Engineering Commons^™

Advancing A Systems Perspective On Innovative Behavior, Stephen Demski

Doctoral Dissertations

"Engineering organizations pursue innovation in strategy, structure, processes, and the services and products offered to remain relevant and competitive. Identifying factors supporting or constraining innovative work behavior and recognizing the complexity of their interactions are vital to sustaining an innovative workforce, yet how factors interact has not been comprehensively studied.

Recognizing innovative work behavior as the output of a complex system of factors guided this study’s literature search that identified over one hundred individual, team, and organizational factors influencing innovative behavior, interviews of engineers to learn what factors are essential in their work environment, and Delphi survey to rank factors, …

Contextualizing Renewable Energy Adoption: An Examination Of The Role Of Community Choice Aggregation, Ankit Agarwal

Doctoral Dissertations

"The rapid expansion of renewable energy generation in the U.S., both through distributed and utility-scale facilities, is largely driven by top-down policy measures and the growing engagement of residential consumers on both individual and community levels. Previous studies on motives behind residential renewable energy adoption have examined procurement options in isolation and within a static context, primarily focused on intrinsic attributes like economic incentives, emission reductions, and peer popularity. This research introduces a novel context, assessing renewable procurement options in the presence of Community Choice Aggregation (CCA), a more prevalent and accessible alternative. This dissertation makes four pivotal contributions, offering …

Sustainable Development: A Data Analysis Investigation For A New Conceptual Model, Case Study Comparison And Validation Techniques, Tiffanie Marie Toles

Doctoral Dissertations

"The three pillars model for sustainability, often represented with three intersecting circles described as economic, environmental, and social factors with sustainability being at the center is a complex and philosophically open model [1]. As society promotes efforts to reduce carbon impacts, there becomes a need to critically review the models employed for understanding. This research presents a validated methodology, an updated conceptual configuration of sustainability for overall use, as well as a sustainable development performance measurement system. Using the 2020 Sustainable Development Goals Index Data, 232 indicators from 193 countries were used to evaluate the efficacy of using more than …

Application Of Modeling Methodologies To Improve An Emergency Departments Workflow, Prachita Humane

Doctoral Dissertations

"The healthcare system in the United States is complex and challenging to understand, and the emergency department (ED) serves as a bridge between outpatient and inpatient care. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, over 130 million people visited emergency rooms in the United States in 2018. The ED is composed of multiple subunits and components that make it difficult to comprehend fully. In this study, a combination of engineering analysis methods was used to identify and understand the issues in the ED.

The first contribution of this research involved collecting data through job shadowing of human entities …

Development Of Flood Prediction Models Using Machine Learning Techniques, Bhanu Kanwar

Doctoral Dissertations

"Flooding and flash flooding events damage infrastructure elements and pose a significant threat to the safety of the people residing in susceptible regions. There are some methods that government authorities rely on to assist in predicting these events in advance to provide warning, but such methodologies have not kept pace with modern machine learning. To leverage these algorithms, new models must be developed to efficiently capture the relationships among the variables that influence these events in a given region. These models can be used by emergency management personnel to develop more robust flood management plans for susceptible areas. The research …

Evaluating Barriers To And Impacts Of Rural Broadband Access, Javier Valentín-Sívico

Doctoral Dissertations

"The lack of adequate broadband infrastructure persists in many rural communities. Beyond funding, additional barriers persist, such as digital literacy and community-level self-efficacy. As a result, the first contribution articulates barriers at the organizational level. This work proposes a framework based on the Theory of Planned Behavior to highlight stakeholder dynamics that have constrained Regional Planning Commissions from advancing broadband infrastructure in rural areas. One approach to address these barriers is to provide stakeholders with analytical tools to evaluate the benefits and costs of various broadband options for their community since there is not a one-size-fits-all solution. To this end, …

A Variable Node Optimization Model For Byzantine Fault Tolerant Systems, Ian Robert Fulton

Masters Theses

“Byzantine Fault Tolerance (BFT) has been a major subject of study over the last two decades with increasing societal dependance on secure, correct, and reliable computer systems and online services. This research presents a model for high-level optimization of emerging systems that rely on these BFT algorithms and use a variable numbers of decision nodes. The model highlights the relationship between the security of a system and its efficiency. Two experiments were performed to determine system performance by varying the number of compromised nodes, decision nodes, and total nodes. They examine the probability that a transaction will be compromised based …

State Level Trends In Renewable Energy Procurement Via Solar Installation Versus Green Electricity, Eric Michael Hanson

Masters Theses

“In the past 5 years, consumer options for procuring renewable energy have increased, ranging from rooftop solar installation to utility green pricing to Community Choice Aggregation. These options vary in terms of costs and benefits to the consumer as well as grid integration implications. However, little is known regarding how the presence of a wide range of options for utility-scale renewable procurement affects demand for distributed residential solar installations. In theory, there are three possible relationships, (1) positive correlation, where utility-scale and distributed resources complement each other to increase overall production, (2) negative correlation, where utility-scale and distributed resources are …

Advances And Applications In High-Dimensional Heuristic Optimization, Samuel Alexander Vanfossan

Doctoral Dissertations

“Applicable to most real-world decision scenarios, multiobjective optimization is an area of multicriteria decision-making that seeks to simultaneously optimize two or more conflicting objectives. In contrast to single-objective scenarios, nontrivial multiobjective optimization problems are characterized by a set of Pareto optimal solutions wherein no solution unanimously optimizes all objectives. Evolutionary algorithms have emerged as a standard approach to determine a set of these Pareto optimal solutions, from which a decision-maker can select a vetted alternative. While easy to implement and having demonstrated great efficacy, these evolutionary approaches have been criticized for their runtime complexity when dealing with many alternatives or …

The Implementation Of Energy Sharing Using A System Of Systems Approach, Julia Morgan

Doctoral Dissertations

"There is an increasing demand for renewable energy and consumers need more procurement options to meet their needs. Energy sharing provides a peer-to-peer (P2P) marketplace where prosumer electricity is redistributed to fellow energy-sharing community participants. This redistribution of prosumer electricity provides consumers with additional electricity suppliers, while also decreasing the load on the utility company. Though significant progress has been made regarding research and implementation of energy sharing, there is still room for growth when evaluating energy-sharing communities and defining appropriate community coordination based on end-user needs. The first contribution in this work identified nine characteristics of energy-sharing communities as …

Agent-Based Model Of Broadband Adoption In Unserved And Underserved Areas, Ankit Agarwal

Masters Theses

"In the last two decades, demand for broadband internet has far outpaced its availability. The Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) 2020 Broadband Deployment report suggests that at least 22 million Americans living in rural areas lack access to broadband internet. With the COVID-19 pandemic affecting normal life, there is an overwhelming need to enable unserved and underserved communities to adapt to the “new normal”. To address this challenge, federal and state agencies are funding internet service providers (ISPs) to deploy infrastructure in rural communities. However, policymakers and ISPs need open-source tools to predict take-rates of broadband service and formulate effective strategies …

The Role Of Psychological Reactance In Smart Home Energy Management Systems, Matthew Thomas Heatherly

Masters Theses

“With an ever-growing demand for energy, our increasing consumption is producing more greenhouse gases and other pollutants, impacting climate change. One approach to reducing residential energy consumption is through the use of smart energy management systems. However, automation from smart technology inherently removes a certain amount of control from the user. If loss of control is perceived as a loss of freedom, this may lead users to experience psychological reactance when using these products. A set of experiments was conducted to assess how three features of a message notification from smart home energy management systems may induce reactance in users. …

The Effects Of Rigid Polyurethane Foam As A Confinement Material On Breaching Charge Detonations, Nathan Franz Paerschke-O'Brien

Masters Theses

"The effects of a rigid polyurethane foam used as a confinement material on four types of breaching explosives were tested, focusing on the changes in shockwave peak pressures, detonation load compression forces, and brisance cratering abilities. The Plate Dent testing procedure was modified to incorporate a load cell force sensor, and two air overpressure sensors were included adjacent to the blast to quantify each test result. The testing variables focused on the polyurethane foam cure times and thickness volumes around the breaching explosives to determine the breaching charges' optimal energy output capabilities when confined by the foam material. The rigid …

A Fuzzy Clustering Methodology To Analyze Interfaces And Assess Integration Risks In Large-Scale Systems, Josh Henry Goldschmid

Doctoral Dissertations

“Interface analysis and integration risk assessment for a large-scale, complex system is a difficult systems engineering task, but critical to the success of engineering systems with extraordinary capabilities. When dealing with large-scale systems there is little time for data gathering and often the analysis can be overwhelmed by unknowns and sometimes important factors are not measurable because of the complexities of the interconnections within the system. This research examines the significance of interface analysis and management, identifies weaknesses in literature on risk assessment for a complex system, and exploits the benefits of soft computing approaches in the interface analysis in …

Sensor Data Based Adaptive Models For Assembly Worker Training In Cyber Manufacturing, Md. Al-Amin

Doctoral Dissertations

“Production innovations are occurring faster than ever leading conventional production systems towards cyber manufacturing. Manufacturing workers thus need to frequently learn new methods and skills. In fast-changing, largely uncertain production systems, manufacturers with the ability to comprehend workers’ behavior and assess their operational performance in near real-time will achieve better performance than peers. Recognizing worker actions in near real-time while performing the assembly can serve this purpose. However, reliably recognizing the assembly actions performed by the workers is challenging, because the actions for assembly are complex and workers are not only heterogeneous but sensitive to the variation of the work …

Establishing Links Between Safety Culture, Climate, Behaviors, And Outcomes Of Long-Haul Truck Drivers, Carlton Washburn

Doctoral Dissertations

“This research examines the safety relationships between safety culture, safety influences, safety climate, and safety outcomes for long-haul truck drivers. The relationships focus on the intersection of the electronic logging device (ELD) technology, regulations, and truck drivers that fall into the lone-worker category. Truck drivers were interviewed to understand their beliefs, attitudes, practices, values, and behavior patterns aligned with the phase in of the ELD system. Large truck crashes during the same time period were analyzed to understand associations. Outcomes included both a safety culture and climate were established for long-haul truck drivers. Both positive and negative safety behaviors were …

Infrastructure Systems Modeling Using Data Visualization And Trend Extraction, Jacob Marshal Hale

Doctoral Dissertations

“Current infrastructure systems modeling literature lacks frameworks that integrate data visualization and trend extraction needed for complex systems decision making and planning. Critical infrastructures such as transportation and energy systems contain interdependencies that cannot be properly characterized without considering data visualization and trend extraction.

This dissertation presents two case analyses to showcase the effectiveness and improvements that can be made using these techniques. Case one examines flood management and mitigation of disruption impacts using geospatial characteristics as part of data visualization. Case two incorporates trend analysis and sustainability assessment into energy portfolio transitions.

Four distinct contributions are made in this …

Predicting Complex System Behavior Using Hybrid Modeling And Computational Intelligence, Vinayaka Gude

Doctoral Dissertations

“Modeling and prediction of complex systems is a challenging problem due to the sub-system interactions and dependencies. This research examines combining various computational intelligence algorithms and modeling techniques to provide insights into these complex processes and allow for better decision making. This hybrid methodology provided additional capabilities to analyze and predict the overall system behavior where a single model cannot be used to understand the complex problem. The systems analyzed here are flooding events and fetal health care. The impact of floods on road infrastructure is investigated using graph theory, agent-based traffic simulation, and Long Short-Term Memory deep learning to …

Critical Success Factors And Risk Mitigation Strategy For New Product Development, Rodney A. Ewing

Doctoral Dissertations

”Success in new product development (NPD) offers a competitive and comparative advantage in the marketplace. A primary objective in an NPD project is to launch world class products with minimal risk. To deliver the superior quality and performance customers require, a company must develop the right NPD structure and framework for seamless execution by the NPD project teams throughout the product lifecycle. Companies must understand how to identify and mitigate risk to enable the success of their NPD projects. The costs to develop new products are often a considerable portion of an organization’s budget; however, studies have shown only 60 …

Computational Model For Neural Architecture Search, Ram Deepak Gottapu

Doctoral Dissertations

"A long-standing goal in Deep Learning (DL) research is to design efficient architectures for a given dataset that are both accurate and computationally inexpensive. At present, designing deep learning architectures for a real-world application requires both human expertise and considerable effort as they are either handcrafted by careful experimentation or modified from a handful of existing models. This method is inefficient as the process of architecture design is highly time-consuming and computationally expensive.

The research presents an approach to automate the process of deep learning architecture design through a modeling procedure. In particular, it first introduces a framework that treats …

Development Of A System Architecture For The Prediction Of Student Success Using Machine Learning Techniques, Tatiana A. Cardona

Doctoral Dissertations

“ The goals of higher education have evolved through time based on the impact that technology development and industry have on productivity. Nowadays, jobs demand increased technical skills, and the supply of prepared personnel to assume those jobs is insufficient. The system of higher education needs to evaluate their practices to realize the potential of cultivating an educated and technically skilled workforce. Currently, completion rates at universities are too low to accomplish the aim of closing the workforce gap. Recent reports indicate that 40 percent of freshman at four-year public colleges will not graduate, and rates of completion are even …

An Approach To System Of Systems Resiliency Using Architecture And Agent-Based Behavioral Modeling, Paulette Bootz Acheson

Doctoral Dissertations

”In today’s world it is no longer a question of whether a system will be compromised but when the system will be compromised. Consider the recent compromise of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Hillary Clinton emails as well as the multiple Yahoo breaches and the break into the Target customer database. The list of exploited vulnerabilities and successful cyber-attacks goes on and on. Because of the amount and frequency of the cyber-attacks, resiliency has taken on a whole new meaning. There is a new perspective within defense to consider resiliency in terms of Mission Success.

This research develops a …

Development Of A Modeling Algorithm To Predict Lean Implementation Success, Richard Charles Barclay

Doctoral Dissertations

”Lean has become a common term and goal in organizations throughout the world. The approach of eliminating waste and continuous improvement may seem simple on the surface but can be more complex when it comes to implementation. Some firms implement lean with great success, getting complete organizational buy-in and realizing the efficiencies foundational to lean. Other organizations struggle to implement lean. Never able to get the buy-in or traction needed to really institute the sort of cultural change that is often needed to implement change. It would be beneficial to have a tool that organizations could use to assess their …

Enabling Flexibility Through Strategic Management Of Complex Engineering Systems, Walter Louis Barnes Ii

Doctoral Dissertations

”Flexibility is a highly desired attribute of many systems operating in changing or uncertain conditions. It is a common theme in complex systems to identify where flexibility is generated within a system and how to model the processes needed to maintain and sustain flexibility. The key research question that is addressed is: how do we create a new definition of workforce flexibility within a human-technology-artificial intelligence environment?

Workforce flexibility is the management of organizational labor capacities and capabilities in operational environments using a broad and diffuse set of tools and approaches to mitigate system imbalances caused by uncertainties or changes. …

Integrating Resilience Into Military Infrastructure Mission Assurance Assessments And Decision Making, John Richards

Doctoral Dissertations

“This research created the Mission Assurance Resilience Matrix, a decision framework that integrates existing infrastructure assessment methods with emerging resilience research to model resilience under uncertainty as part of a detailed infrastructure management system. This framework enables military decision makers to easily visualize deficiencies in infrastructure resilience and assess where to most efficiently allocate resources. This research further extends results by including modules on training and education as a component of the scope of work.

There are three significant contributions of this research. The first identifies the gaps of how and where modeling under uncertainty, infrastructure systems management, and resilient …

The Development Of A Project Typology And Selection Tool To Improve Decision-Making In Sustainable Projects, Rakan Alyamani

Doctoral Dissertations

"Decision-making in sustainable projects is a complex and challenging process, especially during the initiating and planning phases of project development, due to influence from several external factors, as well as the uncertain environments surrounding their creation. It is essential to improve the decision-making process in sustainable projects during these two phases by relying on strong decision-making tools. The first contribution in this work identifies gaps in the literature of how institutionalization can impact sustainable projects through the effects of institutional isomorphisms from institutional theory. This helps decision makers better understand the relationship between institutionalization and sustainable projects. The second contribution …

Microgrid Design, Control, And Performance Evaluation For Sustainable Energy Management In Manufacturing, Md. Monirul Islam

Doctoral Dissertations

"This research studies the capacity sizing, control strategies, and performance evaluation of the microgrids with hybrid renewable sources for manufacturing end use customers towards a distributed sustainable energy system paradigm. Microgrid technology has been widely investigated and applied in commercial and residential sector, while for manufacturers, it has been less explored and utilized. To fill the gap, the dissertation first proposes a cost-effective sizing model to identify the capacities as well as control strategies of the components in microgrids considering a commonly used energy tariff, i.e., Time of Use (TOU). Then, the sizing model is extended by integrating control strategies …

Balancing Labor Requirements In A Manufacturing Environment, Patrick Bernard Dwyer

Doctoral Dissertations

“This research examines construction environments within manufacturing facilities, specifically semiconductor manufacturing facilities, and develops a new optimization method that is scalable for large construction projects with multiple execution modes and resource constraints. The model is developed to represent real-world conditions in which project activities do not have a fixed, prespecified duration but rather a total amount of work that is directly impacted by the level of resources assigned. To expand on the concept of resource driven project durations, this research aims to mimic manufacturing construction environments by allowing a non-continuous resource allocation to project tasks. This concept allows for resources …

The Tabu Ant Colony Optimizer And Its Application In An Energy Market, David Donald Haynes

Doctoral Dissertations

"A new ant colony optimizer, the 'tabu ant colony optimizer' (TabuACO) is introduced, tested, and applied to a contemporary problem. The TabuACO uses both attractive and repulsive pheromones to speed convergence to a solution. The dual pheromone TabuACO is benchmarked against several other solvers using the traveling salesman problem (TSP), the quadratic assignment problem (QAP), and the Steiner tree problem. In tree-shaped puzzles, the dual pheromone TabuACO was able to demonstrate a significant improvement in performance over a conventional ACO. As the amount of connectedness in the network increased, the dual pheromone TabuACO offered less improvement in performance over the …

Biofuel Supply Chain Restructuring -- An Economic Viability And Environmental Sustainability Investigation For Enhancing Second Generation Biofuel Adoption, Rajkamal Kesharwani

Doctoral Dissertations

"Biofuel is a promising clean alternative to fossil fuels. Currently, first generation biofuels are commercially produced by using corn grain as biomass feedstock. However, the use of edible matter of crops, may lead to a competition between food and fuel. Therefore, there is a significant push in both industry and academia to commercialize second generation biofuel manufacturing technology, which uses non-edible matter from crops. Most research focuses on individual manufacturing processes for producing second generation biofuel, but the economic and environmental impacts of a large-scale adoption of second generation biofuel manufacturing have been less widely reported.

This work investigates the …