No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

The traditional acquisition and development cycles of a weapon system by government agencies go through multiple stages throughout the product's life cycle. Over the last few decades, much of the United States military equipment has experienced acquisition cost growth. Many studies by the Department of Defense indicate that the cost growth is a result of multiple factors, including the development and manufacturing stages of the product. Organizations with multiple operation sites across multiple states, countries, and continents find it increasingly difficult to share informational databases to ensure corporate synergy between multiple sites or divisions. For such organizations, there exists a need to synchronize the operations and have a standard and common database where all relevant design and product data is stored and equally accessed by different sites with proper authorization. In one way, Digital transformation sounds exotic and futuristic and promises to reduce the operating costs of big organizations. Digital Transformation remains a challenging proposition that requires investment to set up the infrastructure for such a system to operate successfully. Along with the initial setup cost of the system, there needs to be a change in the culture of running the business in each entity to have that much-needed synergy across the multiple divisions or sites. In this study, we will examine the effect of Digital Transformation in general and utilize the Digital Thread specifically to mitigate the risk of the cost growth of military programs.

One of the logistic problems that is encountered by management is the planning of routing structures. Therefore the availability of decision-making tools that determine minimum cost routes is essential. The purpose of this dissertation is to obtain a tight lower bound on the cost of a routing plan, and to possibly obtain an optimal route, by enhancing graphical-construct-based Lagrangean relaxation methodology. This enhancement synthesizes Lagrangean relaxation with the well-established polyhedral theory which uses facet-inducing inequalities to describe the facial structure of the associated routing problem. The algorithmic enhancement that is developed and tested in this dissertation is demonstrated in the context of the minimum cost Hamiltonian path problem. The entire algorithmic procedure is based on recognizing and successively incorporating facet-inducing inequalities into the Lagrangean function. In this sense the procedure solves a sequence of Lagrangean duals each providing a tighter lower bound on the routing problem. Each Lagrangean dual has the node-degree constraints and a set of facet-inducing inequalities dualized. Central to the development of the sequence of Lagrangean duals is the ability to identify facet-inducing inequalities. A graphical-construct-based dual-ascent algorithm, which is also developed in this dissertation, solves each Lagrangean dual to optimality and obtains a solution that enables the identification of additional facet-inducing inequalities. This solution is either the optimal primal solution or else, a solution that violates some facet-inducing inequalities that are not subsumed in the subgraph structure nor in the set of dualized constraints. Computational testing of this exact algorithm reveals the distinction between theoretical duality gaps and 'solution technique induced' duality gaps. The work in this dissertation extends the state-of-the-art of graphical-construct-based solution methodologies in as far as the resolution of the duality gap is concerned. The primary significance of resolving the gap using facet-inducing inequalities is not only that the revealed gap is explained by (or due to) facet-inducing inequalities but also that optimal primal solutions can be obtained without resorting to enumeration. The inherent advantage afforded by retaining graphical structures, while incorporating the power of facet-inducing inequalities, is evidenced by the relatively small number of facets that were required to obtain optimal primal solutions.

The research outputs within this portfolio demonstrate sustained inquiry over seven years which has added progressively to the understanding of collaborative educational research contribution. This research developed out of my work with the iPED (inquiring pedagogies) research network which I co‐founded in 2005. The portfolio contextualizes and critiques four journal articles and two peer‐reviewed book chapters published between 2007 and 2012. Through these studies of educational research at Coventry University, I make a significant and original contribution to knowledge, firstly by synthesizing evidence of the facilitators, drivers and barriers to contribution within collaborative educational research; and secondly by offering three new models which help to make the contribution of collaborative educational research more transparent. The Influence Wheel provides a visualization of research contributions as an interactive image. The model can also reveal gaps in contribution, and can be adjusted to display the aspects of contribution of interest to an intended audience. Product‐Based Analysis provides a holistic view of the strategic drivers, goals and interim outcomes of research. This model can be used to analyze, develop, track or communicate a research strategy. Finally, the Enhanced Three‐Phase Model articulates the social and cultural transitions through which a collaborative educational research community may evolve. Used alongside an analysis framework I devised using themes from works of fiction, this model exposes the problems and opportunities a collaboration community may encounter. These three tools exemplify my creativity in devising new ways of visualizing information, an approach adapted from the field of management where graphics are commonly used to supplement text. Methodologically, all the portfolio outputs employ insider inquiry strategies which capture different perspectives on the research context. Conceptually, all the outputs offer social representations of collaborative educational research. These studies offer questions and interim findings which provide opportunities for future research.

6 pp. / This fact sheet describes research and research protocol with audiences on Indian reservations.