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Full-Text Articles in Operations Research, Systems Engineering and Industrial Engineering

Drivers’ Hazard Avoidance During Vehicle Automation: Impact Of Mental Models And Implications For Training, Ganesh Pai Mangalore Mar 2024

Drivers’ Hazard Avoidance During Vehicle Automation: Impact Of Mental Models And Implications For Training, Ganesh Pai Mangalore

Doctoral Dissertations

Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) are vehicle automation systems that have become more accessible and prevalent in vehicles in recent years. But the introduction of such technologies introduces new human factors challenges. Past literature suggests that users of vehicle automation lack the necessary and appropriate knowledge about their automation system. This may play a negative role in their hazard avoidance abilities when driving with automation features. Improving mental models and knowledge could generally lead to safer interactions with vehicle automation systems, but any effort to develop hazard avoidance skills when driving with vehicle automation is impeded by the lack of …


A Digital Twin Framework For Production Planning Optimization: Applications For Make-To-Order Manufacturers, Ron Mallach Aug 2023

A Digital Twin Framework For Production Planning Optimization: Applications For Make-To-Order Manufacturers, Ron Mallach

Doctoral Dissertations

In this dissertation, we develop a Digital Twin framework for manufacturing systems and apply it to various production planning and scheduling problems faced by Make-To-Order (MTO) firms. While this framework can be used to digitally represent a particular manufacturing environment with high fidelity, our focus is in using it to generate realistic settings to test production planning and scheduling algorithms in practice. These algorithms have traditionally been tested by either translating a practical situation into the necessary modeling constructs, without discussion of the assumptions and inaccuracies underlying this translation, or by generating random instances of the modeling constructs, without assessing …


Decision-Analytic Models Using Reinforcement Learning To Inform Dynamic Sequential Decisions In Public Policy, Seyedeh Nazanin Khatami Mar 2022

Decision-Analytic Models Using Reinforcement Learning To Inform Dynamic Sequential Decisions In Public Policy, Seyedeh Nazanin Khatami

Doctoral Dissertations

We developed decision-analytic models specifically suited for long-term sequential decision-making in the context of large-scale dynamic stochastic systems, focusing on public policy investment decisions. We found that while machine learning and artificial intelligence algorithms provide the most suitable frameworks for such analyses, multiple challenges arise in its successful adaptation. We address three specific challenges in two public sectors, public health and climate policy, through the following three essays. In Essay I, we developed a reinforcement learning (RL) model to identify optimal sequence of testing and retention-in-care interventions to inform the national strategic plan “Ending the HIV Epidemic in the US”. …


Improving Young Driver Perceptions Of Vulnerable Road Users Through A Persuasive Intervention, Shashank Mehrotra Mar 2022

Improving Young Driver Perceptions Of Vulnerable Road Users Through A Persuasive Intervention, Shashank Mehrotra

Doctoral Dissertations

Vulnerable road users (VRUs), including bicyclists, pedestrians, and road users of other modalities, are at a higher risk of collision with young drivers when a complex traffic situation presents itself. Past research has established the importance of young drivers’ perceptions about VRUs that would encourage safe behavior. This research designed and evaluated a novel persuasive intervention that can help improve the perceptions of young drivers while they interact with VRUs. The study identified young drivers’ perceptions towards VRUs who have been licensed in the past 12 to 18 months through structured interviews. Based on these findings, an interactive intervention was …


Modeling Portfolios Of Low Carbon Energy Generation Under Deep Uncertainty, Franklyn Kanyako Oct 2021

Modeling Portfolios Of Low Carbon Energy Generation Under Deep Uncertainty, Franklyn Kanyako

Doctoral Dissertations

In the 2015 Paris Agreement, nearly every country pledge through the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) increased adoption of low carbon energy technologies in their energy system. However, allocating investments to different low carbon energy technologies under rising demand for energy and budget constraints, uncertain technical change in these technologies involves maneuvering significant uncertainties among experts, models, and decision-makers. We examine the interactions of low carbon energy sources (LCES) under the condition of deep uncertainty. Deep uncertainty directly impacts the understanding of the role of low carbon energy technologies in climate change mitigation and how much R&D investment should be allocated …


Factors Affecting Drivers’ Off-Road Glance Behavior While Interacting With In-Vehicle Voice Interfaces – Insights From A Secondary Data Analysis, Fangda Zhang Sep 2021

Factors Affecting Drivers’ Off-Road Glance Behavior While Interacting With In-Vehicle Voice Interfaces – Insights From A Secondary Data Analysis, Fangda Zhang

Doctoral Dissertations

Given the prevalence of in-vehicle technologies and the critical role of visual attention plays in driving safety, this dissertation work aimed to fill the research gap that 1) little was known about the visual demands associated with a driver engaging with in-vehicle voice interfaces; 2) the concurrent effect of interacting with in-vehicle voice interfaces and other commonly discussed individual-level factors has barely been targeted. This research work was a secondary data analysis based on a large-scale field experiment wherein 144 participants had been recruited and driven a test vehicle while performing a series of tasks using voice-based interfaces. Pre- and …


Improving Drivers’ Behaviour When Partial Driving Automation Fails, Yalda Ebadi Dec 2020

Improving Drivers’ Behaviour When Partial Driving Automation Fails, Yalda Ebadi

Doctoral Dissertations

With the advent of automated vehicle systems, the role of drivers has changed to a more supervisory role. However, it is known that all vehicles with Level 2 (L2) systems have a very specific operational design domain (ODD) and can only function on limited conditions. Hence, it is important for drivers to perceive the situations properly and regain the control from the L2 system when needed. As suggested by past research, designing an informative interface could help drivers in their new supervision and intervention role while driving with L2 vehicles by providing feedback to drivers when hazards or event that …


Robust And Sustainable Energy Pathways To Reach Mexico’S Climate Goals, Rodrigo Mercado Fernandez Sep 2020

Robust And Sustainable Energy Pathways To Reach Mexico’S Climate Goals, Rodrigo Mercado Fernandez

Doctoral Dissertations

As countries set climate change goals for adaptation and mitigation efforts, there are many questions regarding to how to reach these targets. These efforts will necessitate the transition of our electricity infrastructure from relying on conventional electricity generation technologies including natural gas, coal and oil, to clean energy generation with renewables. Through the three essays presented in this dissertation, we explore various pathways of development for the electricity system to reach long term climate change goals. We are interested in identifying: Is there a unique optimal development option or are there various? How do different mixes of electricity generation technologies …


Three Essays On Data-Driven Optimization For Scheduling In Manufacturing And Healthcare, Ekin Koker Oct 2019

Three Essays On Data-Driven Optimization For Scheduling In Manufacturing And Healthcare, Ekin Koker

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation consists of three essays on data-driven optimization for scheduling in manufacturing and healthcare. In Chapter 1, we briefly introduce the optimization problems tackled in these essays. The first of these essays deals with machine scheduling problems. In Chapter 2, we compare the effectiveness of direct positional variables against relative positional variables computationally in a variety of machine scheduling problems and we present our results. The second essay deals with a scheduling problem in healthcare: the team primary care practice. In Chapter 3, we build upon the two-stage stochastic integer programming model introduced by Alvarez Oh (2015) to solve …


Combining Human Factors And Data Science Methods To Evaluate The Use Of Free Text Communication Orders In Electronic Health Records, Swaminathan Kandaswamy Oct 2019

Combining Human Factors And Data Science Methods To Evaluate The Use Of Free Text Communication Orders In Electronic Health Records, Swaminathan Kandaswamy

Doctoral Dissertations

Medication errors are a leading cause of death in the United States. Electronic Health Records (EHR) along with Computerized Provider Order Entry (CPOE) are considered promising ways to reduce these errors. However, EHR systems have not eliminated medication errors. Moreover, in some cases they have facilitated errors due to issues such as poor usability and negative effects on clinical workflows. The use of unexpected free text within a CPOE system can serve as a marker that the system does not adequately support clinical workflow. Prior studies have looked at the use of free text within medication orders, but the inclusion …


Power System Planning In Disparate Systems: Modeling Sustainability And Electricity Access, Destenie Nock Jul 2019

Power System Planning In Disparate Systems: Modeling Sustainability And Electricity Access, Destenie Nock

Doctoral Dissertations

Electricity goals around the world tend to focus on increasing social benefit through one of two avenues: (1) increasing overall system sustainability or (2) increasing access to electricity. These goals guide the transition of the power system. In pursuit of these goals decision makers will need modeling tools that can inform decisions, in a way that is flexible enough to include a wide range of preferences and goals. It is clear that the future generation mix of the power system will change, but the most sustainable solution, will change based on a country's goals. This dissertation will explore the various …


Theory And Practice Of Supply Chain Synchronization, Michael Prokle Nov 2017

Theory And Practice Of Supply Chain Synchronization, Michael Prokle

Doctoral Dissertations

In this dissertation, we develop strategies to synchronize component procurement in assemble-to-order (ATO) production and overhaul operations. We focus on the high-tech and mass customization industries which are not only considered to be very important to create or keep U.S. manufacturing jobs, but also suffer most from component inventory burden. In the second chapter, we address the deterministic joint replenishment inventory problem with batch size constraints (JRPB). We characterize system regeneration points, derive a closed-form expression of the average product inventory, and formulate the problem of finding the optimal joint reorder interval to minimize inventory and ordering costs per unit …


Modeling The Economic And Environmental Performance Of Offshore Wind Energy, Alexana Cranmer Jul 2017

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 …


The Effect Of Interruptions On Primary Task Performance In Safety-Critical Environments, Cheryl Ann Nicholas Nov 2016

The Effect Of Interruptions On Primary Task Performance In Safety-Critical Environments, Cheryl Ann Nicholas

Doctoral Dissertations

Safety critical systems in medicine utilize alarms to signal potentially life threatening situations to professionals and patients. In particular, in the medical field multiple alarms from equipment are activated daily and often simultaneously. There are a number of alarms which require caregivers to take breaks in complex, primary tasks to attend to the interruption task which is signaled by the alarm. The motivation for this research is the knowledge that, in general, interrupting tasks can have a potentially negative impact on performance and outcomes of the primary task. The focus of this research is on the effect of an interrupting …


Design, Implementation, And Evaluation Of A User Training Program For Integrating Health Information Technology Into Clinical Processes, Ze He Nov 2016

Design, Implementation, And Evaluation Of A User Training Program For Integrating Health Information Technology Into Clinical Processes, Ze He

Doctoral Dissertations

Health information technology (IT) implementation can be costly, and remains a challenging problem with mixed outcomes on patient safety and quality of care. Systems engineering and IT management experts have advocated the use of sociotechnical models to understand the impact of health IT on user and organizational factors. Sociotechnical models suggest the need for user-centered implementation approaches, such as user training and support, and focus on processes to mitigate the negative impact and facilitate optimal IT use during training. The training design and development should also follow systematic processes guided by instructional development models. It should take into account of …


Guidelines For Scheduling In Primary Care: An Empirically Driven Mathematical Programming Approach, Hyun Jung Alvarez Oh Aug 2015

Guidelines For Scheduling In Primary Care: An Empirically Driven Mathematical Programming Approach, Hyun Jung Alvarez Oh

Doctoral Dissertations

Primary care practices play a vital role in healthcare delivery since they are the first point of contact for most patients, and provide health prevention, counseling, education, diagnosis and treatment. Practices, however, face a complex appointment scheduling problem because of the variety of patient conditions, the mix of appointment types, the uncertain service times with providers and non-provider staff (nurses/medical assistants), and no-show rates which all compound into a highly variable and unpredictable flow of patients. The end result is an imbalance between provider idle time and patient waiting time. To understand the realities of the scheduling problem we analyze …


Model-Based Guidance For Human-Intensive Processes, Stefan Christov Mar 2015

Model-Based Guidance For Human-Intensive Processes, Stefan Christov

Doctoral Dissertations

Human-intensive processes (HIPs), such as medical processes involving coordination among doctors, nurses, and other medical staff, often play a critical role in society. Despite considerable work and progress in error reduction, human errors are still a major concern for many HIPs. To address this problem of human errors in HIPs, this thesis investigates two approaches for online process guidance, i.e., for guiding process performers while a process is being executed. Both approaches rely on monitoring a process execution and base the guidance they provide on a detailed formal process model that captures the recommended ways to perform the corresponding HIP. …


Defining, Evaluating, And Improving The Process Of Verifying Patient Identifiers, Junghee Jo Nov 2014

Defining, Evaluating, And Improving The Process Of Verifying Patient Identifiers, Junghee Jo

Doctoral Dissertations

Patient identification errors are a major cause of medication errors. During medication administration, failure to identify patients correctly can lead to patients receiving incorrect medications, perhaps resulting in adverse drug events and even death. Most medication error studies to date have focused on reporting patient misidentification statistics from case studies, on classifying types of patient identification errors, or on evaluating the impact of technology on the patient identification process, but few have proposed specific strategies or guidelines to decrease patient identification errors. This thesis aims to improve the verification of patient identifiers (VPI) process by making three key contributions to …


Stochastic Models For Capacity Planning In Healthcare Delivery: Case Studies In An Outpatient, Inpatient And Surgical Setting, Asli Ozen Aug 2014

Stochastic Models For Capacity Planning In Healthcare Delivery: Case Studies In An Outpatient, Inpatient And Surgical Setting, Asli Ozen

Doctoral Dissertations

U.S. healthcare system has become far too complex and costly to sustain and operations research has much to contribute in improving health systems by addressing a large spectrum of problems. We study capacity planning in healthcare while considering the case-mix of patients, using stochastic modeling in different application areas: primary care, inpatient bed allocation and (spine) surgery scheduling. This body of work was developed over four years of collaborative research with hospitals and healthcare providers. The main objective of our research in primary care is to optimize the patient mix of primary care physicians in a group practice to maximize …


Runway Operations Management: Models, Enhancements, And Decomposition Techniques, Farbod Farhadi Aug 2014

Runway Operations Management: Models, Enhancements, And Decomposition Techniques, Farbod Farhadi

Doctoral Dissertations

Air traffic loads have been on the rise over the last several decades and are expected to double, and possibly triple in some regions, over the coming decade. With the advent of larger aircraft and ever-increasing air traffic loads, aviation authorities are continually pressured to examine capacity expansions and to adopt better strategies for capacity utilization. However, this growth in air traffic volumes has not been accompanied by adequate capacity expansions in the air transport infrastructure. It is, therefore, predicted that flight delays costing multi-billion dollars will continue to negatively impact airline companies and consumers. In airport operations management, runways …