Engineering Commons^™

A Framework For Determining The Reliability Of Nanoscale Metallic Oxide Semiconductor (Mos) Devices, Wilkistar Otieno

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

An increase in worldwide investments during the past several decades has pro-pelled scienti c breakthroughs in nanoscience and technology research to new and exciting levels. To ensure that these discoveries lead to commercially viable prod-ucts, it is important to address some of the fundamental engineering and scientific challenges related to nanodevices. Due to the centrality of reliability to product integrity, nanoreliability requires critical analysis and understanding to ensure long-term sustainability of nanodevices and systems. In this study, we construct a relia-bility framework for nanoscale dielectric lms used in Metallic Oxide Semiconductor (MOS) devices. The successful fabrication and incorporation of metallic …

Silicon Oxide Micromodule Capacitors, W. B. Nowak, J. J. O'Connor

Welville B. Nowak

Silicon oxide capacitors have been developed on micromodule wafers (0.310-in. sq. with three termination notches per side). Each microelement contains 1, 2, 3, or 4 capacitors with values of 1120 and 560, 180, 100 and 68 pf per capacitor, respectively. The 1120 pf capacitor is double layered. In addition to the general requirements of microelements and micromodules, some of the more important specifications these capacitors must meet are: dissipation factor (DF) not exceeding 0.015, insulation resistance (IR) at 50 volts exceeding 10,000 megohms (25°C) and 750 megohms (125°c), 50 WVDC and 150 volts dielectric withstanding voltage (DWV), Δ C not …

Structural And Magnetic Characterization Of Amorphous Gd₂Fe₁₄B Thin Films, S. E. Bushnell, P. C. Dorsey, W. B. Nowak, C. Vittoria

Welville B. Nowak

Thin amorphous films of nominal composition Gd₂Fe₁₄B were fabricated on Si (100) substrates using ion‐beam sputtering for the purpose of establishing their structural and magnetic properties at room temperature. X‐ray‐diffraction scans performed on as‐deposited and annealed films revealed an amorphous structure. The as‐deposited saturation magnetization was found to be 8101 G at room temperature suggesting ferrimagnetic ordering with anti‐parallel coupling similar to other heavy rare earth‐transition metal systems. Results from in‐plane and perpendicular ferromagnetic resonance experiments conducted at 9.108 GHz showed the films to be inhomogeneous. This was evident from the presence of two in‐plane resonance lines and spin‐wave spectra …

The Measurement Of Magnetostriction Constants Of Thin Films Using Planar Microwave Devices And Ferromagnetic Resonance, S. E. Bushnell, W. B. Nowak, S. A. Oliver, C. Vittoria

Welville B. Nowak

In this paper we introduce a new technique for measuring the saturation magnetostriction constant (λs) for isotropic polycrystalline thin films. The technique makes use of nonresonant planar microwave structures together with a novel stressing mechanism to induce a shift in the resonant field of a magnetic thin film as measured by a ferromagnetic resonance (FMR) experiment. Measurement of the shift induced by a uniaxial stress allows for determination of λs via a magnetic resonance analysis. Either a slotline device or coplanar waveguide (CPW) was used as the source of the microwave excitation field depending upon the orientation of the dc …

Magnetic And Structural Investigation Of Heat Treated Ion Beam Sputtered Amorphous Co₇₄Fe₆B₁₅Si₅ Films, V. G. Harris, S. A. Oliver, W. B. Nowak, C. Vittoria, R. J. Culbertson, W. T. Elam, K. H. Kim

Welville B. Nowak

As-deposited and annealed specimens of ion beam sputtered amorphous Co₇₄Fe₆B₁₅Si₅ thin films were examined to explore the correlation between changes in magnetic properties and atomic structure. Specimens were characterized magnetically, by traditional ac and dc techniques and structurally, via conversion-electron extended x-ray absorption fine structure analysis. Results show significant ordering of the higher order atomic shells around the transition metal ions well below the crystallization temperature. This ordering evolves into a body- centered-cubic configuration around both the Co and Fe ions. Increases in nearest neighbor peak positions in the EXAFS Fourier transforms were observed to correlate with increasing annealing temperatures. …

Magnetic And Microwave Properties Of Ion-Beam-Sputtered Amorphous Feₓco₈₀₋ₓb₁₅Si₅ Films, V. G. Harris, S. A. Oliver, W. B. Nowak, C. Vittoria

Welville B. Nowak

Magnetically soft amorphous films of FeₓCo₈₀₋ₓB₁₅Si₅ (x = 0, 6, 23, 40, 70, 80) were ion beam sputter deposited onto fused quartz for static and microwave magnetic characterization. Films ranged in thickness from 220 to 260 nm and were deposited at rates of 0.1-0.2 nm/s. Saturation magnetization, coercivity, and loop squareness values were extracted from hysteresis loops generated by a vibrating sample magnetometer. Ferromagnetic resonance measurements were taken using a 9.5-GHz cavity with the applied magnetic field both parallel and perpendicular to the plane of the film, yielding values for the g factor, anisotropy field, effective magnetization, and linewidth. Well …

A Space Acquisition Leading Indicator Based On System Interoperation Maturity, Jason T. Shibata

Theses and Dissertations

The Department of Defense‘s space acquisition enterprise has experienced numerous challenges since the advent of space power. Space borne capabilities are needed more than ever, but space acquisition frequently fails to meet its goals. The decades of space acquisition experience form a rich history that can be used to build a leading indicator of success to enable effective program execution. First, the space acquisition areas of greatest concern were determined to be cost, schedule and requirements. These areas are considered as systems composed of the people, processes and products that execute the program. Second, the vital interoperation characteristics, or attributes …

Conceptual Design And Analysis Of Service Oriented Architecture (Soa) For Command And Control Of Space Assets, Eric B. Snyder

Theses and Dissertations

The mission-unique model that has dominated the DoD satellite Command and Control community is costly and inefficient. It requires repeatedly “reinventing” established common C2 components for each program, unnecessarily inflating budgets and delivery schedules. The effective utilization of standards is scarce, and proprietary, non-open solutions are commonplace. IT professionals have trumpeted Service Oriented Architectures (SOAs) as the solution to large enterprise situations where multiple, functionally redundant but non-compatible information systems create large recurring development, test, maintenance, and tech refresh costs. This thesis describes the current state of Service Oriented Architectures as related to satellite operations and presents a functional analysis …

An Improved Ant Colony System For A Real Time Routing Strategy, Hannaneh Rashidi-Bajgan, Taravatsadat Nehzati, Napsiah Ismail

Hannaneh Rashidi-Bajgan

There is a large number of literatures about routing and dispatching plans for automated guided vehicle system (AGVS), however a small fraction of these works dealt with dynamic characteristic of this kind of scheduling problems. Current paper surveys a real time strategy to responding requests for supposed material handling system in the plant. We arranged this designing on a preplanned system where all data are known before the constructing routes. An improved ant colony optimization (ACO) is applied in order to find the shortest route path as new solicitations happened. We explore ACO initially for static version of the problem, …

The Effectiveness Of Virtual R&D Teams In Smes: Experiences Of Malaysian Smes, Nader Ale Ebrahim, Shamsuddin Ahmed, Salwa Hanim Abdul Rashid, Zahari Taha

Nader Ale Ebrahim

The number of small and medium enterprises (SMEs), especially those involved with research and development (R&D) programs and employed virtual teams to create the greatest competitive advantage from limited labor are increasing. Global and localized virtual R&D teams are believed to have a high potential for SMEs growth. Due to the fast growing complexity of the new product, coupled with new emerging opportunities of virtual teams, a collaborative approach is believed to be the future trend. This research explores the effectiveness of virtuality in SMEs virtual R&D teams. An online questionnaire emailed to Malaysian manufacturing SMEs and 74 usable questionnaires …

Virtual R&D Teams: A Potential Growth Of Education-Industry Collaboration, Nader Ale Ebrahim, Shamsuddin Ahmed, Salwa Hanim Abdul Rashid, Zahari Taha

Nader Ale Ebrahim

In this paper, we present our more than two years research experiences on virtual R&D teams in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and draws conclusions, giving special attention to the structure of virtual teams required to support education-industry collaboration. We report the relevant results of an online survey study. The online questionnaire was emailed by using a simple random sampling method to 947 manufacturing SMEs. The findings of this study show that SMEs in Malaysia and Iran are willing to use virtual teams for collaboration and the platform for industry-education collaboration is ready and distance between team members or differences …

A Conceptual Model For Development Of New Product In Smes By E-Collaboration And Project Management, Marjan Mohammadjafari, Shamsuddin Ahmed, Siti Zawiah Md Dawal, Hadi Zayandehroodi

Dr. Marjan Mohammadjafari

No abstract provided.

Integrating Balanced Scorecard And Simulation Modelling To Improve Emergency Department Performance In Irish Hospitals, Amr Arisha, Waleed Abo-Hamad, Khaled Ismail

Conference papers

In the healthcare sector, there is a requirement for innovative solutions in managing the high levels of complexity and uncertainty within Emergency Departments (EDs). Simulation modeling is currently seen as a competent means of analyzing EDs, which allows changes effects to be understood and predicted more easily. The Balanced Scorecard (BSC), well-known performance management concept, has become a steering method in approaching new improvement cycles. This paper presents a methodology that integrates BSC and simulation modeling to improve the performance of ED in a University Hospital in North Dublin. BSC design began with understanding patient's needs, ED activities, as well …

Innovating Continuous Review Policies With Rfid, Angela Garza

Department of Industrial and Management Systems Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Inventory accuracy is critical for NASA astronauts in space. In 2004, astronauts onboard the International Space Station (ISS) nearly had to de-man their outpost due to the fact the replenishment of consumables were uncertain. Automated Identification Technologies (AITs) such as Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) can be utilized to minimize the occurrence of situations like this one. RFID has been used to aid inventory management systems by providing real time availability of the item information including location and status. The benefit of RFID over barcodes is immense as it allows users to employ continuous review models. Barcodes are only capable of …

Evaluating Obselete Inventory Policies In A Hospital's Supply Chain, Maurice D. Cavitt

Department of Industrial and Management Systems Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Numerous organizations are currently facing inventory management problems including distributing inventory on time and maintaining the appropriate inventory level to satisfy the end user. Organizations understand the importance of inventory accuracy as any error will increase the purchasing and holding costs affecting investment decisions. Lack of information about effective measures that will allow management to make important business decisions motivated this research to identify a decision criterion for warehouse management. A feasible solution of calculating the carrying cost ratio from purchasing and holding cost is the main objective of this thesis. The carrying cost ratio will allow managers to make …

Evaluation Of Optimization Algorithms For Improvement Of A Transportation Companies (In-House) Vehicle Routing System, Jian Han

Department of Industrial and Management Systems Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Vehicle routing problem (VRP) is the main issue of the transportation. It is becoming more and more popular. Trucking companies play an important role in the transportation industry. Most trucking companies are developing their own software to make profit. Often, the software is used for routing optimization models to minimize cost because the first work is organized over the road.

Linear Programming and saving heuristics are traditional algorithms for solving the vehicle routing problems. However, none of the companies want to make a decision of routing by calculating with mathematics models in their companies. So the vehicle routing software is …

A Predictive Modeling For Water Consumption And Wastewater Flow Management For A Food Processing Manufacturer, Jairo A. De Jesus

Department of Industrial and Management Systems Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The City of Cumming, GA, issues special permits for industrial users of sewer services, who meet one or more criteria of discharge regulations. The criteria includes discharge of 25,000 gallons per day or more of processed wastewater, the presence for the potential to inhibit the Advanced Water Reclamation Facility (AWRF) treatment processes, the potential to cause AWRF’s bio-solids to be contaminated, and other regulations. The Food Processing Manufacturer in this study is a meat processing facility (processes pork cooked sausage) and its operation and associated wastewater treatment plant meets at least one of the criteria requiring a special sewer service …

Design Of Assembly Lines With The Concurrent Consideration Of Productivity And Upper Extremity Musculoskeletal Disorders Using Linear Models, Zhan Xu

Department of Industrial and Management Systems Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The productivity of assembly lines is considerably affected by the health condition of assembly workers, and work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs) are common occupational diseases among assembly workers due to repetitive motions or heavy working loads. The conventional approaches to decreasing WMSD risks in the assembly lines include slowing the work-pace or applying job rotations. These adjustments usually focus on individual assembly workers at the station level but not the work allocation among the workers at the whole assembly line level, and thus may decrease the line productivity. To avoid these negative effects, some research started considering ergonomic characteristics at the …

Expansion In Existing And Future Franchises, Shane Hart, Daniel Jeng

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Zensho Group has recently acquired the restaurant US based chains CoCo’s and Carrows but has not been able to affirm the same growth as the company has established in its home country of Japan. In order to fulfill their need to grow, extensive market analysis and research needs to be done. An expansion eastward and the introduction of their flagship restaurant chain, Sukiya, would offer growth potential. Determining the best locations for these new stores is the goal of this project. Low cost and high market penetration potential will be used to recommend the ideal locations that will benefit the …

Sustainable Climate Control For Mid-Rise Office Building In The Salt Lake Valley, Philip M. Coleman

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

This report examines the sustainability of Trane’s EarthWiseTM climate control systems in the Salt Lake Valley (and the United States Mountain West in general). A simulation is performed to determine the best climate control system for a LEED Silver, 5-story tenant office building. This new building is a duplication of a pre-existing building. The climate control system installed at the preexisting building is used as a baseline against which three (3) alternative systems are compared. The social, ecological, and economic impact of each alternative is examined to determine which is the most sustainable. Since the baseline system is a proven …

Automation Of Pillow Speaker Button Testing To Avoid Repetitive Strain Injuries In Testing Technicians, Tyler P. Finnegan

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Abstract Anacom MedTek, a medical device company, produces pillow speakers as their main product line. Pillow speakers are a healthcare communications tool that allow for hospital patients to control many entertainment and environmental components of the hospital room from one controller. These pillow speaker devices have anywhere from 3 to 27 metal dome key cap buttons based on their customization. Before they can be shipped to a customer, each button must be tested to ensure that it is functioning properly. This test is currently done manually by a testing technician. With so many buttons to be tested for each unit …

Pull Production System Training Guide, Adem Bilgutay

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

This book is a series of lessons designed to train operators and managers in pull manufacturing. It begins with a description of the different forms of waste that a system can help to identify and eliminate. The second section details the kanban as a system for controlling flow and as a powerful tool for identifying problems. It will describe the many different variations of kanban that exist to control flow in different production environments and the calculations that allow them to be used effectively. The final section will detail the activities that an operator should engage in when there is …

A Practical Approach To Computer Donation Supply Chain For Non-Profit Organizations, John Jacob Burrell, Adam Robert Carpenter

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

The United States today has a plethora of unused electronic equipment. This equipment comes from universities, small businesses, corporations, and many other sources. This project looks at the best way to put this equipment back to use for the remainder of its usable life by donating it to non-profit organizations in need. In order to complete this project it was necessary to research the areas of Supply Chain Management, Operations Research, and Engineering Economics. The approach for this specific project first involves analyzing the current donation process at California Polytechnic State University – San Luis Obispo, and its ability to …

A Dynamic Approach To Determine The Product Flow Nature In Apparel Supply Chain Network, Mohammed Marufuzzaman, Ahmed M. Deif

Industrial Technology and Packaging

This paper presents a novel metric, product flow number, to determine the product flow nature across the supply chain of apparel industries. The metric is based on mapping the dynamics of fluid flow across a pipe to product flow across a supply chain. Numerical analysis is conducted to examine the impact of the different metric parameters on the product flow. Results showed that smooth dynamics can be achieved through scaling production and extending delivery times, while undesirable dynamics are tied to complex product designs and increasing number of suppliers. Finally, the paper demonstrated how the new metric can be used …

Multi-Modular Integral Pressurized Water Reactor Control And Operational Reconfiguration For A Flow Control Loop, Sergio Ricardo Pereira Perillo

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation focused on the IRIS design since this will likely be one of the designs of choice for future deployment in the U.S and developing countries. With a net 335 MWe output IRIS novel design falls in the “medium” size category and it is a potential candidate for the so called modular reactors, which may be appropriate for base load electricity generation, especially in regions with smaller electricity grids, but especially well suited for more specialized non-electrical energy applications such as district heating and process steam for desalination. The first objective of this dissertation is to evaluate and quantify …

Coordinating Production And Recycling Decisions With Stochastic Demand And Return, Jianmai Shi, Guoqing Zhang, Jichang Sha, Saman Hassanzadeh Amin

Mechanical, Automotive & Materials Engineering Publications

In this paper, the joint production and recycling problem is investigated for a hybrid manufacturing and remanufacturing system where brand-new products are produced in the manufacturing plant and recycled products are remanufactured into as-new products in the remanufacturing facility. Both the brand-new products and remanufactured products are used to satisfy customer demands. Returns of used products that are recycled from customers are assumed to be stochastic and nonlinearly price-dependent. A mathematical model is proposed to maximize the overall profit of the system through simultaneously optimizing the production and recycling decisions, subject to two capacity constraints — the manufacturing capacity and …

Acuta Enews December 2010, Vol 39, No. 12

ACUTA Newsletters

ln This lssue

Security Snapshot: Notre Dame

From the president..........Matt Arthur, Washington Univ. in St. Louis, ACUTA President

Tech Talk: Network of the People, by the People, and........... Kevin Tanzillo, Dux PR

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ACUTA Webinar: Employer-Provided Cell Phone Policies

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Learn More about Financing lT, Network Management..... and More from Your Desktop

Board Report............ George Denbow, Univ. of Texas, ACUTA Secretary/Treasurer

Washington Update Newsletter

Professional Organizations Help Fill the Gaps Jeffry Handal, LSU

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

Thanks …

An Investigation Of Metaheuristics Using Path- Relinking On The Quadratic Assignment Problem, Thashika Rupasinghe

All Dissertations

The Quadratic Assignment Problem (QAP) is a widely researched, yet complex, combinatorial optimization problem that is applicable in modeling many real-world problems. Specifically, many optimization problems are formulated as QAPs. To resolve QAPs, the recent trends have been to use metaheuristics rather than exact or heuristic methods, and many researchers have found that the use of hybrid metaheuristics is actually more effective. A newly proposed hybrid metaheuristic is path relinking (PR), which is used to generate solutions by combining two or more reference solutions. In this dissertation, we investigated these diversification and intensification mechanisms using QAP. To satisfy the extensive …

Combining Mobile Technologies For Accurate, Open Source, Privacy Sensitive, Zero Cost, Location Determination, Seamus Rooney

Doctoral

Determining the location of an object or individual using a mobile device (e.g. cell phone) is an important aspect of modern information gathering. Various solutions have been proposed which all have their strengths and weaknesses. To date, no solution has been devised for a mobile device that will work effectively in multiple environments and without assistance from network-provider connections1. To address this, it is argued that the current state of the art can be advanced using a hybrid approach that combines a number of sensor technologies to provide a more reliable, and accurate mobile location determination that functions in multiple …

Modeling Microbial And Nutrient Dynamics In Zero-Discharge Aquaculture Systems, Kendall Kirk

All Dissertations

A finite element, finite difference model was developed to predict nutrient and microbial dynamics in recirculating aquaculture systems. Total ammonia nitrogen, nitrite, nitrate, chemical oxygen demand, and dissolved oxygen concentrations are predicted in addition to growth and decay of algae, Nitrosomonas, Nitrobacter, denitrifying heterotrophs, and aerobic heterotrophs. Inputs to the model include temperature, photosynthetically available radiation, feed application rate, pH, aeration/mixing energy, water exchange configuration, water exchange rate, tilapia biomass, and dissolved oxygen concentration. Up to 10 exchanged units may be included, user-definable as continuous stirred tank reactors or sequencing batch reactors. Demonstration of the model's utility was demonstrated through …