A simulated inner-city training scenario was found to increase skills in the area of turning when compared with a simulated off-track training scenario. To answer this question, two groups of ten participants (5 women and 5 men) were tested using three scripted scenarios focusing on left and right turns. The first training scenario (control group) is an off-track training scenario, which consists of a large asphalt lot and the use of orange cones; the second training scenario (experimental group) is an inner-city training scenario without the presence of vehicular traffic; and the third scenario (test scenario) is an inner-city scenario with the presence of vehicular traffic. A subject matter expert, who is also a former driver and trainer, evaluated and scored all participants on four critical turns (2 left and 2 rights). The apparatus used for this study was the V-sim non-motion simulator from General Electric (GE). A 2 x 4 factorial analysis was utilized to examine conditional differences as well as gender differences. While there were no gender differences, the results for overall turns were significant, F(1, 16) = 7.14, p = .017, η2 = 3.09. The mean for the control group was (M = 20.50, SD = 9.59) with the experimental group at, (M = 31.10, SD = 7.26).

Developing training scenarios that induce a trainee to utilize specific skills is one of the facets of simulation-based training that requires significant effort. Simulation-based training systems have become more complex in recent years. Because of this added complexity, the amount of effort required to generate and maintain training scenarios has increased. This thesis describes an investigation into automating the scenario generation process. The Automated Scenario Generation System (ASGS) generates expected action flow as contexts in chronological order from several events and tasks with estimated time for the entire training mission. When the training objectives and conditions are defined, the ASGS will automatically generate a scenario, with some randomization to ensure no two equivalent scenarios are identical. This makes it possible to train different groups of trainees sequentially who may have the same level or training objectives without using a single scenario repeatedly. The thesis describes the prototype ASGS and the evaluation results are described and discussed. SVSTM Desktop is used as the development infrastructure for ASGS as prototype training system.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

Prior to 1980, the practice in multilevel autorack management was to load the railcars at various origin points, ship them to the destination ramps, unload them, and then return each car to the loading point where it originated. Recognizing the inefficiency of such a practice with respect to the fleet size that had to be maintained, and the associated poor utilization due to the excessive empty miles logged, a consolidation of the railcars was initiated and completed by February 1982. Under this pooling program, a central management was established to control the repositioning of three types of empty railcars for eight principal automobile manufacturers. Today, the practice is to consolidate the fleets of all automobile manufacturers for each equipment type, and to solve the distribution problem of repositioning empty multilevel autoracks of each type from points at which they are unloaded to automobile assembly facilities where they need to be reloaded. Each such problem is referred to in the railroad industry as a repositioning scenario. In this dissertation, we present two tactical models to assist in the task of centrally managing the distribution of empty railcars on a day-to-day basis for each repositioning scenario. These models take into account various practical issues such as uncertainties, priorities with respect to time and demand locations, multiple objectives related to minimizing different types of latenesses in delivery, and blocking issues. It is also of great practical interest to the central management team to have the ability to conduct various sensitivity analyses in its operation. Accordingly, the system provides for the capability to investigate various what-if scenarios such as fixing decisions on running a specified block of cars (control orders) along certain routes as dictated by business needs, and handling changes in supplies, demands, priorities, and transit time characteristics. Moreover, the solution methodology provides a flexible decision-making capability by permitting a series of runs based on a sequential decision-fixing process in a real-time operational mode. A turn-around response of about five minutes per scenario (on a Pentium PC or equivalent) is desired in practice. This dissertation begins by developing several progressive formulations that incorporate many practical considerations in the empty railroad car distribution planning system. We investigate the performance of two principal models in this progression to gain more insights into the implementation aspects of our approach. The first model (TDSS1: Tactical Decision Support System-1) considers all the identified features of the problem except for blocking, and results in a network formulation of the problem. This model examines various practical issues such as time and demand location-based priorities as well as uncertainty in data within a multiple objective framework. In the second model (TDSS2: Tactical Decision Support System-2), we add a substantial degree of complexity by addressing blocking considerations. Enforcement of block formation renders the model as a network flow problem with side-constraints and discrete side-variables. We show how the resulting mixed-integer-programming formulation can be enhanced via some partial convex hull constructions using the Reformulation-Linearization Technique (RLT). This tightening of the underlying linear programming relaxation is shown to permit the solution of larger problem sizes, and enables the exact solution of certain scenarios having 5,000 - 8,000 arcs. However, in order to accommodate the strict run-time limit requirements imposed in practice for larger scenarios having about 150,000 arcs, various heuristics are developed to solve this problem. In using a combination of proposed strategies, 23 principal heuristics, plus other hybrid variants, are composed for testing. By examining the performance of various exact and heuristic procedures with respect to speed of operation and the quality of solutions produced on a test-bed of real problems, we prescribe recommendations for a production code to be used in practice. Besides providing a tool to aid in the decision-making process, a principal utility of the developed system is that it provides the opportunity to conduct various what-if analyses. The effects of many of the practical considerations that have been incorporated in TDSS2 can be studied via such sensitivity analyses. A special graphical user interface has been implemented that permits railcar distributors to investigate the effects of varying supplies, demands, and routes, retrieving railcars from storage, diverting en-route railcars, and exploring various customer or user-driven fixed dispositions. The user has the flexibility, therefore, to sequentially compose a decision to implement on a daily basis by using business judgment to make suggestions and studying the consequent response prompted by the model. This system is currently in use by the TTX company, Chicago, Illinois, in order to make distribution decisions for the railroad and automobile industries. The dissertation concludes by presenting a system flowchart for the overall implemented approach, a summary of our research and provides recommendations for future algorithmic enhancements based on Lagrangian relaxation techniques. NOTE: (03/2011) An updated copy of this ETD was added after there were patron reports of problems with the file. / Ph. D.

Design reuse is an approach in which the creation of new designs is based on the identification of previously employed solutions and the incorporation of those into new contexts. This notion has been extensively studied especially by software engineers. This research seeks to support the reuse of design knowledge in the Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) community in creating new designs as it is generally argued that reuse has the potential to reduce development time and costs. Efforts to reuse design elements in HCI, often in the form of design patterns, are slowly emerging. This work seeks to facilitate the reuse of design knowledge in the form of claims. To achieve this goal, the notion of claim relationships—descriptions of connections between claims that emerge in design—is introduced as a mechanism to facilitate reuse. Claims relationships can be used to connect a collection of reusable claims so that they can be searched, understood, tailored, and integrated into new designs. A method for how to use the relationships is presented to aid in the creation of scenarios. Through a series of studies starting from the use of relationships to locate and reuse claims to the use of cards sets incorporating images and rationale for storyboards, the potential for relationships is demonstrated. These works inform the design and evaluation of a storyboarding tool called PIC-UP. PIC-UP is introduced as an example of how relationships can be utilized in the creation of storyboards made of reusable artifacts in the form of claims. Studies of PIC-UP position the tool as one that enables the reuse through the use of a storyboarding guide and social navigation by collecting and sharing claims. It shows potential in aiding novice and non-designers and can serve as a communication tool. / Ph. D.

By investigating the social and environmental politics that are embodied in service robots, I show how both the laboratory culture and wider society expect their own respective values and environmental cultures to displace the other. This dissertation highlights the importance of understanding how robotics laboratories and larger society mutually transform each other, using a framework I call Laboratorization of Everyday Life. I analyze how the development of robotics involves a mutual transformation of the robot, the laboratory, and particular values and norms involving education, gender, class, body image, and living spaces in the society the laboratory is embedded within. Actors in laboratories are not hermetically sealed, but fully part of society. Similarly, actors in society change their everyday environments to better conform to laboratory settings, in order to make the wider world "useful" for technological innovation. People living in modern society are actually living in a semi-laboratory, which is embedded within the robot's technological default settings regarding values and environment, which are selected by the laboratory's engineers and designers. By conducting trial and error in everyday life, robot users have agency to re-mold service robots and norms built into their design and technological capacities. That is, the users are also able to rebuild and reinterpret values and environmental cultures inside their service robots. Ultimately, my dissertation offers a potential perspective on how robotics laboratories and larger society work together through robots to open lines of trustful communication between scientific, social, and political communities. / Doctor of Philosophy / Using a robot in everyday life requires many things, including lighting, sounds, noise, room temperature, knowledge, proper usage, and expectations about the robot. Since a robot is a creation of the laboratory, roboticists bake assumptions, such as environmental settings, gender bias, racism, norms, and values, into the robot. When users use the robot in their everyday life, they have to modify their everyday environments, understandings, concepts, and values to fit with the assumptions already in it. Hence, roboticists, users, and the robot transform everyday life into a semi-laboratory: a society that embodies the selected assumptions from the robotics laboratory. In order to examine this phenomenon, I propose a framework I call the "Laboratorization of Everyday Life". I analyze how the development of robotics involves a mutual transformation of the robot, the laboratory, and particular values and norms involving education, gender, class, body image, and living spaces in the society the robot is embedded within. Actors in laboratories are not hermetically sealed off, but fully part of society.  I argue that people living in modern society are actually living in a semi-laboratory, which is embedded within the robot's technological default settings regarding social values and environment, which are selected by the laboratory's engineers and designers. Although modern society is embedded within the selected values from the laboratory, people still have agency to accept, modify, rewrite, and reject the assumptions coming with the robot. By conducting trial and error in everyday life, users have agency to re-mold robots and norms built into their design and technological capacities. That is, the users are also able to rebuild and reinterpret values and environmental cultures inside their robots. This framework shows how robotics laboratories and larger society work together through robots to open lines of communication between scientific, social, and political communities.

I define the Taiwan issue as the tense relationship between mainland China and Taiwan since 1949. The tension used to arise from the belligerency between the Kuomintang and the Chinese Communist Party. In the past decade, Taiwan increasingly sought to define its own national identity and international status, but faced diplomatic and military pressures from mainland China, which has insisted that Taiwan is part of China. The relationship between mainland China and Taiwan has been one of the most important issues regarding the peace and security in the Asia-Pacific region. In order to explore the Taiwan issue, this research will examine the interactions among the United States, Taiwan, and mainland China in the realist perspective of international relations. The main research questions are: What determines the costs and benefits of the security decisions of the United States, Taiwan, and mainland China regarding the Taiwan issue? What decisions should the players make based on their costs and benefits? How do these decisions form various scenarios leading to different outcomes? How have the relations among the United States, Taiwan, and mainland China evolved since 1949? This thesis is organized as follows. First, an examination of the interactions among the three players---the United States, Taiwan and mainland China---in a game theoretical model explores the costs and benefits of their security decisions and the formation of various security scenarios in the Taiwan Strait. Second, the evolution of security in the Taiwan Strait is reviewed and analyzed by applying the game theoretical model to the history of the Taiwan issue. Third, based on the game theoretical model, I make some speculations and predictions on the future relations between mainland China and Taiwan. / Master of Arts

A Case Study Using Scenario-based Design Tools and Techniques in the Formative Evaluation Stage of Instructional Design: Prototype Evaluation and Redesign of a Web-Enhanced Course Interface. The main purpose of this study was to augment the formative evaluation process of instructional design through the incorporation of scenario-based design tools and strategies that focus on interface design. The test population was students from undergraduate "human development" courses at Virginia Tech, approximately 250 students. One prototype of a course web interface was tested and revised based on data collected during the formative evaluation process. The scenario data provided rationale for redesign considerations. / Ph. D.