24 research outputs found
The Decisions To Make (In An Advertising Agency)
No full textThis case is about Mr. Pranay Bharadwaj who with his hard word rose to an entrepreneur and initiated Total Advertising after understanding the advertising trade. In the case author has made an effort to understand the need of customers in the changing times. At the time of this problem Mr. Pranay put emphasis on research parameters to use it as a tool of decision making thus leading to customer satisfaction
Efficient learning and planning using spatial side information
No full textThis thesis investigates the following question: how to efficiently integrate side information, available either a priori or online, with existing algorithms for learning and planning in environments with stochastic features? Side information in this context refers to any information that does not directly determine system parameters, but indicates a relationship between them. Such information can often be obtained from existing data, including that collected by onboard sensors. Algorithms that exploit side information are of interest in solving many real-world problems that can be modeled as stochastic control processes with unknown transition probabilities or unknown transition times. Specifically, we consider the problems of reward maximization in grid-world environments with unknown, stochastic dynamics and travel time minimization in urban transit routing problems with deterministic dynamics and stochastic travel times. Exploiting additional information available to solve these problems, when classical algorithms leave much to be desired in terms of performance and accuracy, is the main theme of this thesis.
The first part of the thesis proposes the idea of indirect sampling for accelerated learning in Markov decision processes when additional information is available in the form of bounds on the differences between the transition probabilities at different states. In addition, it proposes a greedy approximation algorithm that utilizes the additional side information to effectively balance exploration and exploitation. It also analyzes the performance of indirect sampling algorithms in different information settings and defines the notion of agent safety, a vital consideration for systems operating in the physical environment, in the context of our problem. Under certain assumptions, it provides guarantees on the safety of an agent exploring with our algorithm that exploits side information.
The second part proposes a methodology and a tool that, given an origin-destination pair, a travel time budget, and a measure of the passenger's tolerance for ambiguity, provide the optimal online route choice in a transit network by balancing the objectives of maximizing on-time arrival probability and minimizing expected travel time. This framework is a significant improvement over existing algorithms where the problem of optimal routing in urban transit networks is usually studied with only the least expected travel time as the performance criteria under the assumption of travel time independence on different road segments. The proposed algorithm utilizes side information, available in the form of historic travel time data and upstream real-time data, to build and update the underlying model online.
We demonstrate the utility and the performance of the proposed algorithms with the help of realistic numerical experiments conducted (i) on a fixed-route bus system that serves the residents of the Champaign-Urbana metropolitan area and, (ii) in the setting of a Mars rover navigating on unknown or partially known terrain. In both of these problems, data from onboard sensors and external sources acts as the side information.Submission published under a 24 month embargo labeled 'U of I Access', the embargo will last until 2022-12-01The student, Pranay Thangeda, accepted the attached license on 2020-12-07 at 20:36.The student, Pranay Thangeda, submitted this Thesis for approval on 2020-12-07 at 21:47.This Thesis was approved for publication on 2020-12-09 at 15:15.DSpace SAF Submission Ingestion Package generated from Vireo submission #16086 on 2021-03-04 at 16:20:43Made available in DSpace on 2021-03-05T21:42:51Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2
THANGEDA-THESIS-2020.pdf: 2804943 bytes, checksum: 7ceb6a1733dd8f8ba27f08e2bb31d0a0 (MD5)
LICENSE.txt: 4212 bytes, checksum: 1604efe3ab15ae4102972a9c2dbfde93 (MD5)
Previous issue date: 2020-12-09Embargo set by: Seth Robbins for item 117236
Lift date: 2023-03-05T21:43:00Z
Reason: Author requested U of Illinois access only (OA after 2yrs) in Vireo ETD systemAuthor requested U of Illinois access only (OA after 2yrs) in Vireo ETD systemU of I Onl
Best practices for effective implementation of project strategy
No full textThis graduation research is carried out to investigate the problem of effective implementation of project strategy. The problem description is the following: Companies executing EPC projects in energy and chemicals industry encounter bottlenecks in effectively implementing project strategy. Based on this a research question is formulated: How can best practices related to strategy improve project strategy implementation in an EPC company? The main research objective is to explore the best practices to improve project strategy implementation within EPC projects. This research is divided into three phases. In the first phase, literature review is conducted to a) gain insight and understanding into the practices of implementation of project strategy, b) to understand the impact of the main aspects on project strategy and its implementation and c) provide a guideline for protocols for interviews in the second phase. The following ten aspects as influential in implementation of project strategy have been determined: communication, tools & methods, resources, recognition, benefits, structure, culture, leadership, decisions and actions. In the second phase, 7 project managers and project directors of Fluor Corporation, all subject-matter experts in project execution in the EPC industry, were interviewed. The interviews have been performed to understand the practice of implementing project strategy in an EPC project, resulting in the following list of main issues with implementation of project strategy; global office communication, shared understanding, strategy-operation alignment, and bottom-up ownership. In the ultimate phase (third) suitable best practices (tools and techniques) were selected to counter the main 4 issues based on an extensive literature study. These are as follows: planned communication, scrum, gamification, dialogue-mapping, balanced scorecard, informal leadership, and client-centric team development
Facade User Archetypes: Exploring the potential of self designed facade-user Archetypes in personalization of external shading systems in office buildings
No full textBuilding envelopes are extremely significant in providing adequate indoor environment. They have tremendous impact on the energy requirements of buildings. The design methodology associated with building envelopes primarily addresses optimization for improving indoor environmental quality and energy efficiency of the buildings. This process does not account for the variance between occupant preferences and their importance on the various indoor environmental quality domains. The design of a building envelope has been found to significantly impact the well being of building occupants. This research proposes a user-centered design approach that evaluates the factors influencing occupant comfort and preferences. To achieve this, facade user-archetypes are employed to personalize building shading systems for users. The multi-domain impact of building envelopes and external shades is studied to determine the environmental domains associated with shading systems. A classification scheme is developed for shading systems on the basis of their operation, placement, interaction and permeability. Next, shading system parameters are evaluated through geometry, materiality and control to understand which design parameters have the highest influence on occupant comfort and energy performance. To accurately capture the multi-domain influence of shading systems, the shading systems are simulated within a model space using the EnergyPlus and Radiance engines. The simulation results are stored in a data-set that cross evaluates shading system performance across 8 orientations and for occupants at specific spacing from the window. A systematic literature review is conducted to identify factors impacting occupant preferences and current clustering methods for user archetypes. Based on this, an occupant preference framework is created and used to design a questionnaire. The questionnaire is distributed to office workers and individuals in different settings to evaluate their preferences. The responses received from the questionnaire are analysed using correlation and ANOVA test is used to evaluate which occupant characteristics show a higher correlation to certain preferences and environmental preferences. Based on the results, feature set iterations are developed which are processed further for dimensionality reduction. The feature set that captures the maximum occupant characteristics with a reliable explained variance is clustered using hierarchical clustering and K-means clustering algorithms. The clusters resulting from the analysis form the archetypes, which are then utilized in design scenarios. The weights and preferences of the archetypes are incorporated to determine the most suitable shading system for the occupants. Scenarios are developed to use supervised / semi-supervised learning methods to predict the archetype of new users based on existing archetypes formed. The findings demonstrate a high accuracy of the archetypes in recommending shading systems based on the assigned environmental importance and visual preferences of individual users. The research highlights that each user has unique preferences, which can lead to different design recommendations based on their responses. Furthermore, the research showcases the practical implementation of archetypes in designing spaces and emphasizes their potential application in future facade design and control systems.Architecture, Urbanism and Building Sciences | Building Technolog
Study on Dy0.45Ba0.05Sr0.5Co0.8Fe0.2O3-δ–Ce0.85Gd0.15O1.95 composite cathode material for intermediate temperature solid oxide fuel cell
No full textTuning for Quantum Speedup in Directed Lackadaisical Quantum Walks
No full textQuantum walks constitute an important tool for designing quantum algorithms
and information processing tasks. In a lackadaisical walk, in addition to the
possibility of moving out of a node, the walker can remain on the same node
with some probability. This is achieved by introducing self-loops,
parameterized by self-loop strength , attached to the nodes such that large
implies a higher likelihood for the walker to be trapped at the node. In
this work, {\it directed}, lackadaisical quantum walks is studied. Depending on
, two regimes are shown to exist -- one in which classical walker dominates
and the other dominated by the quantum walker. In the latter case, we also
demonstrate the existence of two distinct scaling regimes with for quantum
walker on a line and on a binary tree. Surprisingly, a significant
quantum-induced speedup is realized for large . By tuning the initial state,
the extent of this speedup can be manipulated
Study on structural refinement and electrochemical behaviour of Ba0.5Sr0.5Co0.8Fe0.2O3−δ as cathode materials for intermediate temperature solid oxide fuel cells (IT-SOFC)
No full text
Systematic Pore Characterization of Sub-Bituminous Coal from Sohagpur Coalfield, Central India Using Gas Adsorption Coupled with X-ray Scattering and High-Resolution Imaging
No full textPore characterization helps to estimate the coalbed methane recovery and carbon storage potential of the reservoir. Earlier research on the characteristics of coal pores has shown that coal has high hydrocarbon storage potential in the adsorbed state, but few studies have shown the influence of chemical heterogeneities and depth on the adsorption potential of the coal. With the objective of studying the effect of chemical variation, depth, and surface roughness on gas adsorption potential, this study combines coal composition analysis and adsorption-based pore characterization of coal and shale samples coupled with high-resolution imaging and X-ray scattering measurements. Variation in pore features is correlated with varying depth and composition. A decrease in the mesopore volume and surface area is observed with an increase in the depth and total organic content and inverse behavior is observed for micropores. Scanning electron microscopy images depict the change in the pore shape from semi-spherical OM pores to elongated pores with depth, and samples with high mineral content show a dominance of inter- and intraparticle pores. Fractal dimension values estimated from SAXS are notably higher than N2-LPGA-derived values (i.e.,─DS > DN) due to the incorporation of inaccessible pores, which reflects an increase of up to 62% in SAXS estimated mesopore volume and surface area. This study will provide a better approach to understand the impact of composition, depth, and surface roughness over the gas storage potential in coal reservoirs.Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work publicApplied Geophysics and Petrophysic
