The functional properties of nanoparticles highly depend on the surface morphology of the particles, so precise measurements of a particle's morphology enable reliable characterizing of the nanoparticle's properties. Obtaining the measurements requires image analysis of electron microscopic pictures of nanoparticles. Today's labor-intensive image analysis of electron micrographs of nanoparticles is a significant bottleneck for efficient material characterization. The objective of this dissertation is to develop automated morphology analysis methods. Morphology analysis is comprised of three tasks: separate individual particles from an agglomerate of overlapping nano-objects (image segmentation); infer the particle's missing contours (shape inference); and ultimately, classify the particles by shape based on their complete contours (shape classification). Two approaches are proposed in this dissertation: the divide-and-conquer approach and the convex shape analysis approach. The divide-and-conquer approach solves each task separately, taking less than one minute to complete the required analysis, even for the largest-sized micrograph. However, its separating capability of particle overlaps is limited, meaning that it is able to split only touching particles. The convex shape analysis approach solves shape inference and classification simultaneously for better accuracy, but it requires more computation time, ten minutes for the biggest-sized electron micrograph. However, with a little sacrifice of time efficiency, the second approach achieves far superior separation than the divide-and-conquer approach, and it handles the chain-linked structure of particle overlaps well. The capabilities of the two proposed methods cannot be substituted by generic image processing and bio-imaging methods. This is due to the unique features that the electron microscopic pictures of nanoparticles have, including special particle overlap structures, and large number of particles to be processed. The application of the proposed methods to real electron microscopic pictures showed that the two proposed methods were more capable of extracting the morphology information than the state-of-the-art methods. When nanoparticles do not have many overlaps, the divide-and-conquer approach performed adequately. When nanoparticles have many overlaps, forming chain-linked clusters, the convex shape analysis approach performed much better than the state-of-the-art alternatives in bio-imaging. The author believes that the capabilities of the proposed methods expedite the morphology characterization process of nanoparticles. The author further conjectures that the technical generality of the proposed methods could even be a competent alternative to the current methods analyzing general overlapping convex-shaped objects other than nanoparticles.

The principal objective of this study was to compare the results of a proposed method based upon the response surface model to the Taguchi method. To modify the Taguchi method, the proposed model was developed to encompass the following objectives. The first, with the exception of the Taguchi inner array, was obtain optimal design variable settings with minimum variations, at the same time achieving the target value of the nominal-the best performance quality characteristics. The second was to eliminate the need for the use of a noise matrix (that is, the Taguchi outer array), resulting in the significant reduction of the number of experimental runs required to implement the model. The final objective was to provide a method whereby signal-tonoise ratios could be eliminated as performance statistics. To implement the proposed method, a central composite design (CCD) experiment was selected as a second-order response surface design for the estimation of mean response functions. A Taylor's series expansion was applied to obtain estimated variance expressions for a fitted second-order model. Performance measures, including mean squared error, bias and variance, were obtained by simulations at optimal settings. Nine test problems were developed to test the accuracy of the proposed CCD method. Statistical comparisons of the proposed method to the Taguchi method were performed. Experimental results indicated that the proposed response surface model can be used to provide significant improvement in product quality. Moreover, by the reduction of the number of experimental runs required for use of the Taguchi method, lower cost process design can be achieved by use of the CCD method. / Graduation date: 1993

No description available.

Multi-beamecho sounder systemhas been around nowfor some 40 years and their use in shallow waters for the last 14 years. With modern shallow water systems running at up to 9,600 soundings/second, data collection at the rate of approximately 250 million soundings/day system is possible. Processing of Multibeam Echo sounder (MBES) data is a challenging task from both hydrographic and technological perspectives. We recognize that a completely automatic system is improbable, but propose that significant benefits can still be had if we can automatically process good quality data, and highlight areas that probably need further attention. We propose an algorithm that takes uncleaned MBES data and attempts to pick out outliers as possible as we can. The traditionalmethod that is still in use today by numerous software applications is based on a line-by-line processing approach. Automatically filtering for a depth window, by beam number, slope between points, quality flags and recently by whether the beam¡¦s error is outside the IHO order for the survey are a number of ways in which the line-by-line approach has been speeded up. The fundamental differences between our method and the previous methods are that our algorithm does not actually delete any soundings at all and transform original one dimension information into two dimensions. Finally, we use Hierarchical Clustering to classifyMBES data into outliers and normal. We develop the user interface formulti-beamecho sounder quality control. It provides almost the necessary tools and modules to perform a survey. Standard modules are Survey planning (track guidance lines, waypoints), channel design and 3D modeling, data acquisition, data QC and data processing/flagged. However, it will visualize the soundings to aid the decisionmaking process.

Thesis (M.S. in Operations Research)--Naval Postgraduate School, September 1990. / Thesis Advisor(s): Lindsay, Glenn F. Second Reader: Bailey, Michael P. "September 1990." Description based on title screen as viewed on December 21, 2009. DTIC Identifier(s): Quality control, sampling, acceptance tests, production control, theses, mathematical models, vendors. Author(s) subject terms: Markov chain, P-chart, fraction nonconforming vs AQL. Includes bibliographical references (p. 50). Also available in print.

Thesis (MBA)--Cape Technikon, Cape Town, 2003. / Also available online.

In Hong Kong, the responsibility for building management falls on property owners. To assist in building management, most property owners would appoint a property management company. Fulfilling relevant statutory requirements is mandatory for property management companies; however, it is debatable if meeting the basic statutory requirements is equivalent to providing quality property management services for property owners. In fact, property owners usually have more requests than minimum statutory requirements and it is therefore a multi-factor evaluation system for quality of residential property management services is proposed in this research project. To develop the assessment system, quality property management services criteria, including dimensions and performance items, are identified through desk research and focus group interviews with owners’ representatives and property management practitioners. Interval score and ranking are then assigned to the identified assessment criteria by distributing questionnaires with pilot test to owners’ representatives, property management practitioners and building management team of Home Affairs Department of HKSAR. Data collected from the questionnaire are analyzed with weight assessment method: Reliability Interval Method (RIM) in which importance weightings of the criteria can be developed and statistical analysis is allowed. “Repair and Maintenance (excluding clubhouse facilities, if applicable)” and “Effectiveness of emergency repair and maintenance services”, which are not statutory requirements for managing residential properties, are respectively weighted as the most important dimension and performance item. As far as application of the developed quality assessment system is concerned, services quality provided by major property management companies are measured and compared with questionnaires to students pursuing Housing Management in University of Hong Kong. The correlation between quality of property management services and numbers of properties managed by the company is not statistically significant; however, this is likely due to a small samples size, as the visual display of data suggests a relationship. One interesting finding in this research is the high factor weight of assessment criteria which are not statutory requirements for managing residential properties. Such a result implies that meeting basic statutory requirements is not equivalent to providing quality property management services in the eyes of property owners. Besides, this research provides a framework for future development of a classification system to indicate how good a property is for meeting specific overall grading. This research is important because quality of property management services in residential properties can be quantified and closely monitored with the developed quality assessment system in a performance-based, simple and standard way from the perspective of property owners. As far as the benefits of property management companies, which sell services in keen market, are concerned, it is expected that the system could keep supervising and thus improving the quality of services; delivery of high quality services is a profitable way to differentiate ones from the competitors. / published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

Paper presented at the 15th IUGSA Conference, 12-14 November 2012, Bloemfontein

published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management

published_or_final_version / Housing Management / Master / Master of Housing Management