17,559 research outputs found
Meso-scale FDM material layout design strategies under manufacturability constraints and fracture conditions
In the manufacturability-driven design (MDD) perspective, manufacturability of the product or system is the most important of the design requirements. In addition to being able to ensure that complex designs (e.g., topology optimization) are manufacturable with a given process or process family, MDD also helps mechanical designers to take advantage of unique process-material effects generated during manufacturing. One of the most recognizable examples of this comes from the scanning-type family of additive manufacturing (AM) processes; the most notable and familiar member of this family is the fused deposition modeling (FDM) or fused filament fabrication (FFF) process. This process works by selectively depositing uniform, approximately isotropic beads or elements of molten thermoplastic material (typically structural engineering plastics) in a series of pre-specified traces to build each layer of the part. There are many interesting 2-D and 3-D mechanical design problems that can be explored by designing the layout of these elements. The resulting structured, hierarchical material (which is both manufacturable and customized layer-by-layer within the limits of the process and material) can be defined as a manufacturing process-driven structured material (MPDSM). This dissertation explores several practical methods for designing these element layouts for 2-D and 3-D meso-scale mechanical problems, focusing ultimately on design-for-fracture. Three different fracture conditions are explored: (1) cases where a crack must be prevented or stopped, (2) cases where the crack must be encouraged or accelerated, and (3) cases where cracks must grow in a simple pre-determined pattern. Several new design tools, including a mapping method for the FDM manufacturability constraints, three major literature reviews, the collection, organization, and analysis of several large (qualitative and quantitative) multi-scale datasets on the fracture behavior of FDM-processed materials, some new experimental equipment, and the refinement of a fast and simple g-code generator based on commercially-available software, were developed and refined to support the design of MPDSMs under fracture conditions. The refined design method and rules were experimentally validated using a series of case studies (involving both design and physical testing of the designs) at the end of the dissertation. Finally, a simple design guide for practicing engineers who are not experts in advanced solid mechanics nor process-tailored materials was developed from the results of this project.U of I OnlyAuthor's request
The Metaverse: Survey, Trends, Novel Pipeline Ecosystem & Future Directions
The Metaverse offers a second world beyond reality, where boundaries are
non-existent, and possibilities are endless through engagement and immersive
experiences using the virtual reality (VR) technology. Many disciplines can
benefit from the advancement of the Metaverse when accurately developed,
including the fields of technology, gaming, education, art, and culture.
Nevertheless, developing the Metaverse environment to its full potential is an
ambiguous task that needs proper guidance and directions. Existing surveys on
the Metaverse focus only on a specific aspect and discipline of the Metaverse
and lack a holistic view of the entire process. To this end, a more holistic,
multi-disciplinary, in-depth, and academic and industry-oriented review is
required to provide a thorough study of the Metaverse development pipeline. To
address these issues, we present in this survey a novel multi-layered pipeline
ecosystem composed of (1) the Metaverse computing, networking, communications
and hardware infrastructure, (2) environment digitization, and (3) user
interactions. For every layer, we discuss the components that detail the steps
of its development. Also, for each of these components, we examine the impact
of a set of enabling technologies and empowering domains (e.g., Artificial
Intelligence, Security & Privacy, Blockchain, Business, Ethics, and Social) on
its advancement. In addition, we explain the importance of these technologies
to support decentralization, interoperability, user experiences, interactions,
and monetization. Our presented study highlights the existing challenges for
each component, followed by research directions and potential solutions. To the
best of our knowledge, this survey is the most comprehensive and allows users,
scholars, and entrepreneurs to get an in-depth understanding of the Metaverse
ecosystem to find their opportunities and potentials for contribution
Startup Home-Based Social Media Businesses
Purpose: The objective of this study is to investigate and analyze issues faced by small-business owners while running their businesses via social media sites, and to emphasize the opportunities for conducting business via social media.
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Theoretical framework:  Small businesses are vital to the success of any economy, through job creation, sparking innovation, and providing opportunities for many people to achieve financial success and independence. In today’s social media-driven environment, it is essential that small business’ owners engage with social media networking sites and understand how social media can play a crucial role in developing their businesses.
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Design/methodology/approach: The research focuses on analyzing the day-to-day operations and procedures of small businesses involving social media networking sites. Two questionnaires were developed to analyze and investigate these issues effectively.
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Findings: Â The results reveal the importance of organizing the operations and procedures of social media businesses, also emphasize the opportunities for conducting business via social media sites.
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Research, Practical & Social implications: Â this study was conducted to help business owners to engage with social media sites, as well as to solve issues that they face while running their online businesses.
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Originality/value: The results of the first questionnaire indicate issues from customers’ perspectives, while the second questionnaire indicate issues from merchants’ perspectives. The results reveal the importance of organizing the operations and procedures of social media businesses, also emphasize the opportunities for conducting business via social media sites
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Ensuring Access to Safe and Nutritious Food for All Through the Transformation of Food Systems
Annual report of the officers of the town of Jackson, New Hampshire for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2022.
This is an annual report containing vital statistics for a town/city in the state of New Hampshire
Testing the nomological network for the Personal Engagement Model
The study of employee engagement has been a key focus of management for over three decades. The academic literature on engagement has generated multiple definitions but there are two primary models of engagement: the Personal Engagement Model of Kahn (1990), and the Work Engagement Model (WEM) of Schaufeli et al., (2002). While the former is cited by most authors as the seminal work on engagement, research has tended to focus on elements of the model and most theoretical work on engagement has predominantly used the WEM to consider the topic.
The purpose of this study was to test all the elements of the nomological network of the PEM to determine whether the complete model of personal engagement is viable. This was done using data from a large, complex public sector workforce. Survey questions were designed to test each element of the PEM and administered to a sample of the workforce (n = 3,103). The scales were tested and refined using confirmatory factor analysis and then the model was tested determine the structure of the nomological network. This was validated and the generalisability of the final model was tested across different work and organisational types.
The results showed that the PEM is viable but there were differences from what was originally proposed by Kahn (1990). Specifically, of the three psychological conditions deemed necessary for engagement to occur, meaningfulness, safety, and availability, only meaningfulness was found to contribute to employee engagement. The model demonstrated that employees experience meaningfulness through both the nature of the work that they do and the organisation within which they do their work. Finally, the findings were replicated across employees in different work types and different organisational types.
This thesis makes five contributions to the engagement paradigm. It advances engagement theory by testing the PEM and showing that it is an adequate representation of engagement. A model for testing the causal mechanism for engagement has been articulated, demonstrating that meaningfulness in work is a primary mechanism for engagement. The research has shown the key aspects of the workplace in which employees experience meaningfulness, the nature of the work that they do and the organisation within which they do it. It has demonstrated that this is consistent across organisations and the type of work. Finally, it has developed a reliable measure of the different elements of the PEM which will support future research in this area
Subsidiary Entrepreneurial Alertness: Antecedents and Outcomes
This thesis brings together concepts from both international business and entrepreneurship to develop a framework of the facilitators of subsidiary innovation and performance. This study proposes that Subsidiary Entrepreneurial Alertness (SEA) facilitates the recognition of opportunities (the origin of subsidiary initiatives). First introduced by Kirzner (1979) in the context of the individual, entrepreneurial alertness (EA) is the ability to notice an opportunity without actively searching. Similarly, to entrepreneurial alertness at the individual level, this study argues that SEA enables the subsidiary to best select opportunities based on resources available. The research further develops our conceptualisation of SEA by drawing on work by Tang et al. (2012) identifying three distinct activities of EA: scanning and search (identifying opportunities unseen by others due to their awareness gaps), association and connection of information, and evaluation and judgement to interpret or anticipate future viability of opportunities. This study then hypothesises that SEA leads to opportunity recognition at the subsidiary level and further hypothesises innovation and performance as outcomes of opportunity recognition. This research brings these arguments together to develop and test a comprehensive theoretical model.
The theoretical model is tested through a mail survey of the CEOs/MDs of foreign subsidiaries within the Republic of Ireland (an innovative hub for foreign subsidiaries). This method was selected as the best method to reach the targeted respondent, and due to the depth of knowledge the target respondent holds, the survey can answer the desired question more substantially. The results were examined using partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM). The study’s findings confirm two critical aspects of subsidiary context, subsidiary brokerage and subsidiary credibility are positively related to SEA. The study establishes a positive link between SEA and both the generation of innovation and the subsidiary’s performance. This thesis makes three significant contributions to the subsidiary literature as it 1) introduces and develops the concept of SEA, 2) identifies the antecedents of SEA, and 3) demonstrates the impact of SEA on subsidiary opportunity recognition. Implications for subsidiaries, headquarters and policy makers are discussed along with the limitations of the study
A citizen science approach to the characterisation and modelling of urban pluvial flooding
Urban pluvial flooding (UPF), a growing challenge across cities worldwide that is expected to worsen
due to climate change and urbanisation, requires comprehensive response strategies. However, the
characterisation and simulation of UPF is more complex than traditional catchment hydrological modelling because
UPF is driven by a complex set of interconnected factors and modelling constraints. Different integrated approaches
have attempted to address UPF by coupling humans and environmental systems and reflecting on the possible
outcomes from the interactions among varied disciplines. Nonetheless, it is argued that current integrated
approaches are insufficient. To further improve the characterisation and modelling of UPF, this study advances a
citizen science approach that integrates local knowledge with the understanding and interpretation of UPF. The
proposed framework provides an avenue to couple quantitative and qualitative community-based observations
with traditional sources of hydro-information. This approach allows researchers and practitioners to fill spatial and
temporal data gaps in urban catchments and hydrologic/hydrodynamic models, thus yielding a more accurate
characterisation of local catchment response and improving rainfall-runoff modelling of UPF. The results of applying
this framework indicate how community-based practices provide a bi-directional learning context between experts
and residents, which can contribute to resilience building by providing UPF knowledge necessary for risk reduction
and response to extreme flooding events
Multi-Attribute Utility Preference Robust Optimization: A Continuous Piecewise Linear Approximation Approach
In this paper, we consider a multi-attribute decision making problem where
the decision maker's (DM's) objective is to maximize the expected utility of
outcomes but the true utility function which captures the DM's risk preference
is ambiguous. We propose a maximin multi-attribute utility preference robust
optimization (UPRO) model where the optimal decision is based on the worst-case
utility function in an ambiguity set of plausible utility functions constructed
using partially available information such as the DM's specific preferences
between some lotteries. Specifically, we consider a UPRO model with two
attributes, where the DM's risk attitude is multivariate risk-averse and the
ambiguity set is defined by a linear system of inequalities represented by the
Lebesgue-Stieltjes (LS) integrals of the DM's utility functions. To solve the
maximin problem, we propose an explicit piecewise linear approximation (EPLA)
scheme to approximate the DM's true unknown utility so that the inner
minimization problem reduces to a linear program, and we solve the approximate
maximin problem by a derivative-free (Dfree) method. Moreover, by introducing
binary variables to locate the position of the reward function in a family of
simplices, we propose an implicit piecewise linear approximation (IPLA)
representation of the approximate UPRO and solve it using the Dfree method.
Such IPLA technique prompts us to reformulate the approximate UPRO as a single
mixed-integer program (MIP) and extend the tractability of the approximate UPRO
to the multi-attribute case. Furthermore, we extend the model to the expected
utility maximization problem with expected utility constraints where the
worst-case utility functions in the objective and constraints are considered
simultaneously. Finally, we report the numerical results about performances of
the proposed models.Comment: 50 pages,18 figure
A Visual Modeling Method for Spatiotemporal and Multidimensional Features in Epidemiological Analysis: Applied COVID-19 Aggregated Datasets
The visual modeling method enables flexible interactions with rich graphical
depictions of data and supports the exploration of the complexities of
epidemiological analysis. However, most epidemiology visualizations do not
support the combined analysis of objective factors that might influence the
transmission situation, resulting in a lack of quantitative and qualitative
evidence. To address this issue, we have developed a portrait-based visual
modeling method called +msRNAer. This method considers the spatiotemporal
features of virus transmission patterns and the multidimensional features of
objective risk factors in communities, enabling portrait-based exploration and
comparison in epidemiological analysis. We applied +msRNAer to aggregate
COVID-19-related datasets in New South Wales, Australia, which combined
COVID-19 case number trends, geo-information, intervention events, and
expert-supervised risk factors extracted from LGA-based censuses. We perfected
the +msRNAer workflow with collaborative views and evaluated its feasibility,
effectiveness, and usefulness through one user study and three subject-driven
case studies. Positive feedback from experts indicates that +msRNAer provides a
general understanding of analyzing comprehension that not only compares
relationships between cases in time-varying and risk factors through portraits
but also supports navigation in fundamental geographical, timeline, and other
factor comparisons. By adopting interactions, experts discovered functional and
practical implications for potential patterns of long-standing community
factors against the vulnerability faced by the pandemic. Experts confirmed that
+msRNAer is expected to deliver visual modeling benefits with spatiotemporal
and multidimensional features in other epidemiological analysis scenarios
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