Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / Multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) methods have evolved over the past several decades. In today’s world with rapidly growing industries, MCDM has proven to be significant in many application areas. In this study, a decision-making model is devised using reinforcement learning to carry out multi-criteria optimization problems. Learning automata algorithm is used to identify an optimal solution in the presence of single and multiple environments (criteria) using pareto optimality. The application of this model is also discussed, where the model provides an optimal solution to the food, energy, and water systems (FEWS) problem.

No description available.

Rising levels of urbanization and technological advancements has led to a shift towards dependence on energy consuming devices, machineries, and electrical appliances both for personal and productive use. This has led to higher demand for electricity services and more pressure on power supply facilities. Many sub-Saharan African countries are finding it difficult to cope with the pressure of sustaining energy facilities while providing for the existing demand in a sustainable way. The study focused on the use of Multi Criteria decision models for selecting suitable sites for solar energy infrastructure establishment in Nigeria. The study answered three main questions including 1). What are the various considerations required for the establishment of the suitable land surfaces for solar power plants in Nigeria? 2). What are the spatial extents and estimate the potential land area that can host a renewable energy power plant based on established scenarios? 3). What is the possible contribution of each suitable land area to energy production? Secondary data was acquired for consideration of various criteria including the climatic, environmental, socio economic and geomorphological factors. The various datasets were scaled in order of importance and weighed among each other to produce a suitability map. The output was classified into 5 major suitability classes with certain protected areas totally restricted from the analysis. The suitable areas were labeled 1 to 5 from Unfeasible to Most Feasible. The largest land area was covered by the “Highly Visible” class while the part of the country with highest power production potential was the “Most Feasible” class. The study was able to present a good criteria model that can be useful for countries with similar demography.

No description available.

Schools of business within the Florida State University system have state-mandated common prerequisites that students are required to complete prior to formal admission into baccalaureate business programs. As such, the common prerequisites serve as minimum admission requirements for schools of business in the state of Florida. This study sought to determine the ability of these discipline specific admission criteria to predict academic performance in upper-level business coursework. This study looked at existing data for 860 students in the College of Business Administration at the University of Central Florida. Findings of the study demonstrate that there is a positive and moderate to strong correlation between the final grade earned in each individual course within the common prerequisites and the cumulative academic performance in upper-level business coursework. The strength of the correlation varied among the individual prerequisites, however, each individual prerequisite was positively correlated. Regression findings also demonstrate that the common prerequisites may, with certain student populations such as native students and students pursuing quantitative business majors, be a rather effective predictor of program performance. Most problematic of the findings was that the predictive ability was not equivalent across different student populations. This suggests that as admission criteria or screening mechanisms designed to select students most likely to be successful in the program, the state-mandated common prerequisites were not effective for all student populations. Findings of this study have implications for schools of business, as well as other disciplines, as they evaluate the common prerequisites required by their institution or consider best practices and policies to improve student retention, graduation, and other outcomes.

This essay is a study of the government bills for a new grading scale in the Swedish schools. There have been many complaints about the current grading scale and the main problem seems to be that teachers are interpreting the criteria for certificates differently. There are two major challenges for Swedish teachers, one is how to interpret the criteria for certificates, the other one is the equality problem , students can not be sure of that two different teachers would give the same grades. The main point of the essay is to try to find out whether the new grading scale will solve this problem. To my help I have made an analysis of the bills of the Swedish government for the new grading scale. I have used two theories in my essay to help me in my analysis; these theories are radical behaviourism and cognitive theory. The conclusions of my analysis are that the new grading scale and the new criteria for certificates will not make the problems with interpretation to disappear. I have also found out that the government in its writings tends to use more of the ideas of the radical behaviourism than before. This leads to a mixture of both behavioural and cognitive thoughts about knowledge in the government bills for a reformed school. This might partly explain the difficulties with constructing more useable criteria for certificates.

The purpose of this study was to determine to what extent student performance has been influenced by historical events, legislative mandates, and accreditation processes. This study consists of comparing the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools accreditation processes with those of the Association of Christian Schools International. In completing this qualitative study, the following procedures were implemented: Related research was used to provide a background of the role that historical events, legislation, and accreditation processes have on student performance; data were collected to establish time line shifts in an historical perspective. The data collected included assessment, accountability, high school drop out rates, high school graduation rates, academic readiness for higher education, standardized testing, grade inflation, acceleration of dual enrollment and advanced placement courses, and national SAT and ACT averages. Data were also collected from historical record of accreditation processes, which included standards, teacher certification requirements, committee responsibilities, visiting team responsibilities, and self-study materials. As a result of content analysis, the researcher decided to focus on three key areas that were integral to the study. The three categories identified in the review of literature were used to analyze the content of these events and processes. The categories were: (a) Student Performance, (b) Historical Events, and (c) SACS and ACSI Accreditation Processes. The following results were obtained from this research. Findings indicated that a criterion-based accreditation process potentially results in more consistent student performance outcomes than an open-ended process.

The ability to test software is invaluable in all areas of computer science, but it is often neglected in computer science curricula. Test adequacy criteria (TAC), tools that measure the effectiveness of a test suite, have been used as aids to improve software testing teaching practices, but little is known about how students respond to them. Studies have examined the cognitive processes of students programming and professional developers writing tests, but none have investigated how student testers test with TAC. If we are to improve how they are used in the classroom, we must start by understanding the different ways that they affect students’ thought processes as they write tests. In this thesis, we take a grounded theory approach to reveal the underlying cognitive processes that students utilize as they test under no feedback, condition coverage, and mutation analysis. We recorded 12 students as they thought aloud while creating test suites under these feedback mechanisms, and then we analyzed these recordings to identify the thought processes they used. We present our findings in the form of the phenomena we identified, which can be further investigated to shed more light on how different TAC affect students as they write tests. i

Advanced engineering materials are designed to display tensile-compressive asymmetry (TCA) and anisotropy to provide unique attributes to critical components necessary in the hot section of turbines. The never-ending chase for higher efficiencies, and with them, higher temperature gradients, intrinsically leads to more and more of these complex materials, like single crystal turbine blades, embedded within the turbine environment. Mathematical models, known as yield criteria, allow engineers to visualize the mechanical behavior of these materials in various orientations under complex loading. Yield criteria are dependent on three key items in determination of their governing parameters: material test data, mathematical constraints, and knowledge about the examined materials microstructure in order to predict the materials attributes (Anisotropy, Tensile-Compressive Asymmetry). The optimization of the modeling parameters governing constitutive modeling of TCA and anisotropic material has been a semi- active area of research in the last decade. As such, there is a deficit of repeatable, robust, and more efficient techniques present within the literature surrounding determination of the yield criteria parameters surrounding nickel-base superalloys. Research is proposed to derive a novel way to identify yield surface parameters. Meshing proven algorithms with a vast material database, identifying the overall best modeling parameters, and reducing the required physical testing will be of fundamental concern. The inherent reduction of lab time, and accompanied cost of experimentation, will allow the user to make use of the test data more efficiently. Implementing the constant determination approach will be facilitated by developed MATLAB code, providing an easy and centralized environment for identifying and parameterizing a repeatable yield surface representing the user uploaded anisotropic and TCA material.

Traditional mortise and tenon timber frames have been used in modern construction for a substantial period of time with acceptable performance against weather phenomena and other hazards. However, performance criteria for this style of timber framing are not well defined in current codes and standards. To determine performance criteria for free-standing timber frames with knee-braces, three tasks were undertaken: (1) Two timber frame specimens were tested under cyclic loads to determine hysteretic behavior, damage states, and to explore rehabilitation of a damaged member using self-tapping screws. Three damage states for were identified: peg shear, tenon tearout, and post or beam splitting. Self-tapping screws were able to restore the strength of the 2-peg timber frame with the damaged beam, but not the stiffness of the frame. (2) Four timber frame mortise and tenon connection specimens were subjected to damp conditions for six months and then tested under monotonic tensile load to determine the effect of joint details. The results indicated that connection types tested had similar strength and stiffness. (3) Twelve free-standing timber frames with knee braces located at various sites across the United States were tested in the field under impulse loading to determine the fundamental period of vibration and to estimate damping. A relationship between the fundamental period and the mean roof height was fit to the test data using a power-law equation, and three sets of parameters were determined: a lower-bound equation for seismic loads, an upper-bound equation for wind loads, and mean equation for human-induced vibration performance criteria.