Engineering Commons^™

The Legitimation Of Novel Technologies: The Case Of Nanotechnology, Anastasia E. Thyroff

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Nanotechnology is the control, manipulation, and application of matter on an atomic and molecular level. The technology is complex and confusing to consumers, and its long-term safety and effect on the human body, as well as the environment, are unknown. However, for the past decade, nanotechnology has been used to develop consumer products and food with novel and attractive attributes.

Since nanotechnology is still not well known, it is not legitimized; that is, it has not been deemed safe and accepted by society. However, the market for nanotechnology is in the legitimation process. It will take an entire network of …

Surveillance Planning Against Smart Insurgents In Complex Terrain, Nabil Lehlou

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study is concerned with finding a way to solve a surveillance system allocation problem based on the need to consider intelligent insurgency that takes place in a complex geographical environment. Although this effort can be generalized to other situations, it is particularly geared towards protecting military outposts in foreign lands. The technological assets that are assumed available include stare-devices, such as tower-cameras and aerostats, as well as manned and unmanned aerial systems. Since acquiring these assets depends on the ability to control and monitor them on the target terrain, their operations on the geo-location of interest ought to be …

A Cradle To Farm Gate Life Cycle Analysis Of Water Use In U.S. Pork Production, Eric Boles

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The intent of this study was to analyze water use across a range of regions, scales and practices of the U.S. pork industry. A Life Cycle Assessment of water use within the pork supply chain was performed. Cumulative water use was the environmental impact category used in the LCA to evaluate the impacts of pork production processes throughout the pork supply chain. The functional unit for the analysis was the volume of water required to produce one kilogram of swine (live weight) at the farm gate.

A comprehensive literature review was used to design and propagate algorithms for the National …

Reliability Analysis Of Social Networks, Kellie R. Schneider

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The primary focus of this dissertation is on the quantification of actor interaction and the dissemination of information through Social networks. Social networks have long been used to model the interactions between people in various Social and professional contexts. These networks allow for the explicit modeling of the complex interrelations between relevant individuals within an organization and the role they play in the decision making process. This dissertation considers Social networks represented as network flow models in which actors have the ability to provide some level of influence over other actors within the network. The models developed incorporate performance metrics …

Load Mixing To Improve Container Utilization, Crystal Wilson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The under utilization in trucking leads to nearly 5 billion gallons of wasted fuel annually. One way to recapture part of this waste is to use collaborative logistics. This research focuses on one specific aspect of collaborative logistics: load mixing. Load mixing is the idea of mixing two or more items of different weights in the same container to reduce the number of trucks needed.

Load mixing is similar to other packing problems such as the knapsack and container loading problems. However, traditional packing problems typically only assume a single type of capacity (e.g., weight), whereas load mixing must simultaneously …