Operations Research, Systems Engineering and Industrial Engineering Commons^™

Containerization Of Seafarers In The International Shipping Industry: Contemporary Seamanship, Maritime Social Infrastructures, And Mobility Politics Of Global Logistics, Liang Wu

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This dissertation discusses the mobility politics of container shipping and argues that technological development, political-economic order, and social infrastructure co-produce one another. Containerization, the use of standardized containers to carry cargo across modes of transportation that is said to have revolutionized and globalized international trade since the late 1950s, has served to expand and extend the power of international coalitions of states and corporations to control the movements of commodities (shipments) and labor (seafarers). The advent and development of containerization was driven by a sociotechnical imaginary and international social contract of seamless shipping and cargo flows. In practice, this liberal, …

Towards Agile Academia: An Approach To Scientific Paper Writing Inspired By Software Engineering, Tyler Procko

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

The construction of scientific papers is performed in service of the greater scientific community. This iterative process is, in effect, an academic economy, where all members benefit from well-written papers. However, many published scientific papers are poorly written; they often lack sufficient detail to allow replication, there is improper usage of citations or a lack of regard to relevant work, reporting is vague or without linked empirical data to allow verification, figures do not correspond to text or are non-sensical, literary elements, e.g., bulleted lists, are used ineffectively, formatting renders certain sections unreadable, and grammatical errors abound. The issues of …

Investigating Collaborative Explainable Ai (Cxai)/Social Forum As An Explainable Ai (Xai) Method In Autonomous Driving (Ad), Tauseef Ibne Mamun

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Explainable AI (XAI) systems primarily focus on algorithms, integrating additional information into AI decisions and classifications to enhance user or developer comprehension of the system's behavior. These systems often incorporate untested concepts of explainability, lacking grounding in the cognitive and educational psychology literature (S. T. Mueller et al., 2021). Consequently, their effectiveness may be limited, as they may address problems that real users don't encounter or provide information that users do not seek.

In contrast, an alternative approach called Collaborative XAI (CXAI), as proposed by S. Mueller et al (2021), emphasizes generating explanations without relying solely on algorithms. CXAI centers …

Examining The Impact Of Design Features Of Electronic Health Records Patient Portals On The Usability And Information Communication For Shared Decision Making, Rong Yin

All Dissertations

The use of the Electronic Health Records (EHR) patient portal has been shown to be effective in generating positive outcomes in patients’ healthcare, improving patient engagement and patient-provider communication. Government legislation also required proof of its meaningful use among patients by healthcare providers. Typical patient portals also include features such as health information and patient education materials. However, little research has examined the specific use of patient portals related to individuals with specific diseases such as inflammatory bowel diseases (IBDs). IBDs are life-long, not curable, chronic diseases that can impact the whole population. Individuals with IBDs may have higher needs …

Screening Heuristics For The Evaluation Of Covert Network Node Insertion Scenarios, Andrew E. Pekarek

Theses and Dissertations

The majority of research on covert networks uses social network analysis (SNA) to determine critical members of the network to either kill or capture for the purpose of network destabilization. This thesis takes the opposite approach and evaluates potential scenarios for inserting an agent into a covert network for information gathering purposes or future disruption operations. Due to the substantial number of potential insertion scenarios in a large network, this research proposes three screening heuristics that leverage SNA measures to reduce the solution space before applying a simple search heuristic.

Learning And Decision Making In Social Media Networks, Zhecheng Qiang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

Social media is a virtual community where users share news, ideas, interests, and information. Learning the information diffusion dynamics and making decisions correspondingly, e.g., selecting the seed nodes to maximize the influence, have been widely applied to the areas of viral marketing and cyber security. In this dissertation, we study the problem of learning diffusion process, i.e., infection prediction, in social media networks utilizing both feature-based machine learning methods and mathematical model-based methods. For feature-based machine learning methods, the neighborhood information is treated as an important feature together with user profile and content similarity features. For model-based methods, two distinctive …

Investigating The Effects Of Negative Influence Gradients And Emotion Contagion On The Information Processing Capacity Of Social Media Users: Information Diffusion Modeling Approach, Nisha Baral

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

With the growing use of Online social media (OSM), users are observing a substantial amount of information in their social feeds. Moreover, people often use multiple OSM platforms because of each platform's unique features. Because of the huge volume of information present in social feeds, it restricts a user's ability to process the relevant information since the most important information may be overwhelmed by unimportant information. For information to diffuse in OSM, the receiver's attention is the most important condition. Cognition plays an important role in determining a user's attention/responsiveness. If OSM users receive the information above their cognition limits …

Not All Influence Is Born Equal: On The Effects Of Various Types Of Behavioral Influence Relationships On Social Media, Chathurani Senevirathna

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-

Typically, online social influence is analyzed using a single metric approach. However, social influence is not monolithic; different users exercise different influences in different ways, and influence is correlated with the user and content-specific attributes. One such attribute could be whether the action is an initiation of a new post, a contribution to a post, or a sharing of an existing post. Thus, this dissertation uses this platform-independent action classification and models the influence as multiple entities and examines social networks through the perspective of behavioral influence propagation. Two empirical studies are present in this dissertation. The first study presents …

Integration Of Blockchain Technology Into Automobiles To Prevent And Study The Causes Of Accidents, John Kim

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Automobile collisions occur daily. We now live in an information-driven world, one where technology is quickly evolving. Blockchain technology can change the automotive industry, the safety of the motoring public and its surrounding environment by incorporating this vast array of information. It can place safety and efficiency at the forefront to pedestrians, public establishments, and provide public agencies with pertinent information securely and efficiently. Other industries where Blockchain technology has been effective in are as follows: supply chain management, logistics, and banking. This paper reviews some statistical information regarding automobile collisions, Blockchain technology, Smart Contracts, Smart Cities; assesses the feasibility …

How Does Robotic Surgery Influence Communication, Leadership, And Team Outcomes? A Multimethod Examination., Jordan E. Rogers

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

The practice of delivering surgical care has evolved to be less invasive to the patients undergoing surgery. Minimally-invasive surgery can be practiced through traditional laparoscopic methods as well as with robotic technology that displaces the surgeon from the operating table. Robotic surgery has been cited to be safer and more effective than traditional laparoscopic surgery; however, little research has endeavored to investigate the role of surgical modality upon aspects of teamwork. This dissertation contributes to the human factors and teamwork literature by evaluating how surgical modality may influence communication, shared leadership, and team outcomes. Multiple methods were employed to study …

Contributions Of Role-Playing Games: Advantages Of Incorporating Social Media In Disaster Response, Erin Mullin

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

After a disaster, emergency managers need to know who needs help, what type of help they need, and how soon they need it. Traditionally, they have relied on 911 calls and ground assessments to collect this information. Because the needs of a population are not able to be identified in a timely manner by ground assessments and because individuals are often unable to get through to 911, many civilians in distress turn to social media outlets as a last-ditch effort to obtain the services they need. Due to the uncertainty concerning the accuracy of social media posts, responding to disaster …

Incorporating A New Class Of Uncertainty In Disaster Relief Logistics Planning, Emre Kirac

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In recent years, there has been a growing interest among emergency managers in using Social data in disaster response planning. However, the trustworthiness and reliability of posted information are two of the most significant concerns, because much of the user-generated data is initially not verified. Therefore, a key tradeoff exists for emergency managers when considering whether to incorporate Social data in disaster planning efforts. By considering Social data, a larger number of needs can be identified in a shorter amount of time, potentially enabling a faster response and satisfying a class of demand that might not otherwise be discovered. However, …

Exploratory Study Of The Adoption And Use Of The Smartphone Technology In Emerging Regions: Case Of Saudi Arabia, Fahad Abdulaziz Aldhaban

Dissertations and Theses

Users' acceptance of a new information technology (IT) is considered to be a key determinant factor of its success. Also, studying users' adoption and use of new IT plays an important role in determining users' needs and reducing business risk, especially in industry segments with rapid changes in IT such as Smartphone technology. Such rapid evolution is influencing consumers' behaviors, their daily lifestyle, the manner of conducting their activities and their ways of consuming and using information.

Smartphone technology holds a promising future with an expected global market that could reach US $258 billion by the end of year 2015 …

Interpreting, Stephanie Jo Kent

Doctoral Dissertations

What do community interpreting for the Deaf in western societies, conference interpreting for the European Parliament, and language brokering in international management have in common? Academic research and professional training have historically emphasized the linguistic and cognitive challenges of interpreting, neglecting or ignoring the social aspects that structure communication. All forms of interpreting are inherently social; they involve relationships among at least three people and two languages. The contexts explored here, American Sign Language/English interpreting and spoken language interpreting within the European Parliament, show that simultaneous interpreting involves attitudes, norms and values about intercultural communication that overemphasize information and discount …

Simpler Packaging, Tomiko Oden

Graphic Communication

This project explains how product packaging is become more "green", and thus more simple. Packaging needs to go beyond just simplifying materials and graphics - it needs to create a simpler process in order to reduce wasted time, energy, and resources.

A Graph Theoretic Analysis Of The Effects Of Organizational Structure On Employee Social Networks, John R. Hutzel

Theses and Dissertations

A simulation technique was used to investigate the impacts of organizational structure on an organization's social network. By simulating personnel in an organization as vertices in a graph and the aging of the corporation as the aging of the same graph, the maturation of an organization was realized. The characteristic path length of the graph was measured after each year returning an optimistic average organizational distance. Results include the finding that, per this model, an organization's characteristic path length can drop over 50% in a 20 year period with consideration of edges of all strengths. Next a series of random …

Multi-National Project Team Communications And Cultural Influences, Morgan E. Henrie

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

This exploratory case study dissertation examined multinational project teams' communication satisfaction as influenced by the project team's cultural attribute of power distance. Utilizing a exploratory case study, semi-guided interview research approach, ordinal scale data and open-ended contextual based question responses was obtained. This data was gathered from United States---Russia and Canada---Angola multi-national, complex, high technology oil transportation project teams. Triangulation data gathering techniques were utilized to obtain empirical data from multiple sources of data and multiple data types. Subsequent data analyses combined descriptive statistical analysis, graphical analysis, cluster analysis, and content analysis techniques to derive a theoretical construct of multi-national …

A Study Of Information Exchange Between United States Air Force Bases And Their Surrounding Communities, Andrew C. Clewett

Theses and Dissertations

Data, information, and knowledge are exchanged daily from United States Air Force (USAF) bases to surrounding communities. The purpose of this research is to aid managers and commanders in gaining a better understanding of their information flow and bettering their information management practices. The research specifically seeks answers to the questions of where information is exchanged, why information is exchanged, and to whom information is exchanged with.

A Combined Adaptive Tabu Search And Set Partitioning Approach For The Crew Scheduling Problem With An Air Tanker Crew Application, Todd E. Combs

Theses and Dissertations

This research develops the first metaheuristic approach to the complete air crew scheduling problem. It develops the first dynamic, integrated, set-partitioning based vocabulary scheme for metaheuristic search. Since no benchmark flight schedules exist for the tanker crew scheduling problem, this research defines and develops a Java™ based flight schedule generator. The robustness of the tabu search algorithms is judged by testing them using designed experiments. An integer program is developed to calculate lower bounds for the tanker crew scheduling problem objectives and to measure the overall quality of solutions produced by the developed algorithms.

Robustness Of Multiple Objective Decision Analysis Preference Functions, William K. Klimack

Theses and Dissertations

This research investigated value and utility functions in multiobjective decision analysis to examine the relationship between them in a military decision making context. The impact of these differences was examined to improve implementation efficiency. The robustness of the decision model was examined with respect to the preference functions to reduce the time burden imposed on the decision maker. Data for decision making in a military context supports the distinction between value and utility functions. Relationships between value and utility functions and risk attitudes were found to be complex. Elicitation error was significantly smaller than the difference between value and utility …

Modeling And Analysis Of Social Networks, Robert S. Renfro Ii

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation develops new methods for the modeling and analysis of social networks. Social networks describe the complex relationships of individuals and groups in multiple overlapping contexts. Influence in a social network impacts behavior and decision making in every setting in which individuals participate. This study defines a methodology for modeling and analyzing this complex behavior using a Flow-Model representation. Multiple objectives in an influencing effort targeted at a social network are modeled using Goal Programming. Value Focused Thinking is applied to model influence and predict decisions based on the reaction of the psychological state of individuals to environmental stimuli. …

Influence Of Feedback And Comment Labels On Information Sharing In A Computer Mediated Collaborative Environment, Gary D. Denney

Theses and Dissertations

A group support system (GSS) uses a combination of networked personal computers, software, and human facilitation to improve the group decision-making process. Group support Systems are being used in the Air Force today in a variety of capacities and in particular by the Warner-Robins Air Logistics Center (WR-ALC) to assess acquisition risks. Prior GSS research has found that certain structural and social dimensions of GSS designs might influence whether optimal process improvements take place. However, the dimensions that positively influence group performance have continued to be a matter of debate. This thesis looked at several structural and social contingencies to …

An Incentive Model For International Telecommunications, Jeffrey R. Del Vecchio

Theses and Dissertations

This study developed a new defensive model for global voice communications. It uses a n-person, zero-sum, cooperative and non-cooperative game to optimize the coalitions revenue after the possibility of a network service provider being tampered by an adversary. This research optimized two measures of effectiveness (coalition revenue and network provider revenue) of international telecommunications coalitions by hardening network service providers and improving their respective revenue with incentives. A multi-criteria optimization problem was developed to establish the strategic competition between the coalition defender and attacker. Irrespective of the amount of incentives, a applicable hardening and tampering strategy can be obtained. All …

Meta-Ethnographic Development Of A Dialogue Methodology Applied To Organization Discourse, Shelley P. Gallup

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

A gap exists between theoretical stances that acknowledge the importance of dialogue as a dynamic within socially constructed structures, and "steersmanship" of those constructs--e.g., directing, intervening or transforming organizations. A "mechanism" which links theory with practice is missing, leaving practitioners with an acknowledgment of dialogue's central position, but without tools to enact this centrality in practice or research. This research constructs a conceptual model of dialogue, derived from the literature. Using this model as a base, the research seeks to generate a dialogue methodology bridging theory and practice with respect to organizational dialogue. The model, methodology, and research results are …

A Study Of Similarity And Analogical Decision-Making In Collaborative Design, Christopher Edward Weeks

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to investigate the role of similarity and analogy in design communication and propose a descriptive representation of the analogical decision-making process in the context of engineering design. It is proposed that social, cultural, and contextual knowledge are brought to bear on statements of need in the form of analogy as a means to elicit and evince potential design solutions. A goal of this study is to identify communicative behaviors, representing process variables of analogical decision-making, that can be used to describe how design information is represented, manipulated, and conveyed in a collaborative design effort. …

A Sociotechnical Approach To The Study Of Semiautonomous Work Group Communication In Technical Organizations, Elizabeth B. Varnes

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The sociotechnical aspects of group communication in semiautonomous technical work teams were investigated to understand how team members define "effective" group communication and what impact technical tools have on the group communication process. A team of workers with various technical backgrounds was selected for study. The study involved videotaped group sessions, a group training educational briefing and individual group member questionnaires. The results indicate that group members believed sharing information among group members was critical to successful communication and that certain technical tools could be effective during group meetings. The findings are congruent with the general theory that group communication …