Digital Commons Network^™

Integrated Queries To Existing Bibliographic And Structured Databases, Ee Peng Lim, Ying Lu

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

It is widely accepted that future digital library applications have to be built upon different kinds of database servers to draw upon different forms of data, including bibliographic, text, multimedia, and structured data. In this paper, the problem of integrating existing public bibliographic databases and structured databases which reside at different locations in the network is addressed. Although bibliographic data is semistructured, its attribute set is often determined by an international standard known as MARC. To unify bibliographic and structured data, the well-known SQL was extended to model bibliographic related attributes and queries. In particular, a new data type was …

A Hypermedia Database To Manage World-Wide-Web Documents, Schubert Shou Boon Foo, Ee Peng Lim

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The surge of interest in the World-Wide-Web (WWW) with its potential commercial payoff has resulted in an explosion of information as organisations join in to publish and do business on the Internet. A related development, Intranet, which basically uses the same technology to build private corporate WWW-based networks, has emerged to provide cost-effective and efficient groupware and information management solutions for organisations. As a result, the Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML), used for constructing WWW documents, has become a contender for authoring future office documents. With this scenario, this study examines WWW practices and highlights the inadequacy and drawbacks of …

Managing World Wide Web Publications, Schubert Foo, Ee Peng Lim

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The surge of interest in the World Wide Web (WWW), with its potential commercial payoff, has resulted in an explosion of information as organizations join in the fray to publish and do business on the Internet. In addition, Intranet, the private corporate WWW‐based network, has also emerged to provide cost‐effective and efficient groupware and information management solutions for organizations. As a result, the HyperText Markup Language used for constructing WWW documents has become a contender for authoring future office documents. Examines the current practices of WWW publishing and highlights its inadequacies and drawbacks. Demonstrates the need and advantages of using …

The Information Content Of Fdi Announcements: Evidence From An Emerging Market, David K. Ding, Qian Sun

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This study examines the stock return responses to the announcements of foreign direct investments (FDI) by Singaporean companies. A standard event study methodology is used to ascertain the abnormal returns around the announcement day (day 0). The study covers the period from 1989 to 1994 with a sample size of 70 events. The announcement effect is positive and significant around the announcement day. The average abnormal return is 0.4913 percent on day 0, and the two-day (days 0 and 1) cumulative abnormal return is 0.9642 percent. However, the abnormal return is unequally distributed across the sample firms. A cross-sectional analysis …

The Opening Price Behavior: Foreign Exchange Futures Market Versus Equity Market, Quentin C. Chu, David K. Ding, C. S. Pyun

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Daily opening, noon, and closing prices of Deutschemark and Japanese yen futures are examined for the efficiency of the foreign exchange futures (FXF) market. Variance ratio and multiple variance ratio tests, are employed. The prices are found to be serially uncorrelated. This random walk behavior sheds light on the differences between the FXF and commodity or equity markets. The conclusions suggest that the FXF market is a 24-hour global market, reflecting a disparity with equity markets where round-the-clock trading is advocated since the high volatility during market opening would be eliminated, leading to potential cost reductions for traders as spreads …

A Visual Approach For Identifying Consumer Satisfaction Segments, Estelami Hooman, Peter De Maeyer

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

No abstract provided.

Prediction Of Yarn Strength From Fiber Properties Using Fuzzy Artmap, Raonak Zaman, Donald C. Wunsch

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The count-strength-product (CSP) of cotton yarn is a complex function of fiber properties and spinning performance. The traditional way of predicting yarn CSP is using linear multiple regression. The correlation coefficient between actual CSP and predicted CSP obtained from linear regression is almost always less than 0.9. In this paper, we used a Fuzzy ARTMAP network to predict yarn CSP from fiber properties and spinning performance. Fiber properties and spinning data were used as inputs to ART_a, and yarn CSP was used as ART_b input. Our objectives are: better prediction of the quality of the end product, …

The New--But Is It Improved?--Power System, Mariesa Crow

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In this paper, the author examines the effect that deregulation will have on the US power system. The paper details how the electric power industry in the USA is undergoing major changes, both politically and technically, as a result of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's Orders 888 and 889 issued in 1996. These orders essentially deregulate the transmission network, allowing producers and customers access to the network for electricity transactions.

A 50 Kilowatt Distributed Grid-Connected Photovoltaic Generation System For The University Of Wyoming, Badrul H. Chowdhury, S. Muknahallipatna, T. Dinwoodie, D. Shugar, J. J. Cupal, J. C. Hamann

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The University of Wyoming (UW) campus (USA) is serving as the site for a 50 kilowatt solar photovoltaic (PV) power system. Three sub-systems were sited and built on the UW campus in 1996. The first sub-system, a 10 kW roof-integrated system of PV roof tiles is located on the roof of the Engineering Building. The second sub-system-a 5 kW rack-mounted, ballasted PV system is on a walkway roof of the Engineering building. The third sub-system is a 35 kW shade structure system and is located adjacent to the parking lot of the University's football stadium. The three sub-systems differ in …

Technology Acquisition And Utilization In Metal Goods, N. Alp, B. Alp, Yildirim Omurtag

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This paper analyzes the technology acquisition and utilization process in metal goods manufacturing organizations through a survey instrument which is conducted in the Mid-West region of the US. The goal of this study is to identify the channels, types, reasons, impacts, difficulties, and limitations of technology acquisition and utilization process in metal goods sector.

Artificial Neural Network Based Model For Computation Of Injection Mould Complexity, Rawin Raviwongse, Venkat Allada

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The cost of injection mould construction depends primarily on the mould complexity. The ability to estimate the mould complexity before releasing the final drawings for construction purposes will greatly help the designers to understand the implications of their design on cost. Mould complexity depends on several factors such as part geometry, parting line, materials, and number of cavities per mould. In most industries, the mould complexity evaluation is performed manually based on past experiences of mould makers. Faced with a shortage of experienced mould makers, there is a pressing need for development of computer-aided tools for mould complexity evaluation. In …

Innovative Applications Of Groupware For Solving Engineering Design Problems, Leslie F. Monplaisir, Colin Othniel Benjamin, Choayuan Lu

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In these case studies, groupware was used as a group decision-making environment to assist teams evaluating a quality function deployment framework for risk management and agile manufacturing system designs. In the first case, teams identified customers' requirements and risk categories for a research and development project. They then mapped the relationship between these customer requirements and the risk categories. In the second case, cross-functional teams collaborated in selecting the best layout for a cellular manufacturing facility. These experimental findings support the use of group decision systems by design and project teams required to manage R&D projects or to design agile …

Self-Assessment Of Total Quality Management Programs, Hung Yi Wu, Henry Allen Wiebe, John Politi

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Total quality management (TQM) has been increasingly accepted as a management philosophy. Criteria such as those contained in the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA) often guide TQM implementation. However, reports indicate that fully assessing TQM efforts is difficult and hiring experts to help with this task is expensive. Using survey instruments is an attractive alternative to full-scale assessment. Despite the availability of many papers covering organizational performance assessment, few instruments specifically address TQM evaluation. Furthermore, none of the TQM assessment instruments has been subjected to rigorous validation; thus, only modest confidence can be placed in results obtained from their …

Insect Functional Morphology: A Laboratory Manual, Keith J. Mbata

icipe Manuals

Preface

When the African Regional Postgraduate Programme in Insect Science (ARPPIS) was established at the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE) Nairobi, Kenya in 1983, the main objective was to strengthen the capabilities of African universities in postgraduate training in arthropod science, using technical expertise and the advanced research facilities already existing at the ICIPE. The multidisciplinary setting of ICIPE’s research programme enables ARPPIS to admit students from a variety of training backgrounds, not limited to entomology. Thus, the programme also admitted graduates of basic sciences such as mathematics and chemistry, who wished to apply their disciplines to …

Hydro Unit Commitment In Hydro-Thermal Optimization, Chao-An Li, E. Hsu, Chung-Li Tseng, A. J. Svoboda, R. B. Johnson

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In this paper, the authors develop a model and technique for solving the combined hydro and thermal unit commitment problem, taking into full account the hydro unit dynamic constraints in achieving overall economy of power system operation. The combined hydrothermal unit commitment problem is solved by a decomposition and coordination approach. Thermal unit commitment is solved using a conventional Lagrangian relaxation technique. The hydro system is divided into watersheds, which are further broken down into reservoirs. The watersheds are optimized by network flow programming (NFP). Priority-list-based dynamic programming is used to solve the hydro unit commitment (HUC) problem at the …

A Biologically Inspired Connectionist Architecture For Directing Attention To Salient Visual Field Objects, David Lee Enke

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In an attempt to incorporate basic visual attention abilities into existing artificial vision systems, a neural model of the bidirectional interactions within and between the brain regions believed to be involved in human visual attention has been developed. This model currently gives an artificial vision system the ability to attend to salient, or pop-out features and objects within the vision system''s field of view. After a review of the physiology of human visual attention, a network model of the aforementioned neural interactions is presented, followed by a demonstration of its performance.

An Analog Integrated Circuit For Continuous-Time Gain And Offset Calibration Of Sensor Arrays, Yu Ming Chiang, John G. Harris

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Parameter variations cause unavoidable nonuniformities in Infra-Red Focal Plane Arrays and other integrated sensors. Since these nonuniformities change slowly with time, calibrating sensors one-time only is not suitable-much more frequent calibration is required. We have developed an algorithm that continually calibrates an array of sensors that contain gain and offset variations. This algorithm has been mapped to analog hardware and designed and fabricated with a 2um CMOS technology. Measured results from the chip show that the system achieves invariance to gain and offset variations of the input signal.

An Object-Based Evolutionary Algorithm For Solving Rectangular Piece Nesting Problems, Kanchitpol Ratanapan, Cihan H. Dagli

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Nesting problems have been tackled by researchers using a vast number of algorithms in the past. Most of the algorithms, however, need to perform on a one-dimensional space. Therefore, the problem must be transformed into a one-dimensional space problem similar to the travelling salesman problem. Consequently, loss of solutions due to the dimensional reduction may occur. In this study, an object-based evolutionary algorithm for rectangular piece nesting problems is proposed. This methodology is created on truly two-dimensional space, allowing new mechanisms (i.e., individual representation, initialization, etc.) and new object-based genetic operators (i.e., hill-climbing, mutation, and recombination operators) to perform effectively …

Short-Term Resource Scheduling With Ramp Constraints [Power Generation Scheduling], Chung-Li Tseng, Chao-An Li, A. J. Svoboda, R. B. Johnson

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This paper describes a Lagrangian relaxation-based method to solve the short-term resource scheduling (STRS) problem with ramp constraints. Instead of discretizing the generation levels, the ramp rate constraints are relaxed with the system demand constraints using Lagrange multipliers. Three kinds of ramp constraints, startup, operating and shutdown ramp constraints are considered. The proposed method has been applied to solve the hydro-thermal generation scheduling problem at PG&E. An example alone with numerical results is also presented

Faculty Senate Minutes 1996 - 1997, Missouri University Of Science And Technology Faculty Senate

Minutes & Agendas

No abstract provided.

Immunologic And Hematopoietic Effects Of Cd40 Stimulation After Syngeneic Bone Marrow Transplantation In Mice, Satoshi Funakoshi, Dennis D. Taub, Miriam R. Anver, Arati Raziuddin, Osamu Asai, Prakash Reddy, Helen C. Rager, William C. Fanslow, Dan L. Longo, William J. Murphy

Chemistry Faculty Research & Creative Works

CD40 is a molecule present on multiple cell types including B lymphocyte lineage cells. CD40 has been shown to play an important role in B cell differentiation and activation in vitro, although little is known concerning the effects of CD40 stimulation in vivo. We therefore examined the effects of CD40 stimulation in mice using a syngeneic bone marrow transplantation (BMT) model in an effort to augment B cell recovery after high dose therapy with hematopoietic reconstitution. After the BMT, mice were treated with or without 2-6 μg of a soluble recombinant murine CD40 ligand (srmCD40L) given intraperitoneally twice a week. …

Neutron Transmutation Doping As An Experimental Probe For Cuzn In Znse, Edward D. Wheeler, Jack L. Boone, J. W. Farmer, H. R. Chandrasekhar

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Nuclear transmutation is employed in an investigation of copper doping in ZnSe. Copper atoms are introduced at zinc sites in ZnSe after crystal growth processes are complete. Since the copper dopants are introduced after growth, far from equilibrium, they are less able to form complexes with other dopants or lattice defects as they may do when present during crystal growth. Initial results are consistent with CuZn being involved in the copper red and copper green emissions in ZnSe but not in the if exitonic emission. © 1997 American Institute of Physics.

User Defined Prewrites For Increasing Concurrency In Design Databases, Sanjay Kumar Madria, A. Embong

Computer Science Faculty Research & Creative Works

We introduce a prewrite operation before a write operation is performed on design databases, a database that consists of objects as engineering designs. A prewrite operation does not actually make a design but it only makes available the model of the design that the transaction will produce in future. Once the prewrite design by a transaction is announced, the transaction executes a pre-commit operation. After the pre-commit, read operations can access the prewrite design even before the pre-committed transaction has finally made the design and committed. Therefore, our algorithm increases the potential concurrency as compared to the algorithms that permit …

A Concurrency Control Algorithm For An Open And Safe Nested Transaction Model, Sanjay Kumar Madria

Computer Science Faculty Research & Creative Works

We present a concurrency control algorithm for an open and safe nested transaction model. We use prewrite operations in our model to increase the concurrency. Prewrite operations are modeled as subtransactions in the nested transaction tree. The subtransaction which initiates prewrite subtransactions are modelled as recovery point subtransaction. The recovery point subtransaction can release their locks before its ancestors commit. Thus, our model increases the concurrency in comparison to other nested transaction models. Our model is useful an environment of long-running transactions common in object oriented databases, computer aided design and in the software development process

Rmesh Algorithms For Parallel String Matching, Hsi-Chieh Lee, Fikret Erçal

Computer Science Faculty Research & Creative Works

String matching problem received much attention over the years due to its importance in various applications such as text/file comparison, DNA sequencing, search engines, and spelling correction. Especially with the introduction of search engines dealing with tremendous amount of textual information presented on the world wide web and the research on DNA sequencing, this problem deserves special attention and any algorithmic or hardware improvements to speed up the process will benefit these important applications. In this paper, we present three algorithms for string matching on reconfigurable mesh architectures. Given a text T of length n and a pattern P of …

Immobilization Of Radioactive Materials In Iron Phosphate Glass, Melissa G. Mesko

Doctoral Dissertations

"The current study investigates the feasibility of using iron phosphate glass for the immobilization of radioactive wastes considered incompatible with borosilicate glass. Wastes may be incompatible with borosilicate glass due to high phosphorus content (Hanford tank sludges), the presence of halides (CsCl and SrF₂ capsules), or large amounts of uranium (SNF).

Between 20 and 60 wt% Hanford tank sludge was vitrified with an iron phosphate glass at ≤ 1200°C in 1 hour. The chemical durability of iron phosphate glassy wasteforms was as good as, or better than a reference borosilicate glass (10^-9 g/cm²/min) in distilled water …