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As networks are playing an increasingly prominent role in different aspects of our lives, there is a growing awareness that improving their performance is of significant importance. In order to enhance performance of networks, it is essential that scarce networking resources be allocated smartly to match the continuously changing network

As networks are playing an increasingly prominent role in different aspects of our lives, there is a growing awareness that improving their performance is of significant importance. In order to enhance performance of networks, it is essential that scarce networking resources be allocated smartly to match the continuously changing network environment. This dissertation focuses on two different kinds of networks - communication and social, and studies resource allocation problems in these networks. The study on communication networks is further divided into different networking technologies - wired and wireless, optical and mobile, airborne and terrestrial. Since nodes in an airborne network (AN) are heterogeneous and mobile, the design of a reliable and robust AN is highly complex. The dissertation studies connectivity and fault-tolerance issues in ANs and proposes algorithms to compute the critical transmission range in fault free, faulty and delay tolerant scenarios. Just as in the case of ANs, power optimization and fault tolerance are important issues in wireless sensor networks (WSN). In a WSN, a tree structure is often used to deliver sensor data to a sink node. In a tree, failure of a node may disconnect the tree. The dissertation investigates the problem of enhancing the fault tolerance capability of data gathering trees in WSN. The advent of OFDM technology provides an opportunity for efficient resource utilization in optical networks and also introduces a set of novel problems, such as routing and spectrum allocation (RSA) problem. This dissertation proves that RSA problem is NP-complete even when the network topology is a chain, and proposes approximation algorithms. In the domain of social networks, the focus of this dissertation is study of influence propagation in presence of active adversaries. In a social network multiple vendors may attempt to influence the nodes in a competitive fashion. This dissertation investigates the scenario where the first vendor has already chosen a set of nodes and the second vendor, with the knowledge of the choice of the first, attempts to identify a smallest set of nodes so that after the influence propagation, the second vendor's market share is larger than the first.
ContributorsShirazipourazad, Shahrzad (Author) / Sen, Arunabha (Committee member) / Xue, Guoliang (Committee member) / Richa, Andrea (Committee member) / Saripalli, Srikanth (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2014
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Description
A good production schedule in a semiconductor back-end facility is critical for the on time delivery of customer orders. Compared to the front-end process that is dominated by re-entrant product flows, the back-end process is linear and therefore more suitable for scheduling. However, the production scheduling of the back-end process

A good production schedule in a semiconductor back-end facility is critical for the on time delivery of customer orders. Compared to the front-end process that is dominated by re-entrant product flows, the back-end process is linear and therefore more suitable for scheduling. However, the production scheduling of the back-end process is still very difficult due to the wide product mix, large number of parallel machines, product family related setups, machine-product qualification, and weekly demand consisting of thousands of lots. In this research, a novel mixed-integer-linear-programming (MILP) model is proposed for the batch production scheduling of a semiconductor back-end facility. In the MILP formulation, the manufacturing process is modeled as a flexible flow line with bottleneck stages, unrelated parallel machines, product family related sequence-independent setups, and product-machine qualification considerations. However, this MILP formulation is difficult to solve for real size problem instances. In a semiconductor back-end facility, production scheduling usually needs to be done every day while considering updated demand forecast for a medium term planning horizon. Due to the limitation on the solvable size of the MILP model, a deterministic scheduling system (DSS), consisting of an optimizer and a scheduler, is proposed to provide sub-optimal solutions in a short time for real size problem instances. The optimizer generates a tentative production plan. Then the scheduler sequences each lot on each individual machine according to the tentative production plan and scheduling rules. Customized factory rules and additional resource constraints are included in the DSS, such as preventive maintenance schedule, setup crew availability, and carrier limitations. Small problem instances are randomly generated to compare the performances of the MILP model and the deterministic scheduling system. Then experimental design is applied to understand the behavior of the DSS and identify the best configuration of the DSS under different demand scenarios. Product-machine qualification decisions have long-term and significant impact on production scheduling. A robust product-machine qualification matrix is critical for meeting demand when demand quantity or mix varies. In the second part of this research, a stochastic mixed integer programming model is proposed to balance the tradeoff between current machine qualification costs and future backorder costs with uncertain demand. The L-shaped method and acceleration techniques are proposed to solve the stochastic model. Computational results are provided to compare the performance of different solution methods.
ContributorsFu, Mengying (Author) / Askin, Ronald G. (Thesis advisor) / Zhang, Muhong (Thesis advisor) / Fowler, John W (Committee member) / Pan, Rong (Committee member) / Sen, Arunabha (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011
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Description
Many industries require workers in warehouse and stockroom environments to perform frequent lifting tasks. Over time these repeated tasks can lead to excess strain on the worker's body and reduced productivity. This project seeks to develop an exoskeletal wrist fixture to be used in conjunction with a powered exoskeleton arm

Many industries require workers in warehouse and stockroom environments to perform frequent lifting tasks. Over time these repeated tasks can lead to excess strain on the worker's body and reduced productivity. This project seeks to develop an exoskeletal wrist fixture to be used in conjunction with a powered exoskeleton arm to aid workers performing box lifting types of tasks. Existing products aimed at improving worker comfort and productivity typically employ either fully powered exoskeleton suits or utilize minimally powered spring arms and/or fixtures. These designs either reduce stress to the user's body through powered arms and grippers operated via handheld controls which have limited functionality, or they use a more minimal setup that reduces some load, but exposes the user's hands and wrists to injury by directing support to the forearm. The design proposed here seeks to strike a balance between size, weight, and power requirements and also proposes a novel wrist exoskeleton design which minimizes stress on the user's wrists by directly interfacing with the object to be picked up. The design of the wrist exoskeleton was approached through initially selecting degrees of freedom and a ROM (range of motion) to accommodate. Feel and functionality were improved through an iterative prototyping process which yielded two primary designs. A novel "clip-in" method was proposed to allow the user to easily attach and detach from the exoskeleton. Designs utilized a contact surface intended to be used with dry fibrillary adhesives to maximize exoskeleton grip. Two final designs, which used two pivots in opposite kinematic order, were constructed and tested to determine the best kinematic layout. The best design had two prototypes created to be worn with passive test arms that attached to the user though a specially designed belt.
ContributorsGreason, Kenneth Berend (Author) / Sugar, Thomas (Thesis director) / Holgate, Matthew (Committee member) / Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-12
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Description
Error correcting systems have put increasing demands on system designers, both due to increasing error correcting requirements and higher throughput targets. These requirements have led to greater silicon area, power consumption and have forced system designers to make trade-offs in Error Correcting Code (ECC) functionality. Solutions to increase the efficiency

Error correcting systems have put increasing demands on system designers, both due to increasing error correcting requirements and higher throughput targets. These requirements have led to greater silicon area, power consumption and have forced system designers to make trade-offs in Error Correcting Code (ECC) functionality. Solutions to increase the efficiency of ECC systems are very important to system designers and have become a heavily researched area.

Many such systems incorporate the Bose-Chaudhuri-Hocquenghem (BCH) method of error correcting in a multi-channel configuration. BCH is a commonly used code because of its configurability, low storage overhead, and low decoding requirements when compared to other codes. Multi-channel configurations are popular with system designers because they offer a straightforward way to increase bandwidth. The ECC hardware is duplicated for each channel and the throughput increases linearly with the number of channels. The combination of these two technologies provides a configurable and high throughput ECC architecture.

This research proposes a new method to optimize a BCH error correction decoder in multi-channel configurations. In this thesis, I examine how error frequency effects the utilization of BCH hardware. Rather than implement each decoder as a single pipeline of independent decoding stages, the channels are considered together and served by a pool of decoding stages. Modified hardware blocks for handling common cases are included and the pool is sized based on an acceptable, but negligible decrease in performance.
ContributorsDill, Russell (Author) / Shrivastava, Aviral (Thesis advisor) / Oh, Hyunok (Committee member) / Sen, Arunabha (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
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Description
In order for assistive mobile robots to operate in the same environment as humans, they must be able to navigate the same obstacles as humans do. Many elements are required to do this: a powerful controller which can understand the obstacle, and power-dense actuators which will be able to achieve

In order for assistive mobile robots to operate in the same environment as humans, they must be able to navigate the same obstacles as humans do. Many elements are required to do this: a powerful controller which can understand the obstacle, and power-dense actuators which will be able to achieve the necessary limb accelerations and output energies. Rapid growth in information technology has made complex controllers, and the devices which run them considerably light and cheap. The energy density of batteries, motors, and engines has not grown nearly as fast. This is problematic because biological systems are more agile, and more efficient than robotic systems. This dissertation introduces design methods which may be used optimize a multiactuator robotic limb's natural dynamics in an effort to reduce energy waste. These energy savings decrease the robot's cost of transport, and the weight of the required fuel storage system. To achieve this, an optimal design method, which allows the specialization of robot geometry, is introduced. In addition to optimal geometry design, a gearing optimization is presented which selects a gear ratio which minimizes the electrical power at the motor while considering the constraints of the motor. Furthermore, an efficient algorithm for the optimization of parallel stiffness elements in the robot is introduced. In addition to the optimal design tools introduced, the KiTy SP robotic limb structure is also presented. Which is a novel hybrid parallel-serial actuation method. This novel leg structure has many desirable attributes such as: three dimensional end-effector positioning, low mobile mass, compact form-factor, and a large workspace. We also show that the KiTy SP structure outperforms the classical, biologically-inspired serial limb structure.
ContributorsCahill, Nathan M (Author) / Sugar, Thomas (Thesis advisor) / Ren, Yi (Thesis advisor) / Holgate, Matthew (Committee member) / Berman, Spring (Committee member) / Artemiadis, Panagiotis (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2017
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Description
While network problems have been addressed using a central administrative domain with a single objective, the devices in most networks are actually not owned by a single entity but by many individual entities. These entities make their decisions independently and selfishly, and maybe cooperate with a small group of other

While network problems have been addressed using a central administrative domain with a single objective, the devices in most networks are actually not owned by a single entity but by many individual entities. These entities make their decisions independently and selfishly, and maybe cooperate with a small group of other entities only when this form of coalition yields a better return. The interaction among multiple independent decision-makers necessitates the use of game theory, including economic notions related to markets and incentives. In this dissertation, we are interested in modeling, analyzing, addressing network problems caused by the selfish behavior of network entities. First, we study how the selfish behavior of network entities affects the system performance while users are competing for limited resource. For this resource allocation domain, we aim to study the selfish routing problem in networks with fair queuing on links, the relay assignment problem in cooperative networks, and the channel allocation problem in wireless networks. Another important aspect of this dissertation is the study of designing efficient mechanisms to incentivize network entities to achieve certain system objective. For this incentive mechanism domain, we aim to motivate wireless devices to serve as relays for cooperative communication, and to recruit smartphones for crowdsourcing. In addition, we apply different game theoretic approaches to problems in security and privacy domain. For this domain, we aim to analyze how a user could defend against a smart jammer, who can quickly learn about the user's transmission power. We also design mechanisms to encourage mobile phone users to participate in location privacy protection, in order to achieve k-anonymity.
ContributorsYang, Dejun (Author) / Xue, Guoliang (Thesis advisor) / Richa, Andrea (Committee member) / Sen, Arunabha (Committee member) / Zhang, Junshan (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2013