Planning and administration guidelines : a Delphi study based in the preailing situation of libraries with research Puerto Rican materials

Munoz-Sola, Haydee University Microfilms International 1988 국내박사

Blind source separation combined with beamforming

Munoz, Rodrigo C. Jr Graduate School of Paichai University 2005 국내박사

Blind signal separation (BSS) is known as a powerful tool for enhancing noisy speech in many real world environments. Normalized Multichannel Blind Deconvolution (MBD) algorithm for non-stationary convolutive mixtures is one robust method in solving BSS. This MBD algorithm normalizes the signal spectrum in the frequency domain to provide faster stable convergence and improved separation without whitening effect. Nonholonomic constraints and off-diagonal learning are another way to further improve the MBD though they introduce some deteriorating effect on the signal. This thesis introduces the BSS of convolultive mixtures of acoustic signals especially speech, the technique of beamforming, and the combination of the two systems. The properties and structure of the blind source separation algorithm is discussed. Then the performance of the blind signal separation is further improved using directional information of sources. The beam patterns of the null-beamformer (NBF), the fixed-beamformer (FB), BSS, and their combinations are investigated. From various forms of non-adaptive beamformer, it shows that the NBF gives a better and sharper beam pattern compared to the conventional FB. It also shows that directional null reduces mainly direct parts of the unwanted signals whereas BSS reduces reverberant parts as well as direct parts. With this regards, faster and improved separation can be obtained by removing the direct parts first by a non-adaptive beamformer and then output signal is cascaded into a BSS system to further cleanse the desired signal from interference. Simulation results using a real-world recording confirm a good improvement in the speech quality with the implementation of the algorithm and its usefulness in real world applications.

Current state of the access to mobility assistive devices and its services in the Dominican Republic

Munoz Collado, Rosanny Araysy Graduate School, Yonsei University 2024 국내석사

In many low and middle-resource settings, the Assistive Technology (AT) provision is highly fragmented and almost nonexistent, with limited purchasing and no service delivery systems. Despite the existence of a legal framework on disability in the Dominican Republic, there is no comprehensive source of data on the availability of mobility assistive technology (MAT), and there is a significant capacity gap between public and private service providers. The purpose of this study was to investigate the current status of access to mobility assistive devices and related services in both private and public rehabilitation centers in Cibao Norte, Dominican Republic. To this end, a self-administrated survey was conducted targeting people with physical disabilities, who were currently outpatients of 2 public rehabilitation centers and 2 private rehabilitation centers, in other to gather information about the use, unmet needs, barriers to access and level of satisfaction with the mobility assistive devices and related services. A total of 102 individuals were surveyed. As a result of the study, there was a statistically significant difference between the prevalence of self-reported unmet need for mobility assistive devices and the overall use between the two samples (p=0.003 and p=0.007, respectively), with the Public sample reporting both more unmet needs and less use. Canes/ sticks and manual wheelchairs were the most frequently reported mobility assistive devices (MADs) in both samples. Regardless of the group, the most common source of funding for mobility devices was the private sector, with the cost being borne by the users or a family member. Those who received services from the private institution exhibited higher levels of satisfaction across all categories compared to those who received services at the public institution. Furthermore, the Mann-Whitney test yielded significant findings indicating notable variations in satisfaction levels across: satisfaction with the mobility assistive device (p=0.000), satisfaction with the assessment and training (p=0.001), satisfaction with the repair, maintenance and follow-up (p=0.001), AT is suitable for your home and surroundings (p=0.004) and AT helps you to do what you want (p=0.039). Currently, the accessibility, the user’s satisfaction, and the metneeds for mobility devices and services in the Dominican Republic vary depending on the nature of financial resources. In particular, the lower satisfaction and usage rates for public services compared to private services is a factor limiting universal accessibility to mobility devices for disabled users. Therefore, the establishment of a national-level strategy and action plan to improve accessibility and usability of mobility assistive devices is required.

DISIDENTIFICATIONS (DOCUMENTARY)

MUNOZ, JOSE E Duke University 1995 해외박사

(The) effect of foreign direct investment (FDI) on economic growth (GDP) : Case of Ecuador

MUNOZ, VASQUEZ EDISON DANIEL 아주대학교 Graduate School of International Studies Ajo 2017 국내석사

Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), theoretically speaking, is one financing source to accelerate economic development. It helps to improve the welfare of a country throughout the generation of employment, transfer of technology, capital accumulation, etc. However, several empirical studies have suggested that there is either a negative or positive impact on the economic growth. Those different results can be explained because of the particular characteristics of each study such as the period of time, methodologies, type of data, etc. Despite the facts that Ecuador's economy was ranked as eighth in the largest economies in Latin America with an average of 4.6% of GDP Growth during the period from 2000 to 2006, the development of the country is restricted. For instance, Ecuador adopted the US dollar as a national currency, the economy is highly dependent on oil exportation and a populist and protectionist governmental framework was imposed during the last 10 years. Consequently, there are few incentives for foreign investors and competitive disadvantages due to the cost opportunity in comparison to similar economies in Latin America. This research conducts a theoretical and empirical approach. It uses an adapted estimated model and econometric techniques in order to understand the positive contribution of FDI to the economic growth specifically in the case of Ecuador. In addition, it provides a precise interpretation of its interaction with human capital, capital accumulation and transfer of technology. Finally, this research provides enough evidence and suggestions to modify governmental policies to promote foreign direct investment as a way to develop the country.

(The) effect of foreign direct investment (FDI) on economic growth (GDP) : case of Ecuador

Vasquez, Edison Daniel Munoz Ajou University 2017 국내석사

Efficient mitigation schemes for co-channel interference in indoor visible light communication systems

GABRIELA ALEJANDRA ROMERO MUNOZ 경희대학교 대학원 2019 국내박사

In this dissertation, efficient mitigation schemes for co-channel interference (CCI) are proposed to improve the bit error rate (BER) performance of indoor visible light communication (VLC) systems. Due to multiple light emitting diodes (LEDs) are installed in indoor environments for lighting purposes, multiple-input single-output (MISO) schemes can be implemented in VLC systems to increase the transmission capacity and likelihood of the signal reception. However, the interference between adjacent LEDs known as CCI must be considered when VLC uses LEDs, which act as optical transmitters, to transmit unique data over the same frequency resources and the photodiode (PD), which acts as an optical receiver, obtains the different signals over its physical area; the signals can seriously interfere with each other to the point that the receiver cannot recover the information, obtaining useless data. Because the quality of communication link degrades as CCI increases, VLC must overcome CCI to provide a reliable communication throughout the room. VLC is considered as a promising complementary technology for existing wireless communications, which have a shortage of spectrum resources, because of its multiple advantages like it uses the lighting infrastructure for transmitting data using white LEDs, does not interfere with radio frequency (RF) communications and can be installed in electromagnetic interference sensitive areas, such as hospitals, airplanes, and so on. Since VLC can alleviate the increasing data traffic, increase the capacity transmission and prevent loss of connectivity, it can provide service in internet-of-things (IoT) networks, which are applied in healthcare, smart indoor environments, etc., to improve the daily life; for instance, IoT devices can communicate with each other or personal devices, e.g. smartphones, tablets and laptops, to control, monitor, track or locate a particular object. In order to deal with CCI, the proposed schemes are based on transmit diversity and inter-lighting interference cancellation (ILIC) to avoid or mitigate CCI, depending on the data transmission. Employing transmit diversity techniques, the LEDs cooperate to transmit data, which is encoded by space frequency block code-frequency switched transmit diversity (SFBC-FSTD) encoder. At the receiver side, there are no interference signals because each LEDs transmit an encoded data; it means that the signals transmitted by the cooperative LEDs are useful to decode the desired information. Therefore, CCI is avoided by converting the interfering signals into desired signals. By contrast, the signals interfere with each other at the receiver side when the LEDs transmit different data to increase the transmission capacity. While the PD receives the signals with different powers, the signals are detected by ILIC, which decodes the high received power signal and reduce CCI in the low received power signal before decoding. This dissertation presents efficient mitigation schemes for CCI in indoor VLC systems to provide reliable communication throughout the room; the proposed schemes avoid or mitigate CCI, depending on the data transmission. It is organized as follows. Chapter 1 gives a briefly overview of VLC system including advantages, challenges and applications, and depicts the motivation of the research and the contributions obtained from the proposed schemes through computer simulations. Chapter 2 introduces the most important parts of a basic VLC system such as optical channel and optical modulation, and describes an indoor MISO-VLC system, which is composed of multiple LEDs and a PD, that is used to evaluate the BER performance of the proposed schemes in presence of high CCI, i.e. the PD position is in middle of the LEDs, determining the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) or the received optical power required to the target BER = 10^-3, which is the minimum BER for basic communication. Chapter 3 describes the decentralized and centralized cooperative transmission, which are proposed to avoid CCI. The proposed schemes are based on space frequency block code-frequency switched transmit diversity (SFBC-FSTD) to encode the data in spatial and frequency domain. Employing transmit diversity techniques, the LEDs cooperate to transmit the SFBC-FSTD vectors in centralized and decentralized way and the PD requires them to decode the data. In centralized scheme, the LEDs have to communicate with each other to perform code allocation because each cooperative LED transmits a SFBC-FSTD vector. By contrast, the LEDs do not need to communicate with each other before transmission when the decentralized scheme is used because the LEDs send its own random data, which contains the SFBC-FSTD vectors. The proposed schemes overcome CCI because the interfering signals are converted into desired signals and thereby improve the BER performance, providing spatial diversity gain. Chapter 4 describes two improved versions of inter-lighting interference cancellation (ILIC), enhanced ILIC (E-ILIC) and cooperative ILIC (C-ILIC), which are proposed to mitigate CCI when the LEDs transmit unique data to increase the transmission capacity. The proposed schemes are based on ILIC, which improves the performance of a MISO-VLC system when the signals are received with different power because there are high and low received power signal, to reduce CCI in low received power signal. Owing to the average BER performance of ILIC changes with the PD position due to the received power ratio between two signals is different at each position, E-ILIC and C-ILIC are used to receiver the signals with different power whose power ratio complies with the threshold by applying power allocation so that the LEDs transmit unique data with different powers and cooperative transmission so that the LEDs transmit a composite data, which contains two data, with equal powers, respectively. Therefore, E-ILIC and C-ILIC achieve the best average BER performance of ILIC, regardless of the PD position because the received power ratio between the signals is two, while increasing the transmission capacity. Finally, Chapter 5 provides a summary of the proposed schemes, which avoid or mitigate CCI, depending on the data transmission, and overcome link blockages when the decentralized cooperative transmission and cooperative-ILIC are used because the receiver can be recovered the data by receiving at least one received link, and concludes this dissertation.

Integer Programming Techniques for Polynomial Optimization

Munoz, Gonzalo Columbia University ProQuest Dissertations & These 2017 해외박사(DDOD)

Modern problems arising in many domains are driving a need for more capable, state-of-the-art optimization tools. A sharp focus on performance and accuracy has appeared, for example, in science and engineering applications. In particular, we have seen a growth in studies related to Polynomial Optimization: a field with beautiful and deep theory, offering flexibility for modeling and high impact in diverse areas. The understanding of structural aspects of the feasible sets in Polynomial Optimization, mainly studied in Real Algebraic Geometry, has a long tradition in Mathematics and it has recently acquired increased computational maturity, opening the gate for new Optimization methodologies to be developed. The celebrated hierarchies due to Lasserre, for example, emerged as good algorithmic templates. They allow the representation of semi-algebraic sets, possibly non-convex, through convex sets in lifted spaces, thus enabling the use of long-studied Convex Optimization methods. Nonetheless, there are some computational drawbacks for these approaches: they often rely on possibly large semidefinite programs, and due to scalability and numerical issues associated with SDPs, alternatives and complements are arising. In this dissertation, we will explore theoretical and practical Integer-Programming-based techniques for Polynomial Optimization problems. We first present a Linear Programming relaxation for the AC-OPF problem in Power Systems, a non-convex quadratic problem, and show how such relaxation can be used to develop a tractable MIP-based algorithm for the AC Transmission Switching problem. From a more theoretical perspective, and motivated by the AC-OPF problem, we study how sparsity can be exploited as a tool for analysis of the fundamental complexity of a Polynomial Optimization problem, by showing LP formulations that can efficiently approximate sparse polynomial problems. Finally, we show a computationally practical approach for constructing strong LP approximations on-the-fly, using cutting plane approaches. We will show two different frameworks that can generate cutting planes, which are based on classical methods used in Mixed-Integer Programming. Our methods mainly rely on the maturity of current MIP technology; we believe these contributions are important for the development of manageable approaches to general Polynomial Optimization problems.

Correlates of speciation and extinction rates in the carnivora

Munoz, Joao Victor University of California, Los Angeles 2001 해외박사(DDOD)

Despite great research interest in macroevolutionary patterns in mammals, the factors causing differences in diversity among carnivoran lineages remain unclear. The objective of this study is to analyze whether differences in body size, degree of trophic specialization, and sociality level among carnivoran lineages are associated with differences in speciation and/or extinction rates during their recent evolutionary history (Miocene to Recent). I control for the effects of phylogenetic non-independence and use data on the diversity of both fossil and extant taxa to estimate evolutionary rates. To account for differences in fossil preservation, I explore taphonomic bias related to differences in body size and habitat breadth in carnivoran species based on the end-Rancholabrean record of carnivoran. The results of this analysis show a significant, positive relationship between body size and frequency of fossil specimens in non-cave deposits. Results indicate also that species richness of extant, small carnivorans is more underrepresented than that of larger carnivorans, especially in the end-Rancholabrean fossil record derived from non-cave localities. I also explore the usefulness of the known fossil record for assessing the accuracy of conflicting sister taxa hypotheses, and for identifying and accounting for confounding characters. The approach I propose is based on the comparison of temporal gaps among conflicting, well supported sister taxa hypothesis derived from the independent analysis of multiple data sets. The implementation of this approach to the phylogeny of the Caninae allowed a reduction in the level of incongruence between a morphological and a mtDNA data sets, and led to a better tuning of their common phylogenetic signal. After controlling for taphonomic biases and obtaining adequate phylogenetic trees, I search for correlates of speciation and extinction rates in modern carnivoran. The results, albeit based on a relatively small sample size and not too strong, suggest that lineages of highly social carnivorans have significantly higher extinction rates than carnivoran lineages that live solitarily and/or in small family groups. This pattern may be explained by the combined effect of intense intraguild competition, the Allee effect, and the relatively small effective population sizes in carnivoran lineages that display reproductive suppression.

The genera Doloclanes and Wormaldia in the New World (Trichoptera: Philopotamidae)

Munoz-Quesada, Fernando Jesus University of Minnesota 2003 해외박사(DDOD)

The genera <italic>Doloclanes</italic> Banks 1937 and <italic>Wormaldia </italic> McLachlan 1865 (Trichoptera: Philopotamidae: Philopotaminae) are two of five known Philopotamidae genera found in the New World (Nearctic and Neotropical Regions). In the Nearctic Region, <italic>Doloclanes</italic> contains a single species, <italic>D. mohri. Wormaldia</italic> is diverse and widely distributed in the New World. In the Nearctic Region, the following species are known: <italic>Wormaldia anilla, W. arizonensis, W. gabriella, W. gesugta, W. hamata, W. lacerna, W. laona, W. moesta, W. occidea, W. oconee, W. pachita, W. Shawnee, W. strota</italic>, and <italic>W. thyria</italic> Denning (1950). The Neotropical Region contains: <italic>Wormaldia arizonensis, W. cornuta, W. dampfi. W. dorsata, W. endonima, W. esperonis, W. insignis, W. luma, W. matagalpa, W. palma, W. planae, W. prolixa</italic>, and <italic> W. tarasca. Wormaldia arcopa</italic> Denning (1966) is considered a synonym of <italic>W. planae</italic> Ross and King (1956). In addition, 38 undescribed species of <italic>Wormaldia</italic> from the New World are diagnosed, described, and illustrated, including <italic>Wormaldia birneyi</italic> and <italic> W. clauseni</italic> from the Nearctic Region, and <italic>W. andrea, W. anhelitus, W. araujoi, W. aymara, W. barbai, W. bolivari, W. boteroi, W. buenorum, W. calderonae, W. chrismark, W. contrerasi, W. dachiardiorum, W. eberhardi, W. flinti, W. francovilla, W. fredycarol, W. gallardoi, W. gonzalezae, W. hedamafera, W. imberti, W. inca, W. isela, W. juarox, W. lauglo, W. machadorum, W. maesi, W. menchuae, W. monsonorum, W. navarroae, W. paprockevi, W. saboriorum, W. tocajoma, W. trondi, W. tupacamara, W. zunigae</italic>, and <italic>W. zunigarceorum </italic> from the Neotropical Region. New distribution records for several species from both Regions are given. Diagnoses, redescriptions, and illustrations of the male genitalia of all species of both genera are provided, as well as illustrations of both wings. A structural terminology for tergum X of the male genitalia of <italic>Wormaldia</italic> is given, as well as keys for identification of males of all species (also in Spanish) and maps of known distribution records. Finally, a new preliminary proposal of species groups of New World <italic>Wormaldia</italic> is presented, based on cladistic analyses of the phylogenetic relationships of the species.