Operations Research, Systems Engineering and Industrial Engineering Commons^™

A Template-Based Data Specification Framework For Modeling Physical Security Systems, Ashu Guru, Paul Savory

Department of Industrial and Management Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

Simulation studies often fail to provide any useful results due to its success being highly dependent on the skills of the analyst to understand a system and then correctly identify all the required data parameters and dependent variables. This paper describes a template-based framework to help identify and specify the components and data parameters for developing models of physical security systems. The layered framework consists of fifteen templates built on top of fourteen data primitives representing 119 data parameters. The modeling framework has been programmed as an internet-based web application and is simulation language independent. The usefulness of the framework …

Multiagent Teamwork: Hybrid Approaches, Praveen Paruchuri, Emma Bowring, Ranjit Nair, Jonathan Pearce, Nathan Schurr, Milind Tambe, Pradeep Varakantham

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Today within the multiagent community, we see at least four competing methods to building multiagent systems: beliefdesireintention (BDI), distributed constraint optimization (DCOP), distributed POMDPs, and auctions or game-theoretic methods. While there is exciting progress within each approach, there is a lack of cross-cutting research. This article highlights the various hybrid techniques for multiagent teamwork developed by the teamcore group. In particular, for the past decade, the TEAMCORE research group has focused on building agent teams in complex, dynamic domains. While our early work was inspired by BDI, we will present an overview of recent research that uses DCOPs and distributed …

Visualization For Analyzing Trajectory-Based Metaheuristic Search Algorithms, Steven Halim, Roland H. C. Yap, Hoong Chuin Lau

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

No abstract provided.

Forecasting Using The Mahalanobis-Taguchi System In The Presence Of Collinearity, Elizabeth A. Cudney, Kenneth M. Ragsdell

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The Mahalanobis Taguchi System is a diagnosis and forecasting method for multivariate data. Mahalanobis distance is a measure based on correlations between the variables and different patterns that can be identified and analyzed with respect to a base or reference group. the issue of multicollinearity is not adequately addressed in the MTS method. in cases where strong relationships exist between variables, the correlation matrix becomes almost singular, and the inverse matrix is not accurate. Multicollinearity can be handled by utilizing the adjoint matrix of the correlation matrix and Gram-Schmidt orthogonalization. This paper presents a case study of the MTS methodology …

Modeling Net-Centric System Of Systems Using The Dystems Modeling Language Sysml, Rao Madwaraj, Sreeram Ramakrishnan, Cihan H. Dagli

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Understanding the operations of a large 'net-centric system-of-systems requires in-depth knowledge of the interfaces among the various systems, sub-systems and components. Architectural modeling can help in reducing the complexity involved in designing such large networked systems. An example of such a complex system is the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) - a system for monitoring and collecting information related to Earth's resources. This paper demonstrates the use of Systems Modeling Language (SysML), which supports specification, analysis, design, verification and validation of a broad range of complex systems, to model some aspects of the GEOSS. The paper discusses issues …

Development And Implementation Of Optimized Energy-Delay Sub-Network Routing Protocol For Wireless Sensor Networks, Maciej Jan Zawodniok, Jagannathan Sarangapani, Steve Eugene Watkins, James W. Fonda

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The development and implementation of the optimized energy-delay sub-network routing (OEDSR) protocol for wireless sensor networks (WSN) is presented. This ondemand routing protocol minimizes a novel link cost factor which is defined using available energy, end-to-end (E2E) delay and distance from a node to the base station (BS), along with clustering, to effectively route information to the BS. Initially, the nodes are either in idle or sleep mode, but once an event is detected, the nodes near the event become active and start forming sub-networks. Formation of the inactive network into a sub-network saves energy because only a portion of …

Distributed Power Control For Cellular Networks In The Presence Of Channel Uncertainties, Maciej Jan Zawodniok, Q. Shang, Jagannathan Sarangapani

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In this paper, a novel distributed power control (DPC) scheme for cellular network in the presence of radio channel uncertainties such as path loss, shadowing, and Rayleigh fading is presented. Since these uncertainties can attenuate the received signal strength and can cause variations in the received Signal-to-Interference ratio (SIR), a new DPC scheme, which can estimate the slowly varying channel uncertainty, is proposed so that a target SIR at the receiver can be maintained. Further, the standard assumption of a constant interference during a link's power update used in other works in the literature is relaxed. A CDMA-based cellular network …

Requirements Gathering For Simulation, John Ryan, Cathal Heavey

Conference papers

This paper discusses the current shortfalls in support for the pre-coding phases of a discrete event simulation project. The paper then presents a process modelling technique, Simulation Activity Diagrams (SADs), developed to specifically support the initial requirements gathering phases of a simulation project. The paper concludes with an outline of proposed future developments to the modelling technique.

A Methodology For Deriving System Requirements Using Agent Based System Modeling, Karthik Gopalakrishnan, Sreeram Ramakrishnan, Cihan H. Dagli

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In this paper, we duscuss a method to derive the requirements for developing an Industrial Automation and Constrol System (IACS). An IACS has software components and associated hardware, which together implement the required monitoring, supervision and control of operations an a production plant. The requirements of such a system are multi-dimensional and may require multiple layers of abstraction. For this domain, we propose an agent-based modeling adopting an agent-based modeling approach is the implicit flexibility afforded by agents and the negotiation techniques that can be implemented to streamline the change management process associated with requirements modeling and analysis. This paper …

A Simulation Framework For Real-Time Management And Control Of Inventory Routing Decisions, Shrikant Jarugumilli, Sreeram Ramakrishnan, Scott Erwin Grasman

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

We consider a logistics network where a single warehouse distributes a single item to multiple retailers. Retailers in the network participate in a Vendor Managed Inventory (VMI) program with the warehouse, where the warehouse is responsible for tracking and replenishing the inventory at various retailer locations. The information update occurs every time a vehicle reaches a location and the decision on the delivery quantity and the next location to visit is made. For a small increase of locations in the network, the state space for the solution increases exponentially, making this problem NP-hard. Thus, we propose a solution methodology where …

Adaptive Distributed Fair Scheduling And Its Implementation In Wireless Sensor Networks, Maciej Jan Zawodniok, Jagannathan Sarangapani, Steve Eugene Watkins, James W. Fonda

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

A novel adaptive and distributed fair scheduling (ADFS) scheme for wireless sensor networks is shown through hardware implementation. In contrast to simulation, hardware evaluation provides valuable feedback to protocol and hardware development process. The proposed protocol focuses on quality-of-service (QoS) issues to address flow prioritization. Thus, when nodes access a shared channel, the proposed ADFS allocates the channel bandwidth proportionally to the weight, or priority, of the packet flows. Moreover, ADFS allows for dynamic allocation of network resources with little added overhead. Weights are initially assigned using user specified QoS criteria. These weights are subsequently updated as a function of …

Unifying Value Methodology And Robust Design To Achieve Design For Six Sigma, Vivek K. Jikar, Elizabeth A. Cudney, Kenneth M. Ragsdell, Chuck T. Hui

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The concept of product or system function is considered as described in the Taguchi System of Quality Engineering. the importance of transfer functions is also discussed, and a review of conventional value analysis techniques is given. This paper proposes a combination of the principles of robust design and value methodology to enable on-target functionality and direct cost allocation early in the product development process. the discussion on integration of value analysis principles in robust design methodology is provided considering the six-sigma environment. Copyright © 2006 SAE International.

Neural Network-Based Output Feedback Controller For Lean Operation Of Spark Ignition Engines, Brian C. Kaul, Jagannathan Sarangapani, J. A. Drallmeier, Jonathan B. Vance, Pingan He

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Spark ignition (SI) engines running at very lean conditions demonstrate significant nonlinear behavior by exhibiting cycle-to-cycle dispersion of heat release even though such operation can significantly reduce NOx emissions and improve fuel efficiency by as much as 5-10%. A suite of neural network (NN) controller without and with reinforcement learning employing output feedback has shown ability to reduce the nonlinear cyclic dispersion observed under lean operating conditions. The neural network controllers consists of three NN: a) A NN observer to estimate the states of the engine such as total fuel and air; b) a second NN for generating virtual input; …

Neuro Control Of Nonlinear Discrete Time Systems With Deadzone And Input Constraints, Pingan He, Wenzhi Gao, Jagannathan Sarangapani

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

A neural network (NN) controller in discrete time is designed to deliver a desired tracking performance for a class of uncertain nonlinear systems with unknown deadzones and magnitude constraints on the input. The NN controller consists of two NNs: the first NN for compensating the unknown deadzones; and the second NN for compensating the uncertain nonlinear system dynamics. The magnitude constraints on the input are modeled as saturation nonlinearities and they are dealt with in the Lyapunov-based controller design. The uniformly ultimate boundedness (UUB) of the closed-loop tracking errors and the neural network weights estimation errors is demonstrated via Lyapunov …

Decentralized Power Control With Implementation For Rfid Networks, Kainan Cha, Anil Ramachandran, David Pommerenke, Jagannathan Sarangapani

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In radio frequency identification (RFID) systems, the detection range and read rates will suffer from interference among high power reading devices. This problem grows severely and degrades system performance in dense RFID networks. In this paper, we investigate a suite of feasible power control schemes to ensure overall coverage area of the system while maintaining a desired read rate. The power control scheme and MAC protocol dynamically adjusts the RFID reader power output in response to the interference level seen locally during tag reading for an acceptable signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). We present novel distributed adaptive power control (DAPC) and probabilistic …

Adaptive And Probabilistic Power Control Algorithms For Dense Rfid Reader Network, Kainan Cha, Anil Ramachandran, Jagannathan Sarangapani

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In radio frequency identification (RFID) systems, the detection range and read rates may suffer from interferences between high power devices such as readers. In dense networks, this problem grows severely and degrades system performance. In this paper, we investigate feasible power control schemes to ensure overall coverage area of the system while maintaining a desired data rate. The power control should dynamically adjust the output power of a RFID reader by adapting to the noise level seen during tag reading and acceptable signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). We present a novel distributed adaptive power control (DAPC) and probabilistic power control (PPC) as …

Engineering Education Through Service-Learning In Developing Communities: Two Case Studies, Evan A. Thomas, Andrew Azman

Mechanical and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper provides case studies of two service learning projects that University of Colorado at Boulder (CU-Boulder) students are integrating into their academic experience. The projects focus on developing communities and are managed under the auspices of Engineers Without Borders-USA (EWB-USA), a group founded by Dr. Bernard Amadei, Professor of Civil Engineering at CU-Boulder. These projects expand students? understanding of the social value of their chosen profession, and expose them to a type of engineering significantly different than what is presented in most of their classes. Specifically, focusing on developing communities provides students with the opportunity to design solutions to …

A Robust Reactive Scheduling System With Application To Parallel Machine Scheduling, Jean-Paul M. Arnaout

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

In this turbulent world, scheduling role has become crucial in most manufacturing production, and service systems. It allows the allocation of limited resources to activities with the objective of optimizing one performance measure or more. Resources may be machines in a factory, operating rooms in a hospital, or employees in a company, while activities can be jobs in a manufacturing plant, surgeries in a hospital, or paper work in a company. The goal of each schedule is to optimize some performance measures, which could be the minimization of the schedule makespan, the jobs' completion times, jobs' earliness and tardiness, among …

Effects Of The Use Of Soybean Oil As Cutting Fluid On The Surface Finish For Turning Operations, Carlos Alberto TeráN Yengle

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Concerns about the long term supply of petroleum, the instability of its prices, and growing environmental issues have led to a variety of legislative and public support for the use of agricultural commodities in industrial applications. This study is of importance because of environmental and health hazards concerns, and the possibility of reducing operating costs with the elimination of disposal of used cutting oil that the use of biodegradable oil offers to the metal-cutting operations.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of the use of an experimental soybean-based oil as a cutting fluid on surface finish …

An Investigation Into Microwave Energy To Soften Scrap Tire Rubber Aiding Existing Mechanical Separation Processes, Russell Jon Lucas

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

This research was performed to soften scrap tires to aid in their transformation from whole tires to valuable streams of rubber and steel for reuse in industry. Actual shredded scrap rubber was used in this experiment to determine if this highly variable material could yield consistent results if subjected to volumetric heating from a magnetron emitting microwave energy.

A consumer microwave oven was used to heat this material. This oven had its control circuitry modified by using a programmable logic controller to operate the energy exposure time. The sample's surface temperature was measured utilizing a non contact infrared thermometer. All …

Study On Human Elements In The Application Of Automatic Identification System (Ais), Xilei Lu

World Maritime University Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Acuta Enews December 2005, Vol. 34, No. 12

ACUTA Newsletters

In This lssue

From the President............................... Patricia H. Todus, Northwestern University

Two Audio Seminars

Institutional Excellence Award Deadline

Tech Talk: Adjusting the Carburetor on Your Network Engine................. Kevin Tanzillo, Dux PR

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

Web Tip: Resource for Legislative/Regulatory lnfo................ Aaron Fuehrer, ACUTA lnformation Tech. Mgr.

Member Sites to See

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

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

Thanks to Exhibitors for 2005

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

Welcome New Members

ACUTA Online Press Room

Remembering Sue Fisher

Conceptual Simulation Modeling For Regional Distribution Center Systems, Kitti Setavoraphan

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study focuses on the simulation modeling of warehousing operations commonly seen at general merchandize distribution centers. The key operational processes and modeling requirements related were identified and analyzed through a pattern and knowledge-based approach to capture the structural and behavioral characteristics of general distribution centers to support simulation study for performance evaluation and process improvement. Robust representations and patterns were developed to represent the elements and logic of the simulation models for these processes to facilitate efficient and effective construction of models. The issues of conceptual modeling such as synthesis, abstraction, decomposition, and specialization were addressed.

Guidelines To Select A Computerized Maintenance Management System, Dattaraj Kamalapurkar

Masters Theses

In today's highly competitive global economy, maintenance personnel are presented with more difficult challenges than at any previous point in time. In order to meet these challenges, many maintenance managers tend to rely . on Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS). When properly selected and implemented, CMMS is one of the most powerful cost reduction tools in any organization. However in reality, many CMMS implementations fail rather than achieve success. While there are many contributing factors, one major factor that greatly impacts successful implementation is selecting the right CMMS system. With more than 200 CMMS systems to choose from, selecting the …

Statistics-Based Approaches To Stochastic Optimal Control Problems, Aihong Wen

Industrial, Manufacturing, and Systems Engineering Dissertations - Archive

This dissertation develops practical approaches to stochastic optimal control problems in the absence of linear system transition functions, quadratic cost functions, and/or Gaussian random disturbances. In such type of problems, an analytical solution is impossible and numerical synthesis techniques have to be applied. The ''classic'' algorithms existing in the literature suffer from the problem of the''curse of dimensionality,'' an exponential increase of computation time and memory requirements as the dimension of the problem grows. The statistics-based numerical approaches are presented as the main tools for mitigating the ``curse of dimensionality'' phenomenon. Two approaches are explored: (A) stochastic dynamic programming (SDP), …

Harmony Search For Structural Design, Zong Woo Geem, Kang Seok Lee, Chung-Li Tseng

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Various algorithms have been developed and applied to structural optimization, in which cross-sectional areas of structure members are assumed to be continuous. in most cases of practical structure designs, however, decision variables (cross-sectional areas) are discrete. This paper proposes a combinatorial optimization model for structural design using a new nature-inspired algorithm, harmony search (HS). HS is also compared to genetic algorithms through a standard truss example. Numerical results reveal that the proposed HS is a powerful search algorithm for combinatorial structure optimization.

Leveraging Itil To Govern Aoc Information Technology, Robert V. Weaver Iii

Theses and Dissertations

The Air Operations Center (AOC) is a complex system of systems that is resistant to traditional engineering controls and management strategies. The US Air Force (USAF) seeks to transform its antiquated AOC Information Technology (IT) management function into an agile enterprise capable of leveraging cutting-edge technology by aligning the AOC's infrastructure with its organizational strategies and vision. The USAF calls this effort a transformation. Private industry calls it IT Governance. To achieve AOC IT Governance, the USAF must stop managing infrastructure components and start managing IT services. IT Service Management abstracts business processes from the technology supporting them by creating …

Simulating Discriminatory Profiling, Oscar Neal

Masters Theses

There is a concern that racial profiling is being used to invoke searches and stops in spite of its violation of the fourth amendment. Simulation methods are used to study the correlation test of stops, searches and citations with race, age, and gender. The design uses sensitivity analysis of inputs to determine their relationship to outputs statistics of a police department's citations and stops. Experimental results are than used to verify and predict departmental bias. A simulation program written in Visual Basic is used as a tool to explore simulation techniques. A formulation of simulation uses in studying discriminatory profiling …

A Generic Object-Oriented Tabu Search Framework, Hoong Chuin Lau, Xiaomin Jia, Wee Chong Wan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Presently, most tabu search designers devise their applications without considering the potential of design and code reuse, which consequently prolong the development of subsequent applications. In this paper, we propose a software solution known as Tabu Search Framework (TSF), which is a generic C++ software framework for tabu search implementation. The framework excels in code recycling through the use of a well- designed set of generic abstract classes that clearly define their collaborative roles in the algorithm. Additionally, the framework incorporates a centralized process and control mechanism that enhances the search with intelligence. This results in a generic framework that …

Distributed Simulation Modeling For Manufacturing Systems Design Using Xml, Rawinkhan Srinon, Sreeram Ramakrishnan

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Discrete event simulations have been used to model manufacturing systems. Various decomposition methods such as distributed simulations have been employed for this modeling. in the context of distributed simulations, each federate must be able to share the embedded logic with the other federates, irrespective of the software used to design and build such systems. This paper provides an extensible Markup Language (XML)-Based representation for distributed models that can be shared across the federation of simulations. Specifically, the paper outlines three different model components that forms the basis of a design framework for distributed simulation models - object model (for simulation …