Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) operation is desirable for its high thermal efficiency and low emissions of NOx and particulates. Difficulty with cold starting and maximum achievable speed/load highlight the desire for mode-switching to traditional spark ignition (SI) operation. Mode-switching between SI and HCCI is investigated using only actuation of throttle, CNG injector pulse width, and CNG injection timing on a single cylinder CFR engine. Open-loop control achieves a one cycle mode-switch between two adjustable IMEP levels. Sequences are repeatable as demonstrated by 10 mode-switches with the same inputs. Performance is evaluated using a developed mode-switch performance criterion (MSPC) by considering duration between steady-states of operation, smoothness of IMEP, and knock based on maximum rate of pressure rise. Comparing the results with subjective analysis (the current standard) reveals good correlation. Throughout development, mode-switching performance is shown to improve by a factor of 60.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Wichita State University, 2003. / Adviser: Ravi Pendse. Includes bibliographical references.

<p>The purpose of this thesis is to map out and investigate how the banking sector affects a customer’s willingness to change bank, and what the switching costs are for a customer when making these changes. A case study was performed through qualitative and quantitative questionnaires and interviews. The qualitative part was carried out to create hypotheses. The hypotheses was tested in a quantitative survey to be able to either accepted or rejected these them. When merging the hypotheses with the performed survey the authors came to the conclusion that there are two major switching costs that affect a customer’s willingness to change bank. These two are financial and non-financial costs, the financial cost can appear as good economical conditions provided by the bank and the non-financial cost through the relation between the bank and a customer. Further, the authors have created a tool to be used by a bank in order to achieve a high amount of quality and also in what dimension they have to interact with their customers’ needs in order to keep them loyal and satisfied.</p> / <p>Syftet med denna uppsats var att kartlägga vilka inträdes- och utträdesbarriärer som påverkar kundernas rörlighet på den privata bankmarknaden samt beskriva hur ban-ker kan agera för att erhålla och bibehålla nya kunder.Problemfrågan som lyder: ”Hur kan en bank öka tillflödet och bibehålla bankkunder genom att använda sig av inträdes- och utträdesbarriärer på den privata bankmark-naden?” framkom delvis genom diskussion med fallföretagets VD och delvis utifrån vetenskapliga artiklar. Både genom banker och också konsumentbankbyrån skall det vara relativt enkelt för kunderna att byta bank, dock tenderar bankkunderna till att stanna kvar på sin befintliga bank även då de skulle kunna erhålla bättre villkor och avgifter genom ett byte. Med anledning av detta så framkom det att det existerar bar-riärer på bankmarknaden som hindrar bankbyte för kunderna, med det som bank-grund ansåg vi det intressant att analysera om banken kan påverka dessa för egen vinnig.I teoridelen beskriver vi fyra olika teorier vilka vi använder som verktyg för att be-svara vår problemfråga. Den första teorin innefattar kundens beslutsprocess för att identifiera vilka steg kunden går igenom när beslut skall tas. Genom att göra detta kan vi se att många kunder redan har gått igenom flera av stegen i processen och de väntar på rätt tillfälle. Den andra teorin behandlar kundens bedömning av kvalitet och enligt teorin finns det tre olika dimensionen av kvalitet, dessa är teknisk, funktionell och image. Dessa tre dimensioner använder vi i en modell som vi skapat som slut-sats, modellen skall fungera som ett verktyg för banker för att uppnå nöjda kunder. Den tredje teorin behandlar kundlojalitet, denna teori hänvisar tillbaka till den förra då den illustrerar hur viktigt det är att kundens upplevda kvalitet stämmer överens med den förväntade kvalitén. Den fjärde teorin belyser inträdes- och utträdesbarriä-rer och även utifrån perspektiven finansiell och icke finansiell. Genom att dela in dem efter de perspektiven har det varit möjligt att ta fram två stora barriärer, en från varje perspektiv.Genom tre kvalitativa intervjuer med personer på olika positioner inom det valda fallföretaget samt en enkätundersökning riktad mot bankkunder har den empiriska delen skapats. Den information som intervjuerna genererat har vi använt oss av för att utveckla de hypoteser som illustreras i avsnittet 4.5. Dessa hypoteser prövade vi genom en enkätundersökning riktad mot 80 bankkunder.Vi kom fram till att om en bank vill öka tillflödet av bankkunder bör banken identifi-era de största inträdes- och utträdesbarriärerna. De två största barriärerna som vi identifierat är en finansiell barriär (bra villkor) och den andra var en icke finansiell barriär (relationen till banken). Dessa två stora barriärer är de som påverkar de got-ländska bankkunderna till störst del på marknaden i valet av bank. Ett annat intres-sant resultat var att lojalitet är ett diffust begrepp på bankmarknaden varken banken eller bankkunden kan definiera begreppet samtidigt visar resultatet från enkätunder-sökningen att majoriteten anser sig lojala mot sin bank men att de inte tjänar något på att vara lojal.</p>

Abstract With the Introduction of the internet and human technological advancement, our everyday lives have changed dramatically over the past 20 years and because of this, how we communicate, form social networks and purchase or sell goods have also developed. In the light of this, we have completed this thesis which concerns the influence of the internet and the possibilities of forming long lasting relationships between businesses and customers through what we have described as ‘Locking in’ the customer. This is done by forming ‘Psychological Switching Costs’ that make the cognitive process of switching too expensive or un-wanted by the customer. In order to develop an understanding of this we saw it as prudent to interview senior managers of businesses that operate mainly on the internet to discover if they attempt such strategic moves in, ‘Locking in’ customers. Thus forming the research question; How are Companies based on the internet using Psychological Switching Costs as a strategy to Lock in the customers? The process by which the information was collected was through a qualitative method and semi-structured interviews. We found from the respondents that were interviewed that when it comes to operating a business on the internet it is important to consider, Transparency, Two-way communication, Simplicity, Agility and Flexibility in creating a loyal customer who is positively locked in. These were the strategies considered by the respondents to have an effect on customers. One of the most interesting points that were made was that if the customer was locked in to the business, the business did not have to be as dynamic. Thus, according to the respondents, Psychological Switching Costs do have an influence on how they form strategy to Lock In customers. In that it can be beneficial to attempt to Lock in customers rather than develop other Dynamic Capabilities. This factor seems very relevant when considering communication, agility and flexibility, in that by forming relationships and strategies directly to the customer these companies are creating something that is difficult to substitute, un-imitable for their competitors and convenient to the customer.

Executive control allows us to ignore distraction and switch between tasks in a flexible, yet organized fashion. While a hallmark of controlled behavior, distinctions among executive control processes are not thoroughly agreed upon. The present work explored the organization of two of these executive control processes, inhibition and shifting, and their relationship to each other. There were two primary goals. The first goal was to investigate the distinction among inhibitory control processes, as “inhibition” has oftentimes been considered a unitary construct. For example, there is evidence that response-distractor inhibition, which involves resolving interference from dominant responses or distractors in the external environment, is different from resistance to proactive interference (PI), which involves overcoming interference from previously relevant representations in memory. Using aging, neuropsychology, and individual differences methodologies, I investigated the unity and diversity of inhibitory control mechanisms. The healthy aging and neuropsychological evidence supported a distinction between response-distractor inhibition and resistance to proactive interference. However, when controlling for processing speed, the individual differences work suggested a need for further specification, as only a subset of these tasks emerged in the single factor model that provided the best fit to the data. The second goal was to explore how inhibitory control processes interact with task switching, as some theoretical accounts of task switching have suggested that switch costs result from the need to overcome interference from the previously relevant task. Inconsistent with these theories, I found little relation between inhibitory control and measures of global and local task switching, and instead, working memory served as the best predictor of these shifting measures. In contrast, inhibitory control was related to the backward inhibition abilities of older adults. These findings are discussed within a theory of working memory that accounts for the patterns of results found across the different methodologies.

Executive control allows us to ignore distraction and switch between tasks in a flexible, yet organized fashion. While a hallmark of controlled behavior, distinctions among executive control processes are not thoroughly agreed upon. The present work explored the organization of two of these executive control processes, inhibition and shifting, and their relationship to each other. There were two primary goals. The first goal was to investigate the distinction among inhibitory control processes, as “inhibition” has oftentimes been considered a unitary construct. For example, there is evidence that response-distractor inhibition, which involves resolving interference from dominant responses or distractors in the external environment, is different from resistance to proactive interference (PI), which involves overcoming interference from previously relevant representations in memory. Using aging, neuropsychology, and individual differences methodologies, I investigated the unity and diversity of inhibitory control mechanisms. The healthy aging and neuropsychological evidence supported a distinction between response-distractor inhibition and resistance to proactive interference. However, when controlling for processing speed, the individual differences work suggested a need for further specification, as only a subset of these tasks emerged in the single factor model that provided the best fit to the data. The second goal was to explore how inhibitory control processes interact with task switching, as some theoretical accounts of task switching have suggested that switch costs result from the need to overcome interference from the previously relevant task. Inconsistent with these theories, I found little relation between inhibitory control and measures of global and local task switching, and instead, working memory served as the best predictor of these shifting measures. In contrast, inhibitory control was related to the backward inhibition abilities of older adults. These findings are discussed within a theory of working memory that accounts for the patterns of results found across the different methodologies.

Since its creation in 1998, the Implicit Association Test (IAT) has become a commonly used measure in social psychology and related fields of research. Studies of the cognitive processes involved in the IAT are necessary to establish the validity of this measure and to suggest further refinements to its use and interpretation. The current thesis used ERPs to study cognitive processes associated with the IAT. The first experiment found significant differences in P300 amplitude in the Congruent and Incongruent conditions, which were interpreted as a reflection of greater equivocation in the Incongruent condition. The second experiment tested the task-set switching account of the IAT in much greater detail by analyzing each trial type separately. In the Congruent condition, all trial types elicited the same amplitude P300. Local probability, and the consequent checking and updating of working memory, was thought to be responsible for differences between trials of the Incongruent condition that required or did not require a task switch. The final experiment examined the role of working memory in the IAT by introducing obtrusive and irrelevant auditory stimuli. The results of Experiment 3 indicated that the introduction of an obtrusive and irrelevant auditory increment deviant has little overall effect on the IAT, and a similar effect on switch and no-switch trials within the Incongruent condition. This could have been because both the Congruent and Incongruent conditions of the IAT make such extensive demands on central processing resources that few are available to allow for the switching of attention, or it is possible that the IAT does not require significant updating of working memory. The usefulness of ERPs in the study of the IAT effect is demonstrated by the current research. In particular, the finding that behavioural results were not always consistent with the ERP results demonstrates that electrophysiological measures can complement traditional behavioural measures.

This report is the basis for a Bachelor of Science thesis in engineering done at Volvo Powertrain in Gothenburg. The problem consisted of investigating a circuit with a PWM-controlled MOSFET driving a DC-motor. The problem was to investigate what caused the circuit to break the transistor. Finally an improvement of the circuit is designed making the MOSFET withstand the stressful conditions exposed to. An overall description of the problems with switching an inductive load using a MOSFET as switch is done. Some methods to protect the MOSFET from failure are also discussed. Finally a discussion is held to suggest what broke the MOSFET, and an improved design is proposed.

Optical Burst Switching (OBS) is an emerging technology for bearing bursty IP traffic directly over Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) links. In OBS network, a key challenge is to reduce the data loss rate with efficient scheduling algorithms. In this work, we first propose a novel traffic aggregation algorithm, namely Tree-based Burst Aggregation (TBA), which aggregates bursts that are routed within a common tree topology into a composite burst and switch them as a single unit whenever possible. Then we propose another set of algorithms are batch scheduling using interval graphs in the core nodes. The algorithms effectively consider the strong correlations among the multiple bursts, and employ the proposed interval graphs and min-cost circular flow techniques to achieve optimized network performance in terms of data loss rate in OBS networks.

Clock-feedthrough effects, channel-length modulation and device mismatch are the main causes of the inaccuracy of Switched-Current (SI) circuits. In this paper, these non-ideal effects are analyzed. A high-performance current mirror, namely regulated cascode current mirror, which eliminates drain voltage variation problem is introduced. By using this current mirror as a basic memory cell, a clock-feedthrough cancellation circuit is developed, which ideally solves the clock-feedthrough and drain voltage variation problems. A fifth-order SI lowpass Chebyshev ladder filter is built using the proposed cancellation circuit and implemented in a two-micron P-well standard digital CMOS process by MOSIS. Another emerging technique, dynamic current mirrors or current copiers, is introduced. Improved dynamic current mirror cell and dynamic current mirror-based integrators have been developed. / Graduation date: 1992