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The aim of this work is to study the relation between two invariants of water flow in a channel of finite depth. The first invariant is the height of the water wave and the second one is the flow force. We restrict ourselves to water waves of small amplitude. Using asymptotic technique together with the method of separation of variables, we construct all water waves of small amplitude which are parameterized by a small parameter. Then we demonstrate numerically that the flow force depends monotonically on the height.

Tripeptidyl peptidase II (TPPII) is an exopeptidase which cleaves tripeptides from theN-terminus of peptides. The exact functional role of TPPII is still a matter of investigation. Itis believed that the enzyme is primarily involved in intracellular protein degradation, where itcooperates with the proteasome and other peptidases to degrade proteins into free aminoacids. These amino acids can subsequently be used in the production of new proteins. The aimof this work was to express murine wild type TPPII using E. coli and thereafter purify theenzyme from the bacterial lysate. Methods used for the purification included protein andnucleic acid precipitation, anion exchange chromatography, hydrophobic interactionchromatography and gel filtration. The presence of TPPII was determined using activityassay, western blot and SDS-PAGE. Despite the fact that some modification is still needed,the purification yielded a total of 34μg TPPII with a purity of approximately 60%. Thispurified enzyme can be used for future functional characterization.

In current years, renewable energy is an important topic due to the energy crisis and the environments protection issue. One of the renewable energies, wind power has the advantage of high popular rate, convenient, and clear. But there are disadvantages can be improved. The generator has a low quality of output because the variety of wind speed, and it needs electronic equipment to maintain the quality of energy output. According to the research results of Dr. Hwang, using the independently controllable transmission mechanisms that has a controllable output could improve the quality of generator output in Wind Turbines. In this study, the tests platform of independently controllable transmission mechanisms will be fabricated. And analysis the kinematics and dynamics by experimental results to demonstrate the feasibility in wind turbine applications of independently controllable transmission mechanisms.

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This experiment is to investigate the effects of fluid with and without mass injection through a slit on the vortex shedding from a single cylinder. We research Reynolds Numbers on ranges from 800 to 4000. We used four kinds of ways which contain no mass injection, steady blowing, steady suction and oscillatory jet to study of the wake behind a circular cylinder under excitation in this experiment. No mass injection is measured for the sake of its reliability and comparability of experiment. Steady blowing and suction are applied to influence the wake flow. An oscillatory jet is used to influence the wake flow with varying frequencies and amplitudes. The experiment looks forward to use the results of this experiment so as to research into the effects on the wake flow, including the velocity values of fluctuation and turbulence intensity of the vortices structure, the dominant frequency in the flow pattern on a single cylinder. The main parameters in the study are the frequency, momentum and the location of the blowing and suction jet, which are a steady jet or unsteady oscillatory jet. Flow visualization has been carried out to investigate the interaction of steady or unsteady fluid perturbation and the vortex shedding of a cylinder.

The recent financial and economic turmoil driven by housing market has led the economists to refocus on the issue about monetary policy and asset price, especially housing price. In this dissertation I investigate the various relationships between monetary policy and asset prices in U.S. economy through steady state Bayesian VAR (SS BVAR) and revised Taylor-typed interest rate rule (Forward-looking rule) based on Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) methodology. In chapter II, steady state Bayesian VAR (SS BVAR) methodology is introduced and multi step-ahead forecasts are executed. Upon usual squared error loss methodology the forecasting performances of SS BVAR are evaluated in comparison with standard BVAR and conventional VAR. Equal predictive ability tests following Giacomini and White (2006) verify that the SS BVAR is superior in forecasting power especially in long-horizons. In chapter III, identification issue involving housing sector is explored through two different ways: economic theory-based approach and algorithms of inductive causations. Despite the different approaches the housing sector’s specifications are somewhat similar. Impulse response analyses demonstrate that monetary shock to housing price is relatively smaller, less significant, and less lasting when compared to Choleski identification. Also historical decomposition and conditional forecast analyses indicate that the housing price shock itself is crucial in accounting the sharp increase and sudden drop of housing price since 2003. Upon the estimated evidences I conjecture that there are much uncertainty between monetary policy and housing price, recalling the consideration of institutional factors when trying to accounting housing sectors. In chapter IV, following Dupor and Conley (2004), I explore how Fed responds to stock price and inflation movements differently across high and low inflation sub-periods. Replicated linear estimation results of Dupor and Conley (2004)’s indicate that Fed raises its target interest rate responding to stock price gap with statistical significance. Linear estimation results, however, are not robust to small change of chosen breakpoint especially in inflation coefficient. So I construct nonlinear model as an alternative way to relax this problem and carry out test of structural change with the nonlinear framework. Consequently both nonlinearity and structural change matter in explanation of Fed’s behavior in this type of reaction function analysis. Given structural change, inflation coefficients movement shows that Fed has responded to expected inflation pressure nonlinearly across sub-period, while stock price gap coefficient shows explicit break around early ’90 in line with Dupor and Conley (2004)’s finding.

In this thesis, we first show that the performance of ranking and selection (R&S) procedures in steady-state simulations depends highly on the quality of the variance estimates that are used. We study the performance of R&S procedures using three variance estimators --- overlapping area, overlapping Cramer--von Mises, and overlapping modified jackknifed Durbin--Watson estimators --- that show better long-run performance than other estimators previously used in conjunction with R&S procedures for steady-state simulations. We devote additional study to the development of the new overlapping modified jackknifed Durbin--Watson estimator and demonstrate some of its useful properties. Next, we consider the problem of finding the best simulated system under a primary performance measure, while also satisfying stochastic constraints on secondary performance measures, known as constrained ranking and selection. We first present a new framework that allows certain systems to become dormant, halting sampling for those systems as the procedure continues. We also develop general procedures for constrained R&S that guarantee a nominal probability of correct selection, under any number of constraints and correlation across systems. In addition, we address new topics critical to efficiency of the these procedures, namely the allocation of error between feasibility check and selection, the use of common random numbers, and the cost of switching between simulated systems.

All computer simulation models require some form of initialization before their outputs can be considered meaningful. Simulation models are typically initialized in a particular, often "empty" state and therefore must be "warmed-up" for an unknown amount of simulation time before reaching a "quasi-steady-state" representative of the systems' performance. The portion of the output series that is influenced by the arbitrary initialization is referred to as the initial transient and is a widely recognized problem in simulation analysis. Although several methods exist for removing the initial transient, there are no methods that perform well in all applications. This research evaluates the effectiveness of several techniques for reducing initialization bias from simulations using the commercial transportation simulation model VISSIM®. The three methods ultimately selected for evaluation are Welch's Method, the Marginal Standard Error Rule (MSER) and the Volume Balancing Method currently being used by the CORSIM model. Three model instances - a single intersection, a corridor, and a large network - were created to analyze the length of the initial transient for varying scenarios, under high and low demand scenarios. After presenting the results of each initialization method, advantages and criticisms of each are discussed as well as issues that arose during the implementation. The results for estimation of the extent of the initial transient are compared across each method and across the varying model sizes and volume levels. Based on the results of this study, Welch's Method is recommended based on is consistency and ease of implementation.

The field of man portable UASs (Unmanned Aerial Systems) is currently a key area in improving the fielded warrior's capabilities. Pressurized aerostructures that can perform with similar results of solid structures can potentially change how this objective may be accomplished now and in the future. Construction with high density polymers and other composites is currently part of active inflatable vehicle research. Many shape forming techniques have also been adapted from the airship and balloon manufacturing industry. Additional research includes modeling techniques so that these vehicles may be included in simulation packages. A flight dynamics simulation with reduced-order aeroelastic effects derived with Lagrangian and Eulerian dynamics approaches were developed and optimized to predict the behavior of inflatable flexible structures in small UASs. The models are used to investigate the effects of significant structural deflections (warping) on aerodynamic surfaces. The model also includes compensation for large buoyancy ratios. Existing literature documents the similarity in structural dynamics of rigid beams and inflatable beams before wrinkling. Therefore, wing bending and torsional modes are approximated with the geometrically exact ntrinsic beam equations using NATASHA (Nonlinear Aeroelastic Trim And Stability for HALE Aircraft) code. An approach was also suggested for inclusion of unique phenomena such as wrinkling during flight. A simplified experimental setup will be designed to examine the most significant results observed from the simulation model. These methods may be suitable for specifying limits on flight maneuvers for inflatable UASs.