Operations Research, Systems Engineering and Industrial Engineering Commons^™

Entrance And Wall Conduction Effects In Parallel Flow Heat Exchangers, A. Fakheri, H. Al-Bakhit

Enhanced, Compact and Ultra-Compact Heat Exchangers: Science, Engineering and Technology

No abstract provided.

Enhancement Of Boiling On A Small Diameter Tube Due To Bubbles From Below, E. Adom, P. A. Kew, K. Cornwell

Enhanced, Compact and Ultra-Compact Heat Exchangers: Science, Engineering and Technology

No abstract provided.

Optimization Of The Fuzzy Logic Controller For An Autonomous Uav, Jon C. Ervin, Sema E. Alptekin, Dianne J. Deturris

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

In this paper, we describe the optimization of membership functions in an application employing a hierarchical Fuzzy Logic Controller. The size of the rule base is made manageable by using a unique formulation, known as Combs method, to help control the problem of ‘exponential rule expansion’. The optimization is performed using a steady state genetic algorithm with a dynamic fitness function. The controller being developed is designed to fly a small, autonomous parafoil, suitable for short-range reconnaissance and land survey applications. The optimization process is performed in the Matlab/Simulink software environment and incorporates fuzzy logic modules developed in the Matlab …

Acuta Enews September 2005, Vol. 34, No. 9

ACUTA Newsletters

In This Issue

From ACUTA Headquarters....................... Jeri Semer, CAE, ACUTA Executive Director

FYI: Useful lnformation from the Campus............................. Student Monitor

Tech Talk: Putting Your Software Out in the Open ........................ Kevin Tanzillo, Dux PR

ACUTA Member Site to See

Web Tip: Pop-Up Blockers and the ACUTA Website ............................... Aaron Fuehrer, ACUTA Computer Services Mgr.

One More Conference Winner

DC Update....................................... Whitney Johnson, Retired, No. Michigan Univ.

New Advisory Group on Wireless lssues in Higher Education

ACUTA Audio Seminar: The Rote of Wireless in a Converged Wireless Network

Welcome New Members

ACUTA Events Calendar

Acuta Enews October 2005, Vol. 34, No. 10

ACUTA Newsletters

ln This lssue

'President's Message............................ Patricia Todus, Northwestern University, ACUTA President

Board Report........................ Riny Ledgerwood, San Diego State Univ, ACUTA Secretary/Treasurer

Tech Talk: Don't Let Data Become Causally of Disaster Kevin Tanzillo, Dux PR

In the Event of an Emergency............................... Rich Lehn, Univ of North Dakota

FYI: Useful lnformation from the Campus............................... Student Monitor

Ownership of Conduits.......................... From the ACUTA Listserv: Benny Kurashima &, Dave Barta

Web Tip: Post Positions Online......................... Aaron Fuehrer, ACUTA information Technology Mgr.

DC Update.................................. Whitney Johnson, Retired, No. Michigan Univ

Welcome New Members

ACUTA Events Calendar: SPECIAL OFFER

Establishment Of A System Operating Characteristic For Autonomous Wide Area Search Vehicles, Brian A. Kish

Theses and Dissertations

The optimal employment of autonomous search and destroy vehicles is addressed. The results apply to air, land, or water vehicles with 1, k, or infinite warheads. The specific scenarios considered involve an air vehicle searching a battle space for stationary targets in the presence of false targets. Encounters are modeled with uniform, Poisson, and normal distributions. Linear and circular search patterns are examined. All relevant parameters are extracted from intelligence information, the sensor performance specification, and the air vehicle performance specification. Analytic system effectiveness measures are derived using applied probability theory. The effectiveness measures derived in this dissertation handle time-varying …

Combat Identification With Sequential Observations, Rejection Option, And Out-Of-Library Targets, Timothy W. Albrecht

Theses and Dissertations

This research extends a mathematical framework to select the optimal sensor ensemble and fusion method across multiple decision thresholds subject to warfighter constraints for a combat identification (CID) system. The formulation includes treatment of exemplars from target classes on which the CID system classifiers are not trained (out-of-library classes) and enables the warfighter to optimize a CID system without explicit enumeration of classifier error costs. A time-series classifier design methodology is developed and applied, yielding a multi-variate Gaussian hidden Markov model (HMM). The extended CID framework is used to compete the HMM-based CID system against a template-based CID system. The …

Solving Generalized Open Constraint Optimization Problem Using Two-Level Multi-Agent Framework, Hoong Chuin Lau, Lei Zhang, Chang Liu

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The Open Constraint Optimization Problem (OCOP) refers to the COP where constraints and variable domains can change over time and agents' opinions have to be sought over a distributed network to form a solution. The openness of the problem has caused conventional approaches to COP such as branch-and-bound to fail to find optimal solutions. OCOP is a new problem and the approach to find an optimal solution (minimum total cost) introduced in [1] is based on an unrealistic assumption that agents are willing to report their options in nondecreasing order of cost. In this paper, we study a generalized OCOP …

Partial Adjustable Autonomy In Multi-Agent Environment And Its Application To Military Logistics, Hoong Chuin Lau, Lucas Agussurja, Ramesh Thangarajoo

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In a rapidly changing environment, the behavior and decision-making power of agents may have to be adaptive with respect to a fluctuating autonomy. In this paper, a centralized fuzzy approach is proposed to sense changes in environmental conditions and translate them to changes in agent autonomy. A distributed coalition formation scheme is then applied to allow agents in the new autonomy to renegotiate to establish schedule consistency. The proposed framework is applied to a real-time logistics control of a military hazardous material storage facility under peace-to-war transition.

On The Design For Flexibility Of Manufacturing Systems : A Stochiastic Approach, Nathapol Areeratchakul

Dissertations

Flexibility has emerged as one of the most strategic imperatives for company viability in today's fast paced economy. This realization has stimulated extensive research efforts in this area most of which have focused mainly on defining flexibility and its attributes, the need for flexibility and how to measure it. Nevertheless, despite the considerable amount of publications regarding flexibility and its related subjects, insufficient attention has been given to the optimality of the design for flexibility and the inherent needs to meet uncertainty. Bridging this gap is the intent of this work.

In this dissertation, developed analytical models are for the …

A Multi-Factor Model For Evaluating Manufacturing Defect Opportunities In Six Sigma Analysis, Karthikeyan Sundaram

Theses

Six Sigma Quality Analysis provides a structured method for manufacturing quality problems and defect opportunities to be defined, measured, analyzed, improved, and controlled. The technique is now being widely used in both the manufacturing and service industries to evaluate the classical "defects per million" metric. An underlying assumption of classical Six Sigma Analysis is that all defects contribute equally to the derivation of the defect rate. In the thesis, it is proposed that this assumption skews and often distorts the derived defect rate. Using classical Six Sigma the user is able to list a large number of often border-line defect …

Acuta Enews August 2005, Vol. 34, No. 8

ACUTA Newsletters

ln This Issue

Report from the 34th Annual ACUTA Conference

Board report.................. Riny Ledgerwood, San Diego State Univ., Secretary/Treasurer

From the President...................... Patricia Todus, Northwester Univ., ACUTA President 2005-06

Tech Talk: Passwords: Who Can Keep Them All Straight?..................... Kevin Tanzillo, Dux PR

Domain Names Are Valuable Assets.................... Jeri A. Semer, CAE, ACUTA Executive Director

DC Update........................ Whitney Johnson, Retired, No. Michigan Univ.

FYI: Useful Information from the Campus....................... Student Monitor

Mobile Phones Get Their Own Suffix

Web Tip: Online Facilities & Services Database................ Aaron Fuehrer, ACUTA Computer Service Mgr.

Ashland University Expanding its Universe...................... Teresa Sutter, Ashland University

Welcome New …

Knowledge Representation, Organization, And Formalization For Simulation Modeling Of Discrete Manufacturing System, Jung Hung Ma

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Simulation is an useful tool that helps managers making decision by designing models for real systems. It helps companies to study behaviors of real systems hy analyzing computer models and improve the systems based on the experiments' results. However, cross-domain knowledge requirement and lack of tools facilitate modeling are the main reasons that make industries hesitate to use simulation to assist making decision. This research is an attempt to develop robust knowledge representations for discrete manufacturing system and conceptual simulation model. A modeling methodology was proposed to utilize these knowledge representations (KRs) for developing conceptual simulation models from application domain …

Dispatching Vehicles In A Mega Container Terminal, Ebru K. Bish, Frank Y. Chen, Thin Yin Leong, Barry L. Nelson, Jonathan W. C. Ng, David Simchi-Levi

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

We consider a container terminal discharging and uploading containers to and from ships. The discharged containers are stored at prespecified storage locations in the terminal yard. Containers are moved between the ship area and the yard using a fleet of vehicles, each of which can carry one container at a time. The problem is to dispatch vehicles to the containers so as to minimize the total time it takes to serve a ship, which is the total time it takes to discharge all containers from the ship and upload new containers onto the ship. We develop easily implementable heuristic algorithms …

Evaluation Of Time-Varying Availability In Multi-Echelon Inventory System With Combat Damage, Hoong Chuin Lau, Huawei Song

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The models for multi-echelon inventory systems in existing literatures predominantly address failures due to reliability in peacetime. In wartime or even peacetime operational scenarios, unexpected combat damage can cause a large number of systems to be heavily damaged, to the extent that they become irreparable. In this paper, we study a multi-echelon spare parts support system under combat damage, discuss the replenishment policy and propose an approximate method to evaluate the time-varying system performance operational availability considering the effect of passivation. Experiments show our model works well and efficiently against simulation.

Tuning Tabu Search Strategies Via Visual Diagnosis, Steven Halim, Wee Chong Wan, Hoong Chuin Lau

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

While designing working metaheuristics can be straightforward, tuning them to solve the underlying combinatorial optimization problem well can be tricky. Several tuning methods have been proposed but they do not address the new aspect of our proposed classification of the metaheuristic tuning problem: tuning search strategies. We propose a tuning methodology based on Visual Diagnosis and a generic tool called Visualizer for Metaheuristics Development Framework(V-MDF) to address specifically the problem of tuning search (particularly Tabu Search) strategies. Under V-MDF, we propose the use of a Distance Radar visualizer where the human and computer can collaborate to diagnose the occurrence of …

Stability Analysis For Forging Of Porous Bodies, Xuan Wang, Eugene Olevsky, Alain Molinari

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

The continuum theory of sintering is used for the analysis of the stability of forging of a cylindrical powder specimen. The constitutive properties of the powder material are assumed to follow a power-law creep relationship. Temperature-coupled linear non-uniform stability analyses are carried out. Stability maps are obtained for forging of copper powder components.

Acuta Enews July 2005, Vol. 34, No. 7

ACUTA Newsletters

In This lssue

Meet the ACUTA Board for 2005-2006

Communities of lnterest.................................. Jeri A. Semer, CAE, ACUTA Executive Director

Tech Talk: Advances Opening Up in the World of Storage ............................. Kevin Tanzillo, Dux PR

DC Update Whitney Johnson, Retired, No. Michigan Univ.

11th Circuit Court Reverses Decision on LD Excise Tax .................. Ed Quinn, Ohio State University

FYI: Useful lnformation from the Campus Student Monitor

Member Anniversaries

Board Report ............................ Carmine Piscopo, Providence College

Web Tip: Upload Documents to Resource Library................... Aaron Fuehrer, ACUTA Computer Services Mgr.

Welcome New Members

ACUTA Online Press Room

Review Of Academy Of Distinguished Teachers, Paul Savory

Department of Industrial and Management Systems Engineering: Reports

The University of Nebraska–Lincoln established the Academy of Distinguished Teachers in 1994. Academy members are to engage in activities to support teaching at UNL. Such activities may include (but were not limited to), speaking about teaching and pedagogy at department, college, campus, state, regional, and national meetings, allowing other faculty to observe one's teaching, and serving in an advisory capacity to the Office of the Senior Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs on matters related to teaching at UNL. Following my selection into the UNL Academy of Distinguished Teachers in 2004, I explored ideas for how the structure of our campus …

Exploiting Belief Bounds: Practical Pomdps For Personal Assistant Agents, Pradeep Varakantham, Rajiv Maheswaran, Milind Tambe

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Agents or agent teams deployed to assist humans often face the challenges of monitoring the state of key processes in their environment (including the state of their human users themselves) and making periodic decisions based on such monitoring. POMDPs appear well suited to enable agents to address these challenges, given the uncertain environment and cost of actions, but optimal policy generation for POMDPs is computationally expensive. This paper introduces three key techniques to speedup POMDP policy generation that exploit the notion of progress or dynamics in personal assistant domains. Policy computation is restricted to the belief space polytope that remains …

Approximate Strategic Reasoning Through Hierarchical Reduction Of Large Symmetric Games, Michael P. Wellman, Daniel M. Reeves, Kevin M. Lochner, Shih-Fen Cheng, Rahul Suri

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

To deal with exponential growth in the size of a game with the number of agents, we propose an approximation based on a hierarchy of reduced games. The reduced game achieves savings by restricting the number of agents playing any strategy to fixed multiples. We validate the idea through experiments on randomly generated local-effect games. An extended application to strategic reasoning about a complex trading scenario motivates the approach, and demonstrates methods for game-theoretic reasoning over incompletely-specified games at multiple levels of granularity.

A Conceptual Framework For Analysis Of System Safety Interoperability Of United States Navy's Combat Systems, Showkat Shanaz Alborzi

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Today's political and military reality requires the optimal use of our legacy systems. The objective is to maximize the effectiveness of our operations by efficient allocation, placement and the use of our forces and war-fighting systems. The synergism drawn from the capabilities of the legacy complex systems enables today's war-fighting needs to be met without substantial increase in cost or resources. This synergism can be realized by the effective integration and interoperation of legacy systems into a larger, more complex system of systems.

However, the independently developed legacy systems in this new tactical environment often have different data types, languages, …

Degradation Of Waterfront Reinforced Concrete Structures At The Port Of Dar Es Salaam, I Sanga

Tanzania Journal of Engineering and Technology (TJET)

The paper summarises the results of an investigation done on piers at the Dar es Salaam Port. The problem facing these structures and marine facilities is their exposure to aggressive environmental phenomena. The paper presents an investigation of the strength and corrosion of concrete seaport piers so as to determine degradation of the reinforced concrete waterfront structures in the port of Dar es Salaam. For instance the structures at a dhow quay terminal had been in use for about 100 years. The facility was in bad condition as the concrete had been badly damaged due to corrosion. Some of the …

Ceramic Properties Of Chimala Kaolin Clay, Leonard Akwilapo

Tanzania Journal of Engineering and Technology (TJET)

The physico-chemical properties of kaolinite clays occurring in abundance near Chimala were studied with a view of finding out their suitability in sanitary ware production. The viscosity of the clay was found to be within the range acceptable in industrial application (≤ 500 cp for 70% solids), enhancing its prospects for the manufacture of slip cast shapes with satisfactory properties. The chemical composition of the clay reveals a high content of Fe₂O₃, 1.48%, which is expected to affect the translucency and colour of the finished ware. However, such quantity would not have detrimental effects in the production of sanitary ware. …

Earth Building In Tanzania - Use Of Soil Stabilized Bricks And Blocks, A Mrema

Tanzania Journal of Engineering and Technology (TJET)

This paper presents experimental results of investigations done on the use of stabilized earth (soil) for the manufacture of bricks and blocks. The soil used was clayey sand of low plasticity. Two types of stabilizers were used to make stabilized bricks and these were cement and a combination of cement and lime. Different stabilizer proportions were employed. Results of tests carried on these bricks at 28 days indicate an optimum mix proportion of 7% cement if cement is used alone and an optimum mix proportion of 5% each if a combination of lime and cement is used as a stabilizer. …

Study Of The Impact Of Quality Costs On Profitability: The Case Of Small And Medium Industries In Tanazania, B Kundi

Tanzania Journal of Engineering and Technology (TJET)

No abstract provided.

Cement Oonded Wood Wool Board As A Building Material For Low Cost Housing, A Mrema

Tanzania Journal of Engineering and Technology (TJET)

This paper gives results of a preliminary study on the properties of cement bonded wood-wool boards manufactured as composites by using wood-wool (excelsior) from podocarpus spp wood species and ordinary Portland cement. Two main parameters were varied during the investigation and these were the width of the wood-wool and the cement to wood-wool ratio. Results show that the optimum mix proportion is three parts of cement to two parts of wood-wool by weight and that a smaller excelsior width gives higher board strengths. The results from tests on flexural strength, compressive strength and tensile strength far exceeded the requirements of …

Low Cost Slab Manufactured From Masonry Slab Elements, John Makunza

Tanzania Journal of Engineering and Technology (TJET)

The construction of bungalow houses requires sufficient space to accommodate all the requirements as per the client’s wish. The idea of low-rise or high rise buildings is very remote for most of the people due to the high costs of construction involved. Much of the said cost is due to the concrete floor slab as it consumes a bigger portion of concrete material when compared to beams and columns. In this paper, a study presented is on a new form of voided slab constructed from masonry slab elements that do not utilize formwork and consumes less concrete material. The slab …

The Use Of Rfid In Manufacturing And Packaging Technology Laboratories, Manocher Djassemi, Jay Singh

Industrial Technology and Packaging

Mandated use of Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) on goods at pallet, case and item level continues to churn the Consumer Product Goods (CPG), logistics and retail industry. The statement “Internet of things” is slowly becoming true; with concerted efforts from standard setting bodies such as Electronic Product Code (EPC) global, International Standards Organization (ISO), Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) companies like Gillette, P&G and major retailers like Wal-Mart, TESCO, and the US DoD, to replace barcodes with RFID tags. RFID bridges many areas of manufacturing including inventory management, assembly operation, material handling, packaging and shipping by providing an accurate and …

Algorithmic Analysis Of The Maximum Level Length In General-Block Two-Dimensional Markov Processes, Jesus R. Artalejo, Srinivas R. Chakravarthy

Industrial & Manufacturing Engineering Publications

Two-dimensional continuous-time Markov chains (CTMCs) are useful tools for studying stochastic models such as queueing, inventory, and production systems. Of particular interest in this paper is the distribution of the maximal level visited in a busy period because this descriptor provides an excellent measure of the system congestion. We present an algorithmic analysis for the computation of its distribution which is valid for Markov chains with general-block structure. For a multiserver batch arrival queue with retrials and negative arrivals, we exploit the underlying internal block structure and present numerical examples that reveal some interesting facts of the system.