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Full-Text Articles in Operations Research, Systems Engineering and Industrial Engineering

Reflective Analysis Of Industrial Engineering Leadership Skills Applied In Being A Capstone Team Leader, Sarah Nesmith May 2026

Reflective Analysis Of Industrial Engineering Leadership Skills Applied In Being A Capstone Team Leader, Sarah Nesmith

Industrial Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

This paper presents a reflective analysis of leadership skills that I, Sarah Nesmith, have acquired and applied as an honors student serving as a capstone team leader within the Industrial Engineering program at the University of Arkansas. My senior capstone project is in partnership with Walmart’s Transportation and Optimization Department and focuses on identifying the root and contributing causes of empty miles (miles driven without freight on a truck) and exploring backhaul opportunities. The ultimate goal is the development of a tool or method that can identify these opportunities to save money while maintaining service level. As the appointed team …


A Multi-Objective Optimization Framework For Equitable Stormwater Management In Urbanizing Rural Communities, Harry L. Wilson May 2026

A Multi-Objective Optimization Framework For Equitable Stormwater Management In Urbanizing Rural Communities, Harry L. Wilson

Industrial Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Due to limited technical and financial resources, urbanizing rural communities often face growing stormwater management challenges while undergoing rapid development. This thesis proposes a mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) framework that integrates topography-driven stormwater flow behavior, infrastructure placement constraints, and multiple planning objectives to support cost-effective stormwater infrastructure decisions. Our model accounts for budget constraints, gravity-driven surface water flow, infiltration capacity, and spatial contiguity requirements to determine optimal pond placements that balance flood reduction and implementation costs. A synthetic discretized grid representing a small municipality is used to demonstrate model behavior under varying rainfall and topographic conditions. Results demonstrate the framework's …


Multi-City Travel Routing Tool: Reducing Travel Costs And Time Spent Planning Using Apis, Trey R. Merreighn May 2026

Multi-City Travel Routing Tool: Reducing Travel Costs And Time Spent Planning Using Apis, Trey R. Merreighn

Industrial Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Travel planning is a time-consuming and ever-changing problem that can diminish the travel experience and greatly increase expenditure, if not done correctly. It is important to have an easy travel planning experience so you can enjoy the travel experience more and not waste time where it is not needed. This thesis aims to minimize the costs and time spent on travel planning using APIs and simple optimization models, creating a travel planning tool. This travel planning tool was developed in Java with the main API being Amadeus, this was combined with a greedy best-permutation heuristic to create the main route …


The Expectation Of Pain: Effects On Threshold, Tolerance, And Perception, Emma Paulus May 2026

The Expectation Of Pain: Effects On Threshold, Tolerance, And Perception, Emma Paulus

Mechanical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Brain activity in pain-related regions of the cortex is thought to be influenced by interactions between expectations and incoming sensory information. However, the subjective experience of pain based on expectation has not been thoroughly explored. By changing visual and auditory cues to set expectation levels, a relationship between unconscious expectation of pain and actual sensory pain experienced was characterized. With IRB approval, volunteers were randomly and blindly grouped into low and high pain expectancy groups. Each group completed a survey about initial pain expectations before the muscle stimulation tolerance test, followed by a survey about actual pain perception after the …


A Forecasting Framework For Distribution Center Capacity Utilization: An Applied Industry Study, Jordan J. Shortt May 2026

A Forecasting Framework For Distribution Center Capacity Utilization: An Applied Industry Study, Jordan J. Shortt

Data Science Undergraduate Honors Theses

This project develops and evaluates a predictive modeling framework for forecasting distribution center capacity utilization at Company Y, with monthly forecast horizons up to one year. Motivated by the operational challenges of seasonal demand volatility, promotional cycles, and the absence of a formally defined capacity metric, the study first constructs a historical capacity utilization measure from raw warehouse management system data — reconciling item volumes, location dimensions, and utilization factors across all DCs — which serves as the target variable for all modeling work. Four models are developed and evaluated against a naïve seasonal baseline: SARIMA, LightGBM, LSTM, and a …


Optimizing College Food Pantry Locker Systems Through Simulation Techniques, Jacob W. Holmes May 2026

Optimizing College Food Pantry Locker Systems Through Simulation Techniques, Jacob W. Holmes

Industrial Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Food insecurity affects 10.5% of households in the United States. Among those affected, college students are a group with increasing food insecurity. Through novel food pantry order methods, such as locker order systems, some effects of college food insecurity can be alleviated. The Jane B. Gearhart Full Circle Food Pantry (FCFP) at the University of Arkansas implemented a locker system, beginning in the Fall of 2020. There is a lack of investigation into locker management policies for pantries, such as how much time clients should be allowed to pick up orders after they are placed in lockers, how many lockers …


The Influence Of Social Media On The Product Life Cycle In Fast Fashion: A Shein Case Study On Environmental And Social Impacts, Clara R. Devine May 2026

The Influence Of Social Media On The Product Life Cycle In Fast Fashion: A Shein Case Study On Environmental And Social Impacts, Clara R. Devine

Industrial Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Fast fashion has transformed global consumer culture through its rapid product cycles, affordability, and accessibility. However, this model has also contributed significantly to environmental degradation, excessive textile waste, and unethical labor practices. Social media platforms have accelerated these patterns by amplifying short-lived trends and influencing consumer purchasing behavior. This study aims to analyze the relationship between social media activity and the fast-fashion life cycle, with a focus on how online engagement drives consumption, production speed, and environmental impact. The research utilized a quantitative and analytical approach, combining correlation analysis and time-series data to evaluate the connection between SHEIN’s growing user …


Cross-Facility Reliable Deep Learning Based Beef Marbling Assessment Via Unsupervised Domain Adaptation Regression, Samuel Vinson May 2026

Cross-Facility Reliable Deep Learning Based Beef Marbling Assessment Via Unsupervised Domain Adaptation Regression, Samuel Vinson

Biological and Agricultural Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Inconsistent quality grading in beef production leads to inefficiencies, economic disparity, and consumer mistrust. While USDA meat grading traditionally relies on skilled visual inspectors, these human evaluations suffer from cross-facility variability and subjectivity. This paper introduces the first known application of unsupervised domain adaptation regression for cross-facility beef marbling score prediction—an innovation that improves generalization across diverse environments in the beef supply chain. Utilizing numerical scores ranging from 100-900, the research employed convolutional neural networks (CNNs), including ResNet, VGG, and AlexNet architectures. The study specifically introduced and validated a unified unsupervised domain adaptation regression method using the ResNet-50 architecture to …


Optimal Network Maintenance And Restoration: Applications And Algorithms, Nayan Chakrabarty Dec 2025

Optimal Network Maintenance And Restoration: Applications And Algorithms, Nayan Chakrabarty

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, we consider three types of network optimization problems. In Chapter 1, we consider a network maintenance problem which focuses on time-based redeployment of multi-class nodes for reliable wireless sensor network coverage. Whereas previous research on time-based node redeployment assumes nodes are identical with respect to time to failure, we use multiple classes of sensor nodes to represent a scenario where nodes’ times to failure are dependent on positioning in the network. We propose a partial survival signature (PSS) approach for estimating area coverage reliability under a given time-based redeployment policy, where the PSS is estimated by Monte …


Minimizing Uncovered Triples: An Integer Programming Approach To College Football Conference Scheduling, Caleb Mallett May 2025

Minimizing Uncovered Triples: An Integer Programming Approach To College Football Conference Scheduling, Caleb Mallett

Industrial Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Collegiate football teams often compete in groups of 8-20 teams known as conferences. One such conference, the Atlantic Coastal Conference (ACC), added three new schools for the 2024-25 season, bringing their total to 17 teams. Currently, each ACC team plays eight games against others within the ACC. At the season’s conclusion, the two ACC teams with the best intraconference record compete in a conference championship game. With 17 total teams each playing eight games, the ACC could have a three-way tie for the best record where none of top the three teams play one another. To avoid this situation, we …


Developing 3d-Printed Packaging To Protect Biodegradable Sensors Used For Large-Scale, Efficient Water Quality Monitoring, Han L. Siew May 2025

Developing 3d-Printed Packaging To Protect Biodegradable Sensors Used For Large-Scale, Efficient Water Quality Monitoring, Han L. Siew

Industrial Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Freshwater degradation due to human activities costs the United States over $2.2 billion annually, highlighting the urgent need for improved water quality monitoring methods. Traditional water sampling techniques are labor-intensive, time-consuming, and reliant on single-use plastics that contribute to environmental pollution. This research aims to address these issues by developing 3D-printed biodegradable sensor packaging for unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV)-assisted water sampling. By utilizing biodegradable materials, the research seeks to create an eco-friendly solution that ensures sensor durability while reducing negative environmental impact. The study will involve adjusting the packaging design to withstand UAV deployment by testing and improving the resistance …


Survival Signature Estimation Using Optimization And Monte-Carlo Simulation For K ≥ 3 Classes Of Nodes On Two-Terminal Networks, Md Sazid Rahman May 2025

Survival Signature Estimation Using Optimization And Monte-Carlo Simulation For K ≥ 3 Classes Of Nodes On Two-Terminal Networks, Md Sazid Rahman

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research develops an efficient approach to estimating survival signatures for two-terminal networks with more than two classes of components. Recently, the survival signature has gained substantial attention in the literature on network reliability estimation due to its unique separability property, which enables passing the network topology information independent of the failure distribution of the components. Following recent results from the literature, estimating the two-terminal survival signature by Monte Carlo simulation entails solving a multi-objective maximum capacity path problem on a two-terminal network in each replication. We adapt a multi-objective Dijkstra’s algorithm from the literature to construct the set of …


Extending Simulation-Enhanced Bayesian Optimization Of System Designs: A Computational Study, Luke Kim May 2025

Extending Simulation-Enhanced Bayesian Optimization Of System Designs: A Computational Study, Luke Kim

Data Science Undergraduate Honors Theses

This honors thesis builds off work initially accepted for publication in the Proceedings of the 2025 IISE Annual Conference & Expo, which introduced “Simulation-Enhanced Bayesian Optimization” (SEBO)—a hybrid testing optimization approach that combined the usage of unbiased but costly physical experiments with the usage of cheaper but potentially biased computer experiments to optimize engineered systems. The original study established the SEBO methodology and demonstrated its effectiveness on a multimodal, two-dimensional benchmark function. Expanding on the work performed, we conduct a broader evaluation of the SEBO framework through parameter testing and experimentation under a variety of additional benchmark functions. This investigation …


Survival Signature Estimation For All-Terminal Networks By Solving The Multi-Objective Bottleneck Spanning Tree Problem, Dewan Maisha Zaman May 2025

Survival Signature Estimation For All-Terminal Networks By Solving The Multi-Objective Bottleneck Spanning Tree Problem, Dewan Maisha Zaman

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research examines the problem of estimating the survival signature of all-terminal networks using Monte Carlo (MC) simulation. Following a recent similar result for twoterminal networks, we show that the work required within each MC replication corresponds to solving a multi-objective bottleneck spanning tree (MOBST) problem. We implement the resulting MC procedure using a “Blocks” algorithm from the literature to solve the MOBST in each replication by identifying its minimal set of non-dominated points. We compare this implementation against intuitive benchmark procedures for completing the work within an MC replication. We conduct numerical experiments to assess the efficacy of multi-objective …


Interaction-Sensitive Tree-Based Statistical Models, Xiaotong Sun Dec 2024

Interaction-Sensitive Tree-Based Statistical Models, Xiaotong Sun

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation introduces a tree-based framework to improve the interpretability and modeling of interaction effects among variables, essential in fields like biostatistics, healthcare, science and engineering. Traditional regression methods often fail to clearly capture complex interactions, while tree-based approaches, despite their interpretability, face performance limitations and overfitting concerns. Our proposed interaction-sensitive tree-based method, designed for seamless integration, combines various statistical techniques tailored to different data types, leveraging ensemble learning methods to enhance accuracy and mitigate overfitting. We present methods for regression, survival analysis, and classification, validated with case studies and benchmarked against traditional models using metrics like BIC and R-squared. …


Learning To Accelerate Globally Optimal Solutions: Applications In The Ac Optimal Power Flow Problem, Muhammet Fatih Cengil Dec 2024

Learning To Accelerate Globally Optimal Solutions: Applications In The Ac Optimal Power Flow Problem, Muhammet Fatih Cengil

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Alternating Current Optimal Power Flow (AC-OPF) problem is a fundamental optimization challenge critical to ensuring the economical and reliable operation of power grids. While fast heuristic methods provide upper-bound solutions, assessing their quality requires lower bounds obtained from relaxations of the AC-OPF problem. This dissertation focuses on finding globally optimal solutions to the AC-OPF problem by enhancing the effectiveness and efficiency of Quadratic Convex (QC) relaxations. Leveraging machine learning techniques, we aim to achieve tighter relaxations faster and improve computational performance, enabling practical scalability for real-time applications.

In Chapter 2, we propose a machine learning-based method to accelerate the …


Quantifying Lock Criticality For Inland Waterway Navigation Using An Agent-Based Simulation, Ashwin Narayan Aug 2024

Quantifying Lock Criticality For Inland Waterway Navigation Using An Agent-Based Simulation, Ashwin Narayan

Industrial Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Inland waterway travel has tremendous potential to improve multimodal transportation in the United States due to its environment-friendly and safe nature. Waterway travel has proven to be much cheaper per ton-mile and more fuel efficient than trucks. Millions of dollars have recently been invested in inland waterway networks to facilitate travel. The waterway infrastructure must be resilient to enable efficient waterway travel and prevent unnecessary delays. Locks, an important component of waterway infrastructure, enable vessels to travel between waterways of varying depths and must be maintained consistently to avoid unexpected failures. However, with limited resources, it is difficult to preserve …


Exploring Telehealth Utilization Through Data Analytics, Statistical Analyses, And Machine Learning Techniques, Aysenur Betul Cengil Aug 2024

Exploring Telehealth Utilization Through Data Analytics, Statistical Analyses, And Machine Learning Techniques, Aysenur Betul Cengil

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation investigates the utilization of telehealth services, initially focusing on the Arkansas healthcare system and then extending the analysis nationwide. It aims to understand the factors influencing telehealth adoption and its impact on healthcare delivery. After examining telehealth utilization in Arkansas from 2018 to 2022, the research utilizes a comprehensive dataset from Epic Cosmos, which includes a wide range of patient and visit data from multiple healthcare facilities across the United States from 2018 to 2023. This timeframe allows for a detailed analysis of telehealth trends before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic. In Chapter 2, we analyze key …


Advancing Prediction And Decision Analytics Techniques To Improve Treatment Of Tuberculosis, Maryam Kheirandish Borujeni Aug 2024

Advancing Prediction And Decision Analytics Techniques To Improve Treatment Of Tuberculosis, Maryam Kheirandish Borujeni

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Tuberculosis (TB) remains a global health challenge, significantly impacting morbidity and mortality rates worldwide. Despite advancements in diagnosis and treatment, TB continues to pose substantial challenges, particularly in low-resource settings. This dissertation aims to develop a robust treatment monitoring framework for TB patients to ensure personalized and effective treatment using demographic and clinical information. The current standard TB treatment framework, recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO), involves monitoring patients through laboratory tests such as smear and culture sputum tests at specific time points during treatment. These tests, however, are not fast and accurate enough to determine the severity of …


Feasibility Assessment And Container Traffic Forecasting Of Inland Waterway Container On Barge Transportation, Fan Bu Aug 2024

Feasibility Assessment And Container Traffic Forecasting Of Inland Waterway Container On Barge Transportation, Fan Bu

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Container on Barge (COB) transportation is an intermodal freight transport mode that moves shipping containers via barges on navigable inland and intracoastal waterways. During the past twenty years, COB has been a growing mode of container shipping globally due to its low-cost, eco-friendly, and congestion-reducing characteristics. Europe and China are currently leading global COB transportation, and the United States (U.S.) may have the potential to achieve economic benefits through the implementation of COB within its intermodal transportation system. To explore this potential, this dissertation investigates the implementation feasibility of COB transportation within the U.S. intermodal freight transportation system. Three contributions …


Leveraging Machine Learning And Stochastic Programming To Address Vaccine Hesitancy In Public Health Resource Allocation, Hieu Trung Bui Aug 2024

Leveraging Machine Learning And Stochastic Programming To Address Vaccine Hesitancy In Public Health Resource Allocation, Hieu Trung Bui

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Infectious disease outbreaks highlight the urgent need for effective strategies to distribute vaccines and allocate critical healthcare resources to contain the disease and reduce its negative impacts on the population. Managing these allocations is a significant challenge, especially in marginalized communities facing uncertainty in healthcare demand and logistical constraints. This dissertation addresses these challenges by investigating factors that influence dynamic changes in vaccine hesitancy (VH) and its implications for disease spread and healthcare resource demand. It develops optimization models for vaccine distribution and resource allocation under uncertainty, validated with data from the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S. The first study …


Sequential Optimization For Stressor-Informed Test Planning Through Integration Of Experimental And Simulated Data, Jacob Brecheisen May 2024

Sequential Optimization For Stressor-Informed Test Planning Through Integration Of Experimental And Simulated Data, Jacob Brecheisen

Data Science Undergraduate Honors Theses

This technical report details an innovative approach in reliability engineering aimed at maximizing system durability through a synergistic use of physical experimentation and computer-based modeling. Our methodology explores the efficient design and analysis of computer experiments and physical tests to facilitate accelerated reliability growth, while leveraging a sequential integration of data from these two distinct sources: costly physical experiments, characterized by random errors, and inexpensive computer simulations, marked by inherent systematic errors. The key innovation lies in the adoption of a closed-loop design and analysis method. This method begins by identifying a viable subset of important environmental stressors—such as temperature, …


Open-Source Optimization For Green Last Mile Delivery And Other Applications, John Sooter May 2024

Open-Source Optimization For Green Last Mile Delivery And Other Applications, John Sooter

Industrial Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Solving combinatorial optimization problems at scale and of sufficiently interesting context has historically required commercial solvers and access to proprietary company data. The development of performant open-source mathematical programming software and crowdsourced datasets has created an opportunity for individuals and enterprises alike to consider alternative solutions to problems with social and personal implications. This honors thesis represents a summary of my undergraduate research work, an application of optimization to three distinct problems connected to these developments. First, we present an optimization study of a last mile delivery system that shows optimization for energy consumption can generate vehicleindependent fuel savings at …


Investigating The Integration Of Demand Distribution Modeling In Supply Chain Simulation, Marshal Ray May 2024

Investigating The Integration Of Demand Distribution Modeling In Supply Chain Simulation, Marshal Ray

Industrial Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

This research presents a methodology for modeling the amount of demand and the time intervals between demands within a complex supply chain simulation program. The research outlines the approach, incorporating factor analysis and consolidation techniques, with a focus on using Random Forest modeling for factor importance identification. The results section covers demand quantity modeling utilizing both continuous and discrete empirical approaches, accompanied by considerations for outlier and overall distributions. While using these modeling techniques, P-P plots and KS-Statistics were employed to assess the goodness of fit, as a way to make recommendations for these models. The time between demand modeling …


A Comprehensive Analysis Of Training Induced Heat-Related Injuries At Fort Moore, Anthony Beger May 2024

A Comprehensive Analysis Of Training Induced Heat-Related Injuries At Fort Moore, Anthony Beger

Data Science Undergraduate Honors Theses

Heat related injuries are a significant problem for the United States Armed Forces. There were over 11,000 confirmed cases of heat-related illnesses that were diagnosed at more than 230 military installations from 2018-2022. These injuries are primarily due to hyperthermia (i.e., abnormally high body temperature) resulting from extreme environmental temperatures, high humidity, medications, or excessive physical work or exercise. Fort Moore has the most heat related injuries of any installation in the U.S. Department of Defense since it is home to one of the largest U. S. Army training posts with most training involving intensive outdoor activity in high heat …


Comparing North American Professional Sports League Season Formats Using Monte Carlo Simulation, Lathan Gregg May 2024

Comparing North American Professional Sports League Season Formats Using Monte Carlo Simulation, Lathan Gregg

Industrial Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Each NFL, NBA, and MLB season consists of a regular season, in which teams play a set number of scheduled games and a playoff, in which qualifying teams compete for a championship. At the conclusion of each season, teams are ranked based on their performance throughout the season. This study aims to investigate the ability of each league's season format to accurately rank teams using Monte Carlo simulation. Matches between two teams are simulated by using the team’s assigned strength ranks to calculate a winning probability for each team. The winning probabilities are simulated with different skill values, dictating how …


Using Convolutional Neural Networks For Autonomous Drone Navigation, Joshua Jowers May 2024

Using Convolutional Neural Networks For Autonomous Drone Navigation, Joshua Jowers

Industrial Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), more commonly known as drones, serve various purposes, notably in military applications. Consequently, there arises a need for navigation methods impervious to intercepted signals [1]. Previous research has explored numerous solutions, including machine learning. This paper delves into a specific machine learning approach employing a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) to discern image locations [2]. It elucidates the conversion of a CNN model between two machine learning libraries and presents results from multiple experiments examining parameters and factors influencing the approach's efficacy. These experiments encompass testing different data sources, image quantities, and processing pipelines to gauge their …


The Importance Of Data Preparation In A Data Science Problem, Sophia Beard May 2024

The Importance Of Data Preparation In A Data Science Problem, Sophia Beard

Data Science Undergraduate Honors Theses

This study is going to be based on an inventory outlier automation data science problem that is being solved to identify and prescribe inventory level outliers to help keep shelves stocked in terms of beverages. The objective of this paper will address why it is so important to understand the data that is involved in a particular data science problem and how planning ahead ensures a successful outcome in the data science world. In this data science project, Spatiotemporal Outlier Analysis for Inventory Intervention Automation, it was crucial for the team to understand, research, and visualize the data we were …


The Importance Of Text Representation For Neural Networks Through Natural Language Processing Techniques, William Parsley May 2024

The Importance Of Text Representation For Neural Networks Through Natural Language Processing Techniques, William Parsley

Data Science Undergraduate Honors Theses

Text representation is a fundamental aspect of natural language processing (NLP) when it comes to the performance of neural networks. Free-form text fields are being utilized in more and more industries. Anything from a description of an item on a web store to tracking service events to military-grade aircraft is being collected in free-form text. The goal of the thesis is to highlight best practices and discuss trends in data to prepare text for a neural network. It will demonstrate various techniques for representing free-form text in the context of neural networks, focusing on data preparation decisions, embedding techniques, and …


Examining The Impact Of Customer Rfp Characteristics On Award Compliance, Laasya Ravipati May 2024

Examining The Impact Of Customer Rfp Characteristics On Award Compliance, Laasya Ravipati

Data Science Undergraduate Honors Theses

In the context of intermodal transportation, understanding the dynamics of award compliance holds significant importance for operational efficiency and strategic decision-making. Award compliance refers to the percentage of awarded freight volume that is realized, indicating the extent to which contractual agreements are fulfilled. This analysis delves into the intricate relationship between customer characteristics and award compliance, aiming to provide valuable insights into the variability and predictability of compliance rates. By analyzing Request for Pricing (RFP) data and primary awarded freight volumes, the study seeks to address the need for more accurate volume estimations, crucial for sales planning, revenue projections, and …