Operations Research, Systems Engineering and Industrial Engineering Commons^™

Using Multiple Robust Parameter Design Techniques To Improve Hyperspectral Anomaly Detection Algorithm Performance, Matthew T. Davis

Theses and Dissertations

Detecting and identifying objects of interest is the goal of all remote sensing. New advances, specifically in hyperspectral imaging technology have provided the analyst with immense amounts of data requiring evaluation. Several filtering techniques or anomaly detection algorithms have been proposed. However, most new algorithms are insufficiently verified to be robust to the broad range of hyperspectral data being made available. One such algorithm, AutoGAD, is tested here via two separate robust parameter design techniques to determine optimal parameters for consistent performance on a range of data with large attribute variances. Additionally, the results of the two techniques are compared …

The Hybrid Counterinsurgency Strategy: System Dynamics Employed To Develop A Behavioral Model Of Joint Strategy, Ferdinand Maldonado

Theses and Dissertations

Since the recent focus on the Global War on Terror, both military and civilian theorists have begun to “relearn” the intricacies of counterinsurgency warfare. We face difficult challenges when confronting non-state actors that tend to attack in the time between conventional battles and the establishment of stable governments. This research compares and contrasts current counterinsurgency strategies (Hearts and Minds and Cost Benefit Theory) by applying System Dynamics to provide insight into the influences and emergent behavior patterns of counterinsurgency systems. The information gained from the development of the models and from their simulation behaviors is used to construct a System …

The Impact Of Communication Medium On Team Performance Patterns, Pilar Pazos, Mario G. Beruvides

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

The increased impact of globalization and rapidly changing technologies are some of the biggest challenges facing 21st century organizations. Remote teams supported through computer-based systems have been identified as a key lever to help organizations adapt to this turbulent environment. This study sheds some light on how teams perform and adapt by evaluating performance and synergy over time for teams in two different settings: computer supported and face-to-face. Participants in the study were randomly assigned either to a computer-supported or a face-to face group. Each group met over three sessions to perform a series of tasks that were evaluated using …

Qualitative Mapping For Understanding The Collective Judgment Building Process : A Study Of The Federal Open Market Committee, Hyunjung Kim

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This study develops a mapping method for studying a collective judgment building process in a decision-making group. Environmental uncertainties and a lack of information require a decision maker to make judgments about various issues relevant to the decision task. In a group setting, the members together weave their structural model of the system with available information to build a collective judgment for the decision task.

Research On Application Of Rfid In Smart Gate Of Container Terminal, Jiying Song

Faculty Publications - George Fox Digital

With the rapid development of logistics, the operation and management of logistics enterprise becomes more complex and changeable. Under the background, it has become the urgent problem for the policy-maker to resolve that how to construct the highly effective information system, how to apply the information technology, how to carry on the all-the-way tracking, how to enhance the collection, processing and serviceability of information and how to shorten the exchange of information and the operation time. Along with the rapidly growth of domestic as well as domestic and international volume of trade and the fast development of container fleet, that …

Approach To Model On The Fourth Generation Port Competitiveness : An Application For Pda, Yiwen Cao

World Maritime University Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Developing A Repeatable And Reliable Methodology To Determine Return-On-Investment, Mark Cullen Nesselrode

Computational Modeling & Simulation Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The high costs of modern weapons systems, fuel, personnel, and increasing environmental awareness is forcing U.S. forces to rely on simulation for training. Further, the need to train in a robust and theater specific environment is critical to ensure operational readiness immediately upon reaching the combat theater. Finally, the rapidly changing nature of the conflicts, crises, or contingencies in which U.S. forces are involved requires a new approach to training.

The purpose of this research is to develop and demonstrate the feasibility of a methodology that can provide a reliable, consistent method for determining ROI in various forms, focusing on …

A System Dynamic Model Of Leader Emergence, Paul S. Wever

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this thesis is to develop a system dynamics model of leader emergence. Longitudinal social network and personality data were collected in a class of enlisted military professionals attending a 6-week leadership development course. Findings support known relationships in existing leadership research. The thesis demonstrates the applicability of system dynamics toward the complex social phenomena of leader emergence.

The Effects Of Congressional Elections On Future Equity Market Returns, Vincent Louis Ovlia, David Lee Enke, Michael C. Davis

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

As the primary entity responsible for new legislation, Congress is capable of enacting legislation that may affect future market returns. To examine potential effects, the percentage of the House of Representatives and Senate controlled by a political party is examined. Additionally, the effect on returns in a change in the percentage of seats gained or lost in Congressional elections is analyzed. To test both theories, a modified “partisan view” model is adopted. Results point to the fact that equity markets perform better in situations in which power is distributed between political parties.

Effects Of Leader Relationship Quality (Lmx), Supervisor Support, And Upward Influence In National Science Foundation Industry /University Cooperative Research Centers, Janet L. Bryant

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

The Industry/University Cooperative Research Center (I/UCRC) is a type of partnership between industries and universities supported by the National Science Foundation. These partnerships enable the transfer of leading-edge technology developed in universities to industrial firms. Leadership plays a powerful role in the success of these research partnerships by creating an environment that is conducive to innovation. Directors of I/UCRCs must be able to successfully lead upward, that is, develop and maintain strong relationships with the university administrators to whom they report, to obtain the necessary support to sustain the center and foster innovation. This study uses leader-member exchange (LMX) theory …

Differences In The Performance Of Knowledge Transfer Across Projects: A Study Of Gender And Role Of Key Project Stakeholders, Rafael E. Landaeta, Catherine Vergopia, Rey N. Diaz

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

This investigation contributes empirical results of differences identified in key project stakeholders with respect to their use of knowledge transferred across projects. Gender and role were the two individual characteristics investigated. Project managers and members of project teams were the key stakeholders analyzed. Data was collected from 71 closed projects using a survey composed of closed-ended questions. The data collected was cross tabulated and statistically analyzed using Friedman's test and Spearman's correlation. The results provide evidence of the association of the performance of knowledge transfer across projects with (a) the individual factors of gender and role of key project stakeholders …

Integrating Game Technology And Discrete Event Simulation To Analyze Mass Casualty Scenarios, Jason Loveland

Computational Modeling & Simulation Engineering Theses & Dissertations

In the last 10 years, video games have become complex simulation environments with high resolution 3D graphics enabled by powerhouse rendering engines, multi-player client server networks, user friendly displays and graphical user interface , while remaining relatively inexpensive. There is a critical need for systems engineering analysis and rapid trade studies due to changes in operations caused by current events such as terrorist attacks, asymmetric threats, natural disasters, etc. Modem games provide a unique way to visualize and interact with these complex environments, scenarios, missions, and operations. A discrete event simulator (DES) provides an environment to model system architecture behavior, …

Research On Logistics Operation Mode Of Shanghai 2010 Expo, Jiaying Chen

World Maritime University Dissertations

No abstract provided.

The Study On Inland Container Terminal Logistics System Simulation, Jun Wu

World Maritime University Dissertations

No abstract provided.

The Study On The Empty Container Repositioning Of Container Leasing Company, Yi Zhao

World Maritime University Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Encouraging Lifelong Learning For Engineering Management Undergraduates, Susan L. Murray, Stephen A. Raper

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The current ABET guidelines place an emphasis on life-long learning for our undergraduate students. What is life-long learning? How can we encourage students to consider global issues, current events, or even anything "that isn't going to be on the next test"? In this paper we present survey results evaluating habits of undergraduate students entering an engineering management program and seniors related to life-long learning including attending professional society meetings, reading trade publications, reading business related books, and other learning outside of the classroom activities. This paper also presents a two semester effort to increase life-long learning activities among undergraduate engineering …

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 …

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 …

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 …

Optimizing The Prioritization Of Natural Disaster Recovery Projects, Jason M. Aftanas

Theses and Dissertations

Prioritizing reconstruction projects to recover a base from a natural disaster is a complicated and arduous process that involves all levels of leadership. The project prioritization phase of base recovery has a direct affect on the allocation of funding, the utilization of human resources, the obligation of projects, and the overall speed and efficiency of the recovery process. The focus of this research is the development of an objective and repeatable process for optimizing the project prioritization phase of the recovery effort. This work will focus on promoting objectivity in the project prioritizing process, improving the communication of the overall …

The Chaos Of Katrina: A Nonlinear Analysis Of Federal Logistics Support During Hurricane Katrina Relief Operations, Gerald W. Morris Jr.

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents a case study of federal logistics support during Hurricane Katrina disaster relief operations. Data from federal contracts covering the first 10 weeks of Katrina are used to measure federal logistics activity. The study investigates whether chaos theory, part of complexity science, can extract information from Katrina contracting data to help managers make better logistics decisions during disaster relief operations. The study uses three analytical techniques: embedding, fitting the data to a logistic equation, and plotting the limit-cycle. Embedding and fitting a logistic equation to the data were used to test for deterministic chaos. The logistic equation and …

Critical Infrastructure Rebuild Prioritization Using Simulation Optimization, Namsuk Cho

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the importance of a critical infrastructure rebuild strategy following a terrorist attack or natural disaster such as Hurricane Katrina. Critical infrastructures are very complex and dependent systems in which their re-establishment is an essential part of the rebuilding process. A rebuild simulation model consisting of three layers (physical, information, and spatial) captures the dependency between the six critical infrastructures modeled. We employ a simulation optimization approach to evaluate rebuild prioritization combinations with a goal of minimizing the time needed to achieve an acceptable rebuild level. We use a simulated annealing heuristic as an optimization technique that works …

Approximate Analysis Of An Unreliable M/M/2 Retrial Queue, Brian P. Crawford

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis considers the performance evaluation of an M/M/2 retrial queue for which both servers are subject to active and idle breakdowns. Customers may abandon service requests if they are blocked from service upon arrival, or if their service is interrupted by a server failure. Customers choosing to remain in the system enter a retrial orbit for a random amount of time before attempting to re-access an available server. We assume that each server has its own dedicated repair person, and repairs begin immediately following a failure. Interfailure times, repair times and times between retrials are exponentially distributed, and all …

Planning And Assessing Stability Operations: A Proposed Value-Focused Thinking Approach, Gerald D. Fensterer

Theses and Dissertations

Stability operations are vital to establish peace in the aftermath of conflict. The United States is often called in for military support during conflict. The new American military paradigms include establishing peace through stability operations after a military conflict. Due to this new role, military decision makers face many difficulties in conducting successful stability operations. Compounding this problem is the limited number of resources pertaining to stability operations: experts, doctrine, knowledge, and technology. Two overarching challenges of stability operations facing decision makers are planning and prioritizing of stability operations and determining progress. This thesis applies a structured analytical approach to …

Patterns Of War Termination: A Statistical Approach, Paul D. Robinson Ii

Theses and Dissertations

This research uses an advanced statistical technique to expand upon the current understanding of war termination. Specifically, this thesis addressed questions concerning the most relevant factors toward predicting both the outcomes of interstate wars and the winners of intrastate and extra-systemic wars, within the limitations of the available data. Open-source war data from the Correlates of War Project was analyzed using both binary and multinomial logistic regression techniques. While the Correlates of War Project did not necessarily focus its data collection efforts on those variables historically associated with war termination, it did provide a sufficient number of variables with which …

Examining Clandestine Social Networks For The Presence Of Non-Random Structure, Joshua S. Seder

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis develops a tractable, statistically sound hypothesis testing framework for the detection, characterization, and estimation of non-random structure in clandestine social networks. Network structure is studied via an observed adjacency matrix, which is assumed to be subject to sampling variability. The vertex set of the network is partitioned into k mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive subsets, based on available exogenous nodal attribute information. The proposed hypothesis testing framework is employed to statistically quantify a given partition's relativity in explaining the variability in the observed adjacency matrix relative to what can be explained by chance. As a result, valuable insight …

Towards A Diagnostic Framework For Understanding Complex Situations, José J. Padilla, Andres Sousa-Poza, Arturo Tejada, Samuel Kovacic

VMASC Publications

This paper presents a theoretical framework for the concept of understanding and how it can be used for assessing complex situations. Understanding is presented as a cognitive process on how an individual perceives and represents a complex domain based on his/her own predispositions, and how he/she selects knowledge or what may not be knowledge based on the same predispositions towards finding a set of solutions for the situation. Predispositions, in this case, are based on his/her epistemological, ontological and teleological biases while the domain is represented by irreducible and transient conditions. The final outcome is the match or mismatch of …

Windmill Documentary, Timothy David Stoltenburg

Honors Capstones

Capstone submitted as a graduation requirement for the BSU Honors Program.

Correlation Of Numerical Ability And Quality Technician Best Performers In Manufacturing Quality Control Applications, Charles Wesley Shelton

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The occupation of Quality Technician has many duties requiring numerical operations. Business and industry place considerable emphasis on numerical ability when evaluating the performance of a Quality Technician. In this study, the numerical ability and performance classification of Quality Technicians were analyzed using a correlation analysis. lll A single case study was used to investigate this relationship. A modified Delphi Method was used to determine characteristics of a Quality Technician. Quality Technicians were evaluated by their direct supervisor and completed a standardized numerical ability test. The evaluations by the supervisor were used to classify each technician based on their performance. …

Cosign: A Parallel Algorithm For Coordinated Traffic Signal Control, Shih-Fen Cheng, Marina A. Epelman, Robert L. Smith

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The problem of finding optimal coordinated signal timing plans for a large number of traffic signals is a challenging problem because of the exponential growth in the number of joint timing plans that need to be explored as the network size grows. In this paper, the game-theoretic paradigm of fictitious play to iteratively search for a coordinated signal timing plan is employed, which improves a system-wide performance criterion for a traffic network. The algorithm is robustly scalable to realistic-size networks modeled with high-fidelity simulations. Results of a case study for the city of Troy, MI, where there are 75 signalized …