Systems Engineering Commons^™

Can Generative Ai Make Farming Decisions? Current Status And Future Pathways: A Case Study In Row Crop Production With Chatgpt, Nipuna Chamara, Yufeng Ge, Joe Luck, Yu Pan, Saleh Taghvaeian, Cory Walters, Christopher Proctor, Daran Rudnick, Daren Redfearn

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

The agricultural decision-making process is experience-based, knowledge-dependent, time-sensitive, complex, and driven by historical data. Planting, fertilization, irrigation, and chemigation are key categories in farm decision-making, and currently there is no one-shot decision-support tool that covers all these activities. Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) models are more advanced than traditional machine learning and deep learning models. These models have been trained on vast amounts of data from the internet, allowing them to accept unstructured data in various forms and generate human-like text, solutions to problems, and scenario predictions. Given this capability, we became interested in exploring the potential of generative AI in …

Design Of Small-Scale Milk Processing Facility, Luke Bond, Robert Stenzel, Ry Steffen, John Van Nieuwenhuyse, Rossana Villa-Rojas, Terry Howell Jr., Tami M. Brown-Brandl, Forrest Kievit

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Masters Project Reports

This project was intended to investigate the feasibility of a proposed modular dairy processing facility collocated with a small dairy on the University of Nebraska–Lincoln’s Innovation Campus. Priority was placed upon cost savings for equipment to be used in processing. Process flow diagrams, floor plans, production schedules, risk assessments, and plans for wastewater treatment were all developed to address the needs of the plant should it be built. A Monte Carlo simulation was conducted to evaluate the timeline for breaking even financially, resulting in the potential for a payback period of 4.5 years. The 4.5-year payback period was based on …

Cyber-Physical System Characterization And Co-Regulation Of A Quadrotor Uas, Seth E. Doebbeling

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

An Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) is a Cyber-Physical System (CPS) in which a host of real-time computational tasks contending for shared resources must be cooperatively managed to obtain mission objectives. Traditionally, control of the UAS is designed assuming a fixed, high sampling rate in order to maintain reliable performance and margins of stability. But emerging methods challenge this design by dynamically allocating resources to computational tasks, thereby affecting control and mission performance. To apply these emerging strategies, a characterization and understanding of the effects of timing on control and trajectory following performance is required. Going beyond traditional control evaluation techniques, …

Energy Harvesting And Storage: The Catalyst To The Power Constraint For Leveraging Internet Of Things (Iot) On Trains, Kelechi Nwogu

Department of Computer Electronics and Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The success of Wireless Sensor Networks is heavily constrained by its reliance on storage technology like batteries, which are a finite resource. Whilst the number of transistors in an IC doubles every 18 months, the energy density of batteries is relatively flat during the same time period. This is a key challenge in leveraging the Internet of Things on trains.

The gravity of this problem is increased by an order of magnitude when the network is to be scaled up to hundreds or thousands of nodes. Comprehensive research and development efforts have been devoted to building ultra-low power sensors. These …

Robust System For Infection Control: An Industrial Systems Engineering Approach, Sundaravel Vinay Swarup Achudhan

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Health care delivery in the United States needs improvement. Each year about 98,000 people die as a result of medical errors and the United States is outranked by a number of developed countries in life expectancy, mortality and comorbidity. Healthcare quality is determined based on the quality of the service provided to the patient during their visit. Apart from the traditional problem solving design and development tools used to improve healthcare quality, The National Academy of Engineering and the Institute of Medicine recommend systems engineering principle and systems engineering tools to be used in health care to improve the industry. …

A Model For Optimizing The Allocation Of Ethanol Production In The U.S., Anali Huggins

Department of Industrial and Management Systems Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

In the last five years, fuel prices have fluctuated from 2.86$/gallon to 3.87$/gallon which represents an increase of 35%. This situation has collocated the ethanol manufacturing in an advantageous situation. However, a major problem that is faced by the ethanol producers is the high cost of transportation. The objective of this thesis study is to determine the optimal allocation of ethanol production in the U.S. in 2009 that minimizes the transportation cost. This thesis is based on the application of a linear programing model. The thesis is focused on two questions. The first is the optimal allocation of ethanol between …

Ethnic Difference In Healthcare Delivery, Benny Mathew Varghese

Department of Industrial and Management Systems Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Quality in healthcare is a very important aspect; this is obtained when there is proper care provided to the patients without any discrimination. The healthcare system in the US can be improved in the fields of patient’s care, the amount of money spent and proper advice, if proper responsibilities are taken. Quality has been improving over the years, but the median by which there is an increase is too small. The other main factor is access to the healthcare system, which has over the year, has not progressed. Studies in healthcare quality should be conducted on a regular base, so …

Economic Analysis Of Continuous Monitoring Of Commercial Truck Tire Pressure Using Tire Pressure Monitoring Systems (Tpms) And Rfid Technologies, Afolabi A. Ogunwemimo

Department of Industrial and Management Systems Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The trucking industry is a major contributor to the US economy. By providing the essential services of transportation and distribution needed in today’s dynamic industry, the transportation industry has evolved into an integral player in various supply chains. The trucking industry is the largest transportation provider for other industries and employs 10.1 million workers in the United States (ATA, 2003).

This research is an analysis of the economic impact of maintaining proper air pressure in the tires of commercial trucks. Various studies have been carried out on understanding the relationship between tire pressure and fuel consumption (National Research Council, 2006). …

Electronic Monitoring Of Hand Hygiene Compliance In An Inpatient Hospital Setting, Christopher M. Masek

Department of Industrial and Management Systems Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Proper hand hygiene is known to reduce hospital acquired infections. Currently the most widely accepted method used to measure hand hygiene compliance is through direct observation. This method often provides data that may not accurately represent true hand hygiene compliance due to such factors such as the Hawthorne Effect. Perhaps a better approach is to use counting devices to capture hand hygiene opportunities and activities. This thesis focuses on the measurement of hand hygiene activities of all individuals that either work or visit an inpatient medical ward including healthcare workers, patients and visitors at the patient’s bedside for non-isolation patients. …

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 …