Vehicle handling models are commonly used in the design and analysis of vehicle dynamics. Especially, with the advances in vehicle control systems need for accurate and simple vehicle handling models have increased. These models have parameters, some of which are known or easily obtainable, yet some of which are unknown or difficult to obtain. These parameters are obtained by system identification, which is the study of building model from experimental data. In this thesis, identification of vehicle handling models is based on data obtained from the simulation of complex vehicle dynamics model from ADAMS representing the real vehicle and a general methodology has been developed. Identified vehicle handling models are the linear bicycle model and vehicle roll models with different tire models. Changes of sensitivity of the model outputs to model parameters with steering input frequency have been examined by sensitivity analysis to design the test input. To show that unknown parameters of the model can be identified uniquely, structural identifiability analysis has been performed. Minimizing the difference between the data obtained from the simulation of ADAMS vehicle model and the data obtained from the simulation of simple handling models by mathematical optimization methods, unknown parameters have been estimated and handling models have been identified. Estimation task has been performed using MATLAB Simulink Parameter Estimation Toolbox. By model validation it has been shown that identified handling models represent the vehicle system successfully.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 1997. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 174-178). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 1997. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 174-178). Also available on the Internet.

No / Spectrum sensing is used in cognitive radio systems to detect the availability of spectrum holes for secondary usage. The simplest and most famous spectrum sensing techniques are based either on energy detection or eigenspace analysis from Random Matrix Theory (RMT) such as using the Marchenko-Pastur law. These schemes suffer from uncertainty in estimating the noise variance which reduces their performance. In this paper we propose a new method to evaluate the noise variance that can eliminate the limitations of the aforementioned schemes. This method estimates the noise variance from a measurement set of noisy signals or noise-only signals. Extensive simulations show that the proposed method performs well in estimating the noise variance. Its performance greatly improves with increasing numbers of measurements and also with increasing numbers of samples taken per measurement.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Statistics / Paul Nelson / Panels of judges are often used to estimate consumer preferences for m items such as food products. Judges can either evaluate each item on several ordinal scales and indirectly produce an overall ranking, or directly report a ranking of the items. A complete ranking orders all the items from best to worst. A partial ranking, as we use the term, only reports rankings of the best q out of m items. Direct ranking, the subject of this report, does not require the widespread but questionable practice of treating ordinal measurement as though they were on ratio or interval scales. Here, we develop and study segmentation models in which the panel may consist of relatively homogeneous subgroups, the segments. Judges within a subgroup will tend to agree among themselves and differ from judges in the other subgroups. We develop and study the statistical analysis of mixture models where it is not known to which segment a judge belongs or in some cases how many segments there are. Viewing segment membership indicator variables as latent data, an E-M algorithm was used to find the maximum likelihood estimators of the parameters specifying a mixture of Mallow’s (1957) distance models for complete and partial rankings. A simulation study was conducted to evaluate the behavior of the E-M algorithm in terms of such issues as the fraction of data sets for which the algorithm fails to converge and the sensitivity of initial values to the convergence rate and the performance of the maximum likelihood estimators in terms of bias and mean square error, where applicable. A Bayesian approach was developed and credible set estimators was constructed. Simulation was used to evaluate the performance of these credible sets as confidence sets. A method for predicting segment membership from covariates measured on a judge was derived using a logistic model applied to a mixture of Mallows probability distance models. The effects of covariates on segment membership were assessed. Likelihood sets for parameters specifying mixtures of Mallows distance models were constructed and explored.

Energy is increasingly becoming more important in today&rsquo / s world. Ascending of energy consumption due to development of technology and dense population of earth causes greenhouse effect. One of the most valuable energy sources is hydro energy. Because of limited energy sources and excessive energy usage, cost of energy is rising. There are many ways to generate electricity. Among the electricity generation units, hydroelectric power plants are very important, since they are renewable energy sources and they have no fuel cost. Electricity is one of the most expensive input in production. Every hydro energy potential should be considered when making investment on this hydro energy potential. To decide whether a hydroelectric power plant investment is feasible or not, project cost and amount of electricity generation of the investment should be precisely estimated. This study is about cost estimation of hydroelectric power plant projects. Many design parameters and complexity of construction affect the cost of hydroelectric power plant projects. In this thesis fifty four hydroelectric power plant projects are analyzed. The data set is analyzed by using regression analysis and artificial neural network tools. As a result, two cost estimation models have been developed to determine the hydroelectric power plant project cost in early stage of the project.

Conceptual cost estimates play a crucial role on initial project decisions although scope is not finalized and very limited design information is available during early project stages. At these stages, cost estimates are needed by the owner, contractor, designer or the lending organization for several purposes including / determination of feasibility of a project, financial evaluation of a number of alternative projects or establishment of an initial budget. Conceptual cost estimates are not expected to be precise, since project scope is not finalized and very limited design information is available during the pre-design stages of a project. However / a quick, inexpensive and reasonably accurate estimate is needed based on the available information. In this study, conceptual cost estimating models will be developed for urban railway systems using data of projects from Turkey. The accuracy of the models and advantages of the study will be discussed.

The aim of this thesis is to determine the value of the company Technicky skusobny ustav based in Piešťany. The first part of the work deals with the theoretical basis for the evaluation of the company, there are described the reasons why to evaluate companies, and further process to apply for the valuation. The following is a description of selected parts of the strategic and financial analysis, financial plan and evaluation methods. Furthermore, there will be presented the chosen company and subsequently evaluated according to methods in the theoretical part. For determining the value of the company there were used discounted free cash flow method and economic value added method. In the conclusion specific evaluation methods are applied and statement stated about the value of the company dated to 31.12.2015.

Bei der Überführung eines wissenschaftlichen Laborsystems zur automatischen Spracherkennung in eine reale Anwendung ergeben sich verschiedene praktische Problemstellungen, von denen eine der Verlust an Erkennungsleistung durch umgebende akustische Störungen ist. Im Gegensatz zu additiven Störungen wie Lüfterrauschen o. ä. hat die Wissenschaft bislang die Störung des Raumhalls bei der Spracherkennung nahezu ignoriert. Dabei besitzen, wie in der vorliegenden Dissertation deutlich gezeigt wird, bereits geringfügig hallende Räume einen stark störenden Einfluss auf die Leistungsfähigkeit von Spracherkennern. Mit dem Ziel, die Erkennungsleistung wieder in einen praktisch benutzbaren Bereich zu bringen, nimmt sich die Arbeit dieser Problemstellung an und schlägt Lösungen vor. Der Hintergrund der wissenschaftlichen Aktivitäten ist die Erstellung von funktionsfähigen Sprachbenutzerinterfaces für Gerätesteuerungen im Wohn- und Büroumfeld, wie z.~B. bei der Hausautomation. Aus diesem Grund werden praktische Randbedingungen wie die Restriktionen von embedded Computerplattformen in die Lösungsfindung einbezogen. Die Argumentation beginnt bei der Beschreibung der raumakustischen Umgebung und der Ausbreitung von Schallfeldern in Räumen. Es wird theoretisch gezeigt, dass die Störung eines Sprachsignals durch Hall von zwei Parametern abhängig ist: der Sprecher-Mikrofon-Distanz (SMD) und der Nachhallzeit T60. Um die Abhängigkeit der Erkennungsleistung vom Grad der Hallstörung zu ermitteln, wird eine Anzahl von Erkennungsexperimenten durchgeführt, die den Einfluss von T60 und SMD nachweisen. Weitere Experimente zeigen, dass die Spracherkennung kaum durch hochfrequente Hallanteile beeinträchtigt wird, wohl aber durch tieffrequente. In einer Literaturrecherche wird ein Überblick über den Stand der Technik zu Maßnahmen gegeben, die den störenden Einfluss des Halls unterdrücken bzw. kompensieren können. Jedoch wird auch gezeigt, dass, obwohl bei einigen Maßnahmen von Verbesserungen berichtet wird, keiner der gefundenen Ansätze den o. a. praktischen Einsatzbedingungen genügt. In dieser Arbeit wird die Methode Harmonicity-based Feature Analysis (HFA) vorgeschlagen. Sie basiert auf drei Ideen, die aus den Betrachtungen der vorangehenden Kapitel abgeleitet werden. Experimentelle Ergebnisse weisen die Verbesserung der Erkennungsleistung in halligen Umgebungen nach. Es werden sogar praktisch relevante Erkennungsraten erzielt, wenn die Methode mit verhalltem Training kombiniert wird. Die HFA wird gegen Ansätze aus der Literatur evaluiert, die ebenfalls praktischen Implementierungskriterien genügen. Auch Kombinationen der HFA und einigen dieser Ansätze werden getestet. Im letzten Kapitel werden die beiden Basistechnologien Stimm\-haft-Stimmlos-Entscheidung und Grundfrequenzdetektion umfangreich unter Hallbedingungen getestet, da sie Voraussetzung für die Funktionsfähigkeit der HFA sind. Als Ergebnis wird dargestellt, dass derzeit für beide Technologien kein Verfahren existiert, das unter Hallbedingungen robust arbeitet. Es kann allerdings gezeigt werden, dass die HFA trotz der Unsicherheiten der Verfahren arbeitet und signifikante Steigerungen der Erkennungsleistung erreicht. / Automatic speech recognition (ASR) systems used in real-world indoor scenarios suffer from performance degradation if noise and reverberation conditions differ from the training conditions of the recognizer. This thesis deals with the problem of room reverberation as a cause of distortion in ASR systems. The background of this research is the design of practical command and control applications, such as a voice controlled light switch in rooms or similar applications. Therefore, the design aims to incorporate several restricting working conditions for the recognizer and still achieve a high level of robustness. One of those design restrictions is the minimisation of computational complexity to allow the practical implementation on an embedded processor. One chapter comprehensively describes the room acoustic environment, including the behavior of the sound field in rooms. It addresses the speaker room microphone (SRM) system which is expressed in the time domain as the room impulse response (RIR). The convolution of the RIR with the clean speech signal yields the reverberant signal at the microphone. A thorough analysis proposes that the degree of the distortion caused by reverberation is dependent on two parameters, the reverberation time T60 and the speaker-to-microphone distance (SMD). To evaluate the dependency of the recognition rate on the degree of distortion, a number of experiments has been successfully conducted, confirming the above mentioned dependency of the two parameters, T60 and SMD. Further experiments have shown that ASR is barely affected by high-frequency reverberation, whereas low frequency reverberation has a detrimental effect on the recognition rate. A literature survey concludes that, although several approaches exist which claim significant improvements, none of them fulfils the above mentioned practical implementation criteria. Within this thesis, a new approach entitled 'harmonicity-based feature analysis' (HFA) is proposed. It is based on three ideas that are derived in former chapters. Experimental results prove that HFA is able to enhance the recognition rate in reverberant environments. Even practical applicable results are achieved when HFA is combined with reverberant training. The method is further evaluated against three other approaches from the literature. Also combinations of methods are tested. In a last chapter the two base technologies fundamental frequency (F0) estimation and voiced unvoiced decision (VUD) are evaluated in reverberant environments, since they are necessary to run HFA. This evaluation aims to find one optimal method for each of these technologies. The results show that all F0 estimation methods and also the VUD methods have a strong decreasing performance in reverberant environments. Nevertheless it is shown that HFA is able to deal with uncertainties of these base technologies as such that the recognition performance still improves.

The estimation and analysis of signals that have polynomial phase and constant or time-varying amplitudes with the addititve noise is considered in this dissertation.Much work has been undertaken on this problem over the last decade or so, and there are a number of estimation schemes available. The fundamental problem when trying to estimate the parameters of these type of signals is the nonlinear characterstics of the signal, which lead to computationally difficulties when applying standard techniques such as maximum likelihood and least squares. When considering only the phase data, we also encounter the well known problem of the unobservability of the true noise phase curve. The methods that are currently most popular involve differencing in phase followed by regression, or nonlinear transformations. Although these methods perform quite well at high signal to noise ratios, their performance worsens at low signal to noise, and there may be significant bias. One of the biggest problems to efficient estimation of these models is that the majority of methods rely on sequential estimation of the phase coefficients, in that the highest-order parameter is estimated first, its contribution removed via demodulation, and the same procedure applied to estimation of the next parameter and so on. This is clearly an issue in that errors in estimation of high order parameters affect the ability to estimate the lower order parameters correctly. As a result, stastical analysis of the parameters is also difficult. In thie dissertation, we aim to circumvent the issues of bias and sequential estiamtion by considering the issue of full parameter iterative refinement techniques. ie. given a possibly biased initial estimate of the phase coefficients, we aim to create computationally efficient iterative refinement techniques to produce stastically efficient estimators at low signal to noise ratios. Updating will be done in a multivariable manner to remove inaccuracies and biases due to sequential procedures. Stastical analysis and extensive simulations attest to the performance of the schemes that are presented, which include likelihood, least squares and bayesian estimation schemes. Other results of importance to the full estimatin problem, namely when there is error in the time variable, the amplitude is not constant, and when the model order is not known, are also condsidered.