Toward a Theory of Organizational Apology: Evidence from the United States and China.

Ph.D. Thesis. University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa 2017

Lean Aerospace Initiative (LAI) MIT Research Studies Applicable to Systems Engineering

This publication contains abstracts for past research thesis projects related to systems engineering completed within the LAI research group at Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Contract production of turkeys : a study of contractual or vertical integration in turkey production in Missouri that may have implications for other farm commodities

Caption title.Includes bibliographical references

Long Solution Times or Low Solution Quality: On Trade-Offs in Choosing a Power Flow Formulation for the Optimal Power Shut-Off Problem

The Optimal Power Shutoff (OPS) problem is an optimization problem that makes power line de-energization decisions in order to reduce the risk of igniting a wildfire, while minimizing the load shed of customers. This problem, with DC linear power flow equations, has been used in many studies in recent years. However, using linear approximations for power flow when making decisions on the network topology is known to cause challenges with AC feasibility of the resulting network, as studied in the related contexts of optimal transmission switching or grid restoration planning. This paper explores the accuracy of the DC OPS formulation and the ability to recover an AC-feasible power flow solution after de-energization decisions are made. We also extend the OPS problem to include variants with the AC, Second-Order-Cone, and Network-Flow power flow equations, and compare them to the DC approximation with respect to solution quality and time. The results highlight that the DC approximation overestimates the amount of load that can be served, leading to poor de-energization decisions. The AC and SOC-based formulations are better, but prohibitively slow to solve for even modestly sized networks thus demonstrating the need for new solution methods with better trade-offs between computational time and solution quality

Coming out : implications for counselors working with gay, lesbian, and bisexual clients

A considerable amount of research has stated that gays and lesbians utilize mental health counseling services at a high rate. Therefore it is very likely that counselors encounter lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) clients. This research focuses on how the sexual orientation of the counselor affects the counseling process when working with LGB clients. In particular, this paper will discuss how the sexual orientation of the counselor facilitates or inhibits client identity development and the coming out process

Ash's type II theorem, profinite topology and Malcev products

This paper is concerned with the many deep and far reaching consequences of Ash's positive solution of the type II conjecture for finite monoids. After rewieving the statement and history of the problem, we show how it can be used to decide if a finite monoid is in the variety generated by the Malcev product of a given variety and the variety of groups. Many interesting varieties of finite monoids have such a description including the variety generated by inverse monoids, orthodox monoids and solid monoids. A fascinating case is that of block groups. A block group is a monoid such that every element has at most one semigroup inverse. As a consequence of the cover conjecture - also verified by Ash - it follows that block groups are precisely the divisors of power monoids of finite groups. The proof of this last fact uses earlier results of the authors and the deepest tools and results from global semigroup theory. We next give connections with the profinite group topologies on finitely generated free monoids and free groups. In particular, we show that the type II conjecture is equivalent with two other conjectures on the structure of closed sets (one conjecture for the free monoid and another one for the free group). Now Ash's theorem implies that the two topological conjectures are true and independently, a direct proof of the topological conjecture for the free group has been recently obtained by Ribes and Zalesskii. An important consequence is that a rational subset of a finitely generated free group G is closed in the profinite topology if and only if it is a finite union of sets of the form gH1H2... Hn, where each Hi is a finitely generated subgroup of G. This significantly extends classical results by M. Hall. Finally we return to the roots of this problem and give connections with the complexity theory of finite semigroups. We show that the largest local complexity function in the sense of Rhodes and Tilson is computable

Technical Report Value of Systems Engineering

This report is a follow-on from the June 2004 Air Force/Lean Aerospace Initiative Workshop on Systems Engineering for Robustness

Paper Session I-C - Robotics for Interstellar Missions

This paper discusses the requirements for robotics in future interstellar missions and describes the various robotic development activities at NASA KSC that are laying the basis for the robotics of the future. The first longduration interstellar missions, which might occur at the end of the 21 st century, would probably be preceded by trips to outer planets in the Solar System and by near-Solar interstellar probe missions. The time span, dangers, and uncertainties involved would almost certainly decree that the first missions be unmanned. If an interstellar mission involved a surface landing, all initial exploration would be performed by robots or other autonomous devices. These robots of the next century must possess true autonomy: onboard intelligence; sensor systems to provide information on the visual scene, temperature, radiation, task forces, and torques; stable locomotion; self-maintenance and repair capabilities; and so on. The varied sensor data must be integrated into an intelligent understanding of the environment to support decisions concerning that environment—for example, avoiding collisions or other dangers, or selecting areas of interest for exploration. The capability to store and transmit data, and to modify behavior based on experience, would also be required. Many of these capabilities are in their infancy today. However, NASA is expanding the state-of-the-art of robotics in directions which, while supporting near-term endeavors, will eventually lay the necessary foundation for the interstellar missions of the next century. For instance, the NASA KSC robotics program is making very meaningful contributions in areas of robot mobility, collision avoidance, vision systems, and special endeffectors. One example of this activity concerns the KSC Thermal Protection System robot, which provides an autonomous mobile platform and special end-effectors and vision systems for navigation, inspection, and positioning tasks. The robot can also store task data for downloading at a later date. Other developments at KSC include special mechanisms and controls for robotic space vehicle cleaning and component inspection, and the development of self-diagnostics for automated systems. In summary, while we are presently a long way from achieving the robotics capabilities to support interstellar missions, present-day robotics development activities at KSC and at other NASA centers are laying the groundwork for these exciting future endeavors