The objectives of this research are threefold: (i) to develop a conceptual framework and a prototype in order to extend the application capability of a category of multiple objective decision support systems (MODSS) techniques; (ii) to explore the combined functionalities of knowledge-based...

The reality of pervasive computing has nearly been realized, if it has not already. Pervasive computing environments promise ubiquitous connectivity, a plethora of information, and seamless computing support. Despite the advances in infrastructure to deliver on Weiser's original vision for...

An individual s decision to place a close family member in a nursing home is both difficult and crucial. To assist consumers with such a decision, several initiatives have led to the creation of public websites designed to communicate quality indicators for nursing homes. However, a majority of...

This research focuses on developing a crop decision planning model to help farmers make decisions for an upcoming crop year. The decisions consist of which crops to plant, the amount of land to allocate to each crop, when to grow, when to harvest, and when to sell. The objective is to maximize...

Problem: Engineering design decisions require the integration of information from multiple and disparate sources. However, this information is often independently created, limited to a single perspective, and not formally represented, thus making it difficult to formulate decisions. Hence, the...

A look at today's US military will see them operating much beyond the scope of protecting and defending the United States. These operations now consist of, but are not limited to humanitarian aid, disaster relief, and conflict resolution. This broad spectrum of operational environments has...

In this thesis, a decision model for examining prescribed risk management practices in engineering design is presented. The decision model explicitly considers the effects that design decisions under uncertainty have on the overall utility of the design process. These effects are important to...

This thesis focuses on the developing of statistical methodology in reliability and quality engineering, and to assist the decision-makings at enterprise level, process level, and product level.In Chapter II, we propose a multi-level statistical modeling strategy to characterize data from...

The use of computer modeling is fast increasing in almost everyscientific, engineering and business arena. This dissertationinvestigates some challenging issues in design, modeling andanalysis of computer experiments, which will consist of four majorparts. In the first part, a new approach is...

This thesis studies two related topics in liner shipping. The first topic is the contract pricing problem for container carriers. The second part studies the interaction of the longer term contracts and the spot markets/exchanges for the same goods/services.Most containerized freight is...