Operations Research, Systems Engineering and Industrial Engineering Commons^™

Inventory-Responsive Donor-Management Policy: A Tandem Queueing Network Model, Taozeng Zhu, Nicholas Teck Boon Yeo, Sarah Yini Gao, Gar Goei Loke

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Problem definition: In the blood-donor-management problem, the blood bank incentivizes donors to donate, given blood inventory levels. We propose a model to optimize such incentivization schemes under the context of random demand, blood perishability, observation period between donations, and variability in donor arrivals and dropouts. Methodology/results: We propose an optimization model that simultaneously accounts for the dynamics in the blood inventory and the donor’s donation process, as a coupled queueing network. We adopt the Pipeline Queue paradigm, which leads us to a tractable convex reformulation. The coupled setting requires new methodologies to be developed upon the existing Pipeline Queue framework. …

A Hierarchical Optimization Approach For Dynamic Pickup And Delivery Problem With Lifo Constraints, Jianhui Du, Zhiqin Zhang, Xu Wang, Hoong Chuin Lau

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

We consider a dynamic pickup and delivery problem (DPDP) where loading and unloading operations must follow a last in first out (LIFO) sequence. A fleet of vehicles will pick up orders in pickup points and deliver them to destinations. The objective is to minimize the total over-time (that is the amount of time that exceeds the committed delivery time) and total travel distance. Given the dynamics of orders and vehicles, this paper proposes a hierarchical optimization approach based on multiple intuitive yet often-neglected strategies, namely what we term as the urgent strategy, hitchhike strategy and packing-bags strategy. These multiple strategies …

Estimation Of Recursive Route Choice Models With Incomplete Trip Observations, Tien Mai, The Viet Bui, Quoc Phong Nguyen, Tho V. Le

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This work concerns the estimation of recursive route choice models in the situation that the trip observations are incomplete, i.e., there are unconnected links (or nodes) in the observations. A direct approach to handle this issue could be intractable because enumerating all paths between unconnected links (or nodes) in a real network is typically not possible. We exploit an expectation–maximization (EM) method that allows dealing with the missing-data issue by alternatively performing two steps of sampling the missing segments in the observations and solving maximum likelihood estimation problems. Moreover, observing that the EM method could be expensive, we propose a …

Empowering Student Success: Unlocking The Potential Of Project-Based Steel Design Education, Aly Mousaad Aly

Faculty Publications

In the pursuit of student success, it is essential to acknowledge that a singular teaching style does not universally cater to all students. The educator's crucial role lies in creating an optimal learning environment that fosters students' endeavors to excel. This endeavor transcends mere classroom success or employment prospects, encompassing a broader impact on societal well-being. An experiential learning approach, where students actively engage in practical tasks, emerges as the most effective mode of instruction. Integrating project-based learning activities into the curriculum holds immense potential for enhancing student learning. Additionally, the utilization of analysis software tools like FTool and STAAD …

Imparting Systems Engineering Experience Via Interactive Fiction Serious Games, Thomas C. Ford, David Long, Echo Ford *

Faculty Publications

Serious games for education are becoming increasing popular. Interactive fiction games are some of the most popular in app stores and are also beginning to be heavily used in education to teach analysis and decision-making. Noting that it is difficult for systems engineers to experience all necessary situations which prepare them for the role of a chief engineer, in this paper, we explore the use of interactive fiction serious games to impart systems engineering experience and to teach systems engineering principles. The results of a cognitive viability, qualitative viability, and replayability analysis of 14 systems engineering serious games developed in …

A Mixed-Integer Linear Programming Reduction Of Disjoint Bilinear Programs Via Symbolic Variable Elimination, Jihwan Jeong, Scott Sanner, Akshat Kumar

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

A disjointly constrained bilinear program (DBLP) has various practical and industrial applications, e.g., in game theory, facility location, supply chain management, and multi-agent planning problems. Although earlier work has noted the equivalence of DBLP and mixed-integer linear programming (MILP) from an abstract theoretical perspective, a practical and exact closed-form reduction of a DBLP to a MILP has remained elusive. Such explicit reduction would allow us to leverage modern MILP solvers and techniques along with their solution optimality and anytime approximation guarantees. To this end, we provide the first constructive closed-form MILP reduction of a DBLP by extending the technique of …

Optimization Of Station-Skip In A Cyclic Express Subway Service, Jingfeng Yang, Hai Wang, Jiangang Jin

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

With rapid population growth and increasing demand for urban mobility, metropolitan areas such as Singapore, Tokyo, and Shanghai are increasingly dependent on public transport systems. Various strategies are proposed to improve the service quality and capacity of bus and subway systems. Express trains—i.e., trains that skip certain stations—are commonly used because they can travel at higher speeds, potentially reduce travel time, and serve more passengers. In this paper, we study cyclic express subway service (CESS), in which express trains provide routine transport service with cyclic (periodic) station-skip patterns that can be used in daily service. We propose an exact Mixed …

Effects Of Individual Strategies For Resource Access On Collaboratively Maintained Irrigation Infrastructure, Jordan L. Stern, Afreen Siddiqi, Paul N. Grogan

Faculty Publications

Built infrastructure for water and energy supply, transportation, and other such services underpins human well-being and socioeconomic development. A fundamental understanding of how infrastructure design and user strategies interact can guide important design decisions as well as policy formulation for ensuring long-term infrastructure viability in conjunction with improved individual user benefits. In this work, an agent based model (ABM) is developed to study this issue for the specific case of irrigation canals. Cooperatively maintained irrigation canals serve essential roles in sustaining agriculture-based economies in many regions. Canal system design can strongly affect benefits derived by distributed users, regional agricultural output, …

An Lp-Based Characterization Of Solvable Qap Instances With Chess-Board And Graded Structures, Lucas Waddell, Jerry Phillips, Tianzhu Liu, Swarup Dhar

Faculty Journal Articles

The quadratic assignment problem (QAP) is perhaps the most widely studied nonlinear combinatorial optimization problem. It has many applications in various fields, yet has proven to be extremely difficult to solve. This difficulty has motivated researchers to identify special objective function structures that permit an optimal solution to be found efficiently. Previous work has shown that certain such structures can be explained in terms of a mixed 0-1 linear reformulation of the QAP known as the level-1 reformulation-linearization-technique (RLT) form. Specifically, the objective function structures were shown to ensure that a binary optimal extreme point solution exists to the continuous …

Experimental Investigation Of Various Energy-Absorbing Layer Materials And Sodium Alginate Viscosities On The Jet Formation In Laser-Induced-Forward-Transfer (Lift) Bioprinting, Shuqi Zhou, Chaoran Dou, Jianzhi Li, Qiqi Zhang, Qilin Dai, Ben Xu

Manufacturing & Industrial Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Laser-induced-forward-transfer (LIFT) bioprinting technology has been viewed as a regenerative medicine technology because of its high printing quality and good cell viability. To stabilize the jet to achieve high-quality printing, an energy-absorbing layer (EAL) can be introduced. In this study, three materials (graphene, gelatin, and gold) were utilized as the EAL. The effect of each EAL on the jet generation process was investigated. Besides, the effect of graphene EAL thickness was addressed for various experimental conditions. The jet generation process using sodium alginate solutions with different concentrations (1 and 2 wt. %) was also discussed to investigate the effect of …

Editorial: Innovative Shared Transportation, Marco Nie, Hai Wang, Wai Yuen Szeto

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Recent technological developments—mobile computing, autonomous driving, alternative fuel vehicles, and blockchain, to name a few—have enabled numerous innovations in mobility, transportation, and logistics services. They offer unprecedented opportunities to transform conventional transportation systems, for both personal travel and freight logistics, with novel solutions. Of these solutions, those built on the emerging concept of shared economy, such as Uber, Didi, and Cargostream, have received much attention recently. The rapidly expanding scope of shared transportation services now includes ride-sourcing, ridesharing, car sharing, hitch service, flexible paratransit, shared freight delivery, shared logistics, bike sharing, shared last-mile service, parking space sharing, and so on.

Evaluating The Impact Of Broadband Access And Internet Use In A Small Underserved Rural Community, Javier Valentín-Sívico, Casey I. Canfield, Sarah A. Low, Christel Gollnick

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Having adequate access to the internet at home enhances quality-of-life for households and facilitates economic and social opportunities. Despite increased investment in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, millions of households in the rural United States still lack adequate access to high-speed internet. In this study, we evaluate a wireless broadband network deployed in Turney, a small, underserved rural community in northwest Missouri. In addition to collecting survey data before and after this internet intervention, we collected pre-treatment and post-treatment survey data from comparison communities to serve as a control group. Due to technical constraints, some of Turney's interested participants could …

Evaluating The Impact Of Broadband Access And Internet Use In A Small Underserved Rural Community, Javier Valentín-Sívico, Casey I. Canfield, Sarah A. Low, Christel Gollnick

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Having adequate access to the internet at home enhances quality-of-life for households and facilitates economic and social opportunities. Despite increased investment in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, millions of households in the rural United States still lack adequate access to high-speed internet. In this study, we evaluate a wireless broadband network deployed in Turney, a small, underserved rural community in northwest Missouri. In addition to collecting survey data before and after this internet intervention, we collected pre-treatment and post-treatment survey data from comparison communities to serve as a control group. Due to technical constraints, some of Turney's interested participants could …

Experimental Investigation Of The Self-Healing Potential Of Bacteria For Sustainable Concrete Structures, Pitiporn Asvapathanagul, Simone Galano, Andrea Calabrese, Mehran Rahmani, Maggie Ly, Daniela Flores, Michael Hernandez, Nicholas Banuelos

Mineta Transportation Institute

Although concrete is the most widely used building material in the world, its limited tensile strength makes cracking a common phenomenon in concrete elements. This study investigates the potential of autonomous self-healing as an eco-friendly and lowcost method to increase the durability of concrete. The crack-healing potential of different types of high-alkaline-tolerant bacteria or calcite-precipitation microorganisms is investigated. High-alkaline-tolerant bacteria and calcite-precipitation microorganisms were used to retrofit lab-fractured concrete samples. The samples healed with each of these bacteria groups were cast and tested under compressive load up to failure to measure the compressive strength of the concrete samples. The outcomes …

An Exponential Cone Programming Approach For Managing Electric Vehicle Charging, Li Chen, Long He, Yangfang (Helen) Zhou

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

To support the rapid growth in global electric vehicle adoption, public charging of electric vehicles is crucial. We study the problem of an electric vehicle charging service provider, which faces (1) stochastic arrival of customers with distinctive arrival and departure times, and energy requirements as well as (2) a total electricity cost including demand charges, costs related to the highest per-period electricity used in a finite horizon. We formulate its problem of scheduling vehicle charging to minimize the expected total cost as a stochastic program (SP). As this SP is large-scale, we solve it using exponential cone program (ECP) approximations. …

The Development And Use Of The Probabilistic Financial Decision Model For A Company Expansion, Elizabeth Wiese

Senior Honors Theses

In the United States, companies are expanding constantly. However, in an industrial equipment dealership expanding into a new state, it is important to understand the industry, new market, and costs associated with expanding. With using financial statements of data-backed percentages for growth, research seeks to set up a financial model to see if expansion for an industrial equipment dealership into the state of North Carolina will be a financially wise decision. Wesley Worldwide, an industrial equipment dealership, is moving forward with the investment of expanding into North Carolina. However, it is vital to understand the financial predictions for profit return …

Naphtha Characterization (Piona, Density, Distillation Curve And Sulfur Content): An Origin Comparison, Aline Pioli Silva, Juliana Otavia Bahú, Renato Soccol Jr., Leonardo Rodriguez-Urrego, William Stive Fajardo-Moreno, Hiram Moya, Jeffrey Leon-Pulido, Víktor Oswaldo Cárdenas Concha

Manufacturing & Industrial Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Naphtha is an important distillation product of crude oil, and is used as a raw material for first-generation products such as ethylene, propylene, gasoline, xylene (BTX), and others. However, due to the different sources of crude oil, differences in naphtha composition impact the quality of conversion processes. Parameters such as pressure, charge flow, and temperature need to be adjusted for conversion efficiency. This work aims to compare naphtha samples from different origins, through the analysis of distillation curve (ASTM D86), density (ASTM D4052), total sulfur (ASTM D4294), and n-paraffins, iso-paraffins, olefins, naphthene, and aromatics (PIONA, ASTM D5134). Among these parameters …

Effective Use Methods For Continuous Sensor Data Streams In Manufacturing Quality Control, William Hitchcock

Senior Honors Theses

This work outlines an approach for managing sensor data streams of continuous numerical data in product manufacturing settings, emphasizing statistical process control, low computational and memory overhead, and saving information necessary to reduce the impact of nonconformance to quality specifications. While there is extensive literature, knowledge, and documentation about standard data sources and databases, the high volume and velocity of sensor data streams often makes traditional analysis unfeasible. To that end, an overview of data stream fundamentals is essential. An analysis of commonly used stream preprocessing and load shedding methods follows, succeeded by a discussion of aggregation procedures. Stream storage …

A Review On Learning To Solve Combinatorial Optimisation Problems In Manufacturing, Cong Zhang, Yaoxin Wu, Yining Ma, Wen Song, Zhang Le, Zhiguang Cao, Jie Zhang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

An efficient manufacturing system is key to maintaining a healthy economy today. With the rapid development of science and technology and the progress of human society, the modern manufacturing system is becoming increasingly complex, posing new challenges to both academia and industry. Ever since the beginning of industrialisation, leaps in manufacturing technology have always accompanied technological breakthroughs from other fields, for example, mechanics, physics, and computational science. Recently, machine learning (ML) technology, one of the crucial subjects of artificial intelligence, has made remarkable progress in many areas. This study thoroughly reviews how ML, specifically deep (reinforcement) learning, motivates new ideas …

Introduction To The Special Issue On Innovation In Transportation-Enabled Urban Services, Part 1, Niels Agatz, Soo-Haeng Cho, Hai Wang, Saif Benjaafar

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Rapid developments in city infrastructure and technol-ogies are creating numerous opportunities and inspiring innovative and emerging urban services. Among these innovations, complex systems of urban transportation and logistics have embraced advances and have been reshaped significantly. They enable innovative new urban services, which are now booming and changing everyday life for urban residents.This special issue of Service Science explores perspectives on innovation in transportation-enabled urban services. We hope that the special issue will enhance the understanding of the planning, operation, and management of such services. Contributions are expected to demonstrate rigorous model development, economic/ econometric analysis, and decision-making tools based …

Introduction To Bioaerosols Assessment And Control, 2nd Edition, Cheri Marcham, John (Jack) Springston

Publications

• Risk Assessment
• Assessment for the Presence of Bioaerosols
• Sampling
• Purpose/ Necessity
• Interpretation Controls
  • Ventilation
  • Other Controls

Study Of The Graphene Energy Absorbing Layer And The Viscosity Of Sodium Alginate In Laser-Induced- Forward-Transfer (Lift) Bioprinting, Shuqi Zhou, Jianzhi Li, Ben Xu

Manufacturing & Industrial Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Laser induced forward transfer (LIFT) bioprinting has been viewed as a new and actively developed three-dimensional bioprinting technology due to its high accuracy and good cell viability. The printing quality is highly dependent on the jet formation and its stability in the LIFT bioprinting process. The objective of this study is to investigate the effect of a graphene Energy Absorbing Layer (EAL) and alginate hydrogel (SA) (w.t. 1% and 2%) viscosity on jet generation in the LIFT bioprinting process. Since SA exhibits a shear-thinning behavior, it is a non-Newtonian fluid. The effect of EAL thickness and SA’s viscosity were addressed …

Ads-B Classification Using Multivariate Long Short-Term Memory–Fully Convolutional Networks And Data Reduction Techniques, Sarah Bolton *, Richard Dill, Michael R. Grimaila, Douglas Hodson

Faculty Publications

Researchers typically increase training data to improve neural net predictive capabilities, but this method is infeasible when data or compute resources are limited. This paper extends previous research that used long short-term memory–fully convolutional networks to identify aircraft engine types from publicly available automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast (ADS-B) data. This research designs two experiments that vary the amount of training data samples and input features to determine the impact on the predictive power of the ADS-B classification model. The first experiment varies the number of training data observations from a limited feature set and results in 83.9% accuracy (within 10% of …

Queueing System With Potential For Recruiting Secondary Servers, Srinivas Chakravarthy, Alexander N. Dudin, Sergey A. Dudin, Olga S. Dudina

Industrial & Manufacturing Engineering Publications

In this paper, we consider a single server queueing system in which the arrivals occur according to a Markovian arrival process (MAP). The served customers may be recruited (or opted from those customers’ point of view) to act as secondary servers to provide services to the waiting customers. Such customers who are recruited to be servers are referred to as secondary servers. The service times of the main as well as that of the secondary servers are assumed to be exponentially distributed possibly with different parameters. Assuming that at most there can only be one secondary server at any given …

An Effective Transfer Learning Based Landmark Detection Framework For Uav-Based Aerial Imagery Of Urban Landscapes, Bishwas Praveen, Vineetha Menon, Tathagata Mukherjee, Bryan Mesmer, Sampson Gholston, Steven Corns

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Aerial imagery captured through airborne sensors mounted on Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), aircrafts, satellites, etc. in the form of RGB, LiDAR, multispectral or hyperspectral images provide a unique perspective for a variety of applications. These sensors capture high-resolution images that can be used for applications related to mapping, surveying, and monitoring of crops, infrastructure, and natural resources. Deep learning based algorithms are often the forerunners in facilitating practical solutions for such data-centric applications. Deep learning-based landmark detection is one such application which involves the use of deep learning algorithms to accurately identify and locate landmarks of interest in images captured …

A Genome-Wide Association Study Coupled With Machine Learning Approaches To Identify Influential Demographic And Genomic Factors Underlying Parkinson’S Disease, Md Asad Rahman, Jinling Liu

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Background: Despite the recent success of genome-wide association studies (GWAS) in identifying 90 independent risk loci for Parkinson's disease (PD), the genomic underpinning of PD is still largely unknown. At the same time, accurate and reliable predictive models utilizing genomic or demographic features are desired in the clinic for predicting the risk of Parkinson's disease. Methods: To identify influential demographic and genomic factors associated with PD and to further develop predictive models, we utilized demographic data, incorporating 200 variables across 33,473 participants, along with genomic data involving 447,089 SNPs across 8,840 samples, both derived from the Fox Insight online study. …

Improving Social Bot Detection Through Aid And Training, Ryan Kenny, Baruch Fischhoff, Alex Davis, Casey I. Canfield

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Objective: We test the effects of three aids on individuals' ability to detect social bots among Twitter personas: a bot indicator score, a training video, and a warning. Background: Detecting social bots can prevent online deception. We use a simulated social media task to evaluate three aids. Method: Lay participants judged whether each of 60 Twitter personas was a human or social bot in a simulated online environment, using agreement between three machine learning algorithms to estimate the probability of each persona being a bot. Experiment 1 compared a control group and two intervention groups, one provided a bot indicator …

Fugacity-Based Lattice Boltzmann Method For Multicomponent Multiphase Systems, Muzammil Soomro, Luis F. Ayala, Cheng Peng, Orlando M. Ayala

Engineering Technology Faculty Publications

The free-energy model can extend the lattice Boltzmann method to multiphase systems. However, there is a lack of models capable of simulating multicomponent multiphase fluids with partial miscibility. In addition, existing models cannot be generalized to honor thermodynamic information provided by any multicomponent equation of state of choice. In this paper, we introduce a free-energy lattice Boltzmann model where the forcing term is determined by the fugacity of the species, the thermodynamic property that connects species partial pressure to chemical potential calculations. By doing so, we are able to carry out multicomponent multiphase simulations of partially miscible fluids and generalize …

Computational Decision Support For Socio-Technical Awareness Of Land-Use Planning Under Complexity—A Dam Resilience Planning Case Study, Andreas Tolk, Jennifer A. Richkus, F. Leron Shults, Wesley J. Wildman

VMASC Publications

Land-use planning for modern societies requires technical competence as well as social competence. We therefore propose an integrative solution enabling better land-use planning and management through better-informed decision-making. We adapt a method developed for cross-disciplinary team building to identify the stakeholders and their various objectives and value systems. We use these results to populate artificial societies embedded into a dynamic data analytics framework as a tool to identify, explore, and visualize the challenges resulting from the different objectives and value systems in land-use planning and management. To prove the feasibility of the proposed solution, we present two use cases from …

A New Course In Defense Manufacturing – An Introduction To Shipbuilding, Alley C. Butler

Manufacturing & Industrial Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper discusses the development and deployment of a new course in DMEI (Defense Manufacturing Engineering Innovation) titled, “Introduction to Shipbuilding.” This course has been taught using Zoom since 2021 at both the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, a Hispanic Serving Institution, and Virginia State University, a Historically Black University. After a brief literature review, an outline of the course is presented with topics including the maritime market for shipbuilding, economics of shipbuilding, the classification agencies, metallurgy and welding processes, ship structure and assembly, shipyard layout, accuracy control, and shipbuilding planning and scheduling. Difficulties in obtaining an appropriate textbook …