Engineering Commons^™

Acuta Enews June 2007, Vol. 36, No. 6

ACUTA Newsletters

ln This lssue

From the President Carmine Piscopo, RCDD, ACUTA President

Board Report .............. Riny Ledgerwood, San Diego State Univ., ACUTA Sec./Treasurer

Tech Talk: Waiting for TechTalk 2.0, the New, lmproved Version................. Kevin Tanzillo, Dux PR

DC Update ... Jeanne Jansenius, Sewanee, The University of the South

Another Hit to the Cabling Budget: Electrician Shortage = Higher Cabling Costs............. Gary Audin

FYI: Useful lnformation from the Campus.................. Student Monitor

Web Tip: What's New at acuta.org?............. Aaron Fuehrer, ACUTA lnformation Technology Manager

Sign Up Today for Preconference Seminars

lnfo Links....................... Randy Hayes, Univ. of Northern lowa

ACUTA Web Seminar: lP Video …

Analysis Of Army Transformation And The Effects On Customer Ordering Behavior, Joseph M. Colacicco

Theses and Dissertations

The United States Army began a major force transformation in 2003, which required a significant shift in logistics support constructs. This thesis provides an in-process review of the effects of the current transformation efforts on supply effectiveness and attempts to determine factors that influence customer ordering behavior. Specifically, the thesis sought to answer three subproblems addressing the effect of transformation on supply effectiveness, the correlation of supply effectiveness metrics to customer ordering behavior, and other potential sources of variance in ordering behavior. The subproblems were answered through an examination of the supply document histories of two Brigades, one legacy Brigade …

Optimizing Distribution Sensor Placement For Border Patrol Interdiction Using Microsoft Excel, Adrian C. Patrascu

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research was to develop an electronic sensor placement model for border security. A model was developed using Microsoft Excel, with some add-on capabilities, to optimize the placement of electronic sensors on a border network given a pre-determined budgetary constraint. The model is capable of handling multiple sensor types, which are placed together as packages, and allows for daytime, nighttime, or 24 hour operation of each sensor type. Additionally, each sensor can be assigned a specific range and detection probability curve within the given range. The model is capable of optimizing either average coverage, or minimum coverage, …

Hyperspectral Imagery Target Detection Using Improved Anomaly Detection And Signature Matching Methods, Timothy E. Smetek

Theses and Dissertations

This research extends the field of hyperspectral target detection by developing autonomous anomaly detection and signature matching methodologies that reduce false alarms relative to existing benchmark detectors, and are practical for use in an operational environment. The proposed anomaly detection methodology adapts multivariate outlier detection algorithms for use with hyperspectral datasets containing tens of thousands of non-homogeneous, high-dimensional spectral signatures. In so doing, the limitations of existing, non-robust, anomaly detectors are identified, an autonomous clustering methodology is developed to divide an image into homogeneous background materials, and competing multivariate outlier detection methods are evaluated for their ability to uncover hyperspectral …

Engineering Management And Industrial Engineering: Similarities And Differences, Cassandra C. Elrod, Ashley Rasnic, William Daughton

Business and Information Technology Faculty Research & Creative Works

Engineering Management is a broad and diverse field of engineering, thereby making it difficult to define exactly what the degree encompasses. At the same time, the somewhat related degree of Industrial Engineering is better understood. Some universities offer a Bachelor of Science degree in Engineering Management with an emphasis in Industrial Engineering, while others offer a Bachelor of Science degree in Industrial Engineering with an emphasis in Engineering Management. In today's world of competitive academia, many wonder if these degree fields are similar enough to be used interchangeably or if there is a distinct difference separating the two degrees, making …

Designing An Experimental Gaming Platform For Trading Grid Resources, Danny Oh, Shih-Fen Cheng, Dan Ma, Ravi Bapna

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This paper describes our current work in designing an experimental gaming platform for simulating the trading of grid resources. The open platform allows researchers in grid economics to experiment with different market structures and pricing models. We would be using a design science approach in the implementation. Key design considerations and an overview of the functional design of the platform are presented and discussed.

Development Of Prediction Models To Measure Vendor Performance In Surveillance And Auditing Of Aircraft Maintenance, Nikhil Iyengar

All Dissertations

Elimination of aviation accidents is one of the primary goals of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the airline industry. A leading cause of aviation accidents is lack of oversight of various organizational issues, in particular, the organization's maintenance operation performance. The technologies used in the industry generate multiple risks, mostly from three domains: systems, hardware and people. Maintenance performance analyses identify the inherent risk in distributed, large-scale systems. Analysis of existing aviation maintenance data is a crucial step in meeting the aviation industry's need to improve aviation safety. Presently, we lack suitable tools to analyze large bodies of maintenance …

Acuta Enews May 2007, Vol. 36, No. 5

ACUTA Newsletters

ln This lssue

Nominees for ACUTA Board of Directors 07-08

From ACUTA Headquarters ....................... Jeri A. Semer, CAE, ACUTA Executive Director

Staff Changes at ACUTA Headquarters

Tech Talk: Med Center Keeps Legacy Equipment Alive in New Network............ Kevin Tanzillo, Dux PR

Overheard on the Listserv: Panic Button Quick Fix ...... Rob McCray, Delaware Tech.& Comm. College

Board Report ............ Riny Ledgerwood, San Diego State Univ. ACUTA Sec./Treasurer

DC Update.......... Jeanne Jansenius, Sewanee, The University of the South

ATlS Releases Standard on Surveillance

Dues Notices Mailed May 1

Technology Policies and User Expectations Focus of 2007 Strategic Leadership Forum

Web Tip: …

An Experimental Evaluation Of Performance Variance For Internally Threaded Geometry Related To Extended Tap Wear In Low Carbon Steel, Todd E. Alberts

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The development of internal threads in a manufactured part is in many cases one of the final operations in the production workflow. Quality issues in thread form development can destroy a part that has previously undergone expensive machining. The issue of tap wear is one of the multi-faceted elements that have a direct correlation on the quality of threaded components. The purpose of this research centers on resultant mechanical pull performance for the stripping of internally threaded geometry in low carbon steel as measured over various increments of the tap cutting life cycle.

New Equilibria For Noncooperative Games, Phantipa Insuwan

Industrial, Manufacturing, and Systems Engineering Dissertations - Archive

In this dissertation we present an alternative to the Nash Equilibrium (NE), which is regarded as the fundamental solution concept in game theory. An NE provides a solution in which no player can improve his payoff by unilaterally changing strategies. However, the NE has weaknesses as exemplified by the paradoxical Prisoner's Dilemma game, where the unique NE is dominated by another possible outcome. Moreover, an NE assumes all players select their strategies according to the same NE so equilibrium holds. For multiple NE's, no standard approach exists for selecting a single one, though various refinements such as perfect Nash equilibria …

Comparison Of Simulation-Based Schedule Generation Methodologies For Semiconductor Manufacturing, Wenfeng Li

Industrial Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Although a number of approaches have been developed to schedule tasks or jobs in many different manufacturing environments, increasing manufacturing complexity continues to motivate the need for additional scheduling heuristic research and development. This is particularly true for semiconductor manufacturing operations, arguably the most complex manufacturing environment in existence. Simulation-based scheduling has shown recent promise as a means for developing schedules for dynamic, stochastic manufacturing environments. I investigate the potential advantages and drawbacks of using simulation-based scheduling in a complex job shop as motivated by a semiconductor wafer fab.

Models Of Semi-Systematic Visual Search, Sourav Das

All Dissertations

Visual search is an important aspect of many examination and monitoring tasks. As a result, visual search performance has been the topic of many empirical investigations. These investigations have reported that individual search performance depends on subject factors such as search behavior, which has motivated the development of models of visual search that incorporate this behavior. Search behavior ranges from random to strictly systematic; variation in behavior is commonly assumed to be caused by differences in memory retrieval and search strategy. Accordingly, a mathematical model of semi-systematic search is proposed here that can account for both memory retrieval and other …

Domination And Decomposition In Multiobjective Programming, Alexander Engau

All Dissertations

During the last few decades, multiobjective programming has received much attention for both its numerous theoretical advances as well as its continued success in modeling and solving real-life decision problems in business and engineering. In extension of the traditionally adopted concept of Pareto optimality, this research investigates the more general notion of domination and establishes various theoretical results that lead to new optimization methods and support decision making.
After a preparatory discussion of some preliminaries and a review of the relevant literature, several new findings are presented that characterize the nondominated set of a general vector optimization problem for which …

Analysis Of Quality Costs For Vrp-109 And Larox Power Pf And Intensifying The Manufacturing Process, Tapani Kilpelainen

Morehead State Theses and Dissertations

A thesis presented to the faculty of the College of Science & Technology at Morehead State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science by Tapani Kilpelainen on April 13, 2007.

Short-Term Stock Market Timing Prediction Under Reinforcement Learning Schemes, Hailin Li, Cihan H. Dagli, David Lee Enke

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

There are fundamental difficulties when only using a supervised learning philosophy to predict financial stock short-term movements. We present a reinforcement-oriented forecasting framework in which the solution is converted from a typical error-based learning approach to a goal-directed match-based learning method. The real market timing ability in forecasting is addressed as well as traditional goodness-of-fit-based criteria. We develop two applicable hybrid prediction systems by adopting actor-only and actor-critic reinforcement learning, respectively, and compare them to both a supervised-only model and a classical random walk benchmark in forecasting three daily-based stock indices series within a 21-year learning and testing period. The …

Acuta Enews April 2007, Vol. 36, No. 4

ACUTA Newsletters

In This Issue

From the President.................... Carmine Piscopo, RCDD, ACUTA President

Nominate for ACUTA Ruth A. Michalecki Award

Board Report ............................ Riny Ledgerwood, San Diego State Univ., ACUTA Sec./Treasurer

Tech Talk: CMDB ls a Step Toward Seeing All, Knowing All.................. Kevin Tanzillo, Dux PR

DC Update................... Jeanne Jansenius, Sewanee, The University of the South

National LambdaRail and lnternet2 Renew Merger Discussions

FYI: Useful lnformation from the Campus............... Student Monitor

Web Tip: RSS Feed Technology............ Aaron Fuehrer, ACUTA lnformation Technology Manager

lnfo Links................ Randy Hayes, Univ of Northern lowa

Grants to Higher Ed from Microsemi

Welcome New Members

Investigation Of The Lead-Free Solder Joint Shear Performance, James Webster, Jianbiao Pan, Brian J. Toleno

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Reflow profile has significant impact on solder joint performance because it influences wetting and microstructure of the solder joint. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of reflow profile and thermal shock on the shear performance of eutectic SnPb (SnPb) and Sn3.0Ag0.5Cu (SAC305) solder joints. Test boards were assembled with four different sized surface mount chip resistors (1206, 0805, 0603 and 0402). Nine reflow profiles for SAC 305 and nine reflow profiles for SnPb were developed with three levels of peak temperature (12ºC, 22ºC, and 32ºC above solder liquidus temperature, or 230ºC, 240ºC, and 250ºC for SAC …

System Evaluation And Description Using Abstract Relation Types (Art), Joseph J. Simpson, Ann K. Miller, Cihan H. Dagli

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Two abstract relation types (ART) are developed to represent, describe and establish a computational framework for a system. An abstract relation type is closely related to and builds upon two fundamental ideas. The first idea is the binary relation and structural modeling techniques developed by John N. Warfield. The second idea is the concept of abstract data types. These two ideas are combined to create an abstract relation type that provides a structured representation and computational method for systems and system components. The complete system description approach is based on six abstract relation types: context, concept, functions, requirements, architecture, and …

An Exploratory Study Of Iso 9001:2000 Quality Management Systems Using The Iso/Iec 15504 Architecture, Paul Richard Shimp

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this paper is to provide an exploratory study on the implementation and issues regarding Quality Management Systems as defined by ISO 9001 :2000 using the architecture of ISO/IEC 15504. The recently published ISO/IEC 15504 series of standards provides a framework to assess processes and determine levels of capability. With the use of this framework, the study will focus on the assessment and identification of problem areas requiring focus for continual improvement within an ISO 9001 :2000 quality management system.

The structure of this paper is as follows: Section 1 provides a background discussion of ISO 9001 :2000. …

A Risk- And Fuzzy Set-Based Methodology For Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration Military Utility Assessment Design, Thomas James Meyers

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The U.S. Department of Defense Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration (ACTD) and derivative, rapid acquisition programs offer timely solutions to critical military needs by assessing the utility of technologies mature enough to be fielded without application of traditional, defense system development processes. Military utility assessments (MUA) are ACTDs' most critical features, but the lack of a standard for identifying assessment criteria tailored to specific demonstrations risks poorly informed acquisition decisions and the military operations those decisions are intended to support.

The purpose of this research was to develop and deploy a methodology for identifying measures of effectiveness integral to advanced concept …

A Structured Systemic Framework For Software Development, Kevin Macgregor Adams

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this research was to develop and apply a systems-based framework for the analysis of software development project performance. Software development project performance is measured at the project level; that is, cost, schedule, and product quality that affect the overall project. To date, most performance improvement efforts have been focused on individual processes within the overall software development system. Making improvements to sub-elements, processes, or sub-systems without regard for the overall project is a classic misbehavior entered into by practitioners who fail to use a holistic, systemic approach. Attempts to improve sub-system behavior are at odds with The …

Determining Underlying Characteristics Of Supplier Evaluation Model: A Quantitative Empirical Research, Zeynep Ozlem Ozgun

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Rapid changes in the business environment, driven by competitive pressures and business complexity, present challenges that organizations cannot address without the support of their suppliers. In the past decades, performance evaluation factors such as quality, delivery, and price have been widely used by organizations to measure their suppliers' performance. Traditional supplier performance dimensions now considered to be only single dimensional, and not guarantee long term success of an organization. Use of internationally recognized standards and guidelines such as ISO 9000, MBNQA are recommended to be feasible for supplier Quality Management System evaluation in the literature. However, their effectiveness as a …

Uncertainty Assessment In High-Risk Environments Using Probability, Evidence Theory And Expert Judgment Elicitation, Stella Barberis Bondi

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The level of uncertainty in advanced system design is assessed by comparing the results of expert judgment elicitation to probability and evidence theory. This research shows how one type of monotone measure, namely Dempster-Shafer Theory of Evidence can expand the framework of uncertainty to provide decision makers a more robust solution space. The issues imbedded in this research are focused on how the relevant predictive uncertainty produced by similar action is measured.

This methodology uses the established approach from traditional probability theory and Dempster-Shafer evidence theory to combine two classes of uncertainty, aleatory and epistemic. Probability theory provides the mathematical …

Systems Architecting Heuristics For Systems Engineering Management And Embedded Systems Engineering, Mark S. Anderson, Cihan H. Dagli

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Software development for United States Air Force (USAF) weapon systems is a "right here, right now" prize captured by those who can rapidly develop requirements and deliver a quality product. The Air Logistics Centers (ALCs) located at Tinker Air Force Base (AFB), Oklahoma, Warner-Robins AFB, Georgia, and Hill AFB, Utah develop requirements utilizing 3400 funding to capture this prize. The ALCs identify these requirements as corrective maintenance or perfective and adaptive maintenance. Colleen A. Calimer and John L. BeVier introduce the concept of the "Embedded Systems Engineer" in their 2004 INCOSE paper "Embedded Systems Engineering: Managing Systems Complexity, Change, and …

2007 Survey Of Summer Sessions Students At The University Of Nebraska-Lincoln, Paul Savory

Department of Industrial and Management Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

During Summer 2007, UNL Summer Sessions (FlexEd) surveyed summer students to learn about their experience in taking a summer course(s). The survey results will offer confirmation of what we are doing well and will provide guidance on areas of improvement and better strategies for marketing UNL summer opportunities. A total of 227 students completed the survey. Fifteen summer classes were selected to complete a paper-based or electronic version of the survey. The classes were from three different summer sessions and used different delivery mechanisms (on-campus, studio, distance education).

Agile Mpc System Linking Manufacturing And Market Strategies, Ahmed M. Deif, Waguih H. Elmaraghy

Industrial Technology and Packaging

Increasing complexity and interdependency in manufacturing enterprises require an agile manufacturing paradigm. This paper considers a dynamic control approach for linking manufacturing strategy with market strategy through a reconfigurable manufacturing planning and control (MPC) system to support agility in this context. A comprehensive MPC model capable of adopting different MPC strategies through distributed controllers of inventory, capacity, and WIP is presented. A hierarchical supervisory controller (referred to as decision logic unit, DLU) that intakes the high-level strategic market decisions and constraints together with feedback of the current manufacturing system state (WIP, production, and inventory levels) and optimally manages the distributed …

Feasibility Study Of Variance Reduction In The Logistics Composite Model, George P. Cole Iii

Theses and Dissertations

The Logistics Composite Model (LCOM) is a stochastic, discrete-event simulation that relies on probabilities and random number generators to model scenarios in a maintenance unit and estimate optimal manpower levels through an iterative process. Models such as LCOM involving pseudo-random numbers inevitably have a variance associated with the output of the model for each run, and the output is actually a range of estimates. The reduction of the variance in the results of the model can be costly in the form of time for multiple replications. The alternative is a range of estimates that is too wide to realistically apply …

A Layered Social And Operational Network Analysis, Jennifer L. Geffre

Theses and Dissertations

To provide maximal disruption to a clandestine/terrorist network's ability to conduct missions, we must develop a means to determine the individuals' importance to the network and operations. In a network centric world, this importance is represented as an additive value of their criticality across the convergence of multiple layers of network connections. The connections layers of the network are comprised of social layers (Acquaintance, Friendship, Nuclear Family, Relatives, Student-Teacher, and Religious Mentors, Reverent Power and others), as well as layers representing interactions involving Resources, Knowledge/Skills and Temporal Local. The social criticality of an individual is measured by centrality. Event Trees …

A Multivariate Magnitude Robust Control Chart For Mean Shift Detection And Change Point Estimation, Ryan M. Harrell

Theses and Dissertations

Statistical control charts are often used to detect a change in an otherwise stable process. This process may contain several variables affecting process stability. The goal of any control chart is to detect an out-of-control state quickly and provide insight on when the process actually changed. This reduces the off-line time the quality engineer spends assigning causality. In this research, a multivariate magnitude robust chart (MMRC) was developed using a change point model and a likelihood-ratio approach. Here the process is considered in-control until one or more normally distributed process variables permanently and suddenly shifts to out-of-control, stable value. Using …

Internet Protocol Geolocation: Development Of A Delay-Based Hybrid Methodology For Locating The Geographic Location Of A Network Node, John M. Roehl

Theses and Dissertations

Internet Protocol Geolocation (IP Geolocation), the process of determining the approximate geographic location of an IP addressable node, has proven useful in a wide variety of commercial applications. Commercial applications of IP Geolocation include market research, redirection for performance enhancement, restricting content, and combating fraud. The potential for military applications include securing remote access via geographic authentication, intelligence collection, and cyber attack attribution. IP Geolocation methods can be divided into three basic categories based upon what information is used to determine the geographic location of the given IP address: 1) Information contained in databases, 2) information that is leaked during …