Operations Research, Systems Engineering and Industrial Engineering Commons^™

A Microscopic Simulation Laboratory For Evaluation Of Off-Street Parking Systems, Yun Yuan

Theses and Dissertations

The parking industry produces an enormous amount of data every day that, properly analyzed, will change the way the industry operates. The collected data form patterns that, in most cases, would allow parking operators and property owners to better understand how to maximize revenue and decrease operating expenses and support the decisions such as how to set specific parking policies (e.g. electrical charging only parking space) to achieve the sustainable and eco-friendly parking.

However, there lacks an intelligent tool to assess the layout design and operational performance of parking lots to reduce the externalities and increase the revenue. To address …

Budget-Constrained Regression Model Selection Using Mixed Integer Nonlinear Programming, Jingying Zhang

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Regression analysis fits predictive models to data on a response variable and corresponding values for a set of explanatory variables. Often data on the explanatory variables come at a cost from commercial databases, so the available budget may limit which ones are used in the final model.

In this dissertation, two budget-constrained regression models are proposed for continuous and categorical variables respectively using Mixed Integer Nonlinear Programming (MINLP) to choose the explanatory variables to be included in solutions. First, we propose a budget-constrained linear regression model for continuous response variables. Properties such as solvability and global optimality of the proposed …

Identifying Key Factors Associated With High Risk Asthma Patients To Reduce The Cost Of Health Resources Utilization, Amani Ahmad

LSU Master's Theses

Asthma is associated with frequent use of primary health services and places a burden on the United States economy. Identifying key factors associated with increased cost of asthma is an essential step to improve practices of asthma management.

The aim of this study was to identify factors associated with over utilization of primary health services and increased cost via claims data and to explore the effectiveness of case management program in reducing overall asthma related cost.

Claims data analysis for Medicaid insured asthma patients in Louisiana was conducted. Asthma patients were identified using their ICD-9 and ICD-10 codes, forward variable …

Analysis Of Shanghai Aviation Hub Logistics Competitiveness, Tuo Chen

World Maritime University Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Robust Engineering Of Dynamic Structures In Complex Networks, Walter Botongo Bomela

McKelvey School of Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Populations of nearly identical dynamical systems are ubiquitous in natural and engineered systems, in which each unit plays a crucial role in determining the functioning of the ensemble. Robust and optimal control of such large collections of dynamical units remains a grand challenge, especially, when these units interact and form a complex network. Motivated by compelling practical problems in power systems, neural engineering and quantum control, where individual units often have to work in tandem to achieve a desired dynamic behavior, e.g., maintaining synchronization of generators in a power grid or conveying information in a neuronal network; in this dissertation, …

Developing Optimization Techniques For Logistical Tendering Using Reverse Combinatorial Auctions, Jennifer Kiser

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In business-to-business logistical sourcing events, companies regularly use a bidding process known as tendering in the procurement of transportation services from third-party providers. Usually in the form of an auction involving a single buyer and one or more sellers, the buyer must make decisions regarding with which suppliers to partner and how to distribute the transportation lanes and volume among its suppliers; this is equivalent to solving the optimization problem commonly referred to as the Winner Determination Problem. In order to take into account the complexities inherent to the procurement problem, such as considering a supplier’s network, economies of scope, …

A Framework For Executable Systems Modeling, Matthew Amissah

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Systems Modeling Language (SysML), like its parent language, the Unified Modeling Language (UML), consists of a number of independently derived model languages (i.e. state charts, activity models etc.) which have been co-opted into a single modeling framework. This, together with the lack of an overarching meta-model that supports uniform semantics across the various diagram types, has resulted in a large unwieldy and informal language schema. Additionally, SysML does not offer a built in framework for managing time and the scheduling of time based events in a simulation.

In response to these challenges, a number of auxiliary standards have been offered …

Risk Assessment Of Dropped Cylindrical Objects In Offshore Operations, Adelina Steven

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Dropped object are defined as any object that fall under its own weight from a previously static position or fell due to an applied force from equipment or a moving object. It is among the top ten causes of injuries and fatality in oil and gas industry. To solve this problem, several in-house tools and guidelines is developed over time to assess the risk of dropped objects on the sub-sea structures. This thesis focuses on compiling and comparing those methods in hope to improve the recommended practices available in the market. A simple modification is done on the in-house tools …

Fundamental Tradeoffs In Estimation Of Finite-State Hidden Markov Models, Justin Le

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Hidden Markov models (HMMs) constitute a broad and flexible class of statistical models that are widely used in studying processes that evolve over time and are only observable through the collection of noisy data. Two problems are essential to the use of HMMs: state estimation and parameter estimation. In state estimation, an algorithm estimates the sequence of states of the process that most likely generated a certain sequence of observations in the data. In parameter estimation, an algorithm computes the probability distributions that govern the time-evolution of states and the sampling of data. Although algorithms for the two problems are …

Bi-Directional Testing For Change Point Detection In Poisson Processes, Moinak Bhaduri

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Point processes often serve as a natural language to chronicle an event's temporal evolution, and significant changes in the flow, synonymous with non-stationarity, are usually triggered by assignable and frequently preventable causes, often heralding devastating ramifications. Examples include amplified restlessness of a volcano, increased frequencies of airplane crashes, hurricanes, mining mishaps, among others. Guessing these time points of changes, therefore, merits utmost care. Switching the way time traditionally propagates, we posit a new genre of bidirectional tests which, despite a frugal construct, prove to be exceedingly efficient in culling out non-stationarity under a wide spectrum of environments. A journey surveying …

Multi Self-Adapting Particle Swarm Optimization Algorithm (Msapso)., Gerhard Koch

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The performance and stability of the Particle Swarm Optimization algorithm depends on parameters that are typically tuned manually or adapted based on knowledge from empirical parameter studies. Such parameter selection is ineffectual when faced with a broad range of problem types, which often hinders the adoption of PSO to real world problems. This dissertation develops a dynamic self-optimization approach for the respective parameters (inertia weight, social and cognition). The effects of self-adaption for the optimal balance between superior performance (convergence) and the robustness (divergence) of the algorithm with regard to both simple and complex benchmark functions is investigated. This work …

Data-Driven Modeling For Decision Support Systems And Treatment Management In Personalized Healthcare, Milad Zafar Nezhad

Wayne State University Dissertations

Massive amount of electronic medical records (EMRs) accumulating from patients and populations motivates clinicians and data scientists to collaborate for the advanced analytics to create knowledge that is essential to address the extensive personalized insights needed for patients, clinicians, providers, scientists, and health policy makers. Learning from large and complicated data is using extensively in marketing and commercial enterprises to generate personalized recommendations. Recently the medical research community focuses to take the benefits of big data analytic approaches and moves to personalized (precision) medicine. So, it is a significant period in healthcare and medicine for transferring to a new paradigm. …

The Impact Of Machine Learning Algorithms On Benchmarking Process In Healthcare Service Delivery, Egbe-Etu Emmanuel Etu

Wayne State University Theses

Currently, organizations have adopted and implemented a variety of innovative quality management philosophies, approaches, and techniques to stay competitive in an ever-changing global economy. Benchmarking is one of such techniques deployed by organizations to stay competitive. The motivation for this research stems from a real-world problem being faced by hospitals in the healthcare industry who have amassed a ton of data and want to embark on benchmarking project to assess the performance of the emergency departments due to challenges faced with poor management of operations which has led to high patient boarding rates, high patient wait-times, poor quality service, low …

Extraction Of Fiber Morphology From Sem Images For Quality Control Of Fiber Reinforced Composites Manufacturing, Md Fashiar Rahman

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The morphology of fibers (e.g. spatial uniformity, orientation, and length) plays a decisive role in determining the material properties or fabrication quality of fiber-reinforced nanocomposites. Hence, determining the morphology becomes a very critical issue in the field of nanocomposite quality control. The conventional way of quality inspection is to take the scanning electron microscopic (SEM) images of the cross-section of composite material and do the visual checking of these SEM images to evaluate the nanofiber alignment and length distribution. But this type of inspection is often subjective, inaccurate and time consuming. Moreover, the extremely small size of nanofibers makes the …

Developing A Cyberterrorism Policy: Incorporating Individual Values, Osama Bassam J. Rabie

Theses and Dissertations

Preventing cyberterrorism is becoming a necessity for individuals, organizations, and governments. However, current policies focus on technical and managerial aspects without asking for experts and non-experts values and preferences for preventing cyberterrorism. This study employs value focused thinking and public value forum to bare strategic measures and alternatives for complex policy decisions for preventing cyberterrorism. The strategic measures and alternatives are per socio-technical process.

Location Optimization Of A Coal Power Plant To Balance Coal Supply And Electric Transmission Costs Against Plant’S Emission Exposure, Najam Khan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research is focused on developing a location analysis methodology that can minimize the pollutant exposure to the public while ensuring that the combined costs of electric transmission losses and coal logistics are minimized. Coal power plants will provide a critical contribution towards meeting electricity demands for various nations in the foreseeable future. The site selection for a new coal power plant is extremely important from an investment point of view. The operational costs for running a coal power plant can be minimized by a combined emphasis on placing a coal power plant near coal mines as well as customers. …

Evaluating Flexibility Metrics On Simple Temporal Networks With Reinforcement Learning, Hamzah I. Khan

HMC Senior Theses

Simple Temporal Networks (STNs) were introduced by Tsamardinos (2002) as a means of describing graphically the temporal constraints for scheduling problems. Since then, many variations on the concept have been used to develop and analyze algorithms for multi-agent robotic scheduling problems. Many of these algorithms for STNs utilize a flexibility metric, which measures the slack remaining in an STN under execution. Various metrics have been proposed by Hunsberger (2002); Wilson et al. (2014); Lloyd et al. (2018). This thesis explores how adequately these metrics convey the desired information by using them to build a reward function in a reinforcement learning …

Collaborative Robotic Path Planning For Industrial Spraying Operations On Complex Geometries, Steven Brown

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Implementation of automated robotic solutions for complex tasks currently faces a few major hurdles. For instance, lack of effective sensing and task variability – especially in high-mix/low-volume processes – creates too much uncertainty to reliably hard-code a robotic work cell. Current collaborative frameworks generally focus on integrating the sensing required for a physically collaborative implementation. While this paradigm has proven effective for mitigating uncertainty by mixing human cognitive function and fine motor skills with robotic strength and repeatability, there are many instances where physical interaction is impractical but human reasoning and task knowledge is still needed. The proposed framework consists …

Evaluating Microgrid Effectiveness In Transitioning Energy Portfolios, Jacob Marshal Hale

Masters Theses

"Microgrid energy systems have emerged as a potential solution to rising greenhouse gas emissions from dependence on fossil fuels. This research provides a framework for evaluating the utility of microgrids. Three key findings are presented: use of a state-of-the-art matrix (SAM) analysis to identify gaps in key research areas that inhibit wide-spread microgrid adoption, development of a system dynamics (SD) model, and a cost benefit analysis case study to evaluate microgrid feasibility in partially meeting the energy demand of a building. Governments play a central role in developing clean energy strategies. A SAM was developed to determine if key microgrid …

Evaluating The Role Of Energy Demand Prediction And Renewable Energy Utilization On Energy Dependency Management: A Generic System Dynamics Model, Emad Rabiei Hosseinabad

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Supplying energy has become one of the biggest concerns of developed countries due to the growing energy needs in the last decades. Security of energy supply has forced countries to rely more on energy imports from external sources, and become energy dependent to a greater extent. Utilizing available renewable energy resources has been characterized as a reliable indicator to mitigate energy dependency in countries as well as securing the supplying of energy-based needs in the future. This research explores the impact of renewable energies as trustful resources in mitigating energy imports form external sources with investigation of its viability with …

Optimal Supply Delivery Under Military Specific Constraints, Talena Fletcher

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Through-out military history, the need to safely and effectively allocate resources to various military operations was a task of extreme importance. Satisfying the needs of multiple consumers by optimally pairing with appropriate suppliers falls into the category of vehicle routing problems (VRP), which has been intensively studied over the years. In general, finding the optimal solution to VRP is known to be NP-hard. The proposed solutions rely on mathematical programming and the size of the problems that can be optimally solved is typically limited. In military settings, balancing the needs of multiple consumers with the current operational environment has always …

Human-Intelligence And Machine-Intelligence Decision Governance Formal Ontology, Faisal Mahmud

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Since the beginning of the human race, decision making and rational thinking played a pivotal role for mankind to either exist and succeed or fail and become extinct. Self-awareness, cognitive thinking, creativity, and emotional magnitude allowed us to advance civilization and to take further steps toward achieving previously unreachable goals. From the invention of wheels to rockets and telegraph to satellite, all technological ventures went through many upgrades and updates. Recently, increasing computer CPU power and memory capacity contributed to smarter and faster computing appliances that, in turn, have accelerated the integration into and use of artificial intelligence (AI) in …

Analyzing Sensor Based Human Activity Data Using Time Series Segmentation To Determine Sleep Duration, Yogesh Deepak Lad

Masters Theses

"Sleep is the most important thing to rest our brain and body. A lack of sleep has adverse effects on overall personal health and may lead to a variety of health disorders. According to Data from the Center for disease control and prevention in the United States of America, there is a formidable increase in the number of people suffering from sleep disorders like insomnia, sleep apnea, hypersomnia and many more. Sleep disorders can be avoided by assessing an individual's activity over a period of time to determine the sleep pattern and duration. The sleep pattern and duration can be …