Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'The operating performance of vehicles'

The stringent emission laws, the depletion of petroleum reserves and the relation of fuels with politics have forced the world to find alternatives to fossil fuels. Biodiesel is one of the biofuels which is renewable and environmentally friendly and can be used in diesel engines with little or no modifications. For the last two decades, many researchers have reported extensive work on the performance and emission characteristics of engines running with biodiesel during steady state operation. However, there are numbers of knowledge gaps that have been identified which include limited information on biodiesel physio-chemical properties and their effects on combustion behaviour and performance and emission characteristics of the engine. In this study after an exhaustive literature review, the following four research areas have been identified and investigated extensively using available numerical and experimental means. The initial focus was to investigate the most important properties of biodiesel such as density, viscosity and lower heating value using experimental and numerical techniques. The effects of biodiesel blend content on the physical properties were analysed. For each property, prediction models were developed and compared with current models available in literature. New density and viscosity prediction models were developed by considering the combined effect of biodiesel content and temperature. All the empirical models have showed a fair degree of accuracy in estimating the physical properties of biodiesel in comparison to the experimental results. Finally, the effects of density and viscosity on the fuel supply system were investigated. This system includes the fuel filter, fuel pump and the engine combustion chamber in which air-fuel mixing behaviour was studied numerically. These models can be used to understand the effects of changes in the physical properties of the fuel on the fuel supply system. In addition, the fuel supply system analysis can be carried out during the design stage of fuel pump, fuel filter and injection system. The second research objective was the investigation into a CI engine’s combustion characteristics as well as performance and emissions characteristics under both the steady and transient conditions when fuelled with biodiesel blends. The effects of biodiesel content on the CI engine’s in-cylinder pressure, brake specific fuel consumption, thermal efficiency and emissions (CO2, NOx, CO, THC) were evaluated based on experimental results. It has been seen that the CI engine running with the biodiesel resulted in acceptable engine performance as well as reduction in main emissions (except NOx). Following this study, a detailed analysis on the transient performance and emission output of the CI engine has been carried out. During this analysis, the emission changing rate is investigated during speed transient and torque transition stages. Further to this, a transient emission prediction model has been developed using associated steady and transient emission data. The model has been shown to predict the transient emission reasonably accurately. The third research objective was to develop a method for on-line measurement of NOx emission. For this purpose the in-cylinder pressure generated within a CI engine has been measured experimentally along with mass air flow and these parameters have been used in the development of a NOx prediction model. This model has been validated using experimental data obtained from a NOx emission analyzer. The predicted data obtained from NOx prediction model has been compared with measured data and has shown that the deviation is within acceptable range. The final research objective was to develop a simple, reliable and low-cost novel method to reduce the NOx emission of the CI engine when using biodiesel blends. A potential solution to this problem has been found to be in the form of direct water injection which has shown to be capable to reduce NOx emission. Using a water injection technique, the performance and emission(NOx and CO) characteristics of a CI engine fuelled with biodiesel has been investigated at varying water injection flow rates. Intake manifold water injection reduces NOx emission by up to 40% over the entire operating range without compromising the performance characteristics of the CI engine

La presente tesis doctoral se presenta en forma de compendio de publicaciones, en la cual se han desarrollado diversos Modelos Causales para ayudar en la toma de decisiones usando como herramienta principal las relaciones causa-efecto inherente del sistema. A continuación se describen brevemente los artículos incluidos en la tesis doctoral El artículo titulado “A CD&CR causal model based on path shortening/path stretching techniques” publicado por la revista Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies esta enfocado hacia la investigación académica de alto nivel que aborda el desarrollo, las aplicaciones y consecuencias, de las nuevas tecnologías en el campo del transporte. El enfoque del modelo causal desarrollado en Redes de Petri Coloreadas aportan no solo una metodología innovativa per se, sino que su aplicación e implicaciones en la etapa de planificación, diseño, y gestión, es de particular interés en el rendimiento general del sistema de transporte aéreo. En artículo titulado "Revisiting the pallet loading problem using a discrete event system approach to minimise logistic costs” publicado en la revista International Journal of Production Research (IJPR) se presenta un modelo orientado a eventos discretos para abordar el Problema del Palletizado (PLP) usando como formalismo de especificación las Redes de Petri Coloreadas. El problema de Paletizado conforma una parte fundamental en el flujo logístico de diversos sistemas de transporte (terrestre o aéreo), siendo un factor clave en etapas aguas arriba (e.g. producción) y abajo del sistema (e.g. distribución). El trabajo presenta una novedosa forma de modelado con una importante mejora de los kPI’s respecto a los actuales entornos comerciales, soportando tanto diferentes heurísticas así como su integración con el sistema para encontrar configuraciones óptimas para el acomodo de cajas con una tipología diversa. El artículo denominado "Integrating and sequencing flows in terminal maneuvering area by evolutionary algorithms," publicado por la IEEE/AIAA en el Digital Avionics Systems Conference (DASC), 2011 presenta una aproximación innovadora para aliviar el problema de congestión en el espacio aéreo terminal (terminal maneouvering área). En este artículo se analiza un procedimiento alternativo para la integración y secuenciación de las aeronaves en la fase de aterrizaje. El artículo ha recibido diversas menciones tal como el mejor artículo de la sesión, mejor artículo en la sección de mejoras a la capacidad del sector aéreo y mejor artículo de estudiante. Estas menciones indican la importancia y trascendencia de dicho trabajo donde se utilizan algoritmos desarrollados para la optimización de sistemas altamente complejos como es el espacio aéreo terminal. El artículo que lleva por nombre “A TMA 4DT CD/CR causal model based in path shortening/path stretching techniques”, publicado en el International Conference on Research in Air Transportation — ICRAT 2010, ha recibido la mención Best paper award reconociendo las aportaciones del trabajo presentado. El modelo desarrollado en Redes de Petri Coloreadas para la solución de conflictos entre aeronaves presenta resultados experimentales validados mediante simuladores de vuelo de la compañía Aireuropa que permiten validar las trayectorias obtenidas mediante el modelo desarrollado. Finalmente, el articulo Causal model to sequence and merge 4DT flows in TMA, se encuentran publicados en las memorias del International Conference on Application and Theory of Automation in Command and Control Systems ATTACS2011 donde se presenta un algoritmo de solución para la secuencializacion y fusión de flujos de aterrizaje de aeronaves donde se muestra el gran potencial para mejorar de la toma de decisiones usando el espacio de estados de los modelos de RdPC.
The present PhD thesis report has been elaborated as a compendium of publications, in which diverse Causal Models have been developed to assist in the decision making process using a cause-effect relationship approach inherent in the system. A brief description of the items included in the doctoral thesis. The document is organized in four different parts. First, the Chapter called “Basic Notions” introduces the basic notions and a general perspective on the systems approach. Particular interest has been placed in the Discrete-Event Systems approach, presenting the main features of this formalism. The main theory behind the Coloured Petri Nets approach is presented in Section 2.1.1 Different case studies are provided from Chapters 3 to 5. Chapter 3 presents the work named “A CD&CR causal model based on path shortening/path stretching techniques”, which has been accepted for publication in the Journal Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies. This work depicts a groundbreaking approach to alleviate the airspace congestion and to deal with the implications for the planning, design, and management of Air Traffic Control operations. Particular interest has been placed Terminal Manoeuvring Area (TMA) where the traffic conditions impose to take time-critical decisions. Therefore, an appropriate management of arrival operations could alleviate congestion which impacts directly in capacity and efficiency of the overall Air Traffic Management operations. To evaluate the performance of the the resolution strategy to avoid non-efficient procedures, diverse scenarios have been tasted in a busy traffic period at Gran Canaria’s airport. The result obtain contribute with the planning and management of Air Traffic Control operations to increase the overall predictability of the Air traffic, with benefit to airlines and airports, among others. Chapter 4 corresponds to the article "Revisiting the pallet loading problem using a discrete event system approach to minimise logistic costs” published in the International Journal of Production Research (IJPR). This work presents an innovative and challenging modelling approach to optimize the space and distribution of boxes into a pallet, supporting the inherent box diversity (heterogeneous palletizing problems) of present production and distribution logistic systems. The space utilization is modelled as squares that can be fragmentise and de-fragmentise. In a first approach, the state space analysis is performed to evaluate different optimal configurations to load the maximum number of boxes on a rectangular pallet. The second approach implements heuristics to show that acceptable occupancy results can be obtained without requiring the exhaustive evaluation of the different feasible combination. Chapter 5 introduces the work "Integrating and sequencing flows in terminal maneuvering area by evolutionary algorithms" in proceeding of the IEEE/AIAA en el Digital Avionics Systems Conference (DASC), 2011. This work has received three mentions: Best student paper award; Best paper in the ATM Capacity Improvements track award; y Best paper of session award which confirm the transcendence and implications of such approach. This chapter presents a new approach to optimize a set of aircraft planned to land at a given airport. It is proposed to merge the incoming flows from different routes by mean of speed and path changes. Those changes aim to remove conflicts at merging points and to maintain separation of aircraft following the same route link according to their wake turbulence constraint. The optimization criteria are based on the minimum deviation from the initial path planning. This algorithm has been successfully applied to Gran Canaria airport in Spain with real traffic demand samples for which conflict free flow merging is produced smoothly with optimal runway feeding. Finally, Chapter 5 contains the overall conclusions, future work, summary of contributions and complementary publications on the author. The work presented in annex called “Causal model to sequence and merge 4DT flows in TMA” summarizes the development of a decision support algorithm to tackle the merging and sequencing problem within the Terminal Manoeuvring Area (TMA) sector. The algorithm works with multiple landing traffic flows that share the airspace in the same time window. A flexible terminal area route structure is proposed; it eliminates conflicts within the Standard Terminal Arrival (STAR) while traffic is merged prior converging on to the final approach. As a first instance the first come first serve (FCFS) sequence policy will be tasted and later on the sequence will be altered by means of the Constrained Position Shifting (CPS) algorithm. Gran Canaria STAR is used to evaluate the benefits of the proposed model under synthetic traffic; and to determine the spacing buffers the ICAO Separation minima (ICAO DOC-4444) criteria is used as on current methodology. Finally, in Annex, the paper “A TMA 4DT CD/CR causal model based in path shortening/path stretching techniques” introduces the basic ideas behind a discrete event model for Conflict Detection and Conflict Resolution algorithm in a TMA 4D trajectory scenario in presented which focuses mainly on the arrival phase. This model brings a very interesting knowledge about the events that take place in the management of 4DT and their interactions in Gran Canaria TMA to remove non-effective operations, avoid delay propagation between arrivals and optimize the occupancy of the runway. The causal model developed considers different alternative predefined turning points for each flight evaluating path shortening/path stretching of all trajectories upwards the merging point in a TMA.

Advanced Receiver Autonomous Integrity Monitoring (ARAIM) is a new Aircraft Based Augmentation System (ABAS) technique, firstly presented in the two reports of the GNSS Evolutionary Architecture Study (GEAS). The ARAIM technique offers the opportunity to enable GNSS receivers to serve as a primary means of navigation, worldwide, for precision approach down to LPV-200 operation, while at the same time potentially reducing the support which has to be provided by Ground and Satellite Based Augmented Systems (GBAS and SBAS). Previous work analysed ARAIM performance, clearly showing the potential of this new architectures to provide the Required Navigation Performance down to LPV 200 approach procedures. However, almost all of the studies have been performed with respect to fixed points on a grid on the Earth’s surface, with full view of the sky, evaluating ARAIM performance from a geometrical point of view and using nominal performance in simulated scenarios which last several days. Though, the operational configuration was not examined; attitude changes from manoeuvres, obscuration by the aircraft body and shadowing from the surrounding environment could all affect the incoming signal from the GNSS constellations, leading to configurations that could adversely affect the real performance. In this research, ARAIM performances in simulated operational configurations are presented. Four different algorithms were developed that integrate the ARAIM technique for performance prediction analysis. These algorithms could usefully be implemented: • In the design of instrument approach procedures. The algorithms could be used to improve the procedure of the development of new instrument approaches, reducing time, effort and costs. • In the aircraft Flight Management Systems. The algorithms could support the pilots in the pre-flight briefing, highlighting possible integrity outage in advance and allowing them to select a different approach or making them aware of the need to utilise additional positioning systems. Increased awareness and better pre-flight planning could ultimately improve the safety of flights and contribute to the safe introduction of GNSS as a viable positioning method for instrument approach. The results showed that the aircraft attitude and the surrounding environment affect the performance of the ARAIM algorithm; each satellite lost generates a peak in the performance parameters that depends on the total number of satellites in view, their relative geometry and on the number of satellites lost at the same time. The main outcome of this research is the identification that the ideal scenario would be to have a tri-constellation system that provides at the same time high redundancy, reliability and increased safety margin.

Regulation requires railway energy absorbers to dissipate the collision energy and to prevent overriding. There is no industrial consensus about which energy absorbing mechanism is the most suitable for the crash conditions present in a collision between railway vehicles. There is scope for improving the existing designs or creating new concepts. The combination of two energy absorption mechanisms, expansion and splitting of cylindrical tubes, was identified as an improved energy absorption mechanism. Quasi-static and dynamic testing of scaled splitting, expansion and expansion splitting (hybrid) tubes was carried out to assess their force, stroke, energy absorption and oblique loading efficiency. In addition, the standard requires a calibrated numerical model of the energy absorber to predict its behaviour. The fracture strain of the tube and the coefficient of friction between the tube and the die are needed to build accurate numerical models. The fracture strain was measured using a Digital Image Correlation technique and a new methodology was developed to overcome its limitations. The inclusion of the fracture strain correctly predicted the deformation of the splitting specimens. The friction coefficient was adjusted until the energy absorption matched that observed during testing. Quasi-static testing showed that the force efficiency was 80%, 100% and 90%, for the splitting, expansion and hybrid tubes respectively. The stroke efficiency was measured as 77%, 44% and 70%, respectively. The energy absorption efficiency of the hybrid tubes was assessed as 11% and 40% higher than that of the splitting and expansion tubes respectively. The testing also showed that the hybrid tubes were more insensitive than the expansion and splitting tubes to the application of oblique loading. More testing may be necessary to confirm this assertion. The results suggest that the hybrid energy absorbing mechanism could become a commercial energy absorber with improved performance over the existing solutions. The validation of the hybrid numerical models showed an accurate prediction of the test results. A full-scale hybrid demonstrator has been tested and a patent of the hybrid concept applied for.

This is a report of a professional project intended to act as an informational tool for the evaluation of a dynamic dispatch system at Embarcadero Station for the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA). Systems that operate dispatch algorithms do so in response to on-time performance and reliability. The optimization problem is documented in many transportation contexts including airline networks, bus dispatch, and freight routing. According to the research, optimizing available options and re-routing based on available options can create a more efficient system that would minimize operating costs and improving service reliability for customers. The methodology presented here uses current headway information to dynamically change dispatch assignment between J, L, and M lines. The reassignment program was applied to randomly selected weekdays in March of 2012. After analysis it was determined that the application has the potential to decrease mean operating headways by up to 3% (or approximately 15 seconds).

This thesis, as a part of the overall project to determine general methodology for calculating lost profits, deals with technical and economic data of trucks, cost analysis and quantification of lost profits after an accident and subsequent mending. It focuses on vehicles with a total weight of over 12 tons. The thesis and its results are beneficial for the experts and forensic engineering experts who, based on documents can more easily determine a methodology for calculating lost profits. It simplifies and accelerates the settlement of claims for loss of profits and payments.

Thesis: S.M., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management, Operations Research Center, 2015.
Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 101-102).
This thesis considers the problem of detecting anomalies in performance data for unmanned underwater vehicles(UUVs). UUVs collect a tremendous amount of data, which operators are required to analyze between missions to determine if vehicle systems are functioning properly. Operators are typically under heavy time constraints when performing this data analysis. The goal of this research is to provide operators with a post-mission data analysis tool that automatically identifies anomalous features of performance data. Such anomalies are of interest because they are often the result of an abnormal condition that may prevent the vehicle from performing its programmed mission. In this thesis, we consider existing one-class classification anomaly detection techniques since labeled training data from the anomalous class is not readily available. Specifically, we focus on two anomaly detection techniques: (1) Kernel Density Estimation (KDE) Anomaly Detection and (2) Local Outlier Factor. Results are presented for selected UUV systems and data features, and initial findings provide insight into the effectiveness of these algorithms. Lastly, we explore ways to extend our KDE anomaly detection algorithm for various tasks, such as finding anomalies in discrete data and identifying anomalous trends in time-series data.
by William Ray Harris.
S.M.

Thesis (S.B.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, 2011.
Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 29).
Power consumption is a huge limitation in the application of autonomous vehicles, making the need for efficient processes more important. A greater operating efficiency could extend the capabilities of missions by consuming less power and energy. This thesis analyzed the operating efficiency of a small, autonomous water craft. The results of the study showed that the most efficient operating condition is to run the vehicle at the bare minimum to require movement. Less current is drawn from the battery to rotate the propellers and a greater proportional thrust return when compared to the work requirements. It was not possible to measure all of the operating conditions due to the limitations of the device themselves.
by Michael B. Fraser.
S.B.

Over the last years, the number of commercial space activities has increased tremendously. Technological developments have been the main reason in the emerging of new services that use space infrastructure. In order to provide these new space services, it is necessary to launch and operate spacecraft.
Complying with the laws and regulations of the launching and operating activities is one of the most relevant issues that prospective spacecraft operators may face in this complex industry.
This work compiles the legal sources to effectively launch and operate spacecraft destined for commercial space applications. Its goal is to identify common constraints that operators may find in the process of licensing and acquiring orbits or radio frequencies and the national/international legal principles, which govern spacecraft operations.

A human factors experiment was conducted to investigate the potential benefits of using directional auditory cues in intelligent transportation system technologies in commercial vehicles. Twelve licensed commercial vehicle operators drove a commercial truck-driving simulator and were prompted to select highway numbers on a side-task display. Prompts were presented visually or aurally. Auditory prompts were presented either diotically (both ears simultaneously) or directionally (to either the left or right ear). The search task varied in map density and timing of the prompts in relation to speed limit changes. All experimental conditions were compared to a control condition containing no secondary task. Both driving performance (lane deviation, steering wheel angle, road heading angle error, accidents, and adherence to the speed limit) and secondary task performance (accuracy and response time) measures were collected. Results showed that drivers were able to respond more quickly and accurately to the search task when directional auditory cues were used. Results also showed that driving performance degrades when display density increases and that the use of directional auditory prompts lessens this deterioration of performance for high-density conditions.
Master of Science

Roads deteriorate at different rates from weathering and use. Hence, transportation agencies must assess the ride quality of a facility regularly to determine its maintenance needs. Existing models to characterize ride quality produce the International Roughness Index (IRI), the prevailing summary of roughness. Nearly all state agencies use Inertial Profilers to produce the IRI. Such heavily instrumented vehicles require trained personnel for their operation and data interpretation. Resource constraints prevent the scaling of these existing methods beyond 4% of the network. This dissertation developed an alternative method to characterize ride quality that uses regular passenger vehicles. Smartphones or connected vehicles provide the onboard sensor data needed to enable the new technique. The new method provides a single index summary of ride quality for all paved and unpaved roads. The new index is directly proportional to the IRI. A new transform integrates sensor data streams from connected vehicles to produce a linear energy density representation of roughness. The ensemble average of indices from different speed ranges converges to a repeatable characterization of roughness. The currently used IRI is undefined at speeds other than 80 km/h. This constraint mischaracterizes roughness experienced at other speeds. The newly proposed transform integrates the average roughness indices from all speed ranges to produce a speed-independent characterization of ride quality. This property avoids spatial wavelength bias, which is a critical deficiency of the IRI. The new method leverages the emergence of connected vehicles to provide continuous characterizations of ride quality for the entire roadway network. This dissertation derived precision bounds of deterioration forecasting for models that could utilize the new index. The results demonstrated continuous performance improvements with additional vehicle participation. With practical traversal volumes, the achievable precision of forecast is within a few days. This work also quantified capabilities of the new transform to localize roadway anomalies that could pose travel hazards. The methods included derivations of the best sensor settings to achieve the desired performances. Several case studies validated the findings. These new techniques have the potential to save agencies millions of dollars annually by enabling predictive maintenance practices for all roadways, worldwide.
Mountain Plains Consortium (MPC)

This work proposes a methodology to evaluate the performance of operating wind farms via the use of Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition System (SCADA) and modeled data. The potential annual energy is calculated per individual turbine considering underperforming/loss events to have their power output in accordance with a representative derived operational power curve. Losses/underperformance events are calculated and categorized into several groups aiming at identifying and quantify their causes. The methodology requires both anemometry data from SCADA system as well as modeled data. The discrepancy of the data representing the valid points of the power curve is taken into consideration as well when assessing the performance, i.e. wind speed vs power output of events that are not loss/underperformance. Production loss and relative standard deviation of power output of what is defined as “valid sample” in this work (per each turbine) are the main results obtained in this work. Finally, a number of optimization measures are suggested in order to enhance the performance, which can lead to a boost in the financial output of a wind farm. Aiming at judging the reliability of the proposed methodology, a case study is conducted and evaluated. The investigated case study shows that the methodology is capable of determining potential energy and associated losses/underperformance events. Several questions were raised during the assessment and are discussed in this report, recommendation for optimization measures are presented at the end of the study. Also, a discussion on the limitations and uncertainties associated to the presented methodology and the case study.

The subject of minefield clearance has received much attention in the last few years due to its necessity during modern warfighting, and its unavoidable inherent dangers. Clearing the battlefield of Unexploded Ordnance (UXO) is a formidable task that presently requires the risk of human life. Future strategy calls for the use of a fleet of small, inexpensive, but very capable robots to clear the battlefield of all unexploded ordnance. The Navy's Explosive Ordnance Disposal Technical Center has developed a "BUGS" Basic UXO gathering System, in order to examine such strategy. In support of this effort, simulations are being conducted to examine the effects of navigation, control schemes, and terrain characteristics on battlefield clearance operations.

Series hybrid electric vehicles have their wheels driven by an electric motor powered by a battery with an engine plant that cranks a generator unit to provide electric power to the battery and if necessary to the electric motor. They promise significant reductions in greenhouse gases without compromising driving performance. This year GM has launched the first mass produced series hybrid electric vehicle and other car manufacturer are to follow over the next decade. In recent years significant progress has been made in new battery techno logies, electric propulsion designs, and optimisation of power flow and control of the electric components to reduce the weight and cost. While these developments have been made successfully, little attention has been spent on improvement of the generator-set for series hybrid electric vehicles. Generally, a generator-set consists of a three-phase machine and a three-phase rectifier circuit. Conventional generator- sets suffer from significant voltage drops across the output of the rectifier circuit caused by current commutation, resulting from interaction between the machine inductances and the rectifier. Any voltage drop across the output of the rectifier circuit leads to an inefficient operation ofthe generator system. In this thesis, a new generator-set for the use in series hybrid electric vehicle applications is presented, whereby the voltage drop caused by commutation is eliminated. In a typical rectifier circuit the output voltage drop is proportional to the commutation time, which is a function of the value of the machine inductance. The novel topology operates in such a way that the commutation time becomes independent from the value of the machine inductance. This is achieved by eliminating the output de-link capacitors that are used in traditional rectifier circuits and transferring these capacitors within a new rectifier circuit. These embedded capacitors are charged and discharged simultaneously with two switches. The capacitors still have the function of electric storage but they also operate in resonance with the supply inductance.

In this dissertation we present advances in developing an autonomous air vehicle capable of navigating through unknown, indoor environments. The problem imposes stringent limits on the computational power available onboard the vehicle, but the environment necessitates using 3D sensors such as stereo or RGB-D cameras whose data requires significant processing. We address the problem by proposing and developing key elements of a relative navigation scheme that moves as many processing tasks as possible out of the time-critical functions needed to maintain flight. We present in Chapter 2 analysis and results for an improved multirotor helicopter state estimator. The filter generates more accurate estimates by using an improved dynamic model for the vehicle and by properly accounting for the correlations that exist in the uncertainty during state propagation. As a result, the filter can rely more heavily on frequent and easy to process measurements from gyroscopes and accelerometers, making it more robust to error in the processing intensive information received from the exteroceptive sensors. In Chapter 3 we present BERT, a novel approach to map optimization. The goal of map optimization is to produce an accurate global map of the environment by refining the relative pose transformation estimates generated by the real-time navigation system. We develop BERT to jointly optimize the global poses and relative transformations. BERT exploits properties of independence and conditional independence to allow new information to efficiently flow through the network of transformations. We show that BERT achieves the same final solution as a leading iterative optimization algorithm. However, BERT delivers noticeably better intermediate results for the relative transformation estimates. The improved intermediate results, along with more readily available covariance estimates, make BERT especially applicable to our problem where computational resources are limited. We conclude in Chapter 4 with analysis and results that extend BERT beyond the simple example of Chapter 3. We identify important structure in the network of transformations and address challenges arising in more general map optimization problems. We demonstrate results from several variations of the algorithm and conclude the dissertation with a roadmap for future work.

The goal of the research was to develop best practices for image signal processing method for InSAS systems for bathymetric height determination. Improvements over existing techniques comes from the fusion of Chirp-Scaling a phase preserving beamforming techniques to form a SAS image, an interferometric Vernier method to unwrap the phase; and confirming the direction of arrival with the MUltiple SIgnal Channel (MUSIC) estimation technique. The fusion of Chirp-Scaling, Vernier, and MUSIC lead to the stability in the bathymetric height measurement, and improvements in resolution. This method is computationally faster, and used less memory then existing techniques.

This study was performed with two main goals in mind. The first goal was to understand and predict "red-lines" and "yellow-lines" in terms of what the CVO driver can process without hindering the primary task of driving. The second goal was to collect conventional secondary task data for CVO driving performance. An on-the-road experiment was performed with the help of 12 truck drivers. Type of task, presentation format, information density, and age were the independent variables used in the experiment. The 22 dependent measures collected were grouped into the following categories: eye glance measures, longitudinal driving performance, lateral driving performance, secondary task performance, and subjective assessment. The findings of this study strongly suggest that paragraphs should not be used under any circumstance to present information to the driver while the vehicle is in motion. On the other hand, the Graphics with Icons represent the most appropriate format in which driving instructions and information should be presented for IVIS/CVO tasks. In order to avoid a high visual attention demand to the driver due to a secondary task, only simple search tasks with the most important information shall be presented. Although the suggested format, type of task, and information density represent a higher visual attention demand than a conventional secondary task, these characteristics seem to bind a task with a moderate attentional demand. Other combinations of format, type of task, and information density will cause an increase in the driver's attentional demand that will consequently deteriorate their driving performance causing unsafe driving situations.
Master of Science

This item is only available in print in the UCF Libraries. If this is your Honors Thesis, you can help us make it available online for use by researchers around the world by following the instructions on the distribution consent form at http://library.ucf.edu/Systems/DigitalInitiatives/DigitalCollections/InternetDistributionConsentAgreementForm.pdf You may also contact the project coordinator, Kerri Bottorff, at kerri.bottorff@ucf.edu for more information.
Bachelors
Arts and Sciences
Finance

Thesis (M.S. in Management) Naval Postgraduate School, December 1998.
"December 1998." Thesis advisor(s): Joseph San Miguel, Brad R. Naegle. Includes bibliographical references (p. 63-66). Also available online.

The operating room (OR) within a hospital environment is one of the most expensive functional areas, yet the use of the OR also provides hospitals with an essential source of income. However, at present, there are variations on how to evaluate the performance of ORs, since there is no clear and full explanation of the concept and methods used for evaluation. The overall aim of this thesis is to develop an evidence based Operating Room Assessment Framework (ORAF) to evaluate Operating Room performance with clear and complete guidelines that can be used by operating room managers, directors or any other medical professionals to evaluate operating room performance, determine OR planning and scheduling efficiency, OR workload and OR utilization. The resulting Operating Room Assessment Framework will assist targeted healthcare professionals in their quest to evaluate, monitor and improve overall Operating Room efficiency. The OR management systems of eight tertiary and teaching hospitals in three countries (Japan, Canada and Saudi Arabia) have been examined from 2010 to 2012, which include more than 98,500 procedures. The Operating Room Assessment Framework (ORAF) involves three important elements of Operating Room performance, namely: OR scheduling level, the type of OR workload, and OR utilization. These elements can simply be read to reach the end result, which includes three types of scheduling levels: under scheduling, ideal scheduling and over scheduling; five types of OR workload: OR total workload (the gross workload), OR actual workload, over workload, unnecessary workload and unexpected workload; and three types of OR utilization: underutilization, ideal utilization, and 100% utilization with over workload. Through the validation process in different hospital contexts, the ORAF has proven its ability to perform satisfactorily, with accuracy, in line within the research’s objectives.

There is no widely accepted tool to assess an orthopedic surgeon’s technical skill in the operating room. With changes in surgical education, simulators are being investigated for learning and assessing technical skills, but a link between the actual operating room is needed to ensure they are effective. Hip fracture surgery is a good starting point to develop these measures because hip fractures are common and fixation is a difficult task. Resident orthopedic surgeons wore a head-mounted video camera during hip fracture surgery. Data collected included: duration, number of x-ray images, the supervising surgeon intervention, and tip-apex distance (TAD, a measure of how accurate the implant is placed). To determine the reliability of these measurements, four raters performed them for two cases. Ten raters measured the tip-apex distance (TAD) on 7 cases. These performance metrics for 15 cases were compared to experience of the residents, both point in residency and number of previous cases. A composite performance score was computed using the four metrics. The metrics were also compared to two practicing surgeons’ assessment of skill. The inter-rater reliability of the performance metrics was high (0.97-0.99) showing these measures are consistent between different raters and useful for assessment. There was a significant relationship between resident experience and the metrics of duration and TAD. Expert opinion was related to duration. These metrics provide objective assessment of resident technical performance in the operating room by a non-expert, an important step towards competency based education. Their validity is shown with correlation to surgical experience.

碩士
大葉大學
管理學院碩士在職專班
107
This study draws on quarterly data, from 1995 to 2018, to analyze whether the development of electric vehicles (EVs)has affected the operating revenue of the printed circuit board (PCB) industry. The results of descriptive statistics and t-test confirm that the operational performance of the automotive PCB market is superior to that of non-automotive PCB applications with electric vehicle trends. Furthermore, the significant growth in operational performance referred to net profit margin, net operating revenue, return on equity, and earnings per share, and so forth, is verified through vector autoregression model with one variable relating to gross assets and two variables involving gross assets and debt ratio. Accordingly, we conclude that the development of EVs has a positive impact on the operational performance of the automotive PCB sector.

碩士
崑山科技大學
企業管理研究所
102
The domestic large scale earthwork construction must use a large amount of heavy machinery which covered the excavator, graders, scrapers dozers, compactors, non-standard trucks and other heavy equipment. The operating principle for the operator still in consistency and only determined by the contractors currently. In fact, there is no clear specification for heavy equipment operator, and only indicated in contract as following description the contractor must comply with 「 The Commercial Part Act、 The Highway Law、 The Building Act、 Road Traffic Sign Marching and the Semaphore Set the rules、Road Safety Rules、 Road Traffic Regulation on Administrative Penalties、 International Regulation for Preventing Collisions at Sea and the Related Regulations and Traffic Maintenance and Management of the Related Road shall comply with contract etc.」, due to lack of the clear specification for the heavy machinery operator and command mechanism which caused several major occupational hazard accidents in domestic. This research had studied the Hou-Shan reservoir which was sorted a large scale earthwork contactor and applied many heavy machinery. The main research was focused on the properties of the large scale earthwork construction to analyze and select the heavy machinery and manipulation techniques. The analysis method will adopt survey and “Important Performance Analysis (IPA) to establish improvement and implementation proposal of the heavy machinery operation and commend skill. The implementation process was statistic the questionnaire and safety observation. Finally the related collection data was discussed to confirm this research had indeed proposed the measure to improve the safety performance of construction site

Proton Exchange Membrane Fuel Cell (PEMFC) is the most commonly used type of hydrogen fuel cell and a promising solution for vehicular and stationary power applications. This research starts with an extensive review of the PEMFC research, including experimental testing, and performance modeling, and performance degradation modeling using relatively accurate and easy-to-use mechanistic models. Next, a new PEMFC performance degradation model is introduced by amending the semi-empirical, mechanistic performance model to support the design and control of PEMFC systems and fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs). The new model takes into account critical factors impacting PEMFC performance. The performance degradation due to the oxidation of catalyst platinum (Pt) and loss of active surface area is captured by fitting the degradation model parameters using experimental data to capture the observed PEMFC performance fading. The new performance degradation model is then tested and further improved under the four typical load modes that a PEMFC system experiences in a vehicular application under regular driving cycles. The model is also fitted with PEMFC experimental degradation data under different load modes to improve modeling accuracy. The new model is applied and tested using simulations of a representative FCEV. The actual power load on an 80 kW PEMFC system in the modeled FCEV was obtained using the Advanced Vehicle Simulator (ADVISOR) under the US EPA Urban Dynamometer Driving Schedule (UDDS). With the ability to predict the operation life of the PEMFC, the appropriate sizes of the PEMFC system and the energy storage system (ESS) can be determined. Improved power control and energy management can be developed to extend the operation life of the PEMFC and lower the lifecycle cost of the FCEV.
Graduate

碩士
國立彰化師範大學
企業管理學系
94
This Research mainly explored the relevant factors of the performance of multinational cooperation. Through resource basis theory, transaction cost theory, and product life cycle theory , the relationship between operation performance, innovation performance and internationalization was discussed. Meanwhile, how newly industrialized countries act on internationalization was also considered. The sample data were extracted from the government database maintained by the Statistics Bureau, Ministry of Economic Affairs, Taiwan, R.O.C. The data were collected through a national survey which aimed to investigate the FDI status of Taiwanese manufacturing firms in 2003. Newly industrialized countries foreign direct invested in Mainland China, Southeast Asia and America were chosen. There were 929 samples in total. The result manifested the inverse S-shape between internationalization and operation performance. Moreover, the form between internationalization and innovative performance became an inverse U.

碩士
大葉大學
會計資訊學系碩士班
93
Private colleges present very important roles in the tertiary education in Taiwan. The resource usable and the entitlement of professors and collegiates are respected by the mass society. Private schools are financial independent, non-profitable, base of public foundation. The society eyes on the school's financial maladies, organization and it's efficiency causal of its misguided by the founder, it operation business company. This is the study of the relationship between the operating performance of the business and the operating performance of the school that the business found in Taiwan. The commensurate about the business operates efficiency and the business operates school matches most of the respects. It also passes the test of multiple regressions as well. We can see the height level of interactive of the operation of the business unit and the accomplishment of the school that the unit operates.

博士
逢甲大學
商學研究所
99
This dissertation consists of three essays. The first essay investigates the long-term effects of board characteristics on operational performance of the core business groups in Taiwan. The second essay examines the relationships among internationalization, corporate governance and performance of the listed business groups in Taiwan. The third essay studies the relationship between corporate characteristics and independent directors of board.

碩士
朝陽科技大學
財務金融系碩士班
92
In the existing finance literature, company’s cash holding can have the profound influence upon its performance. Therefore, if manager can measure the advantages which the cash holding, it will be able to create the better operating performance for the company. This study selects the variables which affect the company cash holding, and estimate company’s excess cash holding. We discuss whether the company’s cash holding affect the its operating performance. The empirical results show that the degree of information asymmetry, and size have negative effect on cash holding, while Beta risk, credit risk index, and debt ratio have positive effect. Moreover, the effects of excess cash holdings on performance are different among several industries.

碩士
中國文化大學
會計研究所
95
This study mainly discusses whether the information content of stock repurchases meets signal hypothesis or free cash flow hypothesis. First, we use event study to examine whether positive abnormal returns will be generated after firms repurchase their stocks. Then we examine whether firms’ operating performances imply positive signal of firms’ ability of earning profit in the future, or expect firms’ ability of earning profit in the future will not improve, even will undermine after stock repurchase. Next, we examine the relationship between the changing of operating performance and the proportion of repurchasing stock. Three empirical results emerged from our study are described as follows: 1. A firm’s stock price has positive abnormal returns after the firm performs stock repurchases, which reveals that a firm conveys information content to market by performing stock repurchases, and positive responses of stock price will occur when market receives the firm’s signal. 2. A firm’s operating performance being gradually improved after the firm performs stock repurchases, which can continually be affected for two years. Therefore, the results of this study support Signal hypothesis, that is, stock repurchases imply positive signal of future profitability, which also forecasts the firm’s bright outlook. 3. the changing of operating performance in the future is not significantly with the proportion of repurchasing stock. It means the proportion of repurchasing stock can not be a tool to signal informance that firms’ ability of earning profit will be better in the future.

碩士
國立臺灣海洋大學
航運管理學系
101
Taipei MRT is the development of Taiwan's capital city Area Rapid Transit system, but also has the economies of scale rapid transit system, the system average daily volume in 2012 reached more than 1.5 million passengers, however, the TRA regional railway operator, increasing the metropolitan area commuter train trips, while the Taipei MRT to many more new routes, because the policy and election issues factors that will planning, construction and opening of routes, gradually becoming secondary population centers, traffic also showed complementary routes, trends such as diminishing marginal benefit. In response to all kinds of public transportation in the greater Taipei area competition, industry comparison, Taipei MRT system better economies of scale and the need to focus on a more rational allocation of resources and comprehensiveness. In this study, the Taipei Rapid Transit Corporation Balanced Scorecard performance measurement methods designed to assess the existing system under the responsibility center performance appraisal using the Balanced Scorecard method, including the establishment of the financial perspective, customer perspective, internal operations process perspective and learning and growth perspective, and other four indicators, and the complete planning under four dimensions appraisal projects aimed at enhancing the Taipei Rapid Transit Corporation's operating performance and personnel assessment. By the Taipei Rapid Transit Corporation's vision to construct strategic goals of the company building the Balanced Scorecard fit and meet the company's operational objective, develop employees' performance evaluation indicator model, construct Taipei Rapid Transit Corporation and the company's strategic objectives staff goals, you can always check the company and employees can check whether a difference towards the goal.

碩士
國立臺灣大學
機械工程學研究所
94
In attempt to cope with the global problem of energy crisis and greenhouse gas effect, this study utilizes Fortran 95 and Engine Performance Analysis Software to set up Zero-Dimension Heat Release Model. For engine performance of Toyota Camry 2.0, we change the combustion parameters(Ex: Ignition Angle、Duration of Combustion、Equivalence Ratio, etc) and alternative fuels(methanol、gasoline、methane) to develop the optimum operating condition for maximum engine thermal efficiency and the indicated mean effective pressure. By input data--burn duration is 400, Weibe efficiency factor is 5, Weibe form factor is 3, intake temperature is 300K, intake pressure is 300kPa, cylinder temperature is 400K, phi is 0.8, engine speed is 5600rpm, therefore the simulation analysis results show that Camry 2.0 has the maximum engine thermal efficiency and the indicated mean effective pressure for phi is 0.8 when ignition angle is 150 btdc, burn duration is 350, Weibe efficiency factor is 5, Weibe form factor is 1 for using methanol、gasoline and ignition angle is 150 btdc, burn duration is 350, Weibe efficiency factor is 6, Weibe form factor is 1 for using methane. In addition, the study also compares the fuel economy、power output and pollutant emission for Hybrid Prius 1.5 and Gasoline Vehicle Camry 2.0. When two cars drive under different operation conditions, for fuel economy, (1)Prius 1.5 saves 5445 dollars per 10,000km than Camry 2.0 when two cars drive 30% in city and 70% on highway. (2)Prius 1.5 saves 9372 dollars per 10,000 km than Camry 2.0 when two cars drive 70% in city and 30% on highway. For emission pollution, the CO emissions of Camry 2.0 is almost 2.53 times and 4.09 times as Prius 1.5, the NMHC emissions of Camry 2.0 is 3.18 times and 5.11 times higher than Prius 1.5, and the NOx emissions of Camry 2.0 is 5.05 times and 12.70 times as Prius 1.5 when two cars drive 30% in city and 70% on highway or drive 70% in city and 30% on highway. For power output, Due to Prius 1.5 drives by dual power source(gasoline engine and electricity), battery can offer electricity to motor when power is insufficient; in addition, motor can transform surplus kinetic energy into electricity energy to store in the battery. Prius 1.5 can compare favorably with general Gasoline Vehicle Camry 2.0 in the whole performace.

碩士
國立中興大學
高階經理人碩士在職專班
104
The primary purpose of this study is to explore and compare operating performance and financial ratios before and after the companies became enlisted. The sample consists of 40 new listed companies during the period from year 2008 to 2010 at TWSA. The empirical variables include six operating performance and two financial ratios which are ROA, ROE, Tobin''s Q Ratio, EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization), net sales, Earnings Per Share, borrowing interest rate and profit-seeking enterprise income tax rate (Income tax rate). Furthermore some factors may interfere with the operating performance and should be controlled, including GDP, Big 4 CPA to audit, business size, high tech industrial, proportion of independent directors, earnings management, salaries & bonus of directors and the numbers of years from foundation to IPO. I use Data Analysis and Statistical Software Stata version 14 and find the empirical results summarized as follows, The six operating performance and two financial ratios decline after the company got listed. The findings indicate that IPOs do not enhance the companies’ operating performance, but reduce their borrowing interest rates and income tax rates.

碩士
靜宜大學
會計學系
106
This study examines the operating performance on Taiwanese partner accounting firms. By the audit quality database of the Taiwan Economic Journal, a total of 2274 accounting firms were selected from 2005 to 2013.The translog income function is used to analyze the accounting firm's operating performance. The empirical results show that Taiwan’s partnership accounting firms generally still have economies of scale, recently. We also find that the productivity are continuous improvement exclude the impacts of the financial crisis and the adoption of IFRS. The marginal revenue products of partners exceeds the marginal revenue products of professionals and others employees, and is about 2.3 times that of professionals.

碩士
正修科技大學
金融管理研究所
104
Government-owned businesses (GOB) are usually treated as government organization rather than enterprises. Due to their influential role in terms of politics, economy and society, GOB are often responsible for the execution of government policies. As consequences, GOB might be outperformed by private enterprise, but their contribution to social and industrial development are irreplaceable. This study focuses on one of the GOB in Taiwan, the Taiwan Sugar Corporation (TSC). Similar to other GOBs, TSC played an important role in the economic development process of Taiwan, because it generated formidable foreign exchange revenues by exporting sugars. However, in the face of rapidly changing business environment and fierce international competition, TSC is required to consider enterprise transformation. When other GOBs privatized, TSC remained owned by the government. Business diversification helped TSC to stay competitive in changing business environment. This research focused on evaluating the successfulness of business diversification by analyzing financial statements of TSC. The results indicate that TSC diversified the majority of its operation to sugar production, animal husbandry, biotechnology, and quality agriculture. In 2015, cumulative return including dividends is 14.323 billion NTD which is 197.04% of cumulative investment. The net profit of 13.731 billion NTD also indicate a good operating efficiency.

碩士
國立高雄應用科技大學
工業工程與管理系碩士在職專班
101
ABSTRACT Iron and steel industry after the longest recession period from 1996 to 2001, no one expected after 2002 a rapid recovery and creating unprecedented demand and high price at the beginning of 2004. According to the IISI (International Iron and Steel Institute) predicted that in the next few years due to the economic development of China and India, the steel industry is still traditional industries with the stable growth of the industry. Taiwan in the proportion of the world's steel production accounted for only 2%, but accounts for the first 12 in the world rankings, in Asia, after China, Japan and South Korea. Steel demand and growth in the future, no matter at home and abroad have various investment plans. According to the business cycle, each industry will feel the 3 to 5 years time prosperity and sorrow retreat. In order to response to the downturn during the test, or to grasp the opportunities for profit when times are good, the difference between the enterprise must understand their business performance with industry, and trying to enhance their business performance. Operating performance evaluation done except by DEA method assessment of tangible figures , but also an important factor in looking through expert interviews . Comprehensive results of this study to obtain the following conclusions : 1. 75% of China's steel industry, scale efficiency , still has room for improvement , the only business to fall behind , should continue to grow and improve in order to face future competition and to obtain greater profits.2.Investment in the steel industry (electric furnace steel plant) must consider the product structure according to their capacity and market analysis to determine the scale of production. 2. Steel industry needed to consider diversifying investment demand , and based on its own capabilities and market analysis determines the scale of production . 3. To get a good operating performance required for the required conditions are: production efficiency , good judgment and decision-making purchases and sales system and predict risk , and high quality sound financial leaders and so on.

碩士
國立雲林科技大學
財務金融系
103
This study examines the association between overconfident CEO, derivative usage and operating performance. Using a sample of S&P 500 during year 2005 through 2012, the study finds that firms with overconfident CEO have greater probability to use the derivatives. Firms with overconfident CEO tend to choose nonlinear derivatives and prefer to covering financial assets. However, the derivative usage by overconfident CEO do not lead to better performance.

碩士
長榮大學
經營管理研究所
93
The reason for the criticism of financial forecast is that the accuracy of financial forecast is bad. It is hard to reach the forecast earnings because of optimistic earnings forecasts. So these optimistic firms lower forecast earnings or may possibly manipulate earnings to accomplish their prior earnings forecasts. Therefore somebody offers a opining to abolish the mechanism of financial forecast. The findings of this empirical study are as follows： 1. There’s significant difference between forecast earnings and actual earnings on the firms of mandatory financial forecast. The actual earnings are smaller than the forecast earnings. It indicates the forecast earnings of the firms of mandatory financial forecast are overstated. 2. There’s no significant difference between forecast earnings and actual earnings on the firms of the voluntary financial forecast. It indicates the accuracy of financial forecast on the firms of the voluntary financial forecast is good. 3. EPS, ROE and ROA on the firms of the voluntary financial forecast are significantly better than general firms .So, the operating performance of the voluntary disclosure firms are better than general. The results of this study indicate that the accuracy of financial forecast on the mandatory disclosure firms is bad, but good on the voluntary disclosure firms. And the operating performance of the voluntary disclosure firms is good. So, we can not abolish the mechanism of the voluntary disclosure financial forecast. It makes good operating performance firms to reach the principle of fully disclosure and the transparency of cooperate government.

碩士
國立臺北大學
會計學系
99
Divestiture has been widely used for years in the occident countries while it is in effect recently in Taiwan. The study investigates the short-term and long-term financial performances (ROE and Tobin's q) and its affected factors of the listed companies who announced Equity Carve-Outs after executing Enterprise Acquisition law in 2002. The conclusion of empirical studies can be summarized in the following points ： 1.After the Equity Carve-Outs announcement in the listed domestic companies, ROE wasn’t better than before. There is no obvious evidence to show what’s the differences between the former and the latter. Moreover, it shows that the market doubts about the Equity Carve-Outs because of the negative value of Tobin's q. It’s totally different from abroad researches which take equity offerings as the index of performance and regard the Equity Carve-Outs can lead the shareholders to the wealth. 2.Compared with the same industries, after the Equity Carve-Outs announcement in the listed domestic companies, the operating performance is certainly better than the others in the same field. From the ROE, After the Equity Carve-Outs, ROE is better than before. It shows significantly positive value after the second and third year. However, if we analyze with DuPont Analysis, ROE is superior 3.after the Equity Carve-Outs not because of the growth of the rate of the profit but the use of the financial leverage. It can be referred to why Tobin's q is still negative after the revision of the industry. That is the market isn’t optimistic to Equity Carve-Outs. 4.Before or after the revision of the industry, whether its improvement of industrial focus on industry, corporate governance or the split relative size , all of these cannot be regarded as the reasons for the operating performances after the Equity Carve-Outs. The positive correlation between the transparency of information and the operating performance after the Equity Carve-Outs shows that the company’s value is better than the same industries. The result is correspond to the market expectation.

碩士
大同大學
事業經營學系(所)
101
Chemical industry is a traditional industry which developed in early century. Also, it’s a base economic development industrial in Taiwan. Recently, the technical of petroleum refining is getting better and better. Therefore, the cost in the chemical industry can be cheaper, which make profits more beneficial. In addition, the variety of products can meet what the people needs, so the chemical industry growth rapidly. According to CCR model, BCC model and Malmquist Productivity Index, we compare efficiency for Chemical industry companies in order to figure out the most efficiency companies, and those companies that didn’t meet the achievement. The research can provide the date shows what affect the efficiency for those companies, in order to aid them modifies. In the research, shows that with CCR model and BCC model there are 25 firms get more than score 1 in Total Economic Efficiency, which is more efficiency than other 14 firms. The most non-efficiency company is Sinon Corporation. According to CCR model and BCC model can’t compare year by year data, so we use Malmquist Productivity Index to compare with it. In all 39 Firms, Tah Kong Chemical Industrial Corporation get score 1.131 is base on Total Economic Efficiency (EFFCH) rising; Sinon Corporation get the inferior score 0.754 is also according to Total Economic Efficiency (EFFCH) reducing. Total of 39 firms, Tah Kong Chemical Industrial Corporation is most efficiency, and Sinon Corporation is the most non-effieciency.

碩士
長庚大學
工商管理學系
102
The purpose of this study is to examine whether banks have significant changes of operation performance after M&;A. In this study, I focus on financial industry and collect data from Securities Data Corporation (SDC) database and Taiwan Economic Journal (TEJ) database between 1997 and 2009. In this study, I use Return on Assets (ROA), Assets Turnover Ratio (ATR) and Current Ratio to measure profit performance, management performance and financial performance respectively. The empirical results show banks’ profit performance and management performance have negative significant changes after M&;A. However, financial performance has no significant change after M&;A. In addition, the analysis of the factors affecting the bank operation performance shows the larger banks tend to have worse profit performance and management performance before M&;A. It is because the larger banks have relatively larger organization and more complex management. Moreover, the banks have higher equity ratio tend to make better profit performance and management performance. It is because the banks’ shareholders have higher percentage of its own fund and are more likely to focus on their bank’s business operation. Furthermore, the empirical results also show the larger banks tend to have worse profit performance and management performance after M&;A.