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This thesis presents a meta-analysis of lead-free solder reliability. The qualitative analyses of the failure modes of lead- free solder under different stress tests including drop test, bend test, thermal test and vibration test are discussed. The main cause of failure of lead- free solder is fatigue crack, and the

This thesis presents a meta-analysis of lead-free solder reliability. The qualitative analyses of the failure modes of lead- free solder under different stress tests including drop test, bend test, thermal test and vibration test are discussed. The main cause of failure of lead- free solder is fatigue crack, and the speed of propagation of the initial crack could differ from different test conditions and different solder materials. A quantitative analysis about the fatigue behavior of SAC lead-free solder under thermal preconditioning process is conducted. This thesis presents a method of making prediction of failure life of solder alloy by building a Weibull regression model. The failure life of solder on circuit board is assumed Weibull distributed. Different materials and test conditions could affect the distribution by changing the shape and scale parameters of Weibull distribution. The method is to model the regression of parameters with different test conditions as predictors based on Bayesian inference concepts. In the process of building regression models, prior distributions are generated according to the previous studies, and Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) is used under WinBUGS environment.
ContributorsXu, Xinyue (Author) / Pan, Rong (Thesis advisor) / Montgomery, Douglas C. (Committee member) / Wu, Teresa (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
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The main objective of this research is to develop an approach to PV module lifetime prediction. In doing so, the aim is to move from empirical generalizations to a formal predictive science based on data-driven case studies of the crystalline silicon PV systems. The evaluation of PV systems aged 5

The main objective of this research is to develop an approach to PV module lifetime prediction. In doing so, the aim is to move from empirical generalizations to a formal predictive science based on data-driven case studies of the crystalline silicon PV systems. The evaluation of PV systems aged 5 to 30 years old that results in systematic predictive capability that is absent today. The warranty period provided by the manufacturers typically range from 20 to 25 years for crystalline silicon modules. The end of lifetime (for example, the time-to-degrade by 20% from rated power) of PV modules is usually calculated using a simple linear extrapolation based on the annual field degradation rate (say, 0.8% drop in power output per year). It has been 26 years since systematic studies on solar PV module lifetime prediction were undertaken as part of the 11-year flat-plate solar array (FSA) project of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) funded by DOE. Since then, PV modules have gone through significant changes in construction materials and design; making most of the field data obsolete, though the effect field stressors on the old designs/materials is valuable to be understood. Efforts have been made to adapt some of the techniques developed to the current technologies, but they are too often limited in scope and too reliant on empirical generalizations of previous results. Some systematic approaches have been proposed based on accelerated testing, but no or little experimental studies have followed. Consequently, the industry does not exactly know today how to test modules for a 20 - 30 years lifetime.

This research study focuses on the behavior of crystalline silicon PV module technology in the dry and hot climatic condition of Tempe/Phoenix, Arizona. A three-phase approach was developed: (1) A quantitative failure modes, effects, and criticality analysis (FMECA) was developed for prioritizing failure modes or mechanisms in a given environment; (2) A time-series approach was used to model environmental stress variables involved and prioritize their effect on the power output drop; and (3) A procedure for developing a prediction model was proposed for the climatic specific condition based on accelerated degradation testing
ContributorsKuitche, Joseph Mathurin (Author) / Pan, Rong (Thesis advisor) / Tamizhmani, Govindasamy (Thesis advisor) / Montgomery, Douglas C. (Committee member) / Wu, Teresa (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
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In two independent and thematically relevant chapters, I empirically investigate consumers’ mobile channel usage behaviors. In the first chapter, I examine the impact of mobile use in online higher education. With the prevalence of affordable mobile devices, higher education institutions anticipate that learning facilitated through mobile access can make education

In two independent and thematically relevant chapters, I empirically investigate consumers’ mobile channel usage behaviors. In the first chapter, I examine the impact of mobile use in online higher education. With the prevalence of affordable mobile devices, higher education institutions anticipate that learning facilitated through mobile access can make education more accessible and effective, while some critics of mobile learning worry about the efficacy of small screens and possible distraction factors. I analyze individual-level data from Massive Open Online Courses. To resolve self-selection issues in mobile use, I exploit changes in the number of mobile-friendly, short video lectures in one course (“non-focal course”) as an instrumental variable for a learner’s mobile intensity in the other course (“focal course”), and vice versa, among learners who have taken both courses during the same semester. Results indicate that high mobile intensity impedes, or at most does not improve course engagement due mainly to mobile distractions from doing activities unrelated to learning. Finally, I discuss practical implications for researchers and higher education institutions to improve the effectiveness of mobile learning. In the second chapter, I investigate the impact of mobile users’ popular app adoption on their app usage behaviors. The adoption of popular apps can serve as a barrier to the use of other apps given popular apps’ addictive nature and users’ limited time resources, while it can stimulate the exploration of other apps by inspiring interest in experimentation with similar technologies. I use individual-level app usage data and develop a joint model of the number of apps used and app usage duration. Results indicate that popular app adoption stimulates users to explore new apps at app stores and allocate more time to them such that it increases both the number of apps used and app usage duration for apps excluding the popular app. Such positive spillover effects are heterogeneous across app categories and user characteristics. I draw insights for app developers, app platforms, and media planners by determining which new apps to release in line with the launch of popular apps, when to release such apps, and to whom distribution should be targeted.
ContributorsLee, Mi Hyun (Author) / Park, Sungho (Thesis advisor) / Han, Sang Pil (Committee member) / Kim, Sunghoon (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
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Description
Transfer learning is a sub-field of statistical modeling and machine learning. It refers to methods that integrate the knowledge of other domains (called source domains) and the data of the target domain in a mathematically rigorous and intelligent way, to develop a better model for the target domain than a

Transfer learning is a sub-field of statistical modeling and machine learning. It refers to methods that integrate the knowledge of other domains (called source domains) and the data of the target domain in a mathematically rigorous and intelligent way, to develop a better model for the target domain than a model using the data of the target domain alone. While transfer learning is a promising approach in various application domains, my dissertation research focuses on the particular application in health care, including telemonitoring of Parkinson’s Disease (PD) and radiomics for glioblastoma.

The first topic is a Mixed Effects Transfer Learning (METL) model that can flexibly incorporate mixed effects and a general-form covariance matrix to better account for similarity and heterogeneity across subjects. I further develop computationally efficient procedures to handle unknown parameters and large covariance structures. Domain relations, such as domain similarity and domain covariance structure, are automatically quantified in the estimation steps. I demonstrate METL in an application of smartphone-based telemonitoring of PD.

The second topic focuses on an MRI-based transfer learning algorithm for non-invasive surgical guidance of glioblastoma patients. Limited biopsy samples per patient create a challenge to build a patient-specific model for glioblastoma. A transfer learning framework helps to leverage other patient’s knowledge for building a better predictive model. When modeling a target patient, not every patient’s information is helpful. Deciding the subset of other patients from which to transfer information to the modeling of the target patient is an important task to build an accurate predictive model. I define the subset of “transferrable” patients as those who have a positive rCBV-cell density correlation, because a positive correlation is confirmed by imaging theory and the its respective literature.

The last topic is a Privacy-Preserving Positive Transfer Learning (P3TL) model. Although negative transfer has been recognized as an important issue by the transfer learning research community, there is a lack of theoretical studies in evaluating the risk of negative transfer for a transfer learning method and identifying what causes the negative transfer. My work addresses this issue. Driven by the theoretical insights, I extend Bayesian Parameter Transfer (BPT) to a new method, i.e., P3TL. The unique features of P3TL include intelligent selection of patients to transfer in order to avoid negative transfer and maintain patient privacy. These features make P3TL an excellent model for telemonitoring of PD using an At-Home Testing Device.
ContributorsYoon, Hyunsoo (Author) / Li, Jing (Thesis advisor) / Wu, Teresa (Committee member) / Yan, Hao (Committee member) / Hu, Leland S. (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2018
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Description
Buildings consume nearly 50% of the total energy in the United States, which drives the need to develop high-fidelity models for building energy systems. Extensive methods and techniques have been developed, studied, and applied to building energy simulation and forecasting, while most of work have focused on developing dedicated modeling

Buildings consume nearly 50% of the total energy in the United States, which drives the need to develop high-fidelity models for building energy systems. Extensive methods and techniques have been developed, studied, and applied to building energy simulation and forecasting, while most of work have focused on developing dedicated modeling approach for generic buildings. In this study, an integrated computationally efficient and high-fidelity building energy modeling framework is proposed, with the concentration on developing a generalized modeling approach for various types of buildings. First, a number of data-driven simulation models are reviewed and assessed on various types of computationally expensive simulation problems. Motivated by the conclusion that no model outperforms others if amortized over diverse problems, a meta-learning based recommendation system for data-driven simulation modeling is proposed. To test the feasibility of the proposed framework on the building energy system, an extended application of the recommendation system for short-term building energy forecasting is deployed on various buildings. Finally, Kalman filter-based data fusion technique is incorporated into the building recommendation system for on-line energy forecasting. Data fusion enables model calibration to update the state estimation in real-time, which filters out the noise and renders more accurate energy forecast. The framework is composed of two modules: off-line model recommendation module and on-line model calibration module. Specifically, the off-line model recommendation module includes 6 widely used data-driven simulation models, which are ranked by meta-learning recommendation system for off-line energy modeling on a given building scenario. Only a selective set of building physical and operational characteristic features is needed to complete the recommendation task. The on-line calibration module effectively addresses system uncertainties, where data fusion on off-line model is applied based on system identification and Kalman filtering methods. The developed data-driven modeling framework is validated on various genres of buildings, and the experimental results demonstrate desired performance on building energy forecasting in terms of accuracy and computational efficiency. The framework could be easily implemented into building energy model predictive control (MPC), demand response (DR) analysis and real-time operation decision support systems.
ContributorsCui, Can (Author) / Wu, Teresa (Thesis advisor) / Weir, Jeffery D. (Thesis advisor) / Li, Jing (Committee member) / Fowler, John (Committee member) / Hu, Mengqi (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
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Description
This dissertation carries out an inter-disciplinary research of operations research, statistics, power system engineering, and economics. Specifically, this dissertation focuses on a special power system scheduling problem, a unit commitment problem with uncertainty. This scheduling problem is a two-stage decision problem. In the first stage, system operator determines the binary

This dissertation carries out an inter-disciplinary research of operations research, statistics, power system engineering, and economics. Specifically, this dissertation focuses on a special power system scheduling problem, a unit commitment problem with uncertainty. This scheduling problem is a two-stage decision problem. In the first stage, system operator determines the binary commitment status (on or off) of generators in advance. In the second stage, after the realization of uncertainty, the system operator determines generation levels of the generators. The goal of this dissertation is to develop computationally-tractable methodologies and algorithms to solve large-scale unit commitment problems with uncertainty.

In the first part of this dissertation, two-stage models are studied to solve the problem. Two solution methods are studied and improved: stochastic programming and robust optimization. A scenario-based progressive hedging decomposition algorithm is applied. Several new hedging mechanisms and parameter selections rules are proposed and tested. A data-driven uncertainty set is proposed to improve the performance of robust optimization.

In the second part of this dissertation, a framework to reduce the two-stage stochastic program to a single-stage deterministic formulation is proposed. Most computation of the proposed approach can be done by offline studies. With the assistance of offline analysis, simulation, and data mining, the unit commitment problems with uncertainty can be solved efficiently.

Finally, the impacts of uncertainty on energy market prices are studied. A new component of locational marginal price, a marginal security component, which is the weighted shadow prices of the proposed security constraints, is proposed to better represent energy prices.
ContributorsLi, Chao (Author) / Hedman, Kory W (Thesis advisor) / Zhang, Muhong (Thesis advisor) / Mirchandani, Pitu B. (Committee member) / Wu, Teresa (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
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Description
Anomaly is a deviation from the normal behavior of the system and anomaly detection techniques try to identify unusual instances based on deviation from the normal data. In this work, I propose a machine-learning algorithm, referred to as Artificial Contrasts, for anomaly detection in categorical data in which neither the

Anomaly is a deviation from the normal behavior of the system and anomaly detection techniques try to identify unusual instances based on deviation from the normal data. In this work, I propose a machine-learning algorithm, referred to as Artificial Contrasts, for anomaly detection in categorical data in which neither the dimension, the specific attributes involved, nor the form of the pattern is known a priori. I use RandomForest (RF) technique as an effective learner for artificial contrast. RF is a powerful algorithm that can handle relations of attributes in high dimensional data and detect anomalies while providing probability estimates for risk decisions.

I apply the model to two simulated data sets and one real data set. The model was able to detect anomalies with a very high accuracy. Finally, by comparing the proposed model with other models in the literature, I demonstrate superior performance of the proposed model.
ContributorsMousavi, Seyyedehnasim (Author) / Runger, George C. (Thesis advisor) / Wu, Teresa (Committee member) / Kim, Sunghoon (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2016
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Description
In two thematically related chapters, I explore the benefits incurred as companies actively respond to consumers who share positive word of mouth in digital environments (eWOM). This research takes a multi-method approach by first addressing the psychological impact of company response on the sharing consumer, followed by an examination of

In two thematically related chapters, I explore the benefits incurred as companies actively respond to consumers who share positive word of mouth in digital environments (eWOM). This research takes a multi-method approach by first addressing the psychological impact of company response on the sharing consumer, followed by an examination of real behavioral consequences in a social media setting. Across six studies in Chapter 1, I find support for a conceptual model indicating that consumers who receive a company response to their positive eWOM experience greater satisfaction compared to no response, leading to increased intentions to engage in future positive eWOM on behalf of the company, both through social media and online review websites. Furthermore, I find that consumer perceptions of response personalization lead to judgments of company effort and that these two elements mediate the effect of response on consumer satisfaction. In Chapter 2, using a dataset of firm responses to positive consumer feedback on Twitter (tweets) from 79 apparel retailers, I find that company responses to positive consumer tweets can generate consumer engagement behavior in the form of continued interaction. Company responses that use consumer-oriented language increase the likelihood of consumer interactivity. However, this effectiveness depends on whether the consumer's audience is the company or their broader network of followers. I also show that, in some conditions, companies achieve higher consumer engagement by personalizing responses with the consumer's name. Together, the findings from these two chapters point to the need for companies to strategically practice positive eWOM management, both to promote consumer engagement behaviors and to avoid the negative outcomes associated with unresponsiveness.
ContributorsCowley, Scott (Author) / Wiles, Michael (Thesis advisor) / Olsen, Douglas (Committee member) / Kim, Sunghoon (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
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Description
Distributed Renewable energy generators are now contributing a significant amount of energy into the energy grid. Consequently, reliability adequacy of such energy generators will depend on making accurate forecasts of energy produced by them. Power outputs of Solar PV systems depend on the stochastic variation of environmental factors (solar irradiance,

Distributed Renewable energy generators are now contributing a significant amount of energy into the energy grid. Consequently, reliability adequacy of such energy generators will depend on making accurate forecasts of energy produced by them. Power outputs of Solar PV systems depend on the stochastic variation of environmental factors (solar irradiance, ambient temperature & wind speed) and random mechanical failures/repairs. Monte Carlo Simulation which is typically used to model such problems becomes too computationally intensive leading to simplifying state-space assumptions. Multi-state models for power system reliability offer a higher flexibility in providing a description of system state evolution and an accurate representation of probability. In this study, Universal Generating Functions (UGF) were used to solve such combinatorial problems. 8 grid connected Solar PV systems were analyzed with a combined capacity of about 5MW located in a hot-dry climate (Arizona) and accuracy of 98% was achieved when validated with real-time data. An analytics framework is provided to grid operators and utilities to effectively forecast energy produced by distributed energy assets and in turn, develop strategies for effective Demand Response in times of increased share of renewable distributed energy assets in the grid. Second part of this thesis extends the environmental modelling approach to develop an aging test to be run in conjunction with an accelerated test of Solar PV modules. Accelerated Lifetime Testing procedures in the industry are used to determine the dominant failure modes which the product undergoes in the field, as well as predict the lifetime of the product. UV stressor is one of the ten stressors which a PV module undergoes in the field. UV exposure causes browning of modules leading to drop in Short Circuit Current. This thesis presents an environmental modelling approach for the hot-dry climate and extends it to develop an aging test methodology. This along with the accelerated tests would help achieve the goal of correlating field failures with accelerated tests and obtain acceleration factor. This knowledge would help predict PV module degradation in the field within 30% of the actual value and help in knowing the PV module lifetime accurately.
ContributorsKadloor, Nikhil (Author) / Kuitche, Joseph (Thesis advisor) / Pan, Rong (Thesis advisor) / Wu, Teresa (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
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Description
This dissertation covers several topics in machine learning and causal inference. First, the question of “feature selection,” a common byproduct of regularized machine learning methods, is investigated theoretically in the context of treatment effect estimation. This involves a detailed review and extension of frameworks for estimating causal effects and in-depth

This dissertation covers several topics in machine learning and causal inference. First, the question of “feature selection,” a common byproduct of regularized machine learning methods, is investigated theoretically in the context of treatment effect estimation. This involves a detailed review and extension of frameworks for estimating causal effects and in-depth theoretical study. Next, various computational approaches to estimating causal effects with machine learning methods are compared with these theoretical desiderata in mind. Several improvements to current methods for causal machine learning are identified and compelling angles for further study are pinpointed. Finally, a common method used for “explaining” predictions of machine learning algorithms, SHAP, is evaluated critically through a statistical lens.
ContributorsHerren, Andrew (Author) / Hahn, P Richard (Thesis advisor) / Kao, Ming-Hung (Committee member) / Lopes, Hedibert (Committee member) / McCulloch, Robert (Committee member) / Zhou, Shuang (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2023