Thesiss

A new methodology is developed for modeling a system's evolution to support decisionmaking on alternative actions which affect the system's evolution. The methodology is based upon the goal tree success tree method for hierarchal decomposition of the system's objective. The goal…

This thesis focuses on production, inventory, warranty and quality control problem from both producer's and consumer's point of view. The purpose of this thesis is twofold. First, models for the producers which integrate lot sizing, warranty and quality improvement through preve…

This dissertation provides a more realistic approach to the probabilistic risk assessment (PRA) by considering the effects of partial failure with fuzzy logic modeling rather than the traditional PRA binary logic modeling. This is accomplished by using an integrated methodology …

Complete inspection plans have become increasingly important in the area of quality control due to the growth in modern manufacturing systems that makes complete inspection inexpensive and reliable. In the process of inspection, an inspector is likely to commit Type I and Type I…

A model based control strategy called the Internal Model Control (IMC) is popular in industrial process control applications due to its fine disturbance rejection capabilities and robustness. The tracking of the reference signals is a requirement in many applications. To accompl…

Variable Structure Control (VSC) with sliding mode is a special type of control technique that is capable of making a control system robust with respect to system parameter variations and external disturbances. The chattering of the VSC signal can be reduced by several methods. …

The Advanced Light Rail Transit (ALRT) system developed by the Urban B Transportation Development Corporation (UTDC) uses steel-wheeled vehicles which run on steel rails within a direct fixation track on a guideway. Propulsion and braking of the vehicles is by means of vehicle-b…

There are many systems in the field of biological systems, control systems and communication systems that can be represented by non-linear models. Identification of non-linear systems is a fundamental problem in the fields of control and communication systems. Many investigation…

The Internet brings many new features to the process control and automation field, which were previously difficult or costly to implement in traditional control systems, such as remote accessibility to the plant, information sharing, and software standardization. The Internet, h…

A methodology is presented along with an expert system program for evaluating the impact of animal traction at the farm level in a small-scale multi-cropping system. In its actual version, the expert system program applies to oxen cultivation using Ndama species in the Basse Cas…

An end-to-end approach for scheduling hard real-time periodic transactions in a multiprocessor or distributed system is presented. Each transaction consists of a chain of tasks, where each task is allocated to a processor based on its resource requirements. A transaction may vis…

Statistics show that the cost of control software for computer-integrated manufacturing systems and other discrete-event systems is on the rise. Some of the important reasons behind these facts are: non-reusability and inflexibility. In prior work, we developed a methodology for…

The USC Architect's Automated Assistant (AAA) tool and method version 0.1 [Abd-Allah 1996] provides a capability for early detection of software architectural style mismatches among four architectural styles: Main-Subroutine, Pipe-and-Filter, Event-Based, and Distributed Process…

Long hours of work while standing have been known to cause health problems for humans. Such professions include that of the barber. A survey was conducted in barber shops in the Dhahran area to determine the discomfort level of barbers. A workstation was then designed and constr…

In this thesis a systematic scheme is proposed to design fuzzy optimal controllers. The proposed scheme adjusts the parameters of the fuzzy controller using a gradient descent scheme in order to optimize a chosen performance criterion. The optimization is carried out employing a…

It is usually assumed that the parameters of an optimization problem to be known numbers or scalars. Accordingly, the objective function value is a scalar or a point value. However, in real life, the parameters may not be known exactly and all we know about them is that they fal…

In recent years there has been considerable interest in the area of artificial neural networks. One of the application areas of neural networks is in adaptive control systems. In this work, use of neural networks for direct self tuning control of deterministic and stochastic non…

Most modeling approaches in institutions of higher learning tend to be directed towards planning of human, financial, and physical resources in the higher levels of academic administration planning. However, these models cannot easily be applied at the departmental level. At the…

This study examined the attitudes and perceptions of staff members and administrators in the General Directorate for Private Institutes & Centers (GDPI&C), Training institutes, and Centers in Saudi Arabia toward Internet-based Electronic Data Interchange (I-EDI) in a public orga…

Conceptual design is an important phase of engineering design that transforms customer requirements into engineering characteristics and determines working mechanisms of the final product. It's a process of idea generation and decision-making. The decisions made in conceptual de…