Nowadays there is an increasing need for a general paradigm that can simplify network management and further enable network innovations. Software Defined Networking (SDN) is an efficient way to make the network programmable and reduce management complexity, however it is plagued with limitations inherited from the legacy Internet (TCP/IP) architecture. On the other hand, service overlay networks and virtual networks are widely used to overcome deficiencies of the Internet. However, most overlay/virtual networks are single-layered and lack dynamic scope management. Furthermore, how to solve the joint problem of designing and mapping the overlay/virtual network requests for better application and network performance remains an understudied area. In this thesis, in response to limitations of current SDN management solutions and of the traditional single-layer overlay/virtual network design, we propose a recursive approach to enterprise network management, where network management is done through managing various Virtual Transport Networks (VTNs) over different scopes (i.e., regions of operation). Different from the traditional overlay/virtual network model which mainly focuses on routing/tunneling, our VTN approach provides communication service with explicit Quality-of-Service (QoS) support for applications via transport flows, i.e., it involves all mechanisms (e.g., addressing, routing, error and flow control, resource allocation) needed to meet application requirements. Our approach inherently provides a multi-layer solution for overlay/virtual network design. The contributions of this thesis are threefold: (1) we propose a novel VTN-based management approach to enterprise network management; (2) we develop a framework for multi-layer VTN design and instantiate it to meet specific application and network goals; and (3) we design and prototype a VTN-based management architecture. Our simulation and experimental results demonstrate the flexibility of our VTN-based management approach and its performance advantages.

The study presents a systematic single and two-phase analysis of fluid flow and heat transfer in a liquid hydrogen storage vessel for both earth and space applications.The study considered a cylindrical tank with elliptical top and bottom. The tank wall ismade of aluminum and a multi-layered blanket of cryogenic insulation (MLI) has been attached on the top of the aluminum. The tank is connected to a cryocooler to dissipate the heat leak through the insulation and tank wall into the fluid within the tank. The cryocooler has not been modeled; only the flow in and out of the tank to the cryocooler system has been included. The primary emphasis of this research has been the fluid circulation within the tank for different fluid distribution scenario and for different level of gravity to simulate all potential earth and space based applications. The equations solved in the liquid region included the conservation of mass, conservation of energy, and conservation of momentum. For the solid region only the heat conduction equation was solved. The steady-state velocity, temperature and pressure distributions were calculated for different inlet positions, inlet opening sizes, inlet velocities and for different gravity values. The above simulations were carried out for constant heat flux and constant wall temperature cases. It was observed from single-phase analysis that a good flow circulation can be obtained when the cold entering fluid was made to flow in radial direction and the inlet opening was placed close to the tank wall. For a two-phase analysis the mass and energy balance at the evaporating interface was taken into account by incorporating the change in specific volume and latent heat of evaporation. A good flow circulation in the liquid region was observed when the cold entering fluid was made to flow at an angle to the axis of the tank or aligned to the bottom surface of the tank. The fluid velocity in the vapor region was found to be higher compared to the liquid region. The focus of the study for the later part of the present investigation was the conjugate heat transfer during a confined liquid jet impingement on a uniform and discrete heating source. Equations governing the conservation of mass, momentum, and energy were solved in the fluid region. In the solid region, the heat conduction equation was solved. The solid-fluid interface temperature shows a strong dependence on several geometric, fluid flow, and heat transfer parameters. For uniform and discrete heat sources the Nusselt number increased with Reynolds number. For a given flow rate, a higher heat transfer coefficient was obtained with smaller slot width and lower impingement height.The average Nusselt number and average heat transfer coefficient are greater for a lower thermal conductivity substrate. A higher heat transfer coefficient at the impingement location was seen at a smaller thickness, whereas a thicker plate or a higher thermal conductivity plate material provided a more uniform distribution of heat transfer coefficient. Compared to Mil-7808 and FC-77, ammonia provided much smaller solidfluid interface temperature and higher heat transfer coefficient whereas FC-77 provided lower Nusselt number. In case of discrete heat sources calculations were done for two different physical conditions, namely, when the total input power is constant and when the magnitude of heat flux at the sources are constant. There was a periodic rise and fall of interface temperature along the heated and unheated regions of the plate when the plate thickness was negligible. The average Nusselt number and average local heat transfer coefficient were highest for uniform heating case and it increased with number of heat sources during discrete heating.

In the hectic world of an IT helpdesk with an ever increasing number of applications and tasks on the go, managing the intricacies of how to navigate these is a cause of frustration for helpdesk workers. I had noticed while working on a helpdesk that the workspace area - particularly the monitor setups that IT helpdesk workers have to use - makes doing their job difficult. The number of applications open, the number of tasks on the go at once and the added pressure of customer contact, all call for applications and data to be accessed quickly - but the set up of the users workspace generally does not allow for this. The main objective of this research is to compare the difference between the use of a single screen, a dual screen and the new Multi-Layer Display (MLD) and the complications of having multiple applications and multiple monitors operating at one time for IT Helpdesk Workers. This research looked at how the users' monitor setup influenced the performance, efficiency, satisfaction, ergonomics and learning of the participants.The research showed that there was a clear dislike of the current set up of single screens; all participants felt that the single screen setup limited what they could do at once and it rated the least favourite of all. The dual and MLD screens showed positive outcomes for increasing multi-tasking abilities and raising users' perceived performance and satisfaction levels. The added screen real estate of both the dual and MLD over the single screen meant that users consistently had more information available to them 7which enabled them to complete tasks quicker, monitor other applications for incoming jobs, easily transfer data from one application to another and multi-task more effectively. While there were some minor ergonomic concerns and learning difficulties with the unique features and utilities of the both the dual and MLD monitors, participants still preferred to use these setups over the single screen.

In this research, a novel machine learning method is designed and applied to Mine Countermeasure Missions. Similarly to some kernel methods, the proposed approach seeks to compute a linear model from another higher dimensional feature space. However, no kernel is used and the feature mapping is explicit. Computation can be done directly in the accessible feature space. In the proposed approach, the feature projection is implemented by constructing a large hidden layer, which differs from traditional belief that Multi-Layer Perceptron is usually funnel-shaped and the hidden layer is used as feature extractor. The proposed approach is a general method that can be applied to various problems. It is able to improve the performance of the neural network based methods and the learning speed of support vector machine. The classification speed of the proposed approach is also faster than that of kernel machines on the mine countermeasure mission task.

No description available.

This study applied sputtering technology to prepare composite film photocatalyst TiO2/ITO for investigating the decomposition efficiency of acetone using composite TiO2/ITO made by single- and multi-layer processes. The influences of operating parameters, including sputtering operating parameters and photocatalytic operating parameters, on the decomposition efficiency of acetone were further investigated. Operating parameters investigated for the sputtering process included oxygen to argon ratio (O2/Ar), temperature, substrate, sputtering dutation, and sputtering layers, while operating parameters investigated for the photocatalytic decomposition of acetone included light wavelength, H2O concentration, O2 concentration, initial acetone concentration, and the type of photocatalysts. In the experiments, acetone was degraded by the composite film photocatalyst TiO2/ITO in a self-designed batch photocatalytic reactor. Operating parameters included light wavelength (350~400 nm, 435~500 nm, 506~600 nm), the type of photocatalysts (single-layer film photocatalyst TiO2/ITO with the thickness of 355.3, 396.6, 437.5, 487.5, and 637.5 nm; double- and triple-layer TiO2/ITO), H2O concentration (0, 50, 100, 200, and 300 ppm). The incident light with different wavelength irradiated with three 15-W lamps of near UV light or LED lamps of blue and green lights placed on the top of the photocatalytic reactor. Acetone was injected into the reactor by using a gasket syringe and vaporized for further photocatalytic degradation on the film photocatalyst TiO2/ITO placed at the bottom of the reactor. Air samples were taken to analyze acetone concentration with a GC/FID. The composite film photocatalyst TiO2/ITO was mainly composed of anatase with a few rutile. The thicknesses of the single- and IV double-layer film photocatalyst with the thickness of 473.5 nm and 506.0 nm, respectively. Experimental results indicated that the highest decomposition efficiency of acetone was obtained by using TiO2/ITO, followed by TiO2/ground glass and TiO2/glass. The highest decomposition efficiency of acetone was observed by using TiO2/ITO at 50¢XC, 20% O2, and 100 ppm H2O. In the kinetic model, the acetone decomposition of single-layer TiO2/ITO was zero-order reaction. The acetone decomposition of double-layer TiO2/ITO in high initial acetone concentration was zero-order reaction, while that in low initial acetone concentration was first-order reaction. Thus, the decomposition of acetone exerted by TiO2 film photocatalyst can be enhanced efficiently by ITO. Under the incidence of blue light, the reaction rate of acetone decomposition were 2.353¡Ñ10-5 and 3.478¡Ñ10-5 £gmole/cm2-s for using single- and double-layer TiO2/ITO, respectively. Finally, a bimolecular Langmuir-Hinshelwood (L-H) kinetic model was applied to simulate the influences of initial acetone concentration, temperature, and relative humidity on the promotion and inhibition for the photocatalytic degradation of acetone. This study revealed that the L-H kinetic model could successfully simulate the photocatalytic reaction rate of acetone.

The operation speed of modern computer system has been upgraded from several hundred MHz to GHz. The instant current will pass to the power plane of the mother board by way of the IC pins and result in electromagnetic wave propagation between the power and ground plane, so called ¡§Ground bounce.¡¨ To prevent the ground bounce from IC operation, decoupling capacitors are used. In this thesis, an efficient numerical approach which is based on the two-dimensional (2D) finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method and with a new recursive algorithm has been used for modeling the power/ground planes characteristics with SMT capacitors above them. By the way, we take several methods, such as Debye model, FDTD-SPICE, and telegrapher¡¦s equation, for modeling various mother board structures. Finally, we use the genetic algorithm for calculating the optimum capacitor placements to meet the expect ground bounce limitation.

Significant research has been initiated recently to devise control strategies that could predict and compensate manufacturing errors using so called explicit Stream-of-Variation(SoV) models that relate process parameters in a Multistage Manufacturing Process (MMP) with product quality. This doctoral dissertation addresses several important scientific and engineering problems that will significantly advance the model-based, active control of quality in MMPs. First, we will formally introduce and study the new concept of compensability in MMPs, analogous to the concept of controllability in the traditional control theory. The compensability in an MMP is introduced as the property denoting one’s ability to compensate the errors in quality characteristics of the workpiece, given the allocation and character of measurements and controllable tooling. The notions of “within-station” and “between-station” compensability are also introduced to describe the ability to compensate upstream product errors within a given operation or between arbitrarily selected operations, respectively. The previous research also failed to concurrently utilize the historical and on-line measurements of product key characteristics for active model-based quality control. This dissertation will explore the possibilities of merging the well-known Run-to-Run (RtR) quality control methods with the model-based feed-forward process control methods. The novel method is applied to the problem of control of multi-layer overlay errors in lithography processes in semiconductor manufacturing. In this work, we first devised a multi-layer overlay model to describe the introduction and flow of overlay errors from one layer to the next, which was then used to pursue a unified approach to RtR and feedforward compensation of overlay errors in the wafer. At last, we extended the existing methodologies by considering inaccurately indentified noise characteristics in the underlying error flow model. This is also a very common situation, since noise characteristics are rarely known with absolute accuracy. We formulated the uncertainty in process noise characteristics using Linear Fractional Transformation (LFT) representation and solved the problem by deriving a robust control law that guaranties the product quality even under the worst case scenario of parametric uncertainties. Theoretical results have been evaluated and demonstrated using a linear state-space model of an actual industrial process for automotive cylinder head machining. / text

No description available.

In the hectic world of an IT helpdesk with an ever increasing number of applications and tasks on the go, managing the intricacies of how to navigate these is a cause of frustration for helpdesk workers. I had noticed while working on a helpdesk that the workspace area - particularly the monitor setups that IT helpdesk workers have to use - makes doing their job difficult. The number of applications open, the number of tasks on the go at once and the added pressure of customer contact, all call for applications and data to be accessed quickly - but the set up of the users workspace generally does not allow for this. The main objective of this research is to compare the difference between the use of a single screen, a dual screen and the new Multi-Layer Display (MLD) and the complications of having multiple applications and multiple monitors operating at one time for IT Helpdesk Workers. This research looked at how the users' monitor setup influenced the performance, efficiency, satisfaction, ergonomics and learning of the participants.The research showed that there was a clear dislike of the current set up of single screens; all participants felt that the single screen setup limited what they could do at once and it rated the least favourite of all. The dual and MLD screens showed positive outcomes for increasing multi-tasking abilities and raising users' perceived performance and satisfaction levels. The added screen real estate of both the dual and MLD over the single screen meant that users consistently had more information available to them 7which enabled them to complete tasks quicker, monitor other applications for incoming jobs, easily transfer data from one application to another and multi-task more effectively. While there were some minor ergonomic concerns and learning difficulties with the unique features and utilities of the both the dual and MLD monitors, participants still preferred to use these setups over the single screen.