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…

Since 1986, the Canadian Public Administration is required to analyze the socio-economic impact of new regulatory requirements or regulatory changes. To report on its analysis, a Regulatory Impact Analysis Statement (RIAS) is produced and published in the Canada Gazette with…

Effective document retrieval using domain knowledge and semantics is one of the major challenges in Information Retrieval. Over the last years, there has been a growing interest in ontologies as an artifact for human knowledge representation and a critical component…

(cont.) which is expected, given their additional knowledge resources. The respondents' urgency in looking for the relevant knowledge is the primary explanation for this difference between the two networks. This difference in knowledge networking among the different groups did not…

A fuzzy controller is usually designed by formulating the knowledge of a human expert into a set of linguistic variables and fuzzy rules. As it is well known, the use of prior knowledge can dramatically improve the performance and quality…

A fuzzy controller is usually designed by formulating the knowledge of a human expert into a set of linguistic variables and fuzzy rules. As it is well known, the use of prior knowledge can dramatically improve the performance and quality…