by Gloria G. Moncayo., Thesis (M.B.A.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, 1999., Includes bibliographical references (leaves 87-88).

We consider the scheduling problem of minimizing the average weighted completion time of n jobs with release dates on a single machine. We first study two linear programming relaxations of the problem, one based on a time-indexed formulation, the other…

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…

This paper demonstrates that it is possible to generate a reasonably accurate coordinate system on randomly distributed processors, using only local information and local communication. By coordinate systems we imply that each element assigns itself a logical coordinate that maps…

This thesis confronts the nature of the process of learning an intellectual skill, the ability to solve problems efficiently in a particular domain of discourse. The investigation is synthetic; a computational performance model, HACKER, is displayed. Hacker is a computer…

The actor message-passing model of concurrent computation has inspired new ideas in the areas of knowledge-based systems, programming languages and their semantics, and computer systems architecture. The model itself grew out of computer languages such as Planner, Smalltalk, and Simula,…

This paper analyzes the suitability of reinforcement learning (RL) for both programming and adapting situated agents. We discuss two RL algorithms: Q-learning and the Bucket Brigade. We introduce a special case of the Bucket Brigade, and analyze and compare its…

We develop a novel autonomous control synthesis strategy called Phase Space Navigator for the automatic synthesis of nonlinear control systems. The Phase Space Navigator generates global control laws by synthesizing flow shapes of dynamical systems and planning and navigating system…

We develop a qualitative method for understanding and representing phase space structures of complex systems and demonstrate the method with a program, MAPS --- Modeler and Analyzer for Phase Spaces, using deep domain knowledge of dynamical system theory. Given a…

by Henry Neil Holtzman., Thesis (M.S.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Architecture, 1991., Includes bibliographical references (leaves 63-66).