The effects of prototype medium on the user's overall perception of usability and ability to detect usability flaws

Recent advances in the treatment of childhood cancer have resulted in more and healthier working survivors than ever before. However, the current organizational literature has not investigated concerns that this group of employees may have. This research is the first of its kind to assess the workplace experiences of childhood cancer survivors. Results indicate that childhood cancer survivors generally report positive workplace experiences, willingness to disclose that they are survivors at work, and high levels of social support. The level of disclosure was predicted by individual characteristics including the centrality of being a survivor to one's self-concept and perceived organizational support. Disclosing at work was related to positive workplace outcomes including higher job satisfaction, organizational commitment, person/organization fit and worker engagement, and lower job anxiety and turnover intentions. Support from coworkers strongly mediated the relationship between disclosure and workplace outcomes. Implications for organizations and employees are discussed.

Dynamics of wage determination of industrial employees

Unemployed engineers and diplomates

There is an increasing interest in research and development in the area of information security. Areas of computer misuse include the theft of computational resources, disruption of computational services, unauthorized disclosure of computer information and unauthorized modification of computer information. In the recent past decades, there have been myriads of computer security implementations. Nevertheless, there have also been numerous computer break-ins and security breaches. This is a thesis on Information Security Management in Web-Based Product Design and Realization, which is a sub-cluster of a broader currently on-going research project called Pegasus, at the Automation and Robotics Laboratory, University of Pittsburgh. Pegasus is a proposed scalable, flexible, and efficient collaborative web-based (or Internet-oriented) product design system, which will involve continuous transfer of sensitive information across seamless and possibly, international boundaries. The thesis commences with a statement of the problem of information security and presents a comprehensive summary of previous and current related research along with applicable results and application areas. With the dawn of the 21st century upon us and use of the Internet growing exponentially, secrecy in the realm of technology has become an important issue. A managerial approach for alleviating the problem of information security or reducing it to the barest minimum is proposed in this thesis through the design and development of an Information Security Management Model (ISM Model) to monitor, enforce and manage information security. The design of the ISM Model incorporates a methodology for referencing activities in Pegasus with information security technologies.

Designs are conceptualized in terms of the functions they need to accomplish. The need for a new product design arises as a result of the identification of a new functionality to be accomplished by the product. That is, design is functionality driven. However, existing CAD tools are not equipped to capture functionality or reason in such a fashion to support design for product functionality. This research proposes a new design formalism to enable functionality-driven design of mechanically engineered products. This procedure provides a methodology that allows a designer to model product functionality and to carry out conceptual design with the aid of a computer. It also serves as a bridging tool between the conceptual design phase and detailed design phase of a product. Thus, the primary objective of this research is to develop a methodology that will support the following activities in CAD systems: functionality modeling, functionality data structuring, and form conceptualization. The functionality modeling methodology developed in this work includes the use of operands, operators, and coupling bonds to describe product functionality in CAD systems. The Universal Modeling Language (an object-oriented programming technique) is used to model product functionality in computer systems. The tools developed in this research provide a means of modeling and propagating product functionality information to downstream design activities. The propagation of functionality as a constraint is achieved using Extensible Markup Language (XML) data files. These tools also provide a mechanism for verifying and enforcing constraints on solid CAD models. The functionality definition interface is implemented with a customized Microsoft Visio graphics engine. The tools developed in this research provide a means of modeling and propagating product functionality information to downstream design activities. It also provides a mechanism for verifying and enforcing constraints on solid CAD models. The functionality definition interface is implemented with a customized Microsoft Visio graphics engine.

The process of lapping has been long considered an art due to the tremendous amount of variability and subjectivity involved. The quality of lapping differs from operator to operator and the results are highly inconsistent. The material removal rate, surface finish, and flatness all depend on the proper control of lapping parameters such as lapping pressure, lapping speed of rotation, lap ring material, weight and size, abrasive size and type, workpiece material and hardness. To attain the desired outcomes, it is imperative to select proper values for the lapping control parameters. Moving the art of lapping into a science and quantifying the results can solve many of the above problems. In this research, a portable mechanical lapping tool was designed and tested along with manual lapping. Lapping processes were studied by conducting designed experiments, literature search, and consulting experts. The results from the experiments were explored in detail using various statistical techniques to explain the relationships among potential parameters and to see the possibility of lapping model development. A preliminary intelligent computerized lapping system (advisory system) was also developed as a framework for future work. Representative qualitative models and rules for lapping were proposed based on lapping literature and lapping experts knowledge. However, it was found that the domain knowledge obtained from different sources was often clouded by imprecision and uncertainty, and the available data of manufacturing problems were frequently imprecise and incomplete. To overcome this problem, fuzzy logic concepts were applied in developing a protocol for the knowledge-based system. This research is an initiative of well-designed experiments and data analyses in investigating potential parameters of flat surface lapping with an application on reconditioning valve discs and nozzle seats.

The purpose of this dissertation is to develop an instrument to measure the quality, quality changes and the efficiency of a service system with dependency loops on an ongoing basis in order to provide timely feedback for decision-makers and to set the basis for a continuous improvement cycle. This instrument is developed using an engineering educational system as the prime example. The first outcome has been a data driven Strengths and Weakness (SW) analysis. It consists of four steps - data collection, data summarization, display of proportions (data aggregated into positive, neutral and negative perceptions), and the construction of a SW table by using a set of heuristic rules that reflects the decision-maker's desired level of sensitivity for the methodology. The core of the method resides in selecting the category with the largest proportion for a finite population where each element is classified into exactly one of k mutually exclusive categories. The heuristic rules used for classification are justified using the concepts of statistical ranking and selection procedures. Applications of the SW table in cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses are given. Special graphs, e.g. the one-dimensional and two-dimensional arrows that help the analysis have been constructed so as to provide aid to the decision makers in the engineering educational system. The second outcome provides a scheme for the evaluation of the relative efficiency of processes within this type of service system. Data Envelopment Analysis has been used iteratively to evaluate the efficiency of levels and programs within an engineering educational service system. This is used to chart the changes in students' perceptions as they progress during their career from the freshmen to the senior level.

Cooperative query answering for approximate answers has been utilized in various problem domains. Many challenges in manufacturing information retrieval, such as: classifying parts into families in group technology implementation, choosing the closest alternatives or substitutions for an out-of-stock part, or finding similar existing parts for rapid prototyping, could be alleviated using the concept of cooperative query answering. Most cooperative query answering techniques proposed by researchers so far concentrate on simple queries or single table information retrieval. Query relaxations in searching for approximate answers are mostly limited to attribute value substitutions. Many hierarchical structure information systems, such as manufacturing information systems, store their data in multiple tables that are connected to each other using hierarchical relationships aggregation, generalization/specialization, classification, and category. Due to the nature of hierarchical structure information systems, information retrieval in such domains usually involves nested or jointed queries. In addition, searching for approximate answers in hierarchical structure databases not only considers attribute value substitutions, but also must take into account attribute or relation substitutions (i.e., WIDTH to DIAMETER, HOLE to GROOVE). For example, shape transformations of parts or features are possible and commonly practiced. A bar could be transformed to a rod. Such characteristics of hierarchical information systems, simple query or single-relation query relaxation techniques used in most cooperative query answering systems are not adequate. In this research, we proposed techniques for neighbor knowledge constructions, and complex query relaxations. We enhanced the original Pattern-based Knowledge Induction (PKI) and Distribution Sensitive Clustering (DISC) so that they can be used in neighbor hierarchy constructions at both tuple and attribute levels. We developed a cooperative query answering model to facilitate the approximate answer searching for complex queries. Our cooperative query answering model is comprised of algorithms for determining the causes of null answer, expanding qualified tuple set, expanding intersected tuple set, and relaxing multiple condition simultaneously. To calculate the semantic nearness between exact-match answers and approximate answers, we also proposed a nearness measuring function, called Block Nearness, that is appropriate for the query relaxation methods proposed in this research.

This research addresses the application of lean manufacturing concepts to the continuous production/ process sector with a focus on the steel industry. The goal of this research is to investigate how lean manufacturing tools can be adapted from the discrete to the continuous manufacturing environment, and to evaluate their benefits on a specific application instance. Although the process and discrete industry share several common characteristics, there are areas where they are very different. Both manufacturing settings have overlap, but at the extreme, each has its unique characteristics. This research attempts to identify commonalities between discrete and continuous manufacturing where lean techniques from the discrete side are directly applicable. The ideas are tested on a large steel manufacturing company (referred to as ABS). Value stream mapping is used to first map the current state and then used to identify sources of waste and to identify lean tools to try to eliminate this waste. The future state map is then developed for a system with lean tools applied to it. To quantify the benefits gained from using lean tools and techniques in the value stream mapping, a detailed simulation model is developed for ABS and a designed experiment is used to analyze the outputs of the simulation model for different lean configurations. Generalizations of the results are also provided.