The objective of this thesis is to clarify the ways that organizational factors influence nuclear power plant performance in order to improve performance. Therefore, this thesis studied the nuclear power plant organizational environment by identifying and detailing its important work…

Continued advances in the semiconductor industry will require the introduction of new materials and processes concurrent with shrinking device dimensions. These simultaneous demands drastically reduce margins for error and necessitate an increasingly quantitative understanding of semiconductor processes. Leaders of the…

All intelligence relies on search - for example, the search for an intelligent agent's next action. Search is only likely to succeed in resource-bounded agents if they have already been biased towards finding the right answer. In artificial agents, the…

Attempts to recognize ‘information’ as an asset have led to an increased awareness of why and how this invisible valuable resource does not appear in the financial statements. This paper aims to develop a model based on three-circled sets of…

Two-electron mixed-valence complexes of rhodium may be supported by diphosphazane ligands (RN(PY2)2). Whereas diphosphazane ligands with strongly [pi]-acidic phosphine groups (Y = F, OCH2CF3) react with RhI starting materials to afford binuclear Rh20,II complexes, Rh20,II(MeN(PY)2)3X2(L) or Rh2"II(MeN(PY),)3X2 (X = Cl,…

Modem society requires reliable and safe operation of its infrastructure. Policymakers believe that, in many industries, competitive markets and regulatory incentives will result in system performance superior to that under command-and-control regulation. Analytical techniques to evaluate the reliability and safety…

The appearance and continuous growth of virtual communities on the web imposes the challenge of coping with the large amount of information and knowledge these communities produce. The Semantic Web with its set of standards and technologies provides the basic…

by Kimberly G. Waters., Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2002., Includes bibliographical references (p. 45-46).

Currently, Draper Laboratory is in the development stages of a gliding autogyro airdrop system. The goal of the project is to design a platform capable of placing small, high value items into urban terrain. Theoretically, autogyros can achieve descent rates…

by Esther S. Dutton., Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Aeronautics and Astronautics, 1997., Includes bibliographical references (p. 78).