Operations Research, Systems Engineering and Industrial Engineering Commons^™

The Time Has Come For Nursing Engineering, William "Ike" Eisenhauer

Engineering and Technology Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

The article discusses the need for healthcare and educational organizations to create nursing engineering program. Topics discussed include successes in healthcare systems as engineers and healthcare professionals, integration of industrial engineering or lean and Six Sigma courses into nursing programs of the University of Alabama and modern healthcare system and modern healthcare participants that can be addressed by the new profession.

Ad-Hoc Automated Teller Machine Failure Forecast And Field Service Optimization, Michelle L. F. Cheong, Ping Shung Koo, B. Chandra Babu

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

As part of its overall effort to maintain good customer service while managing operational efficiency and reducing cost, a bank in Singapore has embarked on using data and decision analytics methodologies to perform better ad-hoc ATM failure forecasting and plan the field service engineers to repair the machines. We propose using a combined Data and Decision Analytics Framework which helps the analyst to first understand the business problem by collecting, preparing and exploring data to gain business insights, before proposing what objectives and solutions can and should be done to solve the problem. This paper reports the work in analyzing …

Sails: Hybrid Algorithm For The Team Orienteering Problem With Time Windows, Aldy Gunawan, Hoong Chuin Lau, Kun Lu

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The Team Orienteering Problem with Time Windows (TOPTW) is the extended version of the Orienteering Problem where each node is limited by a given time window. The objective is to maximize the total collected score from a certain number of paths. In this paper, a hybridization of Simulated Annealing and Iterated Local Search, namely SAILS, is proposed to solve the TOPTW. The efficacy of the proposed algorithm is tested using benchmark instances. The results show that the proposed algorithm is competitive with the state-of-the-art algorithms in the literature. SAILS is able to improve the best known solutions for 19 benchmark …

A Course In Sustainable Manufacturing, Young Moon

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering - All Scholarship

Sustainable manufacturing is a vision that the manufacturing community has for contributing to the global society's ability to address sustainability issues. While there is no standard definition of sustainable manufacturing, one universally accepted notion is that sustainable manufacturing must optimally address a comprehensive set of highly interdependent objectives from environmental, economic and social perspectives. This is impossible without systems' thinking that guides the sustainable manufacturing activities every step of the way from product idea generation, to adoption of sustainable design and manufacturing processes, to selection of sustainable materials, and ultimately to product disposal, reuse or recycling. New course on sustainable …

Connecting Self-Efficacy And Nature Of Science Shifts In Undergraduate Research Experiences, Gina Quan

Faculty Publications

Undergraduate research can support students’ more central participation in physics. We present analysis of one way this participation may shift: changes in their beliefs about the Nature of Science coupled to changes in a sense of ability to contribute to authentic research. Students in the study worked with faculty and graduate student research mentors on research projects and also participated in a seminar where they learned about research and reflected on their experiences. In videotaped interviews, we asked students to describe their experiences in research. Students developed nuanced views about how the research process works coupled to shifts in their …

Safety And Efficacy Results Of Switch From Imiglucerase To Velaglucerase Alfa Treatment In Patients With Type 1 Gaucher Disease, Deborah Elstein, Atul Mehta, Derralynn A. Hughes, Pilar Giraldo, Joel Charrow, Laurie Smith, Suma P. Shankar, Thomas N. Hangartner, Yune Kunes, Nan Wang, Eric Crombez, Ari Zimran

Biomedical, Industrial & Human Factors Engineering Faculty Publications

Gaucher disease (GD) is a lysosomal storage disorder; symptomatic patients with type 1 GD need long-term disease-specific therapy of which the standard of care has been enzyme replacement therapy (ERT). Thirty-eight of 40 patients (aged 9–71 years) clinically stable on ERT with imiglucerase, safely switched to a comparable dose of velaglucerase alfa (units/kg) during TKT034, a 12-month, open-label clinical study, and for 10–50 months in an extension study. The most common adverse events (AEs) judged to be drug-related in the extension were fatigue and bone pain. No drug-related serious AEs were reported. No AEs led to study withdrawal. At 24 …

Towards City-Scale Mobile Crowdsourcing: Task Recommendations Under Trajectory Uncertainties, Chen Cen, Shih-Fen Cheng, Hoong Chuin Lau, Archan Misra

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In this work, we investigate the problem of large-scale mobile crowdsourcing, where workers are financially motivated to perform location-based tasks physically. Unlike current industry practice that relies on workers to manually pick tasks to perform, we automatically make task recommendation based on workers’ historical trajectories and desired time budgets. The challenge of predicting workers’ trajectories is that it is faced with uncertainties, as a worker does not take same routes every day. In this work, we depart from deterministic modeling and study the stochastic task recommendation problem where each worker is associated with several predicted routine routes with probabilities. We …

Engaging Healthcare Users Through Gamification In Knowledge Sharing Of Continuous Improvement In Healthcare, Elizabeth A. Cudney, Susan L. Murray, Connor M. Sprague, Lalaine M. Byrd, Frances M. Morris, Nathaniel Merwin, Debra L. Warner

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Knowledge management systems are key for capturing, retaining, and communicating results from projects and presenting information to staff. The purpose of a knowledge management system is to tap into the vast wisdom from projects and experts across an organization. This research focuses on the knowledge management system within the Veterans Health Administration that was developed as a repository of information on continuous improvement tools such as flowcharts, value stream mapping, 5S, and the application of these in healthcare projects. The use of social network analysis and gamification improves website organization, user participation, and dissemination of shared knowledge related to continuous …

Velaglucerase Alfa (Vpriv) Enzyme Replacement Therapy In Patients With Gaucher Disease: Long-Term Data From Phase Iii Clinical Trials, Derralynn A. Hughes, Derlis Gonzalez, Elena A. Lukina, Atul Mehta, Madhulika Kabra, Deborah Elstein, Isaac Kisinovsky, Pilar Giraldo, Ashish Bavdekar, Thomas N. Hangartner, Nan Wang, Eric Crombez, Ari Zimran

Biomedical, Industrial & Human Factors Engineering Faculty Publications

Type 1 Gaucher disease is an inherited lysosomal enzyme deficiency with variable age of symptom onset. Common presenting signs include thrombocytopenia, anemia, hepatosplenomegaly, bone abnormalities, and, additionally in children, growth failure. Fifty-seven patients aged 3–62 years at the baseline of two phase III trials for velaglucerase alfa treatment were enrolled in the single extension study. In the extension, they received every-other-week velaglucerase alfa intravenous infusions for 1.2–4.8 years at 60 U/kg, although 10 patients experienced dose reduction. No patient experienced a drug-related serious adverse event or withdrew due to an adverse event. One patient died following a convulsion that was …

Preventive Maintenance Decision Modeling In Health And Service Systems, Mahboubeh Madadi

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on the preventive maintenance decision modeling in healthcare and service systems. In the first part of this dissertation, some issues in preventive health decisions for breast cancer are addressed, and in the second part, the required characteristics for preventive maintenance of an unreliable queuing system are derived.

Adherence to cancer screening is the first issue that is addressed in this dissertation. Women’s adherence or compliance with mammography screening remained low in the recent years. In this dissertation, we first develop a design-based logistic regression model to quantify the probability of adherence to screening schedules based on women’s …

Prediction -- The Quintessential Policy Model Validation Test, Wayne Wakeland

Complex Systems Faculty Publications and Presentations

It is essential to objectively test how well policy models predict real world behavior. The method used to support this assertion involves the review of three SD policy models emphasizing the degree to which the model was able to fit the historical outcome data and how well model-predicted outcomes matched real world outcomes as they unfolded. Findings indicate that while historical model agreement is a favorable indication of model validity, the act of making predictions without knowing the actual data, and comparing these predictions to actual data, can reveal model weaknesses that might be overlooked when all of the available …

Understanding Technology Diffusion And Spatial Accessibility In The Home Healthcare Industry, Mehmet Serdar Kilinç

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Home healthcare is becoming an important alternative to institutionalized care. It not only reduces costs but also increases health outcomes and patient satisfaction. However, the availability and efficiency of home healthcare services need to be improved as the aging population increases in the US. Hence, understanding home healthcare utilization and access are the essential steps to develop strategies ensuring effective and sustainable services to patients.

This research aims to study two main issues in the US home healthcare system: diffusion and long-term impacts of home telehealth and potential spatial accessibility of home healthcare services. Home telehealth is a promising technology …

A Simple Method For Evaluating Wear In Different Grades Of Tooling Applied To Friction Stir Spot Welding, Kirtis Frankland Kennard

Theses and Dissertations

In this study tools consisting of a 5mm cylindrical pin and a 12mm shoulder held by a simple tool holder were used to compare the wear of 11 tooling materials. The objective was to determine if using these tools in a spot welding configuration to simulate friction stir welding could differentiate the potential performance of tooling materials. All tools were made of varying percentages of polycrystalline cubic boron nitride (PCBN), tungsten (W) and rhenium (Re). The materials are referred to herein as GV1, GV2, G1, G2, G3, G4, G5, G6, G7, G8 and G9.

The tools were run to 205 …

Evaluating Generated Risk Event Effect Neutralization As A New Mitigation Strategy Tool In The Upstream Industry, Mohammad A. Alkazimi, Hanan Altabbakh, Susan L. Murray, Katie Grantham

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The upstream industry uses diverse risk mitigation approaches to mitigate eventual failures within its facilities. Yet, these approaches could not avert major accidents, on different scales, from happening as they negatively affect the industry. The purpose of this paper is to assess Generated Risk Event Effect Neutralization (GREEN) as a new tool to select suitable risk mitigation approach to prevent prospective failures in upstream industry. More than 200 hundred major accidents in the industry underwent GREEN evaluation and compared with existing risk mitigation approaches used in to mitigate eventual failures. Kuwait's’ Mina Al-Ahmadi explosion was chosen as a case study …

Meta-Raps Hybridization With Machine Learning Algorithms, Fatemah Al-Duoli

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation focuses on advancing the Metaheuristic for Randomized Priority Search algorithm, known as Meta-RaPS, by integrating it with machine learning algorithms. Introducing a new metaheuristic algorithm starts with demonstrating its performance. This is accomplished by using the new algorithm to solve various combinatorial optimization problems in their basic form. The next stage focuses on advancing the new algorithm by strengthening its relatively weaker characteristics. In the third traditional stage, the algorithms are exercised in solving more complex optimization problems. In the case of effective algorithms, the second and third stages can occur in parallel as researchers are eager to …

Systems Theory-Based Construct For Identifying Metasystem Pathologies For Complex System Governance, Polinpapilinho F. Katina

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this research was to develop a systems theory-based construct for metasystem pathologies identification in support of the problem formulation phase of systems-based methodologies using an inductive research design. Problem formulation has been identified as one of the most critical stages in complex system development since it influences later stages in complex system understanding. In modern society where the operating landscape is characteristically ambiguous, mired by complexity, emergence. interdependence, and uncertainty, the concept of problem formulation is used to ensure right issues affecting complex systems surface and addressed to meet expected system performance and viability. In this research, …

An Adaptive Large Neighborhood Search Heuristic For The Inventory Routing Problem With Time Windows, Mina Hadianniasar

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research addresses an integrated distribution and inventory control problem which is faced by a large retail chain in the United States. In their current distribution network, a direct shipping policy is used to keep stores stocked with products. The shipping policy specifies that a dedicated trailer should be sent from the warehouse to a store when the trailer is full or after five business days, whichever comes first. Stores can only receive deliveries during a window of time (6 am to 6 pm). The retail chain is seeking more efficient alternatives to this policy, as measured by total transportation, …

“Rooming The Patient” Vs. “Moving The Patient", Susan L. Murray, Elizabeth A. Cudney

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Healthcare is coming under ever increasing scrutiny for cost, quality, safety, and patient satisfaction. This paper compares two operational models (“rooming the patience” vs. “moving the patient”) against productivity, privacy, user satisfaction, and other performance measurements. Varying risk factors for patient populations ranging from infants to geriatrics and medical specialties from mental health to orthopedics are addressed for both models. In the first operational model after checking-in the patient is escorted to an examination room and waits as various caregivers (nurses, doctors, clerks, etc.) come and go from the exam room. In the second model the caregivers work from a …

Terminological Mediation In Information Technology And Related Fields, Jessica Smith Richards

Theses and Dissertations

Terminological dissonance is created by the inherent ambiguity of natural language and compounded by ontological specialization efforts within fields. Terminological dissonance creates high-risk miscommunications in two key areas: within Information Technology as a singular domain, and also between IT and other fields in interdisciplinary projects. A comprehensive literature review revealed a lack of previous effort to acknowledge or solve problems of terminological dissonance within Information Technology. This research provides a comprehensive overview and definition of the terminology mediation space as it relates to Information Technology and adjacent fields. An analysis and verification of the contents and implementation of the terminology …

Creating Quality Metrics For The Capital Facilities Delivery Industry, Kelsey D. Lamb

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A standard for industry-wide quality metrics, similar to safety metrics, for the capital facilities delivery industry is investigated and developed with the goal to motivate industry-wide adoption of this new quality metric program. A survey of the literature found key differences between capital facilities and other industries, mainly that other industries focus on the quality of the product while capital facilities focus on maintaining the cost and schedule of a project. Creating a framework that can be used across the industry can potentially lead to uniform improvement of quality for the entire industry. Quality is defined for the capital facilities …