Digital Commons Network^™

Factor Substitution And Endogenous Growth, Hing-Man Leung

Research Collection School Of Economics

We argue that the degree of substitutability between skilled and unskilled workers in production increases long-term income growth rate. Growth rate reaches its maximum when such factors are perfect substitutes, but falls to zero when they are perfect complements. This model brings together the diverging relative wage and the human-capital-growth literature. Easier substitution absorbs more workers into the skilled profession, and their training fuels human capital accumulation and growth. Our result implies, among other things, that growth is positively related to between-and within-group inequality.

Solid Waste Management In Oil And Gas Pipelines Application To Asab Field, Abdulqader M Alkamali

Theses

Managing solid waste, and any other wastes in general, is an environmental need, an economical choice and a legal requirement. Preserving the environment while lowering the cost becomes a necessity when liabilities are of concern.

Solid wastes generated from oil and gas industrial activities are very diverse in their characteristics, large in their amounts and many of which are hazardous in nature. Thus, the need to manage these wastes is an obvious mandate. Oil and gas industrial activities include exploration, drilling, production, processing, refining, manufacturing and exporting. Associated with these activities, other supporting services; such as, maintenance, civil, transportation, storage, …

Characteristics Of Erp Software Maintenance: A Multiple Case Study, Fiona Fui-Hoon Nah, Silvana Faja, Teuta Cata

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

A multiple case study approach was employed to identify maintenance activities pertaining to enterprise resource planning (ERP) implementation, classify them into maintenance categories, and assess their relative frequency at various stages of the ERP maintenance lifecycle. Five maintenance categories (corrective, adaptive, perfective, preventive, user support) were identified from a review of the literature on software maintenance. A new category pertaining to ‘communication, coordination and knowledge exchange with external parties’ and herein labeled ‘external parties’ is introduced to highlight the supporting role of external parties in ERP maintenance. This category includes reporting problems to vendors and consultants, tracking their progress towards …

Modeling And Analysis Of Social Networks, Robert S. Renfro Ii

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation develops new methods for the modeling and analysis of social networks. Social networks describe the complex relationships of individuals and groups in multiple overlapping contexts. Influence in a social network impacts behavior and decision making in every setting in which individuals participate. This study defines a methodology for modeling and analyzing this complex behavior using a Flow-Model representation. Multiple objectives in an influencing effort targeted at a social network are modeled using Goal Programming. Value Focused Thinking is applied to model influence and predict decisions based on the reaction of the psychological state of individuals to environmental stimuli. …

Habitat Utilization And Movement Patterns Of Subadult Largemouth Bass (Micropterus Salmoides) In The Ohio River, Elizabeth Marie Hoffman

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Ohio River electrofishing surveys identified embayments as preferred macrohabitat of subadult largemouth bass. Catch rates within macrohabitats were low ranging from 0.00--2.73 subadult bass/hour. Embayment electrofishing CPUE was higher than tributary or main channel except in spring, when tributary CPUE was highest.;Core use areas were calculated from biotelemetry data and ranged from 88--59,400 m2, representing 0.02--89.00% of available study location macrohabitat. Subadult bass movement was limited to nursery embayments or tributaries with infrequent movement to nearby main channel areas. Bass preferred a mixed microhabitat consisting of a combination of vegetation and woody debris. This mixed microhabitat was less common in …

Prevalence Of Campylobacter In A Turkey Production Facility, Aaron Shawn Kiess

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Frequency of detection was monitored in three flocks of turkeys from May, 2000 to March 2001. The effect of time was considered for hens in flocks 1 and 2, and the effect of time, gender, and litter (fresh or used) was determined for flock 3. Poults, poult-box liners, waterers, and fecal droppings were monitered throughout production for the presence of Campylobacter using Campy-Cefex agar incubated at 42°C under microaerophilic conditions (85% N2, 10% CO2, and 5% O2). Peak colonization occurred near 3 weeks of production. Frequency of Campylobacter isolation from bird sources paralleled isolation from waterers. Frequency of detection from …

Lda And Cta In-Cylinder Measurements Of Intake-Generated Turbulence For Steady Flow Around A Centrally Located Valve, Gearle Ray Bailey Jr.

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The purpose of this study was to measure the axial and swirl velocities for steady flow in a cylinder past an intake valve, in order to study the effects of swirl and valve lift on turbulence generation. A simple geometry was used for an initial look at the flow past a valve.;A cylinder with a centrally located valve was used as the test bed. The valve was tested at lifts of 4 and 9 mm Two intake geometries were tested: a straight intake port and a swirl intake port. A single sensor Constant Temperature Anemometry (CTA) and a one-component Laser …

Fuzzy Logic Cost Estimation Method For High Production Volume Components, Shirley Jean Copen

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The purpose of this research is to develop fuzzy logic cost models that estimate the cost of a component based on the component's geometric shape, size, material and manufacturing process. The research is focused on components made from high production quantity processes i.e. stamping, injection molding, rolling and extrusion. However, the method may also be used for other types of manufacturing processes. The method is useful to both engineers and cost estimators whenever an estimated cost is desired. Engineers and cost estimators may use the method to obtain the cost of components or products of similar design without a detailed …

Study Of The Rheological Properties Of Nomex Fibrids, Long Han

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Paints and caulks typically contain (spherical) fumed silica particulates as viscosity enhancers. A similar viscosity enhancement can be achieved by using aramid fibrids. Aramid fibrids are believed to form microstructures in suspensions because of the "space-filling" nature of their shapes and thus provide a convenient means of introducing desired rheological behavior for various commercial applications.;The flow responses of aramid fibrids dispersed in mixtures of corn syrup and water were determined in dynamic shear, steady shear, low shear capillary, and extensional stretching flows. Yield stress, strong shear thinning, thixotropy, and strong dispersion effects were observed, and these are consistent with observed …

Simulated Annealing Heuristics For The Dynamic Facility Layout Problem, Saravanan Kuppusamy

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Today's consumer market demands that manufacturers must be competitive. This requires the efficient operation of manufacturing plants and their ability to quickly respond to changes in product mix and demand. Studies show that material handling cost makes up between 20 and 50 percent of the total operating cost. Therefore, this thesis considers the problem of arranging and rearranging (when there are changes in product mix and demand) manufacturing facilities such that material handling and rearrangement costs are minimized. This problem is called the dynamic facility layout problem. In this thesis, three simulated annealing heuristics are presented for the dynamic facility …

New Catalysts For Syngas Production From Carbon Dioxide And Methane, Mahesh Venkataraman Iyer

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The performance of cobalt tungsten carbide material was investigated for CH4/CO2 reforming. The catalyst was found to convert to a very stable, very active, form when heated in CH4/CO 2 at 850°C and 5 atm. Even after 90 hours on stream, CH4 and CO2 rates of 1.3 and 1.25 mmol/min/g respectively are obtained, with CO yields of 76% and H2/CO ratio close to unity. XRD patterns suggest a phase transformation to WC+Co+C. SEM images suggest formation of encapsulated carbon and whisker carbon.;The kinetics of CH4/CO2 reforming was studied under differential conditions over 500--600°C. The observed rates seem to follow a …

Development Of Environmental Health And Safety Database For Small Communities, Ragava S. Nadig

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The National Environmental Services Center (NESC) is a group of programs, national in scope, that provide a variety of environmental services directly to small community officials, engineers, technicians, regulatory officials, and private citizens.;The primary mission of each of the NESC programs is to protect public health and the environment of America's small and rural communities-those communities of less than 10,000 people. The NESC programs provide information, technical assistance, and training to help small communities deal with their wastewater, drinking water, and solid waste treatment issues.;Thousands of informational materials pass through the organization each year. This material ranges from manufacturing product …

Characterization Of Stresses Induced In Doweled Joints Due To Thermal And Impact Loads, Shiva Srinivasan

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

A review of literature on dowel jointed concrete pavement response reveals that the effect of uniform temperature changes was neglected based on the assumption that concrete slabs can contract freely. The triaxial state of stresses that develop at the dowel concrete interfaces due to the application of mechanical and thermal loads has not been previously characterized. In this study a detailed Three-Dimensional Finite Element (3D FE) model was used to investigate the state of contact stresses, mid slab stresses, and load transfer efficiency that develop in dowel jointed concrete pavements under the influence of combined impact and thermal loads. The …

Detection Of Subsurface Anomalies In Fiber-Reinforced Polymer (Frp) Wrapped Timber Bridge Components Using Infrared Thermography, William Edward Steele Iii

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This thesis presents the results of an experimental study on the use of Infrared Thermography technique for detection of subsurface anomalies in fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) wrapped timber bridge components. An extensive literature review on the application of various nondestructive evaluation techniques to composite structures has also been presented.;Simulated subsurface delaminations were constructed in the laboratory in timber piles wrapped with FRP composite fabric. The delaminations varied in size, thickness, and severity. These delaminations were placed between the 1/8&inches; thick FRP wrap and timber surface. The thermal images from the delaminated specimens were compared with thermal images from undamaged specimens …

Delivering A Shopping Website Using Apache Web Server On Unix, Norman Dean Harrod

Masters Theses & Doctoral Dissertations

This project explores three areas related to deploying a small-scale website that can be implemented on a home-built UNIX server. The first component is the installation and configuration of a UNIX Solaris 8 operating system on a Sun Microsystems SPARCstation 5. The second area is the installation and configuration of Apache Web Server on UNIX with the PHP scripting language module. The third piece is the construction of a shopping website to demonstrate PHP programming and usability. The result is, "Delivering a Shopping Website Using Apache Web Server on UNIX."

Exploring Object-Oriented Gis For Watershed Resource Management, Nalishebo Nally Kaunda

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The adoption of object-oriented programming for spatial technological advancement is an emerging trend in GIS. This research seeks to explore Object-Oriented GIS (OOGIS) and its potential application in watershed resource management. OOGIS provides a more intuitive and realistic abstraction of real world features as intelligent objects. The ability to embed behavior, geometry, and attribution with the objects provides considerable advantages in the processing and analysis of geospatial data. The main objective of this research was to design a prototype OOGIS for watershed resource management using the object relational Arclnfo 8.1 Geodatabase. The study builds on the OOGIS concepts of inheritance, …

A Numerical Simulation For The Circulation On A Beach Of Resort In El-Ain El-Sukhna., Mohamed Elzeir

Mansoura Engineering Journal

Pollution is a result of disturbance produced by human intervention to the natural equilibrium. In the case of El-Ain El-Sukhna, an artificial island obstructed the flow causing trash accumulation. A numerical model was used to investigate both the effect of the artificial island on the circulation and the mitigation effect of the proposed alternative.

The Resource-Based View And Marketing: The Role Of Market-Based Assets In Gaining Competitive Advantage, Rajendra Kumar Srivastava, Liam Fahey, H. Kurt Christensen

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This article posits a framework that shows how market-based assets and capabilities are leveraged via market-facing or core business processes to deliver superior customer value and competitive advantages. These value elements and competitive advantages can be leveraged to result in superior corporate performance and shareholder value and reinvested to nurture market-based assets and capabilities in the future. The article also illustrates how resource-based view (RBV) and marketing considerations in the context of generating and sustaining customer value can refine and extend each other's traditional frames of analysis. Finally, the article posits a set of research directions designed to enable scholars …

Automated Online News Classification With Personalization, Chee-Hong Chan, Aixin Sun, Ee Peng Lim

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Classification of online news, in the past, has often been done manually. In our proposed Categorizor system, we have experimented an automated approach to classify online news using the Support Vector Machine (SVM). SVM has been shown to deliver good classification results when ample training documents are given. In our research, we have applied SVM to personalized classification of online news.

Potential Of Demand Management As A Short-Term Means Of Relieving Airport Congestion, Terence Ping Ching Fan, Amedeo R. Odoni

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Rapid air traffic growth combined with limited airport airside capacities have led to ever-increasing delays. When the demand for air travel and the general economy recover from the current crisis, it is conceivable that air traffic congestion may again come to the fore. Given the rather bleak prospects for significant near-term increases in airport runway system capacity, it is likely that demand for runway access may need to be carefully managed to keep flight delays under control. While various approaches to demand management have been suggested in the research literature, few studies to date have provided quantitative evidence on two …

A Novel Neural Oscillator And Its Implementation In Analog Vlsi, Qiang Luo, John G. Harris

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This paper presents a novel neural oscillator model that is inspired by biological oscillation models and is easily implemented in subthreshold analog CMOS VLSI. The proposed model uses local coupling among neuron units. Synchrony and information propagation are demonstrated in chains and rings of the oscillators. © 2001 IEEE.

Power System Deregulation, Mariesa Crow

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Given the difficulties encountered by the state of California in deregulating their electric power industry, many people are questioning the wisdom of such a move. To better understand the motivation behind deregulation, the author looks at the cost of energy nationwide in the United States. For example, she considers some of the regional energy costs from August 2001.

Energy Storage Systems For Advanced Power Applications, Aysen Arsoy, Yilu Liu, Paul F. Ribeiro, Brian K. Johnson, Mariesa Crow

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

While energy storage technologies do not represent energy sources, they provide valuable added benefits to improve stability power quality, and reliability of supply. Battery technologies have improved significantly in order to meet the challenges of practical electric vehicles and utility applications. Flywheel technologies are now used in advanced nonpolluting uninterruptible power supplies. Advanced capacitors are being considered as energy storage for power quality applications. Superconducting energy storage systems are still in their prototype stages but receiving attention for utility applications. The latest technology developments, some performance analysis, and cost considerations are addressed. This paper concentrates on the performance benefits of …

Between The York And The James: Nine Essays Put Peninsula And Seven Days Battles In Context, Kevin Levin

Civil War Book Review

This is the seventh installment in the University of North Carolina Press's Military Campaigns of the Civil War series. Though each volume is intended as a supplement to more traditional narratives, the series has been influential in providing new interpretations by challenging tired assumptions and....

Feature Essay, David Madden

Civil War Book Review

Have you ever crawled inside a defunct forge and imagined working in that hell-hot, narrow space, glancing up at the sun struggling to penetrate the smoke hole, like the mouth of a cannon? I'll never forget standing briefly inside the Great Western Furnace on the Land Between the Rivers in Tennessee....

Bounded Control Of Multiple-Delay Systems With Applications To Atm Networks, Chaouki T. Abdallah, Sophie Tarbouriech, Marco Ariola

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Congestion control in the available bit rate (ABR) class of asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) networks poses interesting challenges due to the presence of multiple-delays, magnitude and rate constraints on the inputs and additive disturbances. We consider a fixed-structure controller for an ATM/ABR network, and solve a robust tracking control problem in which the target is a threshold on the queue level.

Constraints, Compromises And Choice: Comparing Three Qualitative Research Studies, Julia Connell, Colin Lynch, Peter Waring

The Qualitative Report

Although a number of texts explore social research strategies and methods, most are limited to a basic discussion of such methods and their associated advantages and disadvantages. Few if any, evaluate and compare methods in the context of actual research experiences. This paper endeavours to bridge that gap by reporting the experiences of three researchers working on three separate qualitative studies. All three studies were concerned with investigating the social milieu within organizations. While the research questions were different in each case, all the researchers shared a common goal - to develop explanations for complex social phenomena manifest both internally …

Entropy In Pynchon's "Entropy" And Lefebvre's The Production Of Space, Jason Snart

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In his paper, "Entropy in Pynchon's 'Entropy' and Lefebvre's The Production of Space," Jason Snart examines Thomas Pynchon's short story "Entropy" for the ways in which it deals with the kinds of disorder(s) associated with entropy as a thermodynamic and informational concept. Those concepts are installed as a framework within which to consider cultural studies work like Henri Lefebfre's thought in his The Production of Space and Ludwig von Bertalanffy's general systems theory and themodynamics: disorder is rendered not as confusion, but rather as a state of potential energy and productivity and Lefebvre's and Bertalanffy's concepts serve to show how …

Effects Of Land Use On Biotic Integrity In Ridge And Valley Streams In The Chattanooga Metropolitan Area, Tennessee-Georgia, Jeannie Long

Masters Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Twenty-one sites across seven streams in the Chattanooga metropolitan area, Tennessee-Georgia, were studied from April-August, 1999, as part of the Urban Streams Project. All sites are in the Ridge and Valley ecoregion and are part of the Nickajack Reservoir watershed in the Tennessee River system. Study sites were characterized in terms of water quality, habitat, and fish assemblages. Relationships among these features and land use, at both the riparian and watershed scales, were examined. A total of 40 species representing nine families of fishes were collected by electrofishing. Biotic integrity at all sites was degraded to some extent, with 16 …

Wetland Mitigation Banking In Tennessee: An Assessment Of Three Banks Performance, Matthew David Skilling

Masters Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Each year, the nation as a whole loses nearly 58,000 acres of wetlands. The national goal of both the EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers is to achieve no net loss of wetlands. Wetlands law allows for mitigation of wetland impacts with the implied assumption that the mitigation will adequately compensate for the wetland loss. Mitigation banks are becoming a popular mitigation option. Mitigation banks, due to their large size and ample mitigation ratios, make a significant contribution to the national goal of no net loss. This study evaluates three mitigation banks currently operating in Tennessee. The evaluation is …