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Thesis: S.M. in Engineering and Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2017. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (page 47). / Big Data Analytics is an emerging business capability that is providing far more intelligence to the companies nowadays to make well-informed decisions and better formulate their business strategies. This has been made possible due to easy accessibility of immense volume of data stored in clouds in a secure manner. As a result, online product review platforms have also gained enormous popularity and are successfully providing various services to the consumers primarily via user-generated content. The thesis makes use of raw and unstructured data available on IMDB website, cleans it up and organizes it in a structured format suitable for quick analysis by various analytical softwares. The thesis then examines the available literature on analytics done on IMDB movie dataset and identifies that little work has been carried out in predicting the financial success of the movies. The thesis thus carries out data analytics on the IMDB movie sets and highlights several parameters like movie interconnectedness and director's credentials, which correlates positively with the movie gross revenue. The thesis thereafter loosely defines a movie innovative index encompassing of parameters like number of references, number of follows and number of remake and discusses how the abundance of some of these parameters have a positive impact on box office success of the movie. Contrarily the lack of presence of these parameters thereby characterizing an innovative movie may not be so well received by the audiences thus leading to poor box office performance. The thesis also proposes how the director's credentials in the film industry measured by his/her total number of nominations and awards winning in the Oscar have a positive impact on the financial success of the movie and their own career advancement. / by Kanika Almadi. / S.M. in Engineering and Management

Thesis: S.M. in Engineering and Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2017. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (page 71). / Introduction and Motivation: In India, more than 700,000 accredited social health activists (ASHAs) are women selected and trained to work between members of their communities and the public health system. In spite of much advancement in screening tools and best practices in the healthcare system to date, service for members of the bottom of the pyramid remains largely unchanged. ASHA workers need user friendly tools and job aids that would enable them to -- Conduct health-care screenings and consultations -- Educating communities on basic health-care practices -- Confidence to advise medical referrals for patients. Most of the existing solutions designed and deployed in the field ignore issues like context of rural/urban settings (language, living conditions), digital illiteracy, and portability. Proposed Solution: Mobile Kit for Assessment of Child Health and Nutrition In order to address the problem described above, the Mobile Technology Group, headed by Dr. Fletcher, is developing a smart phone based kit that will assist with the basic tasks that an ASHA health worker is required to perform. These measurements include: -- Baby's weight -- Baby's height -- Baby's thermal regulation (which is an indicator of health) -- Baby's cardiovascular health (heart rate, pulse oximetry) - Middle Upper Arm Circumference (MUAC), which is an indicator of the nutritional status. The electronics and computer software for these tools is being implemented by another graduate student, Xavier Soriano. However, I am responsible for the product design, interaction design, and evaluation of the technology. Primary Research Objectives: 1. To help design the non-invasive mobile based tools for assessing and health and nutritional status of children under 5 years to be used by community health workers in urban poor settlements of India 2. To test, evaluate and assess the ease of use of these tools by community health workers / by Honey Bajaj. / S.M. in Engineering and Management

Thesis: S.M. in Engineering and Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2017. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 113-115). / Learning Analytics (LA) is defined as the collection, measurement, and analysis of data related to student performance such that the feedback from the analytical insights can be used to optimize student learning and improve student outcomes. Blended Learning (BL) is a teaching paradigm that involves a mix of face-to-face interactions in a classroom based setting along with instructional material distributed through an online medium. In this thesis, we explore the role of a blended learning model coupled with learning analytics in an introductory programming class for non-computer science students. We identify the features that were necessary for setting up the infrastructure of the course. These include discussions on preparing the course content materials and producing assignment exercises. We then talk about the various dynamics that were in play during the duration of the class by describing the interplay between watching video tutorials, listening to mini-lectures and performing active learning exercises that are backed by modern software development practices. Lastly, we spend time analyzing the data collected to create a predictive model that can measure student performance by defining the specifications of a machine learning algorithm along with many of its adjustable parameters. The system thus created will allow instructors to identify possible outliers in teaching efficacy, the feedback from which could then be used to tune course material for the betterment of student outcomes. / by Anuj Bheda. / S.M. in Engineering and Management

Thesis: S.M. in Engineering and Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2017. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 97-101). / Cloud computing is widely adopted in industry sectors of finance, energy and transportation. Public cloud service providers are able to consistently deliver solutions that meet demanding needs of security, availability, scalability of mission-critical applications. The low cost of compute and storage, combined with expanding coverage of high speed cellular networks, have enabled a wide expansion of telemetry services and consumer applications in automobiles, but safety applications are not leveraging these benefits. The majority of traffic fatalities happens in high-speed multi-vehicle crashes. Causal analysis of multi-vehicle crashes reveal process model inconsistencies that lead the drivers to make wrong assumptions about vehicle capabilities and lead-vehicle separation distances during adverse road conditions. The Spot Weather Impact Warning (SWIW) is a connected vehicle application concept proposed by the US Department of Transportation (DOT) that alerts drivers to unsafe conditions at specific points on the downstream roadway as a result of weather-related impacts. The application is designed to warn drivers about inclement weather conditions that may impact travel conditions using real-time weather information that is collected from roadway infrastructure and vehicle based probe data. The information is processed to determine the nature of the alert or warning to be delivered and then communicated to connected vehicles. The effectiveness of SWIW connected vehicle application depends on the probe coverage and the speed that probe data can be collected, analyzed, and broadcasted to relevant vehicles and roadway signage. To reach a sufficient coverage without high investment in new infrastructure, SWIW applications can be architected to use existing mobile operators and cloud service providers. A deeper Systems Theoretic Process Analysis of the application reveals that varying levels of vehicle-to-cloud communication performance may lead to process model inconsistencies for drivers, resulting in unsafe control actions from driver that ignore warnings and lead to accidents. To validate the vehicle to cloud communication performance, the SWIW application prototype is built using existing cloud service and vehicle platform. The performance of the application is validated across all tier-one cloud and mobile service providers in 10,000 miles of US roadways. The test results reveal the presence of low latency corridors in the US that may support the initial deployment of low latency solution. String stability model showed that significant reduction in probability of accidents is possible even at low penetration rates of the solution. The solution's operational cost analysis also concludes that a limited deployment on commercial vehicles has the potential of saving high value corridors such as the 402-mile Wyoming I-80 corridor as much as $1.5 million per day of socio-economic losses in accidents with an operational cost of $763 per day. This thesis concludes that connected vehicle programs that are addressing multi-vehicle accidents in low latency corridors should consider commercial fleet deployments that use mobile and public cloud service providers to quickly reach minimal penetration rate and socio-economic benefits. / by Ricardo DeMatos. / S.M. in Engineering and Management

Thesis: S.M. in Engineering and Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2017. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 114-117). / A review of project portfolio management (PPM) literature has shown that human resources allocation is rarely revisited beyond the initial planning cycle, and that it is often treated as a static problem. Therefore, this thesis sought to understand modern PPM practices further and to underscore variables that correlate with proficient portfolio planning, management, and execution. A survey of current practices has yielded several unexpected results. For example, the extent of employee involvement in resource allocation decisions, via active participation in the PMO, is positively correlated with highly effective PPM practices. Organizations experience schedule delays on the order of 10-20%, even though they classify their PPM practices as highly effective. Furthermore, 54% of survey participants indicated their firms do not evaluate nor model resource uncertainties, risks or interdependencies, of which 85% conceded these variables should be addressed. Given the survey results and given that PPM methods were borne of Markowitz's Modern Portfolio Theory, this thesis sought to frame the human resource allocation problem as a sociotechnical system instead. As such, nine critical system design decisions were identified and combined to yield distinct process architectures. Next, these architectures were scored and evaluated against performance metrics levied by the system stakeholders. An architectural tradespace of 11,664 feasible human resource allocation systems was generated; of which 42 architectures are nondominated. The systematic analysis in this thesis revealed that 100% of the architectures on the Pareto Front are analogous to a transparent, market-like resource allocation system as opposed to an anonymous, centralized system. Furthermore, 83% of these architectures appointed the employee as the sole decision-maker of its allocation to tasks. Roughly 70% of these architectures required agents to frequently updated task start and end times, hence reducing uncertainty and risk in planning. Future work shall re-assess the architecture scores and stakeholder requirements prior to application on a pilot portfolio. / by Mina N.M. Botros. / S.M. in Engineering and Management

Thesis: S.M. in Engineering and Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2017. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references. / Through conducting an extensive literature review of current policies, interviewing Appalachian residents, and surveying the energy and employment landscapes both regionally and nationally, this thesis aims to shed light on the effect cleaner energy policies have on employment in the Appalachian region. Most importantly, it aims to explain how we as a nation can help support policies that promote employment in sectors other than coal, which has perpetuated poverty and financial insecurity. Understanding past trends and potential future forecasts, while also establishing clear communication with the community in order to ensure proper integration of their needs, will help guide the creation of successful public policy. This work will explain how and which industries we as a nation moving forward should support in order to promote employment in the region in more diverse, sustainable, and healthy ways. Furthermore, there is a growing local entrepreneurial spirit among Appalachia's residents. This passion could be utilized to bolster support moving forward for policies that encourage diversified sources of income such as abandoned land mine reclamation, agriculture, manufacturing the parts for renewable energy technology, and more. This thesis outlines the necessary steps and suggests methods to take for that to happen, such as taking into account the local needs of each county, integrating their feedback from the beginning and at every stage of the development cycle, and ultimately connecting the somewhat isolated region with the rest of the national and global market. / by Jacqueline N. Durazo. / S.M. in Engineering and Management

Thesis: S.M. in Engineering and Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2017. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 86-88). / The nanosatellite industry is expanding rapidly, as academic and private institutions develop new technologies for experimentation on orbit. These "CubeSats" are resource constrained, complex socio-technical systems that have complicated interdependencies across multiple domains. To improve understanding and reduce ambiguity, systems engineers apply a variety of modeling frameworks to model system behavior. Introduced in 2007, the Engineering Systems Multiple- Domain Matrix (ES-MDM) framework addresses the interdependencies of a complex engineering system, such as a CubeSat, across five domains: environmental, social, functional, technical and process. Using the Free-space Lasercom and Radiation Experiment (FLARE) CubeSat constellation as an example engineering system case, the ES-MDM is constructed using the qualitative knowledge construction framework to model and analyze the system drivers, stakeholders, objectives, function, objects and processes of the system. The primary objective of this analysis is to provide a structured systems design approach for nanosatellite development that encompasses the entire system holistically. The second objective is to analyze the interactions and interdependencies within a highly-constrained system and determine key design nodes that are critical to system flexibility. The third objective is to evaluate the ability of the ES-MDM methodology to analyze a highly-constrained system. The fourth objective of thesis is to provide recommendations for future work to improve the ESMDM framework and the s7102 Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Integrated Design and Management Program. / by Kyle B. Hurst. / S.M. in Engineering and Management

Thesis: S.M. in Engineering and Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2017. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (page 95). / It is no doubt that globalization and free trade have brought competitive advantages of Innovation Driven Enterprises (I.D.E.s) to new levels. More specifically, managers are focused on improving and maximizing team collaboration to both increase capacity and utilization of their in-house talent and optimize company throughput and output. It has long been argued that performance and output are attributed to leadership, management and/or recruiting. However, new management and cognitive theories argue that optimizing output and team performance is now more of a science rather than just a conventional wisdom; conceiving a winning team now involves both predictive and nurturing responsibilities. This applies to all fields be it military, product development, medical, business, engineering and others to name a few. This thesis focuses on the new field of Integrated Design Management whereby multidisciplinary, innovative engines or product development teams are becoming essential entities for entrepreneurial survival and versatility during economic uncertainty. How can a product designer, an engineer and a businessman work together efficiently'? What makes the team perform better? Are there any rules for engagement or does skill lead output? How are people selected as part of a team? This thesis argues that creating an optimal product team should not be a stroke of luck but rather the result of applying new management sciences and team dynamics to better recruit and build for collaboration in today's fast-changing and competitive world. I believe that studying the correlation between three variables: compassion, collective intelligence and output in Integrated Design Management (I.D.M.) teams can lead to positive inferences relating to team formation and competitive work cultures. Through methods of measuring the latter variables in addition to observing product team habits and recording interviews with individuals enrolled in the I.D.M. program at MIT, the following thesis maps predictive variables across a system for nurturing successful team collaboration and output. The model constructed to forecast product team output, produced an r2 of 0.57, setting a benchmark for future models. This research also provides a template for future applications across multiple industries aimed at conceiving more collaborative teams with exceptional skills whose members may have been more comfortable working in isolation at the expense of creativity and efficiency. / by Aceil Halaby. / S.M. in Engineering and Management

Thesis: S.M. in Engineering and Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2017. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 47-49). / Crisis informatics: the multidisciplinary field combining computing and social science knowledge of disasters has become an important field of study in the last decade (Palen and Anderson 2016). With the unprecedented growth of social media, the disaster knowledge has transformed from being expert-driven knowledge to an everyday knowledge produced by different stakeholders (Hui and Tsang 2016). The aim of this research is to implement the concept of 'People as sensors' (Goodchild 2007) in India during disasters. People share granular geo-located information and broader dissemination of this Geo-social intelligence (Holderness 2014) outside of the traditional channels of emergency response. Chennai, the capital city of Tamil Nadu, is located in the southeastern India on the shores of the Bay of Bengal. With its low elevation coastal zone, inadequate provision for storm water runoff, and unregulated growth over wetlands (Parkash 2016), the city is prone to unpredictable rainfall and heavy flooding events during northeast monsoon season between October and December. The floods during December 2015 were one of the costliest natural disasters the city (T. E. Narasimhan, 2015) had witnessed and it exposed the critical need for providing real-time geospatial data to disaster managers to assist with their preparedness, rescue and relief operations. This project, initiated by Urban Risk Lab and supported by MIT Tata Center for Technology and Design (MIT Tata Center, 2016), involves developing RiskMap, a web-based platform to collect and validate real-time crowd-sourced flood reports via social media to enhance the city's resilience to extreme weather events. This thesis elaborates on the system design, development and analysis of the platform and provides suggestions for the future work. / by Maanasa Priyaa Dharmapuri Sridhar. / S.M. in Engineering and Management