Superscript, subscript, and padding (margins) for text boxes in Illustrator CS5

To change the empty space above, below, and to the sides of text, go to Type>Area Type Options...

and change the Inset Spacing (in the Offset box):

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To make text superscript or subscript, go to character menu (on right toolbar), open menu in top-right:

Inserting a comma after first of two authors with apalike citation in Lyx

Using apalike style, when there are only two authors Lyx does not put a comma after the first author's initials (before the "and"), to fix this, I had to edit the .bst file:
cd /usr/share/texmf-texlive/bibtex/bst/apalike
sudo gedit apalike.bst
save as apalike2.bst
change lines 214-222

 { namesleft #1 >
     { ", " * t * }
     { numnames #2 >
  { "," * }
  'skip$
       if$
       t "others" =
  { " et~al." * }
  { " and " * t * }

to

 { namesleft #1 >
     { ", " * t * }
     { t "others" =
  { " et~al." * }
  { ", and " * t * }

After this we might need to run the command

 sudo texhash

In Lyx, click on bibliography, browse to new (apalike2.bst) style file.

Changing Submitted to Defended date in CIT thesis title page

To change the line on the cover page from, say, "(Submitted June 26, 2012)" to "(Defended June 1, 2012)" one needs to follow these steps:
Go to Document>Settings...
Under Document Class section, add the word "defended" to the line for Custom Class options.
At the beginning of the document (I put it right between Copy Year and TechReport #) insert a Date section (using dropdown menu in top left of toolbar) that contains the string you want to appear after "Defended" on the title page.

gain and offset values in Panel_com

Using the default function value, the actual number of frames per second when using the command line interface (not the GUI) in open loop is given by: actual_speed = gain + 2.5*offset;