspectives from the archived records using one insider as a tracer unit. The insider identified the people affected by her prep work as the technical mentors, the students on the InvenTeam, and herself. I uncovered her identification of the activities affected by prep work as mental preparation, working with the students, and problem solving. By following this insider as a tracer unit, and following a rich point through the archived records identified by the insider, I was able to identify how this rich point was important to the participant from her perspective. I also used ethnographic principles and multiple layers of analysis to (re)construct the context created by the participant in interviews. This methodological study demonstrates how an ethnographer can use archived records to make visible what insiders signal as important and how they communicate contextual information.

by Chung Yiu Cho. / Parallel title in Chinese characters. / Thesis (M.Ph.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 1988. / Bibliography: leaves 124-131.

In this dissertation we are concerned with the analysis of the finite element method for the time-dependent Maxwell interface problem when Nedelec and Raviart-Thomas finite elements are employed and preconditioning of the resulting linear system when implicit time schemes are used. We first investigate the finite element method proposed by Makridakis and Monk in 1995. After studying the regularity of the solution to time dependent Maxwell's problem and providing approximation estimates for the Fortin operator, we are able to give the optimal error estimate for the semi-discrete scheme for Maxwell's equations. Then we study preconditioners for linear systems arising in the finite element method for time-dependent Maxwell's equations using implicit time-stepping. Such linear systems are usually very large but sparse and can only be solved iteratively. We consider overlapping Schwarz methods and multigrid methods and extend some existing theoretical convergence results. For overlapping Schwarz methods, we provide numerical experiments to confirm the theoretical analysis.

The problem addressed by this study was the search for ways to relate knowledge of wind instrument playing methods to the study of voice. The purpose of the study was to examine historical and contemporary brass and woodwind teaching sources to determine whether allusions to the vocal art were documented by reputable wind teachers.The ninety-one available sources were written between 1545 and 1981, and included books, treatises, periodicals, and other studies written by scholars, musicians, and teachers from Europe, Asia, and North America. Allusions to the vocal art appeared in eighty percent of the sources studied and occurred with nearly equal frequency in brass and woodwind sources.The study revealed both direct and indirect allusions made in reference to such matters as the relationship of wind instruments to voice, breathing and breath control, tone production, facility, and musicianship.ConclusionsBased on the finding that numerous allusions to the vocal art have been documented in wind instrument pedagogical sources, the following conclusions are drawn:1. A very close relationship exists between the wind instruments and voice.2. A common body of pedagogical theories may be found in vocal and wind instrument teaching methods.3. These theories have been used by wind pedagogues to teach wind instruments.4. A preparatory background in the study of voice and singing methods provides a desirable foundation for the study of wind instrument playing.5. Many authors, it would appear, assume that the wind instrument student already possesses a functional knowledge of the art of singing.

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This study estimates cointegration models by applying the Engle-Granger (1989) two-step es- timation procedure, the Phillip-Ouliaris (1990) residual-based test and Johansen's multivariate technique. The cointegration techniques are tested on the Raotbl3 data set, the World Economic Indicators data set and the UKpppuip data set using statistical software R. In the Raotbl3 data set, we test for cointegration between the consumption expenditure, and income and wealth vari- ables. In the world economic indicators data set, we test for cointegration in three of Australia's key economic indicators, whereas in the UKpppuip data set we test for the existence of long-run economic relationships in the United Kingdom's purchasing power parity. The study nds the three techniques not to be consistent, that is, they do not lead to the same results. However, it recommends the use of Johansen's method because it is able to detect more than one cointegrating relationship if present.

published_or_final_version / Statistics / Master / Master of Philosophy