Thesis (M.A.)--Brigham Young University. Dept. of Communications, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 307-312).

Thesis (M.A.)--Brigham Young University. Dept. of Communications, 2004. / "December 2004." Title taken from PDF title screen (viewed October 22, 2007). Includes bibliographical references and appendices.

Les travaux présentés dans cette thèse abordent la minimisation de coûts de production dans uneindustrie de produits douches et capillaires. Dans cette industrie, le processus de production inclus deuxétapes successives : la fabrication des lots de produit cosmétique et le stockage intermédiaire de ces derniers.Les coûts de production sont essentiellement liés aux opérations de lavage des ressources de fabrication etde stockage intermédiaire. Ces opérations de lavage doivent être effectuées lors de la succession des lots vuleur différentes caractéristiques physiques (couleur, viscosité,...) et chimiques (contenus chimiques,...).Ce problème est décomposé en deux sous-problèmes. Le premier consiste en l'optimisation du stockageintermédiaire. Le site dispose de plusieurs cuves de stockage, de différentes capacités, disposées en parallèle.Le rôle de ces cuves de stockage est de contenir temporairement les lots. Résoudre ce problème équivautà calculer les affectations des lots sur les cuves ainsi que leur date de début de transfert. L'objectif est deminimiser le nombre d'opérations de lavages des cuves de stockage.Le second sous-problème consiste à optimiser la fabrication des lots. Le site comprend plusieurs sallesde fabrication disposées en parallèle. Chaque salle de fabrication est constituée par plusieurs machinesorganisées en Flowshop Hybride. Pour résoudre ce problème, il faut calculer une affectation des lots sur lessalles de fabrication et les ordonnancer sur les machines de celles-ci. L'objectif est de minimiser le nombred'opérations de lavage induites par la succession des lots sur les machines.Nous proposons de résoudre le sous-problème d'optimisation du stockage intermédiaire en premier lieu,pour ensuite résoudre le sous-problème d'optimisation de la fabrication. Nous proposons et expérimentonsplusieurs méthodes heuristiques (gloutons, colonies de fourmis, méthodes arborescentes tronquées, méthodes dédiées) pour la résolution de chaque sous-problème. Les meilleures méthodes de résolution sontdestinées à être intégrées dans un logiciel de planification de la production quotidienne. / The work presented in this thesis addresses the minimization of production costs in an industry ofshowers and hair products. In this industry, the production process consists in two successive steps : themaking of cosmetic products and the intermediate storage of these latter. Production costs are mainlyrelated to cleaning operations of the making and the storage resources. These cleaning operations must beperformed in the sequence of two different batches of cosmetic product because of their different physical(color, viscosity, ...) and chemical (chemical contents,..) characteristics.This problem is decomposed into two sub-problems. The first one is the optimization of intermediatestorage. The shop is made up of parallel storage tanks of various capacities. These storage tanks haveto temporarily store the batches. Solving this problem is equivalent to calculating the assignment of thebatches on the storage tanks and their starting date of transfer. The objective is to minimize the numberof cleaning operations of the storage tanks.The second sub-problem is the optimization of the making process of the batches. The shop gathersseveral making units arranged in parallel. Each making unit consists in multiple mixing machines organizedin hybrid flowshop. To solve this problem, we have to calculate an assignment of the batches on the makingunits and their schedule on the mixing machines. The objective is to minimize the number of cleaningoperations.We propose to solve the sub-problem of optimization of the intermediate storage first, and then solvethe sub-problem of the optimization of the making process. We propose and experiment several heuristics(greedy, ant colonies, truncated tree methods, dedicated methods) for solving each sub-problem. The bestsolution methods are designed to be integrated into a software production planning.

This research study examines how the image of Kazakhstan was covered by the New York Times during 11 years and analyzed the most common perception of the Central Asian country, using framing as a theoretical framework. Textual-analysis approach was used as a method, exploration produced seven frames. The textual analysis approach demonstrated that negative coverage prevailed in the coverage of Kazakhstan, “in spite of friendly relationships with the USA”. Kazakhstan was framed as “authoritarian” “petro-state”, which got independence, but still followed “soviet-style” politics and was largely influenced by its “hegemon Russia”. The country, which “has a complex about being recognized in the world” (Stern, 2008). Future research needed to promote the image of the country worldwide.

Rendering takes time, especially without access to powerful hardware. Is there any way to reduce the time of rendering? With the help of compositing reducing the time of renders is very much possible, using a range of alternative methods. A total of three different approaches will be tested in order to save time, as well as trying to maintain quality as close to a render straight from a 3D application as possible. Projections using cards and geometry as well as deep data will be used in an attempt to find the most efficient and useful way of saving time. / Rendering tar tid, speciellt utan tillgång till kraftfull hårdvara. Finns det något sätt att dra ner på tiden en rendering tar? Med hjälp av compositing är det absolut möjligt att sänka tiderna för en rendering genom en rad alternativa metoder. Totalt kommer tre olika metoder att testas för att spara in tid, men även för att försöka komma så nära kvalitén av en bild renderad direkt från en 3D-appliaktion som möjligt. Projektioner på plan och geometri och användandet av deep-data kommer användas i ett försök att hitta det mest effektiva och användbara tillvägagångssättet att spara tid.

Orientadores: Jansle Vieira Rocha, Rubens Augusto Camargo Lamparelli / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Engenharia Agricola / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-15T17:48:12Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Figueiredo_GleyceKellyDantasAraujo_M.pdf: 6336572 bytes, checksum: 543d5ecd1cecff2ebb2ab13e845b5bfc (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010 / Resumo: A agricultura está fortemente ligada às condições meteorológicas, tornando-se uma atividade de risco. Sendo assim, um sistema de monitoramento e previsão de safras é necessário para evitar grandes perdas. O monitoramento agrícola, aliado a estudos de varibilidade meteorológica, é de extrema importância, pois determina a melhor época em que deve ocorrer a semeadura, bem como os períodos de maior necessidade hídrica da planta. A utilização do sensoriamento remoto para monitoramento agrícola e sua associação a dados meteorológicos viabilizam o monitoramento de culturas, desde o plantio até a colheita. Desta forma, o objetivo deste trabalho foi mapear culturas de verão (soja e milho) no estado do Paraná por meio de composições decendiais NDVI de imagens do satélite SPOT Vegetation nas safras 2005/2006, 2006/2007 e 2007/2008, e associar a dados de precipitação para determinar e mapear épocas de semeadura. Para isso, foi utilizado o método de classificação digital supervisionada em composições multitemporais das imagens, de forma a gerar máscaras da cultura da soja para cada composição decendial. A verificação da acurácia das máscaras foi realizada utilizando o índice Kappa alcançando valores de 0,70, 0,75 e 0,77, Exatidão Global 0,91, 0,91 e 0,93 e Índice de concordância de Willmot (d) entre 0,93, 0,93 e 0,99. Os perfis temporais de NDVI possibilitaram a detecção do início do ciclo vegetativo das culturas. Foram utilizados dados de precipitação da rede de estações meteorológicas do SIMEPAR e do modelo atmosférico ECMWF. Os dados das estações meteorológicas foram compilados a partir de dados diários a dados decendiais, tendo em vista que as informações do modelo são decendiais. Em seguida foi necessário especializá-las e reamostrá-las para um grid de 1 km x 1 km. Essas duas informações foram interpoladas através do Inverso Quadrado da Distância a fim de obter o perfil de precipitação da região estudada durante a safra de verão. A interpolação de dados de precipitação mostrou-se expressiva, uma vez que os valores interpolados e os valores reais foram significativos quando avaliado pelo índice de concordância 'd' de Willmot, variando entre 0,74 a 0,99. Para as três safras em estudo, apenas o comportamento da última foi distinta das demais, onde foi possível detectar atraso da chuva de um mês em relação às outras safras. Com a espacialização da precipitação dentro do estado foi possível fazer o cruzamento entre as máscaras da cultura de verão e os mapas de precipitação decendial, de modo a descobrir o inicio do desenvolvimento do ciclo da cultura. Desta forma foi possível perceber que houve um retardamento no início do ciclo da cultura para regiões em que a semeadura ocorreu antes do período mais chuvoso. A associação entre o perfil temporal de NDVI e precipitação permitiu identificar e mapear diferenças entre épocas de início de ciclo dentro do estado do Paraná / Abstract: Agriculture is highly dependent on meteorological conditions, making it a risky activity, so, in order to avoid large losses, it is necessary to devlop an appropriate crop yield forecasting system. Agricultural monitoring coupled with studies of weather variability is extremely important to determine the best time to sown as well as periods of higher water requirement by the plants. The use of remote sensing for agricultural monitoring in addition to meteorological data enables crop monitoring from planting to harvest. Thus, the goal of this study was to map summer crops in the state of Parana through dekadal composition of SPOT Vegetation NDVI imagery for the 2005/2006, 2006/2007 and 2007/2008 cropping seasons. Supervised classification of multitemporal image composites was used to generate cropland masks for each dekad. Accuracy assessment was performed using Kappa Index reaching values of 0.70, 0.75 and 0.77 and overall accuracy 0.91, 0.91 and 0.93. NDVI temporal profiles were used to detect the beginning of the crop vegetative cycles. Rainfall data from SIMEPAR network of meteorological ground stations and ECMWF atmospheric model were used. The data from the ground stations were compiled from daily to dekadal in order to comply with model data, which is a ten days compilation . Then it was necessary to spatialize and resample them to a 1 km x 1 km grid. These two data were interpolated using the inverse distance to square method to extract the profile of precipitation in the region during the summer harvesting season. The interpolation of rainfall generated good results, once the interpolated values as copared to actual values were significant when evaluated by the agreement index 'd' of Willmot, ranging between 0.74 to 0.99. For the three cropping seasons studied only the behavior of last season was distinct from the others , it was possible to detect a rain delay of one month in relation to other seasons. With the rainfall spacialization within the state it was possible to cross the masks of the summer crops with the maps of the decadal rainfall, in order to discover the beginning of the crop vegetative cycle. So it was possible to see that there was a delay at the beginning of the crop cycle in areas where the sowing occurred before the rainy season. The association between NDVI temporal profile and rainfall allowed to identify and to map the differences among starting of the crop vegetative cycle in the state of Parana / Mestrado / Planejamento e Desenvolvimento Rural Sustentável / Mestre em Engenharia Agrícola

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Economics / Steven P. Cassou / This essay empirically investigates the dynamics between government debt and budget deficits in the United States during a recession as opposed to an expansion. We use four different budget deficits definitions to develop a more comprehensive insight. We estimate a threshold VAR model on quarterly data from 1947: Q1 to 2016: Q3 on debt to GDP and budget deficits to GDP ratio for the United States. Specification test using LR test rejects the null for a linear VAR against nonlinear VAR. The nonlinear impulse responses indicate, with an increase to budget deficits to GDP ratio, government debt to GDP ratio rise faster during a recession as opposed to an expansion, and tend to move in a counter-cyclical manner with an increase in the output gap. We can thus infer that governments chose economic stability over fiscal balance during recessions. With an increase in government debt to GDP ratio, nonlinear impulse response show budget deficits to GDP ratio grow faster during an expansion as opposed to a recession and exhibit counter-cyclicality with an increase in the output gap. All four budget defi cits definitions depict similar pattern. Robustness check, using cyclically adjusted primary budget deficit published by the congressional Budget Office, also con rm the above findings. In this essay, we explore the presence of a long run relationship between the monetary base and the government debt using monthly data from 1942:1 to 2015:12. We apply formal statistical methods including cointegration and threshold cointegration tests to investigate the presence of a long-run relationship and estimate a threshold vector error-correction model (TVECM henceforth) to analyze the short-run dynamics. We find the presence of a threshold cointegration between the monetary base and government debt. As for the short-run dynamics, TVECM estimates show that the speed of adjustment is significant for the growth in debt equation in both regimes with the signs indicating government adjusting the debt in the short-run. But the U.S. Fed does not change the monetary base, hence we do not find any evidence of debt monetization in the U.S. We evaluate our findings over two sub-samples: 1946 to 2015 and 1946 to 2007 for robustness purposes. Findings from both sub-samples conform to our findings from the full sample. In this essay, we investigate the impacts of growth in the budget deficit and money supply on real interest rate are integral to contemporary macroeconomic policy. We employ threshold VAR and nonlinear impulse responses using quarterly data from 1959 to 2015. We find that growth in money supply and budget deficits have an asymmetric impact on inflation, short-term interest rate, and real interest rates. Growth in money supply and budget deficit tend to make the real interest rate negative in a bad state. In a good state, on the other hand, growth in money supply tend to increase the real interest rate but growth in budget deficits tend to decrease the real interest rate over the forecast horizon.

We consider transformations of a given random walk on a countable group determined by Markov stopping times. We prove that these transformations preserve the Poisson boundary. Moreover, under some mild conditions, the asymptotic entropy (resp., rate of escape) of the transformed random walks is equal to the asymptotic entropy (resp., rate of escape) of the original random walk multiplied by the expectation of the corresponding stopping time. This is an analogue of the well-known Abramov's formula from ergodic theory.

Master Thesis studies integrated Supply Chains and their particularities in the automotive industry and searches for ways how to rationalize them. It aims to find means how to make the lead times shorter, with the focus on an automobile producer in an effort to increase its competitiveness. It is geared to identify points in its Supply Chain, where flaws and errors or delays in the process of customer order fulfillment might occur. It also concentrates on the possibility of managing customer demand. The Thesis then investigates circumstances that especially in the automotive do play a role and influence the lead time. Based on the established information and facts it proposes measures that resolve this problem with regard to current trends in the industry and also consider the requirements and expectations of customers buying a new car.

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