Selecting an electrical power source at the scoping level for a mining project

The electrical power source is a critical component of the scoping level study as the source affects both the project economics and timeline. This paper proposes a systematic approach to selecting an electrical power source for a new mine. Orvana Minerals Copperwood project is used as a case study. The Copperwood results show that the proposed scoping level approach is consistent with the subsequent much more detailed feasibility study

OpenContrails: Benchmarking Contrail Detection on GOES-16 ABI

Contrails (condensation trails) are line-shaped ice clouds caused by aircraft and are likely the largest contributor of aviation-induced climate change. Contrail avoidance is potentially an inexpensive way to significantly reduce the climate impact of aviation. An automated contrail detection system is an essential tool to develop and evaluate contrail avoidance systems. In this paper, we present a human-labeled dataset named OpenContrails to train and evaluate contrail detection models based on GOES-16 Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) data. We propose and evaluate a contrail detection model that incorporates temporal context for improved detection accuracy. The human labeled dataset and the contrail detection outputs are publicly available on Google Cloud Storage at gs://goes_contrails_dataset

Honors Convocation

Program listing performers and works performe

Analytical Assessment of Project Complexity: A Guide to Managing Projects through Reduction of Complexity

This research discusses the characteristics that make projects difficult to manage. Project inefficiencies and failures can be attributed to the structure of a system. Developing a measurement for complexity based on the number and nature of interactions in the system can allow project complexity to be reduced while still meeting project objectives. Previous research has identified characteristics or markers of complex systems but does not address how to measure or how to reduce a system’s complexity. The objective of this dissertation is to develop a metric for complexity that assists project and emergency managers in reducing project complexity either by engineering complexity out, if possible, in the planning stage, or by managing the system during an ad hoc incident. The proposed measure uses the number of interactions for a given perspective of the system as the metric of complexity and uses disequilibrium from the expected normal state as an indicator of an irreducible interaction and an indicator of complexity. The proposed hypothesis is discussed through mathematical and visual examples to illustrate disequilibrium in system interactions. The methodology is demonstrated in three case studies: one in construction, through the Morgan Street Bridge project over the Rock River in Rockford, Illinois; and two in emergency response incidents (one local and one State/Federal). These cases demonstrate how this measure of complexity can be used to reduce complexity in a project by identifying the perspective of interest in the system, determining the disequilibrium in the interactions, and reducing the interactions while minimizing information loss

A mathematical framework to assess vulnerabilities in codependent infrastructure and natural system networks

The objective of this paper was to understand how flow and topology affect resilience and robustness of codependent infrastructure and natural system networks. This paper represents these codependent infrastructure and natural systems as an integrated network system (INS) and develops metrics to measure resilience and robustness based on the understanding of network connections and flow characteristics. The paper presents a mathematical framework founded in system dynamics and viability theory that can be used to formulate metrics of robustness and resilience for an INS. As each of these factors are a function of the system structure, a graph theoretic approach is used to represent and analyze the INS. The research builds on recent work indicating that the topology of a network determines its vulnerabilities. The immediate contribution of this paper is that it lays the mathematical foundations for measuring robustness and resilience of the INS and identifies methods to characterize its topology and flow through it. In the long run, this research is likely to support a platform that proactively will identify and prepare for unexpected disruptions to infrastructure services while reducing undesirable environmental hazards. © 2014 American Society of Civil Engineers