Matching Items (8)
Filtering by
- Genre: Masters Thesis
- Creators: Arizona State University
- Creators: Chakraborty, Bijeta
- Member of: ASU Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Description
The construction industry in India suffers from major time and cost overruns. Data from government and industry reports suggest that projects suffer from 20 to 25 percent time and cost overruns. Waste of resources has been identified as a major source of inefficiency. Despite a substantial increase in the past few years, demand for professionals and contractors still exceeds supply by a large margin. The traditional methods adopted in the Indian construction industry may not suffice the needs of this dynamic environment, as they have produced large inefficiencies. Innovative ways of procurement and project management can satisfy the needs aspired to as well as bring added value. The problems faced by the Indian construction industry are very similar to those faced by other developing countries. The objective of this paper is to discuss and analyze the economic concerns, inefficiencies and investigate a model that both explains the Indian construction industry structure and provides a framework to improve efficiencies. The Best Value (BV) model is examined as an approach to be adopted in lieu of the traditional approach. This could result in efficient construction projects by minimizing cost overruns and delays, which until now have been a rarity.
ContributorsNihas, Syed (Author) / Kashiwagi, Dean (Thesis advisor) / Sullivan, Kenneth (Committee member) / Kashiwagi, Jacob (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Efficiency of components is an ever increasing area of importance to portable applications, where a finite battery means finite operating time. Higher efficiency devices need to be designed that don't compromise on the performance that the consumer has come to expect. Class D amplifiers deliver on the goal of increased efficiency, but at the cost of distortion. Class AB amplifiers have low efficiency, but high linearity. By modulating the supply voltage of a Class AB amplifier to make a Class H amplifier, the efficiency can increase while still maintaining the Class AB level of linearity. A 92dB Power Supply Rejection Ratio (PSRR) Class AB amplifier and a Class H amplifier were designed in a 0.24um process for portable audio applications. Using a multiphase buck converter increased the efficiency of the Class H amplifier while still maintaining a fast response time to respond to audio frequencies. The Class H amplifier had an efficiency above the Class AB amplifier by 5-7% from 5-30mW of output power without affecting the total harmonic distortion (THD) at the design specifications. The Class H amplifier design met all design specifications and showed performance comparable to the designed Class AB amplifier across 1kHz-20kHz and 0.01mW-30mW. The Class H design was able to output 30mW into 16Ohms without any increase in THD. This design shows that Class H amplifiers merit more research into their potential for increasing efficiency of audio amplifiers and that even simple designs can give significant increases in efficiency without compromising linearity.
ContributorsPeterson, Cory (Author) / Bakkaloglu, Bertan (Thesis advisor) / Barnaby, Hugh (Committee member) / Kiaei, Sayfe (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013
Description
Kiran Nagarkar, who won the Sahitya Akedemi Award in India for his English language writing, is a man who attracts controversy. Despite the consistent strength of his literary works, his English novels have become a lightning rod - not because they are written in English, but because Nagarkar was a well-respected Marathi writer before he began writing in English. Although there are other writers who have become embroiled in the debate over the politics of discourse, the response to Nagarkar's move from Marathi and his subsequent reactions perfectly illustrate the repercussions that accompany such dialectical decisions. Nagarkar has been accused of myriad crimes against his heritage, from abandoning a dedicated readership to targeting more profitable Western markets. Careful analysis of his writing, however, reveals that his novels are clearly written for a diverse Indian audience and offer few points of accessibility for Western readers. Beyond his English language usage, which is actually intended to provide readability to the most possible Indian nationals, Nagarkar also courts a variegated Indian audience by developing upon traditional Indian literary conceits and allusions. By composing works for a broad Indian audience, which reference cultural elements from an array of Indian ethnic groups, Nagarkar's writing seems to push toward the development of the seemingly impossible: a novel that might unify India, and present such a cohesive cultural face to the world at large.
ContributorsRochester, Rachel (Author) / Bivona, Daniel (Thesis advisor) / Mallot, J. Edward (Thesis advisor) / Horan, Elizabeth (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
The advent of advanced reproductive technologies has sparked a number of ethical concerns regarding the practices of reproductive tourism and commercial gestational surrogacy. In the past few decades, reproductive tourism has become a global industry in which individuals or couples travel, usually across borders, to gain access to reproductive services. This marketable field has expanded commercial gestational surrogacy--defined by a contractual relationship between an intending couple and gestational surrogate in which the surrogate has no genetic tie to fetus--to take on transnational complexities. India has experienced extreme growth due to a preferable combination of western educated doctors and extremely low medical costs. However, a slew of ethical issues have been brought to the forefront: the big ones manifesting as concern for reduction of a woman's worth to her reproductive capabilities along with concern for exploitation of third world women. This project will be based exclusively on literature review and serves primarily as a call for cultural competency and understanding the circumstances that gestational surrogates are faced with before implementing policy regulating commercial gestational surrogacy. The paper argues that issues of exploitation and commodification hinge on constructions of motherhood. It is critical to define and understand definitions of motherhood and how these definitions affect a woman's approach to reproduction within the cultural context of a gestational surrogate. This paper follows the case study of the Akanksha Infertility Clinic in northern India, a surrogacy clinic housing around 50 Indian surrogates. The findings of the project invokes the critical significance of narrative ethics, which help Indian surrogates construct the practice of surrogacy so that it fits into cultural comprehensions of Indian motherhood--in which motherhood is selfless, significant, and shared.
ContributorsMoorthy, Anjali (Author) / Robert, Jason S (Thesis advisor) / Hurlbut, Benjamin (Committee member) / Ellison, Karin (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
Description
Class D Amplifiers are widely used in portable systems such as mobile phones to achieve high efficiency. The demands of portable electronics for low power consumption to extend battery life and reduce heat dissipation mandate efficient, high-performance audio amplifiers. The high efficiency of Class D amplifiers (CDAs) makes them particularly attractive for portable applications. The Digital class D amplifier is an interesting solution to increase the efficiency of embedded systems. However, this solution is not good enough in terms of PWM stage linearity and power supply rejection. An efficient control is needed to correct the error sources in order to get a high fidelity sound quality in the whole audio range of frequencies. A fundamental analysis on various error sources due to non idealities in the power stage have been discussed here with key focus on Power supply perturbations driving the Power stage of a Class D Audio Amplifier. Two types of closed loop Digital Class D architecture for PSRR improvement have been proposed and modeled. Double sided uniform sampling modulation has been used. One of the architecture uses feedback around the power stage and the second architecture uses feedback into digital domain. Simulation & experimental results confirm that the closed loop PSRR & PS-IMD improve by around 30-40 dB and 25 dB respectively.
ContributorsChakraborty, Bijeta (Author) / Bakkaloglu, Bertan (Thesis advisor) / Garrity, Douglas (Committee member) / Ozev, Sule (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
This thesis reviews options available to women in rural India and whether these opportunities grant them freedom. Initially, I distinguish the term freedom from autonomy, recognizing the flaws in the theory of autonomy. I identify freedom as a human's ability to make choices without external coercion. This differs from the concept of autonomy because autonomy does not recognize culture as a form of coercion; autonomy also neglects to consider the possibility of a person making a decision that affects his or her life negatively. These concepts tie into battered women in rural India because of the pressure they receive from cultural forces to make decisions reflecting practiced gender norms. Through case study research, I found that battered women in India lack access to freedom, being unable to access their freedom because of the constant threat of violence and/or ostracism. I drew this conclusion after reviewing opportunities of financial freedom through micro-credit loans, land-owning, and women’s employment. I reflect on freedom of mobility, and examine women’s threat of violence in both the public and private sectors. Lastly, I reviewed women’s political freedom in rural India, reviewing laws that were passed to ensure women’s equality. Women in India are already in a vulnerable position because of existing gender norms that require women to perform tasks for the benefit of the men in her life. A woman under the threat of domestic violence is twice as vulnerable because of her positionality as a woman in her culture, as well as a wife in her marriage. She is bound by gender norms in society, as well as her expected marital duties as a wife. Being unable to escape the threat of violence in both her private and public spheres, a woman experiencing domestic violence has virtually no access to freedom. I suggest that state and community-level empowerment is necessary before individual-level empowerment is effective and culturally accepted.
ContributorsJoyave, Anna (Author) / Behl, Natasha (Thesis advisor) / Forrest, Michael D. (Committee member) / Anokye, Akua D (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
Description
In this thesis, a digital input class D audio amplifier system which has the ability
to reject the power supply noise and nonlinearly of the output stage is presented. The main digital class D feed-forward path is using the fully-digital sigma-delta PWM open loop topology. Feedback loop is used to suppress the power supply noise and harmonic distortions. The design is using global foundry 0.18um technology.
Based on simulation, the power supply rejection at 200Hz is about -49dB with
81dB dynamic range and -70dB THD+N. The full scale output power can reach as high as 27mW and still keep minimum -68dB THD+N. The system efficiency at full scale is about 82%.
to reject the power supply noise and nonlinearly of the output stage is presented. The main digital class D feed-forward path is using the fully-digital sigma-delta PWM open loop topology. Feedback loop is used to suppress the power supply noise and harmonic distortions. The design is using global foundry 0.18um technology.
Based on simulation, the power supply rejection at 200Hz is about -49dB with
81dB dynamic range and -70dB THD+N. The full scale output power can reach as high as 27mW and still keep minimum -68dB THD+N. The system efficiency at full scale is about 82%.
ContributorsBai, Jing (Author) / Bakkaloglu, Bertan (Thesis advisor) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
Lower representation of women in the engineering and computer science workforce is a global problem. In the United States, women in engineering drop out at a rate higher than their male counterparts. The male/female ratio in the engineering workforce has remained stagnant despite growing percentages of graduates. Women dropout due to familial responsibilities and they leave to take positions in other industries. In India, women are also employed at a lower rate than men. Many studies address the reasons why women leave, but few studies address why they stay. Those that do, address the personal and organizational characteristics that enable women to persist. Little research was found regarding the social supports that further women's ability to persist in the male-dominated field of engineering. This study surveyed 173 men and women engineers in the United States and India as well as collected qualitative data. The research focused on the social supports of family, friends, a special person, supervisors, coworkers, and professional networking, to determine how they support engineering persistence in the four demographics. The participants were scored on their level of persistence and the impact of social supports was evaluated against it. All supports were significant, although not for all demographics. Social supports of family, friends and a special person were more important to the sample of engineers from India, a collectivist culture. The importance of the supervisor relationship to women in the United States was reaffirmed. Professional networking, informal or formal, was the only support significantly related to persistence across all demographics. In the qualitative data there was a strong theme; coworkers are their friends and they support them in their engineering life. As companies re-think their organizational environment and attempt to change engineering culture and long-standing attitudes, women can engage in creating strong social supports and assist in building quality professional networking opportunities. A strong web of support strengthens a woman engineer’s ability to persist during difficult times and provides them opportunities for personal and career growth. It can also be a vehicle for furthering diversity and inclusion in their organizations.
ContributorsFerrell, Joan Leslie (Author) / Parmentier, Mary Jane C. (Thesis advisor) / Frow, Emma Khamis (Committee member) / Richter, Jennifer (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016