Probability Commons^™

Comparing North American Professional Sports League Season Formats Using Monte Carlo Simulation, Lathan Gregg

Industrial Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Each NFL, NBA, and MLB season consists of a regular season, in which teams play a set number of scheduled games and a playoff, in which qualifying teams compete for a championship. At the conclusion of each season, teams are ranked based on their performance throughout the season. This study aims to investigate the ability of each league's season format to accurately rank teams using Monte Carlo simulation. Matches between two teams are simulated by using the team’s assigned strength ranks to calculate a winning probability for each team. The winning probabilities are simulated with different skill values, dictating how …

Statistical Modeling, Learning And Computing For Stochastic Dynamics Of Complex Systems, Mohammadmahdi Hajiha

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

With the recent advances in sensor technology, it is much easier to collect and store streams of system operational and environmental (SOE) data. These data can be used as input to model the underlying behavior of complex engineered systems and phenomenons if appropriate algorithms with well-defined assumptions are developed. This dissertation is comprised of the research work to show the applicability of SOE data when fed into proposed tailored algorithms. The first purposes of these algorithms are to estimate and analyze the reliability of a system as elaborated in Chapter 2. This chapter provides the derivation of closed-form expressions that …

Knowledge Discovery From Complex Event Time Data With Covariates, Samira Karimi

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In particular engineering applications, such as reliability engineering, complex types of data are encountered which require novel methods of statistical analysis. Handling covariates properly while managing the missing values is a challenging task. These type of issues happen frequently in reliability data analysis. Specifically, accelerated life testing (ALT) data are usually conducted by exposing test units of a product to severer-than-normal conditions to expedite the failure process. The resulting lifetime and/or censoring data are often modeled by a probability distribution along with a life-stress relationship. However, if the probability distribution and life-stress relationship selected cannot adequately describe the underlying failure …

Probabilistic Models For Order-Picking Operations With Multiple In-The-Aisle Pick Positions, Jingming Liu

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The development of probability density functions (pdfs) for travel time of a narrow aisle lift truck (NALT) and an automated storage and retrieval (AS/R) machine is the focus of the dissertation. The multiple in-the-aisle pick positions (MIAPP) order picking system can be modeled as an M/G/1 queueing problem in which storage and retrieval requests are the customers and the vehicle (NALT or AS/R machine) is the server. Service time is the sum of travel time and the deterministic time to pick up and deposit a pallet (TPD).

Our first contribution is the development of travel time pdfs for retrieval operations …

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 …

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 …

Security Analysis On Network Systems Based On Some Stochastic Models, Xiaohu Li

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Due to great effort from mathematicians, physicists and computer scientists, network science has attained rapid development during the past decades. However, because of the complexity, most researches in this area are conducted only based upon experiments and simulations, it is critical to do research based on theoretical results so as to gain more insight on how the structure of a network affects the security. This dissertation introduces some stochastic and statistical models on certain networks and uses a k-out-of-n tolerant structure to characterize both logically and physically the behavior of nodes. Based upon these models, we draw several illuminating results …

Radical Impact Of Change In Actions And Confidence Index On Reverse Decision Making An Application Based Study, Swatee Trimbak Paithankar

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

While making decisions under uncertainty, people are often unaware of the logical approach to form the decision process. It is assumed that collecting details, analyzing and evaluating data is enough to make 'proper' decisions. However, past research in the decision making arena has significantly validated that there exists a class of decision problems which is complex, ill-structured and not defined to the level where decision makers can draw logical conclusions based on existing traditional decision approaches. RDM (reverse decision making), one of the novel approaches of decision making under conditions of uncertainty, has shown potential towards addressing some of these …