The thesis explores a puzzle in technological capability development: many firms in China follow the "normal" way of technological capability development suggested by the existing literature but have not made much progress, while some firms that deviate from the "normal"…

Gene expression arrays are a technology used to measure quantities of messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA). Application of the technology involves a variety of physical processes beginning with the acquisition of mRNA samples and ending with the fluorescence imaging of a…

This study presents a theoretical model for predictions of near-shore hydrodynamic characteristics and the local sediment transport rate along long, straight beaches. The wave may be periodic or random, the beach may be plane or barred, and the bed may…

This thesis developed and applied tools to bridge the gap between available data and action for urban air quality management, focusing on strategies to reduce particle concentrations. One of the principal thesis contributions is a Bayesian method to exploit the…

Performance and manufacturability are two important issues that must be taken into account during MEMS design. Existing MEMS design models or systems follow a process-driven design paradigm, that is, design starts from the specification of process sequence or the customization…

A system for visual recognition is described, with implications for the general problem of representation of knowledge to assist control. The immediate objective is a computer system that will recognize objects in a visual scene, specifically hammers. The computer receives…

This report shows how knowledge about the visual world can be built into a shape representation in the form of a descriptive vocabulary making explicit the important geometrical relationships comprising objects' shapes. Two computational tools are offered: (1) Shapestokens are…

Organizations must establish processes for managing knowledge across boundaries because of the specialized and task-dependent forms of knowledge required to deliver products and services. To address this challenge an integrative framework is developed that identifies and integrates the value of…

We have developed a method and prototype program for assisting two experts in their attempts to construct a single, consensus knowledge base. We show that consensus building can be effectively facilitated by a debugging approach that identifies, explains, and resolves…

This paper presents a knowledge-based approach to facilitate the engineering design
process relating to spacecrafts. Because the design evolves over a long time and typically
involves individuals working at different locations and frequently for different
organizations, the degree of collaboration…