Electricity systems are very complex systems and are composed of numerous transmission lines, generators and loads. The generating stations are generally far away from load centres and that may cause transmission line congestion and overloading. Series capacitive compensation is the most economical way to increase transmission capacity and improve transient stability of transmission grids. However, one of the impeding factors for the widespread use of series capacitive compensation is the potential risk of Subsynchronous Resonance (SSR). Subsynchronous Resonance is a phenomenon in which electrical power is exchanged with the generator shaft system in an increasing manner which may result in damage to the turbine generator shaft system. Therefore, mitigating SSR continues to be a subject of research and development aiming at developing effective SSR countermeasures.<p>This research work presents new methods of alleviating the SSR problem using a Static Synchronous Series Compensator (SSSC) and a Static Synchronous Compensator (STATCOM). These methods are based on using the SSSC and STATCOM to inject unbalanced series quadrature voltages and unbalanced shunt reactive currents in transmission line just after clearing faults. When the subsynchronous oscillations drive unsymmetrical phase currents, the developed electromagnetic torque will be lower than the condition when the three-phase currents are symmetrical. The unsymmetrical currents result in a lower coupling strength between the mechanical and the electrical system at asynchronous oscillations. Therefore, the energy exchange between the electrical and the mechanical systems at subsynchronous oscillations will be suppressed, thus, avoiding the build-up of torsional stresses on the generator shaft systems under subsynchronous resonance condition. The validity of proposed methods are demonstrated by time simulation results using the electromagnetic transient program EMTP-RV.

Background: A debated subject in today’s society is CEO compensation. Companies which give the CEO compensation mean that it motivates them to maximize the company’s return. The compensations are based on various types of variables, such as financial measures and financial ratio. Despite the various reasons given by the company as to why high compensations are paid out and what it is based on, the Media, shareholders and other privies have questioned this phenomenon. This is because most of the companies that use this type of compensation system show a financial downturn and negative financial ratio. Purpose: The purpose with this thesis is by evaluating annual report’s examining the relation between bonus compensations and company size. Also, to revise if there is a relation between profitability and dividends of the CEO compensation for the companies that has the aim for compensation. Method: This thesis is based on a quantitative study where the empiric consists of secondary data collected from annual reports for companies listed on the stock exchange. Empirical: The empirical data is presented in tables and graphs. The result shows that some companies give compensation despite negative financial ratio. Conclusion: The study shows that companies that are most prone to the compensation payout to the CEO are mostly larger companies, their numbers regarding compensation exceeds substantially the dividends shown in the medium-sized businesses. The study also shows that the relationship between compensation and profitability varies between the companies which are analyzed in the study. It has been difficult to draw a clear parallel between profitability and dividends, since the majority of the companies have negative financial ratio but have a dividend that can be compared to companies that have profitable numbers.

Increase demand for biofuel in the world as the means to mitigate global climate change, energy option and reduced fule import expenses have attracted many companies to acquire land in developing countries like Tanzania. To invest on biofuel in Africa is believed to be a means for generating incomes from expert, to employ rural people, enhance infrastructure development.However, in Africa biofuels policy is still weak. This study mainly focuses on people`s expectation during and after the investment.Issue of compensation procedure and promises seems to be a big problem; something brought tension of being cheated among local communities. Futhermore, community involvement and integration of jatropha with smallholder´s agriculture is also low.

<p>In Drosophila melanogaster, where males are XY and females are XX, dosage compensation is acheived by approximately two-fold upregulation of transcription of the single male X chromosome. This upregulation is mediated by the dosage compensation complex (DCC), which is assembled in a sequential manner on the male X chromosome and is composed of the two noncoding roX (RNA on the X) RNAs and at least five proteins, including the RNA helicase Maleless (MLE). MLE contains two highly conserved double stranded RNA binding domains (DRBDs) at the N terminus. We investigated the roles of the roX RNAs and MLE helicase through experiments using classical genetic methods to generate and analyze the effects of mutants and mutant transgenes, immunolocalization experiments to study MSL protein and roX RNA to chromosomes. For the first time in vivo, we demonstrate that MLE associates with double stranded RNA in a sequence non-specific manner that is independent of other DCC components. Importantly, we find that the DSRBDs of MLE are essential for dosage compensation but are not required for MLE localization to the male X chromosome. We propose that although the DSRBDs are not essential for ds RNA binding, they may act synergistically with other domains of MLE or other MSLs to associate with RNA in vivo. We propose that a MLE/ roX RNA association involving secondary structure formed by the roX RNAs may be involved in the assembly, stabilization, or function of the DCC.</p> / Dissertation

Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) refers to the process of nondestructive autonomous in situ monitoring of the integrity of critical engineering structures such as airplanes, bridges and buildings. Ultrasonic wave propagation is an ideal interrogation method for SHM because ultrasound is the elastic vibration of the material itself and is thus directly affected by any structural damage occurring in the paths of the propagating waves. The objective of this thesis is to provide a comprehensive damage detection strategy for SHM using diffuse ultrasonic waves. This strategy includes a systematic temperature compensation method, differential feature extraction methods optimized for discriminating benign surface condition changes from damage, and data fusion methods to determine the structural status. The temperature compensation method is based upon a set of pre-recorded baselines. Using the methods of baseline selection and baseline correction, a baseline that best matches a monitored signal in temperature is provided. For the differential feature extraction, three types of features are proposed. The first type includes basic differential features such as mean squared error. The second type is derived from a matching pursuit based signal decomposition. An ultrasonic signal is decomposed into a sum of characteristic wavelets, and differential features are extracted based upon changes in the decomposition between a baseline signal and a monitored signal. The third type is a phase space feature extraction method, where an ultrasonic signal is embedded into phase space and features are extracted based on changes of the phase portrait. The structural status is determined based on a data fusion strategy consisting of a threshold selection method, fusion at the feature level, and fusion at the sensor level. The proposed damage detection strategy is applied to experiments on aluminum specimens with artificial defects subjected to a variety of environmental variations. Results as measured by the probability of detection, the false alarm rate, and the size of damage detected demonstrate the viability of the proposed techniques.

This dissertation develops an unclocked receiver analog decision-feedback equalizer (ADFE) circuit architecture and topology and implements the circuit in 0.18-um CMOS to enable 10-Gb/sec serial baseband data transmission over FR-4 backplane and optical fibre. The ADFE overcomes the first feedback-loop latency challenge of traditional digital and mixed-signal DFEs by separating data re-timing from equalization and also eliminates the need for clock-recovery prior to decision-feedback equalization. The ADFE enables 10-Gb/sec decision-feedback equalization using a 0.18-um CMOS process, the first to do so to the author s knowledge. A tuneable current-mode-logic (CML) feedback-loop is designed to enable first post-cursor cancellation for a range of data-rates and to have external control over loop latency over variations in process, voltage and temperature. CML design techniques are used to minimize current consumption and achieve the required voltage swing for decision-feedback to take place. The all-analog equalizer consumes less power and area than comparable state-of-the art DFEs. The ADFE is used to compensate inter-symbol interference (ISI) for 20 inches of FR-4 backplane and 300 m of multi-mode fibre at 10-Gb/sec. The ADFE also extends the reach of single-mode fibre at 10-Gb/sec to 120 km. The work described in this dissertation advances the state-of-the-art in equalization solutions for multi-Gb/sec serial data transmission and can find applications in several of the 10-Gb/sec Ethernet standards that have been approved recently. The contributions of this work toward future research are also discussed.

In the last two decades, VLSI technology scaling has spurred a rapid growth in the semiconductor industry. With CMOS device dimensions falling below 100 nm, achieving higher performance and packing more complex functionalities into digital integrated circuits have become easier. However, the scaling trend poses new challenges to design and process engineers. First, larger process parameter variations in the current technologies cause larger spread in the delay and power distribution of circuits and result in the parametric yield loss. In addition, ensuring the reliability of deep sub-micron (DSM) technologies under soft/transient errors is a significant challenge. These errors occur because of the combined effects of the atmospheric radiations and the significantly reduced noise margins of scaled technologies. This thesis focuses on addressing the issues related to the process variations and reliability in deeply scaled CMOS technologies. The objective of this research has been to develop circuit-level techniques to address process variations, transient errors, and the reliability concern. The proposed techniques can be divided into two parts. The first part addresses the process variation concern and proposes techniques to reduce the variation effects on power and performance distribution. The second part deals with the transient errors and techniques to reduce the effect of transient errors with minimum hardware or computational overhead.

This thesis is composed of two parts : a 3¡ÑVDD bidirectional mixed-voltage-tolerant I/O buffer, and a 2¡ÑVDD output buffer with process and temperature compensation. In the first topic, a 3¡ÑVDD bidirectional mixed-voltage-tolerant I/O buffer, which is able to tolerate 3¡ÑVDD using stacking transistors in the output stage, is proposed. These transistors are biased by corresponding voltage levels which are generated by a dynamic gate bias generator and a floating N-well circuit when transmitting or receiving signals. In order to prevent the input stage transistors from gate-oxide overstress, an NMOS clamping technique is used to block high input voltages. This design can receive and transmit 0.9 V to 5.0 V (0.9/1.2/1.8/2.5/3.3/5.0 V) signals, which has been implemented using TSMC 1P6M 0.18 £gm CMOS process. The second topic shows a 2¡ÑVDD output buffer with process and temperature compensation using 1P6M 0.18 £gm CMOS process. In this design, a novel process and temperature variation detector is proposed to detect the corners of NMOS and PMOS, respectively. The driving capability of the output stage is enhanced at those corners with low output currents. By contrast, the driving currents is reduced at those corners with high output currents to reduce the variation of output slew rate.

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In these years, more and more organizations adopt ¡§pay for performance programs¡¨ to encourage employees to increase their performance in order to survive from the intensively industrial competition. For the organizations which value the sales performance as nuclear operating target, pay for performance programs seem to work out fairly. However, organizations still need to figure out if the pecuniary compensation really relate to employees¡¦ performance and if the pecuniary compensation really encourage employees for better performance which are also the main discussions for this research. The characteristics of real estate industrial is that the realtors¡¦ performance directly relate to the continuity of the organization. Therefore, this research conducts realtors to discuss the connection between performance contingent compensation and sales personnel performance. This research also discusses if performance contingent compensation would indirectly affect sales personnel performance by working motivation. At the same time, it discuesses how the performance contingent compensation affects sales personnel performance accroding to the differentiation of their personal reward orientation and sales control system in the organizations. This research is conducted through opinion survey to realtors in Taipei, Taichung, and Kaohsiung City. Within the total number of 500 copies of questionnaires, 425 copies are retrieved, and 346 copies are valid. With statistics analysis, the findings of the research are summarized as follows: 1.Performance contingent compensation has positive impact on behavioral performance. 2.Performance contingent compensation has positive impact on outcome performance. 3.Performance contingent compensation has positive impact on task enjoyment and compensation seeking from the aspect of working motivation, but it has unapparent impact on challenge seeking and recognition seeking. 4.Behavioral performance has positive impact on challenge seeking, task enjoyment, and compensation seeking from the aspect of working motivation, but it has unapparent impact on recognition seeking. 5.Outcome performance has positive impact on challenge seeking, task enjoyment, compensation seeking, and recognition seeking from the aspect of working motivation. 6.Working motivation mediates the relationship between performance contingent compensation and sales personnel performance. a. Working motivation mediates the relationship between performance contingent compensation and sales personnel behavioral performance. b. Working motivation mediates the relationship between performance contingent compensation and sales personnel outcome performance. 7.Reward oriented has unapparent interference effect on performance contingent compensation and behavioral performance. a. Intrinsic reward oriented has unapparent interference effect on performance contingent and behavioral performance. b. Extrinsic reward oriented has unapparent interference effect on performance contingent and behavioral performance. 8.Reward oriented has unapparent interference effect on performance contingent compensation and outcome performance. a. Intrinsic reward oriented has unapparent interference effect on performance contingent and outcome performance. b. Extrinsic reward oriented has unapparent interference effect on performance contingent and outcome performance. 9.Sales control system has interference effect on performance contingent compensation and behavioral performance. a. Activity control has negative interference effect on performance contingent and behavioral performance. b. Capability control has negative interference effect on performance contingent and behavioral performance. 10.Sales control system has interference effect on performance contingent compensation and outcome performance. a. Activity control has unapparent interference effect on performance contingent and outcome performance. b. Capability control has negative interference effect on performance contingent and outcome performance.