1,721,039 research outputs found
Implementation of lean in educational institutions
No full textThe author has granted permission for their work to be available to the general public.Lean philosophy is proven to be a success in manufacturing environment, where organizations are driven to provide more value to the customers with fewer resources. With the significant success that Lean has achieved, non-manufacturing settings such as service industry and healthcare industry have also been greatly benefited from Lean implementation. Yet one industry which is suffering a lot in terms of service efficiency and failure to adapt to changing customer's demands is Educational Institutions (EI), has largely escaped the radar of lean. The dearth of quality literature can be the hindrance for institutions trying to implement lean initiatives. The purpose of this thesis work is to examine the Lean implementation in EI. This thesis looks at major processes in an educational institution and classifies them into clusters of processes depending on the nature of the process. These clusters of processes are identified as paper and electronic based processes, teaching processes and physical processes. This thesis dwells into each of these clusters by understanding how the processes are performed and the problems confronted with each of these processes. After which a concerted effort is made in proposing the lean tools needed to make those processes Lean, i.e., efficient and effective. The research presents a unique and holistic way of implementing lean in all the processes of educational institution rather than trying to deal with each process separately as random improvement initiatives (or Rapid Improvement Efforts), which are difficult to sustain over a long period of time.Mechanical Engineerin
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
The Design and Optimization of an Additively Manufactured Electrochemical Flow Cell
No full textThe full text of this item is not available at this time because the author has placed this item under an embargo until September 11, 2026.This thesis investigates the enhancement of electrochemical flow cells through additive manufacturing techniques, focusing on modular design and fluid dynamics optimization. A five-phase Design Measure Analyze Improve Control (DMAIC) process was used to develop a scalable design that supports cyclic flow rates of 6 liters per minute and accommodates ergonomic operation within glovebox environments. A material study evaluated the chemical resistance and structural integrity of five materials for use in various components of the cell: Grade II Titanium, Grade V Titanium, FormLabs Rigid 10k Resin, FormLabs Clear V4 Resin, and polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF). FormLabs’ Rigid 10k resin proved chemically resilient against aqueous cerium (IV) nitrate, with mass and morphology alterations less than 1%, and was used to prototype components of the flow cell. SLA printing parameters are documented, based on experience with FormLabs’ Rigid 10k, and additive manufacturing enabled the design of a unique internal flow network in modular cell design. A Design Failure Mode and Effects Analysis captured five risk areas to safeguard for modularity, including: flow channel design, fluid leaks, operational damage, material strength, and ergonomics. An analysis of pressure drops and surface roughness in 3D-printed flow channels found that elbowed and straight channel geometries could combine to optimize spatial design without incurring turbulent flow in modular designs. O-Rings were incorporated into a novel electrochemical cell assembly to ensure a proper sealing in the design. Finite Element Analysis simulations informed ways to improve the ergonomics of sealing components. Inlet port attachments were incorporated to buffer damage from operational use. Ultimately a modular cell was successfully designed and fabricated for bulk processing.Mechanical Engineerin
A Data-Driven Approach to Improve the Quality of Radiologist's Chest X-Ray Scanning
No full textThe author has granted permission for their work to be available to the general public.Perceptual errors in radiography account for most errors encountered while scanning Chest X-rays, leading to most misdiagnosed. In this scenario, radiologists train themselves in such a way that they develop their search-pattern strategy. These strategies, however, are untrustworthy due to a lack of quantitative descriptions and are not transferable. Therefore, we propose the use of a spatiotemporal feature encoding method. This method divides eye-fixation data into multiple temporal bins and is used by machine learning classifiers to distinguish between two radiologists, one expert and one novice. Classifiers using the proposed methodology outperform the current state-of-the-art in differentiating between the two radiologists. Following that, we propose an educational framework for improving scan quality. Radiologists receive appropriate feedback on quality metrics like their heterogeneity in scanning X-rays and how long it takes to complete a full scan. The number of interruptions made per scan, how much of the area of interest they covered, how accurate they were in identifying an area of interest within a scan, and finally, a complete summary of their performance throughout the training period. To achieve this goal, we used eye-gaze data collected by eye-tracking technology. This educational framework not only helps radiologists improve the quality of their Chest X-ray scans, but it also helps them develop more accurate search patterns based on the assessed metrics. The findings demonstrate the effectiveness of feedback and intervention in improving radiologists' skills and accuracy levels after four sessions and the usefulness of continuous improvement in the healthcare system.Mechanical Engineerin
Modeling Urban Scale Occupancy Behavior Profile Using Mobile Position Data and Analysing Energy Consumption for DOE Reference Building Types
Get PDFThe author has granted permission for their work to be available to the general public.The building sector consumes approximately 40% of all the energy in the United States. Studies find that a building’s occupancy behavior pattern is one of the primary driving forces behind energy consumption in the building. Hence, the accuracy and credibility of the occupant behavior model directly affect the energy simulation model; therefore, inaccurate results from occupant behavior models cause discrepancies between simulated and measured energy consumption. Thus, the accurate modeling of occupant behavior pattern is a significant challenge in the building energy and urban planning. In this thesis, urban scale occupant behavior profiles are modeled using mobile position data. Real world GPS logged mobile position data is used for extracting the building occupancy behavior profiles of 456 buildings in San Antonio, Texas. The occupancy profiles, which are modeled based on the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) commercial reference building types, are obtained separately for weekdays, Saturdays and other days. The occupancy behavior profile of each building being dynamic, the average occupancy patterns for each building category must be developed. Therefore, a computational neural network model – Long Short-Term Memory Recurrent Neural Network (LSTM RNN) is proposed in this thesis for modeling occupancy profiles for each building category. The input to the network is the normalized occupancy data extracted from each building of the same category and the output of the network provides the average occupancy profile for each building category. It is benchmarked against a single-layer Feed Forward Neural Network (FFNN). The accuracy of the predicted occupancy behavior profiles, measured as the distance of predicted to the average measured profile, is evaluated using the mean absolute percentage error (MAPE). The results show that the proposed prediction model achieves an average of 20% higher accuracy than the benchmarked model. Finally, to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed model, an energy performance model of DOE reference building types are simulated for a full year using whole building energy simulation software – EnergyPlus. Based on the proposed occupancy behavior profile, the schedules of HVAC, lighting, and equipment operations are revised. The results indicate that the energy savings achieved in each building category are up to 12%; the retrofit is implemented without adding any cost to the existing building model. Hence, the simulation results show that the occupancy profile using GPS logged mobile position data help to improve the building model accuracy.Mechanical Engineerin
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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