Master's thesis is referring the importance and requirement of internal audit in middle sized enterprises. It summarizes theoretical basis for the implementation of internal audit's profession and its legislative environment. Thesis is focused on the analysis of the processes of administration and record keeping of leasing agreements in corporation. Based on the analysis, solutions and measures concerning internal controls are proposed. Goal of the Master's thesis is to refer the importance of establishing and evaluation of the internal control processes. Subject of internal audit are not only non-functioning processes but also internal controls, which can be well established and functioning but management has no feedback about their efficiency.

The objective of this research is to investigate different propagation models to determine if specified models accurately predict received signal levels for short path 900 MHz spread spectrum radio systems. The City of Denton, Texas provided data and physical facilities used in the course of this study. The literature review indicates that propagation models have not been studied specifically for short path spread spectrum radio systems. This work should provide guidelines and be a useful example for planning and implementing such radio systems. The propagation model involves the following considerations: analysis of intervening terrain, path length, and fixed system gains and losses.

Several nice hardware functionalities located at the low level of operating system on mobile phones could be utilized in a better way if they are available to application developers. With their help, developers are able to bring overall user experience to a new level in terms of developing novel applications. For instance, one of those hardware functionalities, SIM-card authentication is able to offer stronger and more convenient way of authentication when compared to the traditional approach. Replacing the username-password combination with the SIM-card authentication, users are freed from memorizing passwords. However, since normally those kinds of functionalities are locked up at the low level, they are only accessible by a few users who have been given privileged access rights. To let the normal applications be benefiting as well, they need to be made accessible at the application level. On the one hand, as we see the benefit it will bring to us, there is a clear intention to open it up, however, on the other hand, there is also a limitation resulting from their security-critical nature that needs to be placed when accessing which is restricting the access to trusted third parties. Our investigation is based on the Android platform. The problem that we have discovered is the existing security mechanism in Android is not able to satisfy every regards of requirements we mentioned above when exposing SIM-card authentication functionality. Hence, our requirement on enhancing the access control model of Android comes naturally. In order to better suit the needs, we proposed a solution White lists & Domains (WITDOM) to improve its current situation in the thesis. The proposed solution is an extension to the existing access control model in Android that allows alternative ways to specify access controls therefore complementing the existing Android security mechanisms. We have both designed and implemented the solution and the result shows that with the service that we provided, critical functionalities, such as APIs for the low-level hardware functionality can retain the same level of protection however in the meanwhile, with more flexible protection mechanism. / Social Wireless Network Secure Identification

This thesis describes the design, assembly, and test of the FTDS-K, a new device in the Boundary Layer Data System (BLDS) family of flight data acquisition systems. The FTDS-K provides high-frequency, high-gain data acquisition capability for up to two pressure sensors and an additional three low-frequency pressure sensors. Development of the FTDS-K was separated into a core module, specialized analog subsystem, and practical testing of the FTDS-K in a flow measurement mission. The core module combines an nRF52840-based microcontroller module, switching regulator, microSD card, real-time clock, temperature sensor, and trio of pressure sensors to provide the same capabilities as previous-generation BLDS-P devices. An expansion header is included in the core module to allow additional functionality to be added via daughter boards. An analog signal chain comprised of two-stage amplification and fourth-order active antialiasing filters was implemented as a daughter board to provide an AC-coupled end-to-end gain of 7,500 and a DC-coupled end-to-end gain of 50. This arrangement was tested in a wind tunnel to demonstrate that sensors with a full-scale range of 103 kPa can be used to reliably discriminate between laminar and turbulent flows based on pressure fluctuation differences on the order of tens of Pa. A combination of wind-off correction and band-filtering was used to reduce the effect of inherent and induced electrical noise, while two-sensor correlation was tested and shown to be effective at removing certain types of noise. Total power consumption for the FTDS-K in a representative mission is 208 mW, which translates to an operational endurance of 9 hours with 2 AAA LiFeS2 cells at -40°C.

The diploma thesis deals with the issue of operating aircrafts by people with physical disabi-lities. Firstly, it formulates medical eligibility requirements for pilots with mobility restricti-ons. Because there is a large number of movement restrictions and each of them is very indi-vidual, an adaptation for only one of these categories was chosen for the conceptual design of the aircraft in this diploma thesis: limitation of the lower half of the body. The aircraft is designed to best meet the needs of pilots with this limitation of movement, with emphasis on ergonomics, the possibility of independent use without any help of other people and espe-cially on the safety of the user. Furthermore, the work examines possibilities of adjusting the control of aircraft for the disabled, tries to choose the most suitable one which is then desci-bed. In the end, an examination of the UL2 regulation requirements for the designed aircraft is done.

The advancement in solar panel and battery technology makes them useful for energy supply and storage. This thesis involves the modeling and charging control of a lithium ion battery system for solar panels. The proposed model is based on the parameters and characteristics of a realistic battery and solar panel system; and the hybrid control approach combines the advantages of the adaptive incremental conductance method and the perturb and observe method to track the maximum power point of the solar panel for charging the battery unit. Computer simulation results demonstrate that this proposed approach offers a faster convergence rate than the adaptive incremental conductance method, and less steady-state error than the perturb and observe method.

Traditional robots, while capable of being efficient and effective for the task they were designed, are dangerous when operating in unmodeled environments or around humans. The field of soft robotics attempts to increase the safety of robots thus enabling them to operate in environments where traditional robots should not operate. Because of this, soft robots were developed with different goals in mind than traditional robots and as such the traditional metrics used to evaluate standard robots are not effective for evaluating soft robots. New metrics need to be developed for soft robots so that effective comparison and evaluations can be made. This dissertation attempts to lay the groundwork for that process through a survey on soft robot metrics. Additionally we propose six soft robot actuator metrics that can be used to evaluate and compare characteristics and performance of soft robot actuators. Data from eight different soft robot rotational actuators (five distinct designs) were used to evaluate these soft robot actuator metrics and show their utility. New models, control methods and estimation methods also need to be developed for soft robots. Many of the traditional methods and assumptions for modeling and controlling robotic systems are not able to provide the fidelity that is needed for soft robots to effectively complete useful tasks. This dissertation presents specific developments in each of these areas of soft robot metrics, modeling, control and estimation. We show several incremental improvements to soft robot dynamic models as well as how they were used in control methods for more precise control. We also demonstrate a method for linearizing high degree of freedom models so it can be simplified for use in faster control methods for better performance. Lastly, we present an improved continuum joint configuration estimation method that uses a linear combination of length measurements. All these developments combine to help build the "fundamental engineering framework" that is needed for soft robotics as well as helping to move robots out of their confined spaces and bring them into new unmodeled/unstructured environments.

Occupational fraud is a growing business risk that is causing greater financial losses in small businesses than large businesses. Business owners lose approximately 5% of their revenues due to occupational fraud. The purpose of this multiple case study was to explore the strategies used by some business owners of small restaurants to reduce occupational fraud. The fraud triangle theory was the conceptual framework for this study. Three small restaurant owners from Puerto Rico participated in face-to-face, semistructured interviews to reveal their successful strategies to minimize fraud. The data collection process also included business documents and researcher observations that assisted in establishing methodological triangulation. Using Yin's 5-step process, data were coded and analyzed to identify emergent themes. The primary emergent themes obtained from data analysis revealed that owner monitoring, analytical procedures, and segregation of duties are effective strategies to minimize employee fraud. Participants revealed that the implementation of these strategies may reduce organizational losses associated to fraud. The findings of this study may contribute to social change by reducing fraud activities, business failures, unemployment level, and criminality rate while promoting trust between community members and their institutions.

The organization and morphology of Middle Fork Sheep Creek and South Fork Sheep Creek, two mountain streams in the upper Sheep Creek basin, are controlled by the spatial distribution of glacial moraines. Both channels are organized into a reoccurring sequence of steep-gradient reaches changing downstream to low-gradient reaches. Steep-gradient reaches are located where the channels flow through moraine s. Low-gradient reaches are located in meadows downstream of the steep-gradient reaches and immediately upstream of the next moraine. Knickpoints in the longitudinal profiles of both streams coincide with the location of moraines. Large boulder s, beyond the size transportable by the channel at bankfull discharge, are found within the steep-gradient channels, and are presumed to be glacial lag. Between knickpoints, channel morphology follows the conceptual model of Montgomery and Buffington. Unlike mountain channels elsewhere, landslides, debris flows, and alluvial fans do not influence the morphology or organization of Middle Fork Sheep Creek and South Fork Sheep Creek. Large woody debris loading is less than on channels in Washington and Alaska, with debris dams found mainly in reaches with gradients less than cascade and greater than pool-riffle. Middle Fork Sheep Creek and South Fork Sheep Creek are located in a glaciated basin. At time scales of 103 to 104 years, the channels may be classified as in disequilibrium and the system is not adjusted to present conditions. The presence of large, unmovable boulder s within the steep-gradient channels allows the location of the steep-gradient channels to remain static until the large particles are transported during infrequent large discharges. At time scales of 101 to 102 years, the channels may be thought of as equilibrium systems with channel variables adjusted to the present climate.

The aim of this thesis is the development and implementation of a controlled testing platform for the Robust Intelligent Sensing and Controls (RISC) Lab at Utah State University (USU). This will be an open source adaptable expandable robotics platform usable for both education and research. This differs from the many other platforms developed in that the entire platform software will be made open source. This open source software will encourage collaboration among other universities and enable researchers to essentially pick up where others have left off without the necessity of replicating months or even years of work. The expected results of this research will create a foundation for diverse robotics investigation at USU as well as enable attempts at novel methods of control, estimation and optimization. This will also contribute a complete software testbed setup to the already vibrant robotics open source research community. This thesis first outlines the platform setup and novel developments therein. The second stage provides an example of how this has been used in education, providing an example curriculum implementing modern control techniques. The third section provides some exploratory research in trajectory control and state estimation of the tip of an inverted pendulum atop a small unmanned aerial vehicle as well as bearing-only cooperative localization experimentation. Finally, a conclusion and future work is discussed.