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Articles 571 - 600 of 656

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

Loss Detection In The Dairy Industry., Michael Quealy Jan 1999

Loss Detection In The Dairy Industry., Michael Quealy

Theses

In any waste management program, the primary objective must be minimizing product loss without having an affect on product quality. Good waste management is recognized as good manufacturing practice and optimizes the processes to gain the highest possible yield from the available raw materials. A good waste management program must involve the daily monitoring of effluent from the plant for volume and strength. This data needs to be analyzed sufficiently to obtain clear pictures of what problems are present and where they are originating. If this is achieved then the task of reducing the product loss is made much easier. …

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How To Develop An Interactive Electronic Technical Manual: An Industry Perspective, Ali N. Karabulut, Hilmi Oz Dec 1998

How To Develop An Interactive Electronic Technical Manual: An Industry Perspective, Ali N. Karabulut, Hilmi Oz

Theses and Dissertations

Improvements in technology, especially in computer science, in the last two decades have made it possible, and preferable to develop digital technical manuals. A digital manual, which is called an Interactive Electronic Technical Manual (IETM), is a package of information required for the diagnosis and maintenance of a weapon systems, optimally arranged and formatted for interactive screen presentation to the end-user. Being the largest organization in the U.S., the Department of Defense has pioneered in the development of IETM concept as well as in the establishment of its standards. There have been many researches done about different IETM applications and …

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Using Simulation To Derive Activity-Based Costing Estimates, Paul Savory, Robert Williams Oct 1998

Using Simulation To Derive Activity-Based Costing Estimates, Paul Savory, Robert Williams

Department of Industrial and Management Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

This presentation showcases integrating activity based costing into the development of a SIMAN simulation of a manufacturing system.

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Data Storage Devices For Air Force Space Command: A Comparative Analysis, Darryl E. Mosley Sep 1998

Data Storage Devices For Air Force Space Command: A Comparative Analysis, Darryl E. Mosley

Theses and Dissertations

Two of Air Force Space Command's primary missions are ballistic missile warning and global navigation, accomplished by commanding and controlling Defense Support Program and Global Positioning System satellites respectively. The computerized ground control system, called the satellite command and control system (CCS) used to perform command and control of the satellites currently uses antiquated peripheral storage devices. These storage devices are critical components, but are often prone to failure, possibly resulting in adverse mission impact. The Air Force must choose an alternative storage device for use in conjunction with CCS in order to accommodate planned operations tempo increases. This thesis …

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An Integer Program Decomposition Approach To Combat Planning, John C. Van Hove Sep 1998

An Integer Program Decomposition Approach To Combat Planning, John C. Van Hove

Theses and Dissertations

Over the last two decades, our military forces have been working to incorporate the latest computer technology into the combat planning process. The earliest efforts use word processors, spreadsheets, and databases to organize planning data and to display high level summaries for commanders. Later efforts perform feasibility checks as missions are planned to insure that the necessary resources are available and that the assets requested are capable of meeting the assigned scheduling requirements. Some of the most recent computer planning tools have included the capability to automatically plan individual missions or groups of missions. These automated efforts have been heuristic …

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Feasibility Study On The Use Of The Internet For Traffic Of Unclassified Data, Alexandre L. Guerra, Luiz Gustavo F. P. Silva Sep 1998

Feasibility Study On The Use Of The Internet For Traffic Of Unclassified Data, Alexandre L. Guerra, Luiz Gustavo F. P. Silva

Theses and Dissertations

This research compares two possible networking methods for connecting all Brazilian Air Force Materiel Command units responsible for support and operation of Brazilian Air Force's weapons systems. The network includes the use of dedicated X.25 links, and the use of a virtual Private Network using the Internet (TCP/IP) as the medium of transmission. The Brazilian Air Force Materiel Command, responsible to support operating units over a very large sparse territory, lacks an efficient media of computer communications, which makes it difficult to control the supply chain channels of materiel present in each unit, depots, and warehouses. We studied the network …

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Analysis Of Usaf Medium And Heavylift Space Launch Mission Reliability Requirements, Arthur R. Dawkins Sep 1998

Analysis Of Usaf Medium And Heavylift Space Launch Mission Reliability Requirements, Arthur R. Dawkins

Theses and Dissertations

The launch services that the USAF procures to carry DOD payloads into orbit are characterized by high risks and high costs. If a launch vehicle experiences a catastrophic failure, the cost of the entire launch vehicle, the launch processing, and the payload are completely lost (often in excess of 1,5 billion dollars.) Despite this enormous risk for the payload customer, and indeed the launch provider, launch success rates around the world are not much above 90 percent. The current USAF medium and heavylift launch systems are often based on technology that is 20 years old and older. Furthermore, little historical …

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Parallel Implementation Of An Artificial Neural Network Integrated Feature And Architecture Selection Algorithm, Craig W. Rizzo Mar 1998

Parallel Implementation Of An Artificial Neural Network Integrated Feature And Architecture Selection Algorithm, Craig W. Rizzo

Theses and Dissertations

The selection of salient features and an appropriate hidden layer architecture contributes significantly to the performance of a neural network. A number of metrics and methodologies exist for estimating these parameters. This research builds on recent efforts to integrate feature and architecture selection for the multilayer perceptron. In the first stage of work a current algorithm is developed in a parallel environment, significantly improving its efficiency and utility. In the second stage, improvements to the algorithm are proposed. With regards to feature selection, a common random number (CRN) addition is proposed. Two new methods of architecture selection are examined, to …

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Using Simulation To Model Time Utilization Of Army Recruiters, James D. Cordeiro Jr., Mark A. Friend Mar 1998

Using Simulation To Model Time Utilization Of Army Recruiters, James D. Cordeiro Jr., Mark A. Friend

Theses and Dissertations

It is a well-known fact Army recruiters work very long hours in a demanding environment. In many cases, recruiting stations are geographically isolated from military bases, with recruiters often tolerating a high cost of living, crime, and other such adverse conditions that characterize the communities they work in. The job itself demands self-starting, motivated individuals with a wide range of skills, from street-savvy to salesmanship, in order to succeed. A number of factors in recent years have made military recruiting more difficult, which include scandals involving highly-placed soldiers and changes in attitudes towards military service among eligible men and women. …

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An Operational Review Of Air Campaign Planning Automation, William R. Haas Mar 1998

An Operational Review Of Air Campaign Planning Automation, William R. Haas

Theses and Dissertations

The air campaign planning process is a complex and dynamic process. Operations research has been applied to this problem to shorten the planning cycle with mixed results. The Joint Force Air Component Commander Planning Tool was developed as an air campaign planning aid. It uses the Conventional Targeting and Effectiveness Model (CTEM) as the force analysis model for master air attack plan (MAAP) planning. This thesis reviews the limitations and assumptions of CTEM and CTEM in JPT from and operational perspective. A new approach to using models in air campaign planning, collaborative planning, is being developed for use with JPT. …

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A Game-Theoretic Improvement Model For Stochastic Networks: Reliability Vs. Throughput, Jeffrey A. Schavland Mar 1998

A Game-Theoretic Improvement Model For Stochastic Networks: Reliability Vs. Throughput, Jeffrey A. Schavland

Theses and Dissertations

Prescriptive models used to allocate resources for network improvement traditionally have used reliability or flow as Measures of Effectiveness (MOEs). Such metrics do not give value to efforts which make a component more difficult to exploit. This study developed an entirely new MOE for stochastic network improvement, flow damage utility, which uses a two person, zero-sum, non-cooperative game to optimize a probabilistic network for an estimate of expected flow minus performance degradation after a worst case component loss. A multiple criteria optimization problem that uses flow damage utility and an analogous, previously developed metric for the reliability problem is used …

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Sensitivity Analysis Of The Thunder Combat Simulation Model To Command And Control Inputs Accomplished In A Parallel Environment, David A. Davies Mar 1998

Sensitivity Analysis Of The Thunder Combat Simulation Model To Command And Control Inputs Accomplished In A Parallel Environment, David A. Davies

Theses and Dissertations

This research had two objectives. The first was to develop a methodology to demonstrate the parallel processing capability provided by Air Force's Aeronautical System's Command (ASC) Major Shared Resource Center (MSRC) and apply that methodology to the SIMAF Proof of Concept project. Secondly, AFSAA/SAAB requested a sensitivity analysis of THUNDER to the modeled command and control (C2) inputs. The power of parallelization can not be overemphasized. The data collection phase of this thesis was accomplished at the MSRC using a script developed to automate the processing of an experimental design, providing the analyst with a launch and leave capability. On …

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Generating Bomber Routes For The Delivery Of Gravity Weapons, Gregory J. Ehlers Mar 1998

Generating Bomber Routes For The Delivery Of Gravity Weapons, Gregory J. Ehlers

Theses and Dissertations

United States Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM) is updating the Arsenal Exchange Model (AEM) that it uses for allocating strategic weapons to targets. AEM does not model the range constraints on bomber routes. These routes are used to deliver gravity munitions. In order to include these constraints in the new method, the Weapons Allocation Model (WAM), a pool of routes that satisfy the range constraints needs to be created. The number of possible routes to consider is extremely large and it is not possible to enumerate them all. Therefore, the method to form the pool of routes needs to reduce the number …

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Investigating Sorbent Geometry Response Surfaces From Sorption Rate Data, H. Michael Harrison Mar 1998

Investigating Sorbent Geometry Response Surfaces From Sorption Rate Data, H. Michael Harrison

Theses and Dissertations

Sorption and desorption of hydrophobic organic compounds (HOCs) into soil particles occurs at Air Force contamination sites. Long-term desorption extends clean up time, costing billions. Accurately modeling desorption will reduce costs and improve clean up designs. State of the art models depict soil as uniform spherical particles which lose the effect of longer sorption path lengths. An alternate approach, the multiple sites in series (MSS) model, describes the sorption capacity of a mixture of soil particle sizes and shapes using a composite particle defined by a two parameter statistical distribution. When the MSS model uses a general radial geometry function …

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The Measurement Of Human Intellectual Capital In The United States Air Force, Thomas J. Wagner Mar 1998

The Measurement Of Human Intellectual Capital In The United States Air Force, Thomas J. Wagner

Theses and Dissertations

For centuries, companies used basically the same accounting system developed in the fifteenth century to measure economic performance. Through much of this period the tangible value of a firm, its plants, property and equipment, was closely related to the market value of the firm. With the dawning of the information age, America has evolved from a manufacturing based economy to a service oriented economy. Closely related to this change from a blue collar to white collar workplace has been the widening gap between the market value of a company and its tangible assets. Roughly equal before, now the tangible assets …

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Embedding A Reactive Tabu Search Heuristic In Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Simulations, Joel L. Ryan Mar 1998

Embedding A Reactive Tabu Search Heuristic In Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Simulations, Joel L. Ryan

Theses and Dissertations

We apply a Reactive Tabu Search (RTS) heuristic within a discrete event simulation to solve routing problems for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). Our formulation represents this problem as a multiple Traveling Salesman Problem with time windows (mTSPTW), with the objective of attaining a specified level of target coverage using a minimum number of vehicles. Incorporating weather and probability of UAV survival at each target as random inputs, the RTS heuristic in the simulation searches for the best solution in each realization of the problem scenario in order to identify those routes that are robust to variations in weather, threat, or …

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An Analytical Tool To Assess Aeromedical Evacuation Systems For The Department Of Defense, Scott A. Wilhelm Mar 1998

An Analytical Tool To Assess Aeromedical Evacuation Systems For The Department Of Defense, Scott A. Wilhelm

Theses and Dissertations

The research was commissioned by, and conducted for, the HQ AMC Surgeon General to assist him in making a hard decision. Should the McDonnell-Douglas C-9A Nightingale be replaced, and, if so, with what? Using tools based in Keeney's Value-Focused Thinking methodology, the SG's values for this decision were quantified, alternatives that addressed these values were generated, and those alternatives were evaluated using his values to suggest preferred alternatives.

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A Multithreaded Scheduler For A High-Speed Simulator, Gene Saghi, Kirk Reinholtz, Paul Savory Jan 1998

A Multithreaded Scheduler For A High-Speed Simulator, Gene Saghi, Kirk Reinholtz, Paul Savory

Department of Industrial and Management Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

The Cassini spacecraft is on its journey to Saturn to perform a close-up study of the Saturnian system; its rings, moons, magneto-sphere, and the planet itself. Sequences of commands will be sent to the spacecraft by ground personnel to control every aspect of the mission. To validate and verify these command sequences, a bit-level, high-speed simulator (HSS) has been developed. To maximize performance, the HSS is implemented with multiple threads and runs on a multiprocessor system. A key component of the HSS is the scheduler, which controls the execution of the simulator. The general framework of the scheduler can be …

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An Analysis Of Early Software Reliability Improvement Techniques, John G. Leonard, Ric K. Nordgren Dec 1997

An Analysis Of Early Software Reliability Improvement Techniques, John G. Leonard, Ric K. Nordgren

Theses and Dissertations

This research explores early life cycle software reliability prediction models or techniques to predict the reliability of software prior to writing code, and a method for increasing or improving the reliability of software products early in the development life cycle. Five prediction models and two development techniques are examined. Each model is statically analyzed in terms of availability of data early in the life cycle, ease of data collection, and whether data is currently collected. One model and the two techniques satisfied those requirements and are further analyzed for their ability to predict or improve software reliability. While the researchers …

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Modeling And Comparison Of Wormhole Routed Mesh And Torus Networks, Ronald I. Greenberg, Lee Guan Oct 1997

Modeling And Comparison Of Wormhole Routed Mesh And Torus Networks, Ronald I. Greenberg, Lee Guan

Computer Science: Faculty Publications and Other Works

2D-mesh and torus networks have often been proposed as the interconnection pattern for parallel computers. In addition, wormhole routing has increasingly been advocated as a method of reducing latency. Most analysis of wormhole routed networks, however, has focused on the torus and the broader class of k-ary n-cubes to which it belongs. This paper presents a performance model for the wormhole routed mesh, and it compares the performance of the mesh and torus based on theoretical and empirical analyses.

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A Comparison Of The Military's Organic Movement And Commercial Express Carriers, Travis E. Condon, Kirk A. Patterson Sep 1997

A Comparison Of The Military's Organic Movement And Commercial Express Carriers, Travis E. Condon, Kirk A. Patterson

Theses and Dissertations

The DoD has begun outsourcing airlift in order to expedite high priority cargo movement. However, are commercial express carriers more expedient in the cargo delivery than the Air Force organic transportation system? Although anecdotal evidence suggests commercial carriers are faster, little empirical research has been conducted on this subject. This study compares the military's organic transportation system with Federal Express in the delivery of high priority cargo to Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany. The Large Sample Test of Hypothesis was used to determine if there was a significant difference between the cargo transit times of the two. The mean delivery time …

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Applying Cross-Decking And Activity-Based Costing To Military Distribution Centers: A Proposed Framework, Jonathan P. Elliott, Dwight H. Hintz Jr. Sep 1997

Applying Cross-Decking And Activity-Based Costing To Military Distribution Centers: A Proposed Framework, Jonathan P. Elliott, Dwight H. Hintz Jr.

Theses and Dissertations

Current events and fiscal constraints have focused DoD planners' attention on reducing logistics costs and improving efficiency while maintaining effective combat operations support. Military leaders are seeking private industry best practices that may help the DoD achieve these goals. Two commercially successful business practices that may help the DoD achieve its goals are cross-docking and Activity-Based Costing (ABC). Cross-docking is a commercially proven approach to material distribution through a distribution center that can help reduce inventories, speed material flows, and cut related logistics activity costs. However, the DoD is faced with the challenge of costing current and potential logistics processes …

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Foreign Military Sales Supply Support: Is There A Better Way?, Eric G. Ellmyer, Won Joon Jang Sep 1997

Foreign Military Sales Supply Support: Is There A Better Way?, Eric G. Ellmyer, Won Joon Jang

Theses and Dissertations

In today's world of declining defense budgets, there is an increasing need for South Korea to ensure they obtain the best dollar value when procuring defense articles. With the increasing financial situation, the purpose of this thesis is to research a surrogate third party firm and determine to what degree South Korea and other foreign military sales customers obtain the best value for their money for follow-on support item procurements. South Korea has participated in the Parts and Repair Ordering System program since its inception. However, South Korea has received little, if any, feedback regarding lead time and cost performance …

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An Improved Analytical Model For Wormhole Routed Networks With Application To Butterfly Fat-Trees, Ronald I. Greenberg, Lee Guan Aug 1997

An Improved Analytical Model For Wormhole Routed Networks With Application To Butterfly Fat-Trees, Ronald I. Greenberg, Lee Guan

Computer Science: Faculty Publications and Other Works

A performance model for wormhole routed interconnection networks is presented and applied to the butterfly fat-tree network. Experimental results agree very closely over a wide range of load rate. Novel aspects of the model, leading to accurate and simple performance predictions, include (1) use of multiple-server queues, and (2) a general method of correcting queuing results based on Poisson arrivals to apply to wormhole routing. These ideas can also be applied to other networks.

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A Value Function Approach To Information Operations Moe's: A Preliminary Study, Michael P. Doyle, Richard F. Deckro, Jack M. Kloeber Jr., Jack A. Jackson Jr., Center For Modeling, Simulation, And Analysis, Air Force Institute Of Technology Jul 1997

A Value Function Approach To Information Operations Moe's: A Preliminary Study, Michael P. Doyle, Richard F. Deckro, Jack M. Kloeber Jr., Jack A. Jackson Jr., Center For Modeling, Simulation, And Analysis, Air Force Institute Of Technology

AFIT Documents

A value focused thinking approach is applied to information operations. A preliminary value hierarchy for information operations is constructed by extracting the values of senior military leadership from existing doctrine. To identify these key values for information operations, applicable existing doctrine was reviewed and summarized. Additionally, hierarchical representations of the values represented within each reviewed doctrine are developed. A value hierarchy requires that supporting objectives be mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive. Within this analysis, these requirements are enforced, in part, by developed definitions which serve as tests to maintain mutual exclusivity. An exhaustive set of supporting values is also guaranteed …

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System Comparison Procedures For Automatic Target Recognition Systems, Anne E. Catlin Mar 1997

System Comparison Procedures For Automatic Target Recognition Systems, Anne E. Catlin

Theses and Dissertations

Estimating the performance of an automatic target recognition (ATR) system in terms of probability of successful target identification involves extensive image collection and processing, which can be very time-consuming and expensive. We investigate the Wald sequential test for the difference in two proportions as a sample size-reducing alternative to ranking and selection and the classical method of comparing binomial confidence intervals. The test is modified for the multiple pairwise comparison of four systems, and is applied to actual data to compare different configurations of the Moving and Stationary Target Acquisition and Recognition (MSTAR) System.

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An Object Oriented Simulation Of The C-17 Wingtip Vortices In The Airdrop Environment, Hans J. Petry Mar 1997

An Object Oriented Simulation Of The C-17 Wingtip Vortices In The Airdrop Environment, Hans J. Petry

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis effort focuses on the development of an object-oriented simulation of C-17 personnel airdrop operations and provides a tool for risk assessment of jumper and wingtip vortex interaction. Using the initial modeling efforts of the Wright Laboratory, this model expands those efforts to include random aircraft, wind and jumper movement within the simulation using MODSIM III as its language. Once the model was built, verified, and calibrated, it helped perform a preliminary analysis of jumper risk with varying element spacing and no crosswind. The results of the simulation provided 15 data points with which linear and logistic regression provided …

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Optimizing Airborne Area Surveillance Asset Placement, Douglas E. Fuller Feb 1997

Optimizing Airborne Area Surveillance Asset Placement, Douglas E. Fuller

Theses and Dissertations

Currently there is no automated planning tool for the optimum positioning of USAF area surveillance assets for a theater level campaign. This research seeks to find the optimum or near optimum placement of the limited USAF airborne surveillance assets against a theater level target set. The problem of finding the optimum orbit points can be modeled as a classic maximal covering location problem (MCLP). Operational constraints on the placement of surveillance aircraft can be handled by preprocessing the potential orbit points to eliminate infeasible orbit points. Heavy emphasis is placed on preprocessing the data to reduce problem size and hence …

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Simulating Queue Scheduling Policies For A Spacecraft Simulator, Paul Savory, Gene Saghi Jan 1997

Simulating Queue Scheduling Policies For A Spacecraft Simulator, Paul Savory, Gene Saghi

Department of Industrial and Management Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

The mission of the Cassini spacecraft is a unique opportunity to gain insights into major scientific questions about Saturn, the creation of the solar system, and the conditions that led to life on Earth. In preparation for the launch, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory developed a software simulator to emulate the hardware data-control system of the spacecraft. Its primary use is to validate and verify commands that will be transmitted to the spacecraft. To improve the performance of the simulator, we used the SIMAN simulation language to model numerous queue-scheduling policies. Implementation of the simulation results combined with a software-code redesign …

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An Integrated Approach To Simulation And Activity-Based Costing For Evaluating Alternative Manufacturing Cell Designs, Robert Williams, Paul Savory, Rodney Rasmussen Jan 1997

An Integrated Approach To Simulation And Activity-Based Costing For Evaluating Alternative Manufacturing Cell Designs, Robert Williams, Paul Savory, Rodney Rasmussen

Department of Industrial and Management Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

One effective technique for improving manufacturing efficiency involves the application of group technology part families and manufacturing cells. Selection of the best or optimum configuration of the manufacturing cell relies on the experience and judgment of the cell designer. This paper describes how activity-based costing (ABC) concepts can be integrated into a discrete-event simulation model and be used to evaluate manufacturing cell configurations. The output of the combined ABC simulation model provides a detailed “Bill of Activity” which allows the cell designer to consider costs as a critical factor in the cell design problem. Alternative cell configurations studied in this …

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