Operations Research, Systems Engineering and Industrial Engineering Commons^™

The Effects Of Text And Hybrid Graphic-Text Formats On Pilot Performance Using Flight Deck Data Communication Displays, Ricardo Daniel Muñoz Da Costa

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

Air Traffic has shown a steady increase since the institution of commercial aviation in the first quarter of the last century, and the use of the United States National Airspace System (NAS) is expected to increase by 45 percent more passengers by the year 2015 (Smith, 2004). The increasing demands of the NAS require preventive measures in order to preserve the safety of operations. NextGen is a transformative program expected to enhance the safety and effectiveness of NAS operations. One of the ways that it will achieve these goals is by improving air-ground communications.

In the current system, communications between …

The Effectiveness Of Pilot Response To Generate Concatenated Downlink Messages After Evaluation Of Hybrid Graphic-Text Clearances, Steven Brent Kiss

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Data-Link Communication, or DataComm, is a digital text messaging system providing a means of communication between Air Traffic Control (ATC) and pilots. Current Pilot/ATC communication is via voice radio, but the number of ATC operators and voice channels are finite, which limits the number of aircraft voice transmission can accommodate. The number of aircraft within the National Airspace System (NAS) is expected to double between 2004 and 2025, and a transition from voice to DataComm is a necessity. DataComm is an integral part of the NAS and is implemented in incremental phases increasing its functions and capability. There are many …

Assessing The Effects Of Multi-Modal Communications On Mental Workload During The Supervision Of Multiple Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, Sharon Claxton Bommer

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Human supervisory control (HSC) systems that require intermittent human input of commands to create actions within the system are helpful in reducing the human's mental workload (MWL). HSC systems are commonly employed in the piloting and control of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). As the ratio of UAVs to operators increases there is a clear need to understand the effort required to complete task requirements. Specifically, this research explored MWL relative to multi-modal communications using subjective and physiological measures. To accomplish this, a cognitive model was developed to understand the relationship between tasks and MWL. MWL was manipulated by measuring three …

Application Of The Augmented Operator Function Model For Developing Performance Metrics In Persistent Surveillance, Tiffany M. Paul

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Difficulties with the implementation of persistent Wide Area Motion Imagery (WAMI) sensors to support real-time military missions have risen within Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance organizations. In this study, cognitive models were developed of operators performing real-time missions currently supported by narrow field of view Full Motion Video (FMV) and WAMI sensors. These models were used in conjunction with a cognitive task analysis, creating an augmented operator function model (OFM-COG). This thesis describes the OFM-COG and demonstrates how this model-based analysis technique can document the cognitive implications of persistent surveillance with motion imagery. The analytic procedures required to build this model …

Testing The Fuel Efficiency Of Tractors With Continuously Variable And Standard Geared Transmissions, Christopher N. Howard, Michael F. Kocher, Roger M. Hoy, Erin E. Blankenship

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

A John Deere 8295R IVT tractor with a continuously variable transmission (CVT) and a John Deere 8295R PowerShift (PST) tractor with a standard geared transmission (GT) were tested for fuel consumption at three different travel speeds with six different load levels applied per speed. The JD 8295R PST tractor was tested both at full throttle (FT) and shifted up two gears and throttled back (SUTB) to achieve the same travel speed as at full throttle. For each travel speed with each transmission mode, fuel consumption was determined to be linearly related to drawbar power. Linear regression analyses were performed, and …

A New Versatile Electronic Speckle Pattern Interferometer For Vibration Measurements, Viswanath Bavigadda

Doctoral

Electronic speckle pattern interferometry (ESPI) has been widely used for vibration amplitude and phase measurements. Conventional ESPI systems are bulk and expensive and need careful alignment of all the optical components which is a time consuming task. To overcome these problems alternative compact ESPI systems were developed using fibre-optical components or holographic optical elements (HOEs). The fibre-optic based ESPI systems suffer from random phase fluctuations induced by environmental temperature changes. Hence HOEs can be used as more powerful alternative optical elements to design ESPI systems. The time average ESPI method is widely used for vibration studies. The time average method …

Employing Learning To Improve The Performance Of Meta-Raps, Fatemah Al-Duoli, Ghaith Rabadi

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

In their search for satisfactory solutions to complex combinatorial problems, metaheuristics methods are expected to intelligently explore the solution space. Various forms of memory have been used to achieve this goal and improve the performance of metaheuristics, which warranted the development of the Adaptive Memory Programming (AMP) framework [1]. This paper follows this framework by integrating Machine Learning (ML) concepts into metaheuristics as a way to guide metaheuristics while searching for solutions. The target metaheuristic method is Meta-heuristic for Randomized Priority Search (Meta-RaPS). Similar to most metaheuristics, Meta-RaPS consists of construction and improvement phases. Randomness coupled with a greedy heuristic …

Experiments To Measure The Effects Of Timber Harvesting Equipment On Surface Lithic Scatters, Douglas J. Baughman

All Master's Theses

The importance of cultural resource preservation cannot be overstated; however local economies are at least as important. Due to conservative archaeological site protection practices in Region 5 of the United States Forest Service, the economy of Northeastern California is being adversely affected. In an attempt to help the Forest Service make more informed management decisions and improve the Northeastern California economy, I undertook experiments on the effects of timber harvesting on lithic scatters on Modoc National Forest. The experiments involved placement of 225 glass tiles (proxy lithics) in each of three plots subject to vehicle traffic and log dragging by …

An Investigation On How Operational Wind Turbines Are Used In Secondary Classrooms, James Smith

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Through a review of literature, it was found that many schools in the United States are installing operational wind turbines, but it was unclear how teachers were using them in their science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) classrooms. In order to identify how these operational wind turbines were being used and to create a list of expectations for schools with operational wind turbines, this exploratory study surveyed STEM teachers from all across the United States. A stratified random sample was created using a U.S. Department of Energy database of schools with operational wind turbines. Administrators from the selected schools identified …

A Real Option Dynamic Decision (Rodd) Framework For Operational Innovations, Wilawan Onkham

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Changing the business operations and adopting new operational innovations, have become key features for a business solution approach. However, there are challenges for developing innovative operations due to a lack of the proper decision analysis tools, lack of understanding the impacts transition will have on operational models, and the time limits of the innovation life cycle. The cases of business failure in operational innovation (i.e. Eastman Kodak Company and Borders Group Inc.,) support the need for an investment decision framework. This research aims to develop a Real Option Dynamic Decision (RODD) framework for decision making, to support decision makers for …

Systems Geometry: A Methodology For Analyzing Emergent System Of Systems Behaviors, Christina Bouwens

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Recent advancements in technology have led to the increased use of integrated ‘systems of systems’ (SoS) which link together independently developed and usable capabilities into an integrated system that exhibits new, emergent capabilities. However, the resulting SoS is often not well understood, where secondary and tertiary effects of tying systems together are often unpredictable and present severe consequences. The complexities of the composed system stem not only from system integration, but from a broad range of areas such as the competing objectives of different constituent system stakeholders, mismatched requirements from multiple process models, and architectures and interface approaches that are …

Optimized Estimates Based On Multiple Sensor Configuration Knowledge, Roochi Mishra

Industrial, Manufacturing, and Systems Engineering Dissertations - Archive

There has been an increase in the usage of sensor technology as they are adaptable for use in different environments, many of which are hostile to direct human observation, such as regions affected by land mines or forest fires. The sensors used to monitor developing situations are small inexpensive computing devices with limited processing capabilities, limited power supply and may be destroyed in the event that they are monitoring, without suffering a great financial cost. Also, since these devices are inexpensive, multiple sensors can be deployed for the same application where the sensors are placed or attached to a mobile …

Mathematical Programming Approaches For Land Use Planning That Limits Urban Sprawl, Piyush Kumar

Industrial, Manufacturing, and Systems Engineering Dissertations - Archive

Sprawl has a detrimental effect on quality of life and the environment. For example, it increases our dependence on vehicles for daily tasks. This leads to increased vehicular pollution. It also increases traffic, which results in people spending more time on the road. With dwindling resources and increasing population, it becomes necessary that we manage sprawl. Ewing et al. defined factors to measure sprawl in the present urban structure. The measures are divided into four broad categories, which are density factors, mixed use factors, streets factor, and centers factors. These measures address various aspects that contribute to sprawl. For example, …

Variants Of Multivariate Adaptive Regression Splines (Mars): Convex Vs. Non-Convex, Piecewise-Linear Vs. Smooth And Sequential Algorithms., Diana Luisa Martinez Cepeda

Industrial, Manufacturing, and Systems Engineering Dissertations - Archive

Multivariate Adaptive Regression Splines (MARS) is a statistical modeling method used to represent high-dimensional data with interactions. It uses different algorithms to select the terms to be included in the approximation model that best represent the data. In addition, it performs a variable selection, therefore the most significant predictors are shown in the final model. Design and analysis of computer experiments (DACE) is a statistical technique for creating approximations (called metamodels) of computer models. For optimization problems in which there is an unknown function that must be approximated, DACE approach could be applied. In stochastic dynamic programming (SDP) for example, …

A Model Characterization Of The Texas Healthcare Facilities, Shernette R. Kydd

Industrial, Manufacturing, and Systems Engineering Dissertations - Archive

The Patient Protect and Affordable Care Act of 2010 became a law on March 23, 2010. This healthcare act, according to the authors, is designed to improve health services by targeting various facets of the industry: hospitals, private physicians, insurance companies and the drug industry - to name a few. It impacts many people, both directly and indirectly. The effects of this new law will most likely not immediately be recognized, although is it possible for "pockets: of success stories.The administration of Medicare is an area of interest primarily because of the finances involved. Today, there are many waste streams …

Nylon Tension Pid Control During Raw Tire Assembly, Yuan-Yu Luo

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to evaluate several control methods to see which one has the best control of nylon tension during raw tire assembly. After nylon application step of the tire building process, the shape of the tire will undergo inflation that causes the nylon layers to expand and produces tension gradient. To overcome such a problem, the process needs to preapply a nylon trip with a gradient of tension so the tension can be balanced after the inflation step. The study evaluated several PID controllers and gathered data to see which controller results in the best nylon …

Systems Simulation Using Promodel: An Online Teaching Method, Gustavo Sioni Bosoli

Masters Theses

This study was designed with the purpose to create an online method to deploy the concepts and practical knowledge necessary for the course System Simulation {TEC 5523) offered by Eastern Illinois University. The course is currently offered on a hybrid format, with part of it being ministered in the classroom and the remaining on the online environment. This research focused on creating a set of multimedia and step-by-step lessons aimed to substitute the part of the course that demands the students to be present in the classroom. These lessons were developed based on exercises from the textbook currently used for …

Risk Analysis: Comparative Study Of Various Techniques, Hanan Mohammad Altabbakh

Doctoral Dissertations

"Researchers in the safety field are facing more challenges everyday with the expanding modern socio-technical systems. Safety analysis such as hazard analysis, accident causation analysis, and risk assessment are being revisited to overcome the shortcoming of the conventional safety analysis. With increasingly complex human system interaction in today's modern systems, new safety challenges are being faced that needed to be assessed and addressed. Managers and engineers face the challenge to choose from the vast amount of techniques available and utilize the correct one. Indeed, new or improved risk assessment tools that can address these complexities are needed. One of the …

The Role Of Face-To-Face Interactions In The Success Of Virtual Project Teams, Lawrence Raymond Blenke

Doctoral Dissertations

"This dissertation examines the importance of in-person Face-To-Face (FTF) interactions in virtual engineering development projects. The basis for this investigation will be the hypothesis that FTF interactions increase the effectiveness, quality of communication, and the trust between participants beyond that achieved with purely computer mediated communication. Through a combination of a literature review and empirical research, this dissertation addresses the following questions: * How important is FTF interaction in virtual development work? * Do various functional areas and age groups rate the importance of FTF interactions differently? * How does FTF interaction affect the levels of trust and communication within …

Two Essays On Dynamic Programming And Reinforcement Learning, Shuva Ghosh

Doctoral Dissertations

"The semi-Markov decision process (SMDP) is a variant of the Markov decision process (MOP). This dissertation work focuses on the application of SMDPs to disaster response management and to maintenance management. Average and discounted reward are two popular performance metrics for MDPs/SMDPs. While both dynamic programming (DP) methods, i.e., value iteration and policy iteration, are commonly used to solve MDPs/SMDPs, value iteration is easier to apply than policy iteration. The existing value iteration algorithms for average reward SMDPs have some noteworthy limitations, which are sought to be overcome in this work. Reinforcement learning (RL) techniques, which are also studied in …