This thesis focuses on a decision-making model for finding the locations for placement of utilities in roadway corridors. In recent years, there has been a rapid growth in the volume of traffic on roadways and in the number of utilities placed in Right of Ways. The increase in the demand for utilities is making it more difficult to place all the utilities within the Right of Way and also provide safe roads and highways with good carrying capacity. The public agencies approving the location for utilities are now using a first come first served method, which provide neither an efficient nor good economic solution. This model considers all the utilities within the corridor as a single system, including factors like installation costs, maintenance costs and also some future factors such as accident costs. A weighted coefficient optimization approach is used to find the solution in this model. These costs are modeled as fuzzy numbers or probabilistic random numbers depending on their characteristics. This algorithm will locate each utility at all its possible locations and find the total cost of all the utilities at all these locations, i.e. cost of the system. The least cost locations among all the possible locations are the good locations for utilities in the utility system. When utilities are placed in these locations the overall cost of the system will be lower compared to other locations. This model provides a flexible and interactive method for finding cost saving locations for the utilities in the highway corridor. Users will be able to change the parameters of the utility system according to their requirements and get reduced cost solutions.

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A coalition in a graph (Formula presented.) consists of two disjoint sets of vertices V 1 and V 2, neither of which is a dominating set but whose union (Formula presented.) is a dominating set. A coalition partition in a graph G of order (Formula presented.) is a vertex partition (Formula presented.) such that every set Vi of π either is a dominating set consisting of a single vertex of degree n–1, or is not a dominating set but forms a coalition with another set (Formula presented.) which is not a dominating set. In this paper we introduce this concept and study its properties.

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Stress can be defined as the mental, physical, and emotional response of humans to stressors encountered in their personal or professional environment. Stressors are introduced in various activities, especially those found in dynamic task conditions when multiple task requirements must be performed. Stress and stressors have been described as activators and inhibitors of human performance. The ability to manage high levels of acute stress is an important determinant of successful performance in any occupation. In situations where performance is critical, personnel must be prepared to operate successfully under hostile or extreme stress conditions; therefore training programs and engineered systems must be tailored to assist humans in fulfilling these demands. To effectively design appropriate training programs for these conditions, it is necessary to quantitatively describe stress. A series of theoretical stress models have been developed in previous research studies; however, these do not provide quantification of stress levels nor the impact on human performance. By modeling acute stress under dynamic task conditions, quantitative values for stress and its impact on performance can be assessed. Thus, this research was designed to develop a predictive model for acute stress as a function of human performance and task demand. Initially, a four factor two level experimental design (2 (Noise) x 2 (Temperature) x 2 (Time Awareness) x 2 (Workload)) was performed to identify reliable physiological, cognitive and behavioral responses to stress. Next, multivariate analysis of variance (n=108) tests were performed, which showed statistically significant differences for physiological, cognitive and behavioral responses. Finally, fuzzy set theory techniques were used to develop a comprehensive stress index model. Thus, the resulting stress index model was constructed using input on physiological, cognitive and behavioral responses to stressors as well as characteristics inherent to the type of task performed and personal factors that interact as mediators (competitiveness, motivation, coping technique and proneness to boredom). Through using this stress index model to quantify and characterize the affects of acute stress on human performance, these research findings can inform proper training protocols and help to redesign tasks and working conditions that are prone to create levels of acute stress that adversely affect human performance.

This thesis explores Russell’s Paradox and the comparative analysis of Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory, von Neumann-Bernays-Gödel set theory, and Russell’s Type Theory from a mathematical Platonist perspective, focusing on the ontology of sets. Our conclusion posits that, although these theories have made significant attempts in addressing Russell’s paradox and other inconsistencies of naïve set theory, we currently lack a proper language for expressing set theory that fully captures the underlying Platonic world of sets. Consequently, it is impossible to definitively refute or accept any of the given theories as the ultimate solution the paradox.

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