Digital Commons Network^™

Improvement In Patient Compliance For Gynecological Care, Tracee Williams

Doctor of Nursing Practice Projects

This quality improvement project implemented the patient-initiated follow-up (PIFU) pathway in a gynecology clinic setting. PIFU has potential to lead to decreased no-show appointments and increased patient autonomy in outpatient healthcare practices. Barriers that influence compliance with plans of care include lower socioeconomic status, racial and ethnic minorities, and unmet social needs such as food insecurity, healthcare travel and cost, and child/adult care needs. In addition to higher rates of no-show appointments, individuals facing these barriers have increased comorbidities. Prior to implementing the PIFU model, patients between the ages of 18 and 42 completed a patient satisfaction survey to better …

Utilization Of Integer Programming For Scheduling Maintenance At Nuclear Power Plants, Timothy Gallacher

Doctoral Dissertations

This thesis develops a thought that naturally explores three specific motifs for solving the complexities of scheduling maintenance at Nuclear Power Plants (NPP). The first chapter of this paper will develop the initial thought around creating a schedule for a given work week, including all the various constraints inherent to this problem. Such constraints include but are not limited to personnel availability, allowable component out-of-service time, and the Plant Risk Assessment. The objective function being to minimize the total cost of worker’s compensation for that given week.

The second chapter addresses the question of whether this simple schedule can be …

2nd Annual Girls Build Summer Academy: Logistics And Scheduling, Matteo Cade Cuccaro

Construction Management

This paper discusses the logistics and scheduling involved for Cal Poly construction management department’s second annual Girls Build Summer Academy. The week-long academy was hosted to introduce construction related activities to 19 high school-aged girls so they could learn more about the careers available within the architecture, engineering, and construction industry, while learning skills to build individual and team projects. To achieve this goal, a full schedule was developed for each day of the camp, allowing for a variety of activities, including listening to guest speakers, completing building projects, and training to safely use tools. There were many challenges that …

Heuristics For Lagrangian Relaxation Formulations For The Unit Commitment Problem, Stephen Opeyemi Fatokun

Doctoral Dissertations

The expansion of distributed energy resources (DER), demand response (DR), and virtual bidding in many power systems and energy markets are creating new challenges for unit commitment (UC) and economic dispatch (ED) techniques. Instead of a small number of traditionally large generators, the power system resource mix is moving to one with a high percentage of a large number of small units. These can increase the number of similar or identical units, leading to chattering (switching back and forth among committed units between iterations). This research investigates alternative and scalable ways of increasing the high penetration of these resources.

First, …

Standardizing Hands-On Building Activities In Commercial Construction Management And Recommendations For Semester Conversion Adaptations, Lauren T. Mcclurg

Construction Management

CM 313 Commercial Construction Management at Cal Poly is an integrated lab course and one of the main hands-on learning experiences construction management students participate in. It is currently administered in the quarter system and as the university transitions to the semester calendar, the lab needs to be converted in order to accommodate this change. The main purpose of this project was to document existing practices and improve the process and experience for students, instructional students assistants, Simpson Strong Tie coordinator, and other professors of CM 313. This project included creating a builders guide to help the student assistants by …

An Efficient Task-Parallel Platform For Interactive Applications, Kyle Singer

McKelvey School of Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The performance growth of individual processor cores has been slowed by physical limitations that are difficult to overcome; as such, the trend has been for processor manufacturers to instead increase the number of processing cores in a single chip. As a result, programmers must write parallel code to gain performance. While prior work on task-parallel platforms has simplified the process of writing throughput-oriented scientific applications, they have paid little attention to the types of workloads seen in modern interactive applications such as web services.

Interactive applications are programs which interact with users or other programs using input/output (I/O) operations and …

Ops Bus Scheduling: A Heuristic Approach To A Three-Tier Multi-Depot Vehicle Routing Problem With Inter-Depot Routes, Jordan Sahs, Brad Tuttle

Mathematics Theses, Dissertations, Research and Student Creative Activity

Omaha Public Schools (OPS) currently uses a Two-Tier Bus Transportation System and is investigating whether switching to a Three-Tier Bus Transportation System would be cost effective by reducing the number of buses and bus drivers OPS uses. This project aims to develop an algorithm that would allow OPS to test whether a Three-Tier system is more cost effective. The “Bus Scheduling Project” is composed of two different software components: a geographical analyzer and a heuristic bus route generator.

Essays On Perioperative Services Problems In Healthcare, Amogh S. Bhosekar

All Dissertations

One of the critical challenges in healthcare operations management is to efficiently utilize the expensive resources needed while maintaining the quality of care provided. Simulation and optimization methods can be effectively used to provide better healthcare services. This can be achieved by developing models to minimize patient waiting times, minimize healthcare supply chain and logistics costs, and maximize access. In this proposal, we study some of the important problems in healthcare operations management. More specifically, we focus on perioperative services and study scheduling of operating rooms (ORs) and management of necessary resources such as staff, equipment, and surgical instruments. We …

Pull Planning Workshop - Central California Valley, Thomas A. Camargo

Construction Management

Lean scheduling and pull planning are both excellent methods of scheduling and sequencing a project. It has made huge impacts on scheduling for general contractors in southern and northern region of California. However, Central California has not been able to see the benefits and impacts of these scheduling tools because of the regions lack of use of lean scheduling and pull planning. Lean scheduling is a technique that encourages communication and collaboration between the project stakeholders. Pull planning offers project stakeholders a chance to rally together and collaborate. These pull planning sessions are useful for sequencing work to meet milestones …

Optimal Scheduling Of Aircraft Test And Evaluation Fleets To Balance Availability For Testing And Training, Sarah E. Hoops

Theses and Dissertations

The 96th Test Wing at Eglin Air Force Base manually schedules a fleet of approximately 26 aircraft to conduct a range of missions over a one-to-two year planning period. This study automates the scheduling process, does so in a manner that optimizes multiple planning goals related to aircraft availability for training, and provides the 96th Test Wing with a software tool for the implementation that can be used by operational analysts within the command. We formulate the scheduling problem as a multiobjective, nonlinear, binary integer math program that seeks to maximize both the lowest percent of time any aircraft is …

Evidence-Based Improvement Project Prospectus Improving Mammography Screening Scheduling Through Covid-19 Vaccine Clinics Utilizing An Online Population Management System—A Team Approach, Katya E. Villanueva

Master's Projects and Capstones

Abstract

Problem: The recent Covid-19 Pandemic led to delays in necessary cancer screening procedures, such as Breast Cancer Mammography Screening (BCS). Suboptimal mammography screening rates persisted at 11% compared to the regional goal of 30% of eligible women in a primary care setting.

Context: Covid-19 Vaccination Clinics are part of a private HMO health plan that participates in quality accreditation and data benchmarking utilizing Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set Measures (HEDIS). In this managed care health system, primary care clinics offer appointments and referrals for screening tests similar to mammography.

Interventions: Change ideas such as standardized scheduling scripting, standard …

Scheduling, Complexity, And Solution Methods For Space Robot On-Orbit Servicing, Susan E. Sorenson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research proposes problems, models, and solutions for the scheduling of space robot on-orbit servicing. We present the Multi-Orbit Routing and Scheduling of Refuellable On-Orbit Servicing Space Robots problem which considers on-orbit servicing across multiple orbits with moving tasks and moving refuelling depots. We formulate a mixed integer linear program model to optimize the routing and scheduling of robot servicers to accomplish on-orbit servicing tasks. We develop and demonstrate flexible algorithms for the creation of the model parameters and associated data sets. Our first algorithm creates the network arcs using orbital mechanics. We have also created a novel way to …

Optimal Scheduling Of Connected And Autonomous Vehicles At A Reservation-Based Intersection., Muting Ma

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Reservation-based intersection control has been evaluated with better performance over traditional signal controls in terms of intersection safety, efficiency, and emission. Controlling connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs) at a reservation-based intersection in terms of improving intersection efficiency is performed via two factors: trajectory (speed profile) and arrival time of CAVs at the intersection. In an early stage of the reservation-based intersection control, an intersection controller at the intersection may fail to find a feasible solution for both the trajectory and arrival time for a CAV at a certain planning horizon. Leveraging a deeper understanding of the control problem, reservation-based intersection …

Quantifying The Effects Of Customer Predictability On Battery Energy Storage System Cost And Emissions, Mudit Bhadresh Purohit

Theses

Electricity providers are using variable pricing to encourage customers to shift energy consumption from “peak” times. This presents a great opportunity for the customers to reduce their bills using this variable pricing strategy coupled with a battery energy storage system (BESS). The schedule of charging and discharging the BESS depends on the forecasted customer demand data. Forecasts are bound to have a certain degree of error associated with them, and hence it becomes important to understand the effect of these forecasting errors on the cost and the emissions associated with scheduling of the BESS. In this work, a method has …

A Study Of Scheduling Problems With Sequence Dependent Restrictions And Preferences, Nitin Srinath

All Dissertations

In some applications like fabric dying, semiconductor wafer processing, and flexible manufacturing, the machines being used to process jobs must be set up and serviced frequently. These setup processes and associated setup times between jobs often depend on the jobs and the sequence in which jobs are placed onto machines. That is, the scheduling of jobs on machines must account for the sequence-dependent setup times as well. These setup times can be a major factor in operational costs. In fabric dyeing processes, the sequence in which jobs are processed is also important for quality, i.e., there is a strong preference …

A Deep Reinforcement Learning Approach With Prioritized Experience Replay And Importance Factor For Makespan Minimization In Manufacturing, Jose Napoleon Martinez

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In this research, we investigated the application of deep reinforcement learning (DRL) to a common manufacturing scheduling optimization problem, max makespan minimization. In this application, tasks are scheduled to undergo processing in identical processing units (for instance, identical machines, machining centers, or cells). The optimization goal is to assign the jobs to be scheduled to units to minimize the maximum processing time (i.e., makespan) on any unit.

Machine learning methods have the potential to "learn" structures in the distribution of job times that could lead to improved optimization performance and time over traditional optimization methods, as well as to adapt …

Development Of Minimum Delta-V Trajectories To Service Geo Assets From Cislunar Space, Alexander C. Urban

Theses and Dissertations

Orbits around Earth are becoming increasingly congested and contested, posing potential future threats to space assets. Cislunar space may offer an effective solution to these problems by offering storage for servicing and replacement vehicles. This investigation explores how to minimize the dV costs required of a network of service vehicles traveling from cislunar space to GEO using in-situ resource utilization. In this investigation the arc costs of an event-driven generalized multicommodity network flow are generated for creation of a model to be used to develop a dynamic scheduler. High-thrust trajectories between various inclinations of GEO, an Earth-Moon L1 Lyapunov orbit …

Mathematical Formulations For Complex Resource Scheduling Problems., T. R. Lalita Dr.

Doctoral Theses

This thesis deals with development of effective models for large scale real-world resource scheduling problems. Efficient utilization of resources is crucial for any organization or industry as resources are often scarce. Scheduling them in an optimal way can not only take care of the scarcity but has potential economic benefits. Optimal utilization of resources reduces costs and thereby provides a competitive edge in the business world. Resources can be of different types such as human (personnel-skilled and unskilled), financial(budgets), materials, infrastructures(airports and seaports with designed facilities, windmills, warehouses’ area, hotel rooms etc) and equipment (microprocessors, cranes, machinery, aircraft simulators for …

The Veteran Administration’S Appointment Scheduling Processes’ Effect On The Homeless Women Veteran’S Phenomenon, Vicki Ann Thompson

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Concealed numbers of homeless women veterans could be exposed in the Veterans Administration (VA) appointment scheduling data. The challenges of scheduling healthcare or mental health appointments with the VA could prevent homeless women veterans from gaining access. Studies have shown the problems that male veterans have with scheduling appointments. However, not much research exists on the issues homeless female veterans face in scheduling appointments with the VA. This quantitative study examined the correlation between the number of women and men veterans on the VA’s electronic wait list and the percentages of unsheltered women and men veterans at the Continuum of …

City Of Guadalupe Cultural Arts & Education Center Veterans Memorial Wall, Alejandra Arroyo Perez

Construction Management

As a student in Construction Management, the importance of firsthand experience in the construction industry should not be taken lightly. The responsibility of every construction manager is to learn how to take a project from concept to reality. The primary five elements of construction management entail project programming, design development, material specifications, estimating, and scheduling. This paper documents the construction management process related to a Veterans Memorial Wall. Through coordination with the project stakeholders (i.e. property owners, engineer consultants, material fabricators, and vendors) a fully immersive construction management experience is gained. One of the stakeholder requirements was to establish a …

Quality And Productivity Improvements In Additive Manufacturing, Huseyin Kose

Doctoral Dissertations

Additive manufacturing (AM) is a relatively new manufacturing technology compared to the traditional manufacturing methods. Even though AM processes have many advantages, they also have a series of challenges that need to be addressed to adapt this technology for a wide range of applications and mass production.

AM faces a number of challenges, including the absence of methods/models for determining whether AM is the best manufacturing process for a given part. The first study of this thesis proposes a framework for choosing specific AM processes by considering the complexity level of a part. It has been proven that the method …

Optimizing Work Zone Schedules Considering Traffic Diversion With Artificial Bee Colony Algorithm, Celina Semaan

Dissertations

Highway maintenance activities often decrease roadway capacity and intrude traffic movements. The need to finish the project on time and under a specific budget while minimizing the traffic congestion and complying with the emission standards requires an appropriate work zone schedule optimization. The objective of this research is to improve the efficiency of work zone activities and minimize the total project cost including maintenance, user, and emission cost.

While previous studies investigated the work zone optimization problem, they did not consider the implementation of emission standards nor applied a green diversion strategy. This dissertation analyzes the optimization of work zone …

Experience-Driven Control For Networking And Computing, Zhiyuan Xu

Dissertations - ALL

Modern networking and computing systems have become very complicated and highly dynamic, which makes them hard to model, predict and control. In this thesis, we aim to study system control problems from a whole new perspective by leveraging emerging Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL), to develop experience-driven model-free approaches, which enable a network or a device to learn the best way to control itself from its own experience (e.g., runtime statistics data) rather than from accurate mathematical models, just as a human learns a new skill (e.g., driving, swimming, etc). To demonstrate the feasibility and superiority of this experience-driven control design …

Experience-Driven Control For Networking And Computing, Zhiyuan Xu

Dissertations - ALL

Modern networking and computing systems have become very complicated and highly dynamic, which makes them hard to model, predict and control. In this thesis, we aim to study system control problems from a whole new perspective by leveraging emerging Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL), to develop experience-driven model-free approaches, which enable a network or a device to learn the best way to control itself from its own experience (e.g., runtime statistics data) rather than from accurate mathematical models, just as a human learns a new skill (e.g., driving, swimming, etc). To demonstrate the feasibility and superiority of this experience-driven control design …

Cross-Layer Optimization On Wireless Visual Sensor Networks For 3d Indoor Monitoring: A Top-Down Approach, Zhonghui Wang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

As one of the latest advances in wireless sensor network (WSN), wireless visual sensor network (WVSN) bears a number of distinct features compared to its predecessor, mainly due to its directional visual coverage on the sensing field. This also renders previous solutions proposed for WSN may not work well for WVSN. For example, k-coverage has been introduced to WSNs for fault tolerance and high monitoring quality by omni-directional sensors but becomes incapable to cope with the directional coverage of sensors in WVSNs. Moreover, compared to scalar data in WSNs, visual data are much larger, difficult to aggregate and usually streamed …

Appointment Scheduling System, Guzaloi Noori

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Appointment Scheduling System designed for universities so that students can schedule appointments with their university’s faculty and staff regarding academic, employment, immigration, or personal issues. The scheduling system has the ability of being embedded to the Computer Science Capstone project iAcademic, which I took part in as a front-end developer.

Design Of Time-Phased Critical Path Scheduling Logic In Remanufacturing Material Requirements Planning, Gerald E. Tucker

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis develops and presents a new remanufacturing MRP time-phased scheduling algorithm utilizing a critical path concept, as in the project management field, for incorporation into remanufacturing production planning MRP calculations. The algorithm automates the remanufacturing lead time allowance calculation for child subassemblies and component parts in the form of Stack Time, and as such creates a linkage between the parent remanufacturing routing operation to which a remanufactured subassembly or component part is allocated for further processing, and the parent routing operation from which it is disassembled. This new MRP scheduling algorithm is optimal for calculating the total planned production …

Solving Process Planning And Scheduling Problems Using The Concept Of Maximum Weighted Independent Set, Kai Sun

Dissertations - ALL

Process planning and scheduling (PPS) is an essential and practical topic but a very intractable problem in manufacturing systems. Many research studies use iterative methods to solve such problems; however, they cannot achieve satisfactory results in both quality and computational speed. Other studies formulate scheduling problems as a graph coloring problem (GCP) or its extensions, but these formulations are limited to certain types of scheduling problems. In this dissertation, we propose a novel approach to formulate a general type of the PPS problem with resource allocation and process planning integrated towards a typical objective, minimizing the makespan. The PPS problem …

Introducing Sequencing Within The Advanced Scheduling Curriculum, Adam Cole Alvarez

Construction Management

Scheduling is one of the most important factors within the construction industry. The current Advanced Scheduling curriculum addresses how to use the program P6, but not the understanding of how to sequence. This project introduced two new lab activities that focus on the understanding of sequencing while using P6. I chose this project because I have always had an interest in scheduling as it is one of the most important driving factors in construction and after taking Advanced Scheduling in my Junior year I noticed there is a need for understanding sequencing. I wanted to introduce a new curriculum because …

Cal Poly Rodeo Observation Deck, Timothy Smith

Construction Management

This senior project was designed to help continue the winning tradition that the Cal Poly Rodeo program established in 1939 with a new observation deck for the practice arena. The major steps taken to complete this project were design, fundraising and construction. The total area of the deck is approximately 1,100 square feet and includes connections to an ADA approved ramp and multiple staircases. This is a landmark project for the Cal Poly Rodeo program and will assist them in keeping the winning Mustang tradition alive.