Operations Research, Systems Engineering and Industrial Engineering Commons^™

Understanding And Simulating Wildfire Changes Using Advanced Statical And Process-Oriented Models, Rongyun Tang

Doctoral Dissertations

This study aims to investigate the spatiotemporal dynamic of global wildfires, their underlying climate-driving mechanisms, and their predictability by utilizing multiple data sources (both process-based model simulations and satellite-based observations) and multiple analytical methods including machine learning techniques (MLTs).

We first explored the global wildfire interannual variability (IAV) and its climate sensitivity across nine biomes from 1997 to 2018, leveraging the state-of-art U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM) land component (ELM-v1) simulations with six sets of climate forcings. Results indicate that 1) ELM simulations could reproduce the IAV of wildfire in terms of magnitudes, distribution, bio-regional …

Water Resources Planning Under Deep Uncertainty For Physically, Socially, And Politically Complex Systems, Sarah St. George Freeman

Doctoral Dissertations

Water supply systems, particularly those of large cities, are complex systems linking supply, regulatory and distribution infrastructure, and points of use. Despite their physical complexities, it is infrequent that full supply, distribution, end use, and feedbacks therein are considered in an integrated manner. These complex systems-of-systems face large uncertainties related to physical aspects such as degradation of infrastructure, changing demand, and climate variability and change. Though great, such physical uncertainties often pale in comparison to the those related to the human systems in place to manage them and yet uncertainty in the decision-making landscape is often grossly simplified in our …

Modeling The Economic And Environmental Performance Of Offshore Wind Energy, Alexana Cranmer

Doctoral Dissertations

Offshore wind is a growing source of energy globally. Like any energy technology, it has impacts on the environment. In the case of renewable energy, we need a way to consider the environmental benefits as well as the environmental costs. This dissertation develops a set of models to examine the economic and environmental costs and benefits and the trade-offs between them. We ask how much offshore wind energy should be sited, and where should that offshore wind energy be located? The first model estimates the economic impact of wake interactions between wind farms. Wind farm sites are chosen through a …

Stochastic Network Design: Models And Scalable Algorithms, Xiaojian Wu

Doctoral Dissertations

Many natural and social phenomena occur in networks. Examples include the spread of information, ideas, and opinions through a social network, the propagation of an infectious disease among people, and the spread of species within an interconnected habitat network. The ability to modify a phenomenon towards some desired outcomes has widely recognized benefits to our society and the economy. The outcome of a phenomenon is largely determined by the topology or properties of its underlying network. A decision maker can take management actions to modify a network and, therefore, change the outcome of the phenomenon. A management action is an …

Towards Sustainable Development Of Nanomanufacturing, Sasikumar Ramdas Naidu

Doctoral Dissertations

"Sustainability" is a buzz word these days not just among regulatory agencies but even with corporations, as evident by the release of annual sustainability report by a large number of firms. Companies are starting to portray profit making along with corporate environmental responsibility.

Nanotechnology and nanomanufacturing which holds a lot of promise for development in a multitude of fields in science and engineering is the new kid on the block and carries a lot of apprehension due to public concern about their potential unwanted side effects that may result in the case of an untoward incident or lack of oversight. …