Engineering Commons^™

Green Logistic Network Design : Intermodal Transportation Planning And Vehicle Routing Problems., Xiaoren Duan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Due to earth's climate change and global warming, environmental consideration in the design of logistic systems is accelerating in recent years. In this research we aim to design an efficient and environmentally friendly logistical system to satisfy both government and carriers. In particular, we considered three problems in this dissertation: intermodal network design, deterministic green vehicle routing problem and stochastic green vehicle routing problem. The first problem aims to design an economic and efficient intermodal network including three transportation modes: railway, highway and inland waterway. The intent of this problem is to increase the utilization percentage of waterway system in …

The Agricultural Growth And Malting Production Of Barley Grains In Northeast Tennessee And Southwest Virginia, Mark Evans Patton Mr.

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to explore the history and production processes of beer and examines the components that contribute to its brewing. The narrative will provide a timeline of the processes that are required to create the product of beer beginning with the agricultural products and following the brewing processes that result in beer as the finished product. I will also examine the business of agriculture and grain processing and will provide some historical perspectives of grain, beer, and malting. I will also consider whether the growing, processing, and malting of grains in the East Tennessee and Southwest …

A Comparative Usability Study Of Web-Based Personal Health Records., Alexandra Doggett

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Previous research on Personal Health Records (PHRs) has focused on applications that are “tethered” to a specific Electronic Health Record (EHR). However, this is a gap in research on the usability of unaffiliated, independent PHRs, as well as a gap in research on college-aged PHR users. Based on this gap in the literature, a single factor, within-subject experiment was conducted using 18 participants from the University of Louisville to determine if one PHR had superior usability and design. The testing included the completion of six tasks in three different PHRs. Dependent variables included task time, mouse movement, mouse clicks, keystrokes, …

The Electropolishing Of Electron Beam Melting, Additively Manufactured Ti6al4v Titanium : Relevance, Process Parameters And Surface Finish., Austin Lassell

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Additive Manufacturing (AM) is the next frontier in manufacturing technology, but with this new frontier comes new challenges in post processing techniques. In an attempt to gain further knowledge of the post processing of metal AM components, the Electropolishing (EP) of Electron Beam Melting (EBM), Additively Manufactured Ti- 6Al-4V alloy parts is investigated in the following work. Additive Manufacturing (AM) is predominant in a number of industries, with electronics and consumer goods, aerospace, automotive and medical constituting the majority of AM sales. For most of these, Powder Bed Fusion (PBF) AM technology is of great interest given the ability of …

Mental Workload Measurement For Competitive Video Games., Jamal Mcfarland

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to explore different ways to measure mental workload for competitive video games using two different techniques: heart rate variability (HRV) and the NASA Task Load Index (TLX). eSports is a rising form of a competitive sport as well as a source of entertainment for people all over the world. I write this in hopes to find efficient and verified ways to estimate mental workload. I also hope this work can pioneer the expansion of literature for the competitive gaming scene.

The study design is a single factor, within-subject design. The single factor was Game …

Computing Research In Academia: Classifications, Keywords, Perceptions, And Connections, Sung Han Kim

Theses and Dissertations

The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) recognizes five computing disciplines: Computer Science (CS), Computer Engineering (CE), Information Technology (IT), Information Systems (IS), and Software Engineering (SE). Founded in 1947 the ACM is the world's largest society for computing educators, researchers, and professionals. While Computer Science has been a degree program since 1962, the other four are relatively new. This research focuses on understanding the graduate research in four of the five ACM disciplines (CS, CE, IT, and IS) using a large body of thesis and dissertation metadata. SE is not found in the metadata and graduate work in SE is …

Simultaneous Optimization And Sampling Of Agent Trajectories Over A Network, Hala Mostafa, Akshat Kumar, Hoong Chuin Lau

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

We study the problem of optimizing the trajectories of agents moving over a network given their preferences over which nodes to visit subject to operational constraints on the network. In our running example, a theme park manager optimizes which attractions to include in a day-pass to maximize the pass’s appeal to visitors while keeping operational costs within budget. The first challenge in this combinatorial optimization problem is that it involves quantities (expected visit frequencies of each attraction) that cannot be expressed analytically, for which we use the Sample Average Approximation. The second challenge is that while sampling is typically done …

Approximate Inference Using Dc Programming For Collective Graphical Models, Duc Thien Nguyen, Akshat Kumar, Hoong Chuin Lau, Daniel Sheldon

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Collective graphical models (CGMs) provide a framework for reasoning about a population of independent and identically distributed individuals when only noisy and aggregate observations are given. Previous approaches for inference in CGMs work on a junction-tree representation, thereby highly limiting their scalability. To remedy this, we show how the Bethe entropy approximation naturally arises for the inference problem in CGMs. We reformulate the resulting optimization problem as a difference-of-convex functions program that can capture different types of CGM noise models. Using the concave-convex procedure, we then develop a scalable message-passing algorithm. Empirically, our approach is highly scalable and accurate for …

Reinforcement Learning Framework For Modeling Spatial Sequential Decisions Under Uncertainty: (Extended Abstract), Truc Viet Le, Siyuan Liu, Hoong Chuin Lau

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

We consider the problem of trajectory prediction, where a trajectory is an ordered sequence of location visits and corresponding timestamps. The problem arises when an agent makes sequential decisions to visit a set of spatial locations of interest. Each location bears a stochastic utility and the agent has a limited budget to spend. Given the agent's observed partial trajectory, our goal is to predict the remaining trajectory. We propose a solution framework to the problem considering both the uncertainty of utility and the budget constraint. We use reinforcement learning (RL) to model the underlying decision processes and inverse RL to …

Robust Influence Maximization, Meghna Lowalekar, Pradeep Varakantham, Akshat Kumar

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Influence Maximization is the problem of finding a fixed size set of nodes, which will maximize the expected number of influenced nodes in a social network. The number of influenced nodes is dependent on the influence strength of edges that can be very noisy. The noise in the influence strengths can be modeled using a random noise or adversarial noise model. It has been shown that all random processes that independently affect edges of the graph can be absorbed into the activation probabilities themselves and hence random noise can be captured within the independent cascade model. On the other hand, …

Optimization Of Rfid System Coverage In A Manufacturing Environment, Scott D. Malatesta

Master's Theses

This paper compiles existing ideas, theories, and experiments across multiple disciplines to provide guidance for a company looking to implement an optimal RFID system in their production facility. The desire is to maximize the information received by the system while minimizing the cost. Four potential layouts of RFID antennas, two with overlapping antenna coverage and two with non-overlapping layouts, are first analyzed to understand the special coverage and the number of antennas required. The value of information is then quantified to determine whether higher coverage layouts are worth the additional costs associated with the higher number of antennas required. It …

Risk Estimation Toward A Natural History Model For Low Grade Glioma Patients, Anh Thi Hoang Pham

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Glioma is a common type of primary brain tumor that represents 28% of all brain tumors and 80% of malignant tumors. According to a recent study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), gliomas account for 53%, 35% and 29% of all brain tumors (68%, 74% and 81% of malignant brain tumors) among children (aged 0-14), teenagers (aged 15-19) and young adults, respectively. Gliomas are often diagnosed through radiological imaging and histopathology. There are two main groups of gliomas following World Health Organization’s classification: Low grade gliomas (LGG), or grade I and II gliomas; and high grade gliomas …

Modeling The Impact Of Rfid Technology On The Healthcare Supply Chain, Travis B. Peter

Industrial Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Due to increasing competition in the healthcare industry, healthcare providers must find ways to reduce their costs of operation or potentially lose customers to more affordable options. For many years, the healthcare supply chain has significantly lagged behind the retail supply chain in terms of supply chain efficiency. Certain disruptive technologies that have become widespread in the retail supply chain have yet to be integrated by a significant number of healthcare providers, and as a result, there are large opportunities for improvements in the healthcare supply chain that could lead to both cost and time savings. Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) …

Improving Reliability Of Medical Device Tracking Using Unique Device Identification, John A. Bonfanti

Industrial Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

The term “disruptive innovation” has been the buzzword of industries looking to create technological advancements in their respective fields ever since the term was first coined in 1995. In order to invest in the future of the industry, companies are beginning to focus on new, innovative ideas that come into the market as a low-cost alternative to the sustaining innovations currently in place. Similar business-models can be seen in the healthcare industry, as physicians look to disruptive innovations to provide methods of diagnosis and treatment that are easier to perform and maintain. Companies, from medical device manufacturers to the hospitals …

Predicting Nonadherence Behavior Towards Mammography Screening Guidelines, Brian L. Trussell

Industrial Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

The goal of this research is to examine factors associated with nonadherence behavior toward mammography screening among U.S. women. The 2014 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) survey data was used for this study, allowing the model to represent a robust sample. A logistic regression model was developed to gain an understanding of influencing factors, including demographic, health-related and behavioral characteristics. Further analysis with logistic regression models stratified by age were conducted to control for the effect of age. The results show that demographic and health related information such as income, number of children, and BMI category can help intervention …

Modeling Supply Chain Resiliency, Jeff A. Hazel

Industrial Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Engineered Resilient Systems (ERS) is a Department of Defense (DoD) program focusing on the effective and efficient design and development of complex engineered systems throughout their life cycle. There is a growing literature with qualitative definitions of resilience and quantitative models for systems with one performance measure. This paper uses a quantitative resilience framework (the Framework for ERS) that includes system design options, reliability, threats, vulnerabilities, responses, and consequences assessed in multiple system performance measures. The framework assists in establishing a model for any system to evaluate resiliency. This paper applies this framework using Multiple Objective Decision Analysis (MODA) to …

Essays In Physicians Preference Items And Inventory Management Within The Healthcare Supply Chain, Mohammad A. Shbool

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This work is composed of a number of topics in the healthcare area, which are approached separately with appropriate methodologies. The two topics deal with physician preference items via two different approaches. The first one investigates stock keeping unit (SKU) proliferation in healthcare organizations due to physician preference items (PPI). It captures perspectives of physicians and supply chain professionals about this problem through two surveys. The second topic builds a decision-making framework for the PPI selection process that can be used by healthcare organizations to make more objective decisions. A Multi-criteria decision making technique is implemented to illustrate the framework.

The Impact Of Learning Curve Model Selection And Criteria For Cost Estimation Accuracy In The Dod, Candace Honious, Brandon Johnson, John J. Elshaw, A. B. Badiru

Faculty Publications

The first part of this manuscript examines the impact of configuration changes to the learning curve when implemented during production. This research is a study on the impact to the learning curve slope when production is continuous but a configuration change occurs. Analysis discovered the learning curve slope after a configuration change is different from the stable learning curve slope pre-configuration change. The newly configured units were statistically different from previous units. This supports that the new configuration should be estimated with a new learning curve equation. The research also discovered the post-configuration slope is always steeper than the stable …

Safety Management Analysis For Construction Industry: Statistical Process Control (Spc) Approach, Zhenpeng Liu

Morehead State Theses and Dissertations

A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the College of Business and Technology Morehead State University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Science by Zhenpeng Liu on April 26, 2016.

Factor Analysis And Yield Optimization Of A Billet Manufacturing Process: A Case Study, Fatemeh Davoudi Kakhki

Morehead State Theses and Dissertations

A Thesis Presented to the Faculty of the College of Business and Technology Morehead State University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Science by Fatemeh Davoudi Kakhki on April 22, 2016.

Impact Of Clustering Microgrids On Their Stability And Resilience During Blackouts, Mahmoud S. Saleh, Ammar Althaibani, Yusef Esa, Yassine Mhandi, Ahmed Mohamed

Publications and Research

In this paper, the impact of clustering multiple microgrids during blackouts, on their stability and supply availability, will be investigated. Microgrids have the capability of satisfying their emergency loads during blackouts. However, distributed energy resources (DERs)-dominated microgrids are affected by the uncertainty of their input energy supply, e.g. impact of solar irradiance on photovoltaic (PV) output. Moreover, an individual islanded microgrid is prone to instability issues due to large sudden load/generation changes. In order to increase the supply security, and enhance system stability, we propose to use the existing distribution grid infrastructure, if applicable, during blackouts to form microgrid clusters. …

How Trust Influences Adoption: Creating Human-Centered Autonomous Vehicles, David R. Garcia

Human Factors and Applied Psychology Student Conference

No abstract provided.

Development Of A Habitat Monitoring System For Simulated Mars Missions, Rebecca Demarco

Human Factors and Applied Psychology Student Conference

The developers for the Habitat Monitoring System (HMS) for the Mobile Extreme Environment Research Station (MEERS) Mission Control System (MCS) faced challenges in the design and implementation of their human machine interface. Designing a human machine interface for a diverse group of end users presents technical and design challenges for the developers. By applying human factors concepts and following the engineering process, the development team was able to produce a human machine interface that met the product requirements and satisfied their product owners. This presentation discusses the process used by the development team to create the interface for the Habitat …

Ergonomics In Space Flight – Past, Present, & Future, Robert Consolo

Human Factors and Applied Psychology Student Conference

From the days of “The Rocket Men” to the uprising of SpaceX, spaceflight has always inspired awe in humanity. If you examine the men that were apart of those first missions, you will find that they were not only the most capable, but won the genetic lottery to become this nations first astronauts. Looking to the times of Mercury, you see the extreme constraints that potential astronaut candidates had to meet in order to go to space. Aside from the rigorous medical testing, potential candidates also had to meet strict height and weight requirements. Early candidates could not be taller …

Creation And Implementation Of An Underwater-Capable Vr Headset Through The Use Of Additive Manufacturing, Matthew D. Meyers, Nathan Sonnenfeld

Human Factors and Applied Psychology Student Conference

No abstract provided.

Designing A Mobile Space Habitat Analog, Victor Kitmanyen, Matthew Burkhard, Timothy Disher

Human Factors and Applied Psychology Student Conference

No abstract provided.

Human Factors In The Development Of The Mobile Extreme Environment Research Station (Meers) Mission Control System (Mcs), Rebecca Demarco

Human Factors and Applied Psychology Student Conference

The developers for the MEERS MCS were required to develop a novel interface for their product. During the development of the MCS, analytical human factors methods and display principles were implemented to create the user interface. The methods and principles were also used so the MCS had a user centered design. The MCS went through several iterations of design. This presentation discusses the development process of the MEERS MCS from a human factors standpoint.

Renewable Energy Investment Planning And Policy Design, Alireza Ghalebani

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, we leverage predictive and prescriptive analytics to develop decision support systems to promote the use of renewable energy in society. Since electricity from renewable energy sources is still relatively expensive, there are variety of financial incentive programs available in different regions. Our research focuses on financial incentive programs and tackles two main problem: 1) how to optimally design and control hybrid renewable energy systems for residential and commercial buildings given the capacity based and performance based incentives, and 2) how to develop a model-based system for policy makers for designing optimal financial incentive programs to promote investment …

Application Of Kansei Engineering To Tactile Sense In The Thai Food Wrapping Materials, Chaiwat Kittidecha, Ashuboda Chandrajith Marasinghe, Yamada Koichi

Journal of Applied Packaging Research

The paper investigates tactile attributes of food wrapping materials in Thailand based on Kansei Engineering and finds that 1) there are two major Kansei dimensions in tactile sense of food wrapping materials, 2) the emotion of "like" constitutes one of the two dimensions both with "smooth" and "natural", and 3) the most favorable wrapping material for Thai is "plastic foam" among nine different wrapping materials; plastic bag, aluminum foil, plastic film, paper, banana leaf, wax paper, plastic net, plastic air bubble and plastic foam. The study was conducted through a questionnaire that asked 6 pairs of emotions about samples; dislike …

Mapping Quality In Extended Value Streams Using Data Recorders, Eric Olsen, Christopher Fung, Jay Singh, Paul Singh

Industrial Technology and Packaging

This research compares three new methods and measures for mapping and evaluating the transportation segment of a value chain. The three methods are total energy, energy-time and energy-distance. The methods combine practices used in traditional physical distribution system analysis and extended value stream mapping (VSM) analysis. This research concludes that the energy-distance method and measure is the most effective for analyzing, comparing, and identifying opportunities for value chain improvement. It also identifies a ‘U-shape’ that is characteristic of the energy transfer pattern during a transportation segment that suggests that damage from transportation may need to be screened for quality at …