Operations Research, Systems Engineering and Industrial Engineering Commons^™

The Threshold Value Of A Quality Index For Formation Of Cellular Manufacturing Systems, Hamid Seifoddini, Manocher Djassemi

Industrial Technology and Packaging

The superiority of cellular manufacturing to job shop manufacturing has been questioned by a number of simulation studies. The initial structure of the machine-part matrix seems to play an important role in the failure of cellular manufacturing systems in these studies. In this paper a grouping measure called 'quality index - QI' will be used to evaluate the relationship between the quality of a machine-part matrix and the performance of the corresponding cellular manufacturing system. A simulation study will be conducted to demonstrate how the procedure can be used to determine the threshold value for QI beyond which the cellular …

Acuta Enews December 1996, Vol. 25, No. 12

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Fifth Annual Institutional Excellence Awards Competition

ACUTA News will have a new look

Welcome New Members

President's Message

Emergency Phone Provide Security

DC at a Glance

Fiber Optic Video Systems for Campus Networking

Campus News Briefs

Industry Insights

From ACUTA Headquarters

Arts, Computers And Artificial Intelligence, Sol Neeman Ph.D.

Engineering Studies Faculty Publications and Creative Works

Science and art seem to belong to different cultures. Science and technology, mainly the products of the intellect, use terminology and vocabulary that are concise and well defined. In contrast, in artistic expression, ambiguity is a powerful component. Still the relationship between these two different categories of human activity is interesting and fascinating. In this paper, a general comparison of these two disciplines will be introduced. Then the possibility of mechanical creation of art using computers and artificial intelligence will be discussed. This will be followed by two techniques which are used to create poetry and music. First, a statistical …

Preparing The Leaders For Mechatronics Education, Sema E. Alptekin

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Mechatronics is the synergetic combination of precision mechanical engineering, electronic control and systems thinking in the design of products and processes. There is a need to develop interdisciplinary programs in Mechatronics that better prepare our graduates to design, build, and operate the products and systems of today and tomorrow. To address this need, National Science Foundation funded a project entitled "Preparing the Leaders for Mechatronics Education" undertaken by Cal Poly in 1995 - 1996. In this paper, the activities that took place during this two-year program is outlined. Several courses and course modules have already been developed and implemented by …

Acuta Enews November 1996, Vol. 25, No. 11

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Univ. of Idaho: Homepage Sweet Homepage

Institutional Excellence Award

Committee Member Approved

More Angles for 809 Fraud

Welcome New Members

President's Message

The '90s: New Challenges for Telecom

DC at a Glance

Campus News Briefs

Industry Insights

Sensitivity Analysis In Cellular Manufacturing System In The Case Of Product Mix Variation, Hamid Seifoddini, Manocher Djassemi

Industrial Technology and Packaging

In this paper, performance measures such as mean flow time and work-in-process inventories will be used to determine the changes in the performance of a cellular manufacturing system due to product mix variations.

Acuta Enews October 1996, Vol. 25, No. 10

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President's Message

FlexSourcing

Desk Top Video

Overheard on the Listserve

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Improving The Performance Of Cellular Manufacturing By A Dynamic Part Assignment Approach, Hamid Seifoddini, Manocher Djassemi

Industrial Technology and Packaging

In this paper, a simple dynamic part assignment (DPA) procedure is introduced and its effects on the performance of cellular manufacturing systems is evaluated. In this procedure rerouting of parts among machine cells is allowed for better machine utilization. Three data sets are used to compare the performance of manufacturing systems under job shop and cellular manufacturing when DPA is employed. The results of simulation runs indicate that the proposed DPA method improves the performance of cellular manufacturing significantly by reducing the congestion in machine cells with long waiting lines.

Acuta Enews September 1996, Vol. 25, No. 9

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From the President

New Legislation

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Changes Come to Campus Directories

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Acuta Enews August 1996, Vol. 25, No. 8

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Silver Anniversary Celebration 25 Years of Excellence

President's Message

Chicago Presentations Inspire, Inform, and Entertain

Executive Director

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A Comparison Of Traffic Models: Part 1, Framework, Hong Lo, Wei-Hua Lin, Lawrence Liao, Elbert Chang, Jacob Tsao

Faculty Publications

This report defines a framework for comparing dynamic traffic models. It emphasizes four dimensions: functionality, traffic dynamics, route choice dy namics, and overall network performance. The first dimension compares the models through a check-list of model functions. Regarding the last three comparison dimensions, a total of five networks and twelve scenarios are defined. These test scenarios are designed to accentuate model properties and differences. Also included in the report are a list of performance measures for comparison purpose, and a discussion of the interpretation of results.

Dynamic Traffic Assignment For Automated Highway Systems: A Two-Lane Highway With Speed Constancy, H.-S. Jacob Tsao

Faculty Publications

Dynamic traffic assignment through analytical modeling and optimization has been widely accepted by the IVHS R&D community as a promising traffic control tool for understanding and relieving traffic congestion on conventional highways and city streets. Due to the completely controlled nature of AHS traffic, dynamic assignment of AHS traffic is even more promising. One added dimension of complexity associated with AHS dynamic traffic assignment is lane assignment. Lane changes, for fully utilizing AHS capacity or for exiting, incur disturbances to and hence reduction of longitudinal flow. Intelligent lane assignment is necessary to ensure a high rate of successful exiting, to …

Acuta Enews July 1996, Vol. 25, No. 7

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New Board of Directors Prepares for 1996-97

ACUTA Announces Quarterly Journal

President's Message

Do You Tax Student Long Distance Bills?

DC at a Glance

University of Washington Fills Service Niche with T1 Channel Banks

How to Subscribe to ACUTA Listserves

Everyone Wants Voice Mail

Campus New Briefs

Welcome New Members

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Applying Informal Cooperative Learning Groups Techniques In The Classroom, Susan L. Murray

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The application of informal cooperative learning (CL) groups techniques in the courses including operation research, and computer simulation, is discussed. The informal CL activities can be accomplished in small groups consisting of two or three students. It increases student participation and revitalizing passive lecturers. Students work example problems or homework problems in groups.

Acuta Enews June 1996, Vol. 25, No. 6

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From the President

Virtual LAN at Univ. of Mississippi

DC at a Glance

Internet Phone

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A New Grouping Measure For Evaluation Of Machine-Component Matrices, Hamid Seifoddini, Manocher Djassemi

Industrial Technology and Packaging

The machine-component matrix is the main input to most machine-component grouping models used in cellular manufacturing. A number of measures have been developed for performance evaluation of machine-component grouping algorithms. In this paper, the relationship between these measures and the performance of the corresponding cellular manufacturing system is evaluated and a new grouping measure is developed which is more consistent in predicting the suitability of a manufacturing system for cellular manufacturing.

Acuta Enews May 1996, Vol. 25, No. 5

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From the President

DC at a Glance

Letter to FCC

High-Tech Crime

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Acuta Enews April 1996, Vol. 25, No. 4

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From the President

Pasadena Community College

Port by Every Pillow at WCU

Multi-Media at Sewanee

DC at a Glance

From ACUTA Headquarters

Acuta Enews March 1996, Vol. 25, No. 3

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From the President

Seeking a Wireless Solution

DC at a Glance

Telecom & Leg/Reg Listserves

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Acuta Enews February 1996, Vol. 25, No. 2

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From the President

The Michelangelo Virus

DC at a Glance

UCLA Switches on Its 6800

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Constraints On Initial Ahs Deployment And The Concept Definition Of A Shuttle Service For Ahs Debut, H.-S. Jacob Tsao

Faculty Publications

The concept of automated highway system (AHS) was motivated primarily by its potential for large capacity and safety gains without requiring significant right-of-way acquisition. However, highway automation involves a multitude of design options as well as systems issues. Compounded by the crucial dimension of evolving the current highway system towards the mature AH& there exist a large number of possible evolutionary paths to AHS. Perhaps due to the immense complexity, little attention has been paid to the evolution dimension.Particularly important and difficult in defining a deployment sequence is the very first step,i.e. the first user service involving fully automated (hands-off …

Stage Definition For Ahs Deployment And An Ahs Evolutionary Scenario, H.-S. Jacob Tsao

Faculty Publications

The concept of automated highway systems (AHS) as a means to solve the fast-worsening highway congestion problem has received renewed attention recently. Pros and cons of various mature AHS have been a subject of intense study. However, such discussions are nothing but intellectual exercises unless the issue of how to evolve the current highway systems towards these mature AHS can be resolved. There exist a large number of different possible mature AHS. The additional dimension of evolution leads to an even larger number of possible evolutionary scenarios. This paper proposes an approach to defining evolutionary scenarios and illustrates it with …

Cycle Time Estimation For Simulating A Tandem Queueing Systems Using Aggregation Techniques, Paul Savory, Gerald Mackulak

Department of Industrial and Management Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

One approach to simulating a single-server tandem queuing system is to explicitly model each of the production stages. In this paper, we apply queueing theory, a recursive algorithm, and composite random number sampling to develop an equivalent aggregate representation consisting of only a single production stage. Preliminary test results indicate that the aggregation works well for estimating the mean and variability of the total cycle time.

Acuta Enews January 1996, Vol. 25, No. 1

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From the President

SIUE $1.1 Million Phone Scam

NUI Implements ADSI Technology

Sewanee Campus Hooked up to Info Highway

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Incorporating Matlab's Signal Processing Toolbox Into A Dsp Course At An Undergraduate E.E. Program, Sol Neeman Ph.D.

Engineering Studies Faculty Publications and Creative Works

This paper provides some suggestions for incorporating MATLAB's Signal Processing Toolbox into a DSP course. Often, in a DSP course, students have difficulties understanding abstract and non-intuitive concepts and seeing their relevance to the practical part of their curriculum. The tools offered by MATLAB's Signal Processing Toolbox, can help to make these concepts more tangible and provide a perspective for students. Some basic tools relevant to an undergraduate DSP course will be introduced, including examples of tool use and graphic results. The tools presented will be applied in the areas of synthesis and analysis of signals, FFT computation, impulse response …

Linear Programming With Inequality Constraints Via Entropic Perturbation, Jacob Tsao, Shu-Cherng Fang

Faculty Publications

A dual convex programming approach to solving linear programs with inequality constraints through entropic perturbation is derived. The amount of perturbation required depends on the desired accuracy of the optimum. The dual program contains only non-positivity constraints. An ϵ-optimal solution to the linear program can be obtained effortlessly from the optimal solution of the dual program. Since cross-entropy minimization subject to linear inequality constraints is a special case of the perturbed linear program, the duality result becomes readily applicable. Many standard constrained optimization techniques can be specialized to solve the dual program. Such specializations, made possible by the simplicity of …

Stock Market Prediction Using Different Neural Network Classification Architectures, Karsten Schierholt, Cihan H. Dagli

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In recent years, many attempts have been made to predict the behavior of bonds, currencies, stocks, or stock markets. The Standard and Poors 500 Index is modeled using different neural network classification architectures. Most previous experiments used multilayer perceptrons for stock market forecasting. A multilayer perceptron architecture and a probabilistic neural network are used to predict the incline, decline, or steadiness of the index. The results of trading with the advice given by the network is then compared with the maximum possible performance and the performance of the index. Results show that both networks can be trained to perform better …

Global Optimization Studies On The 1-D Phase Problem, Martin Zwick, Byrne Elliot Lovell, Jim Marsh

Systems Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

The Genetic Algorithm (GA) and Simulated Annealing (SA), two techniques for global optimization, were applied to a reduced (simplified) form of the phase problem (RPP) in computational crystallography. Results were compared with those of "enhanced pair flipping" (EPF), a more elaborate problem-specific algorithm incorporating local and global searches. Not surprisingly, EPF did better than the GA or SA approaches, but the existence of GA and SA techniques more advanced than those used in this study suggest that these techniques still hold promise for phase problem applications. The RPP is, furthermore, an excellent test problem for such global optimization methods.

On The Complexity Of Manpower Shift Scheduling, Hoong Chuin Lau

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

We consider the shift assignment problem in manpower scheduling, and show that a restricted version of it is NP-hard by a reduction from 3SAT. We then present polynomial algorithms to solve special cases of the problem and show how they can be deployed to solve more complex versions of the shift assignment problem. Our work formally defines the computational intractibility of manpower shift scheduling and thus justifies existing works in developing manpower scheduling systems using combinatorial and heuristic techniques.

Randomized Approximation Of The Constraint Satisfaction Problem, Hoong Chuin Lau, Osamu Watanabe

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

We consider the Weighted Constraint Satisfaction Problem (W-CSP) which is a fundamental problem in Artificial Intelligence and a generalization of important combinatorial problems such as MAX CUT and MAX SAT. In this paper, we prove non-approximability properties of W-CSP and give improved approximations of W-CSP via randomized rounding of linear programming and semidefinite programming relaxations. Our algorithms are simple to implement and experiments show that they are run-time efficient.