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| SUMMARIES
OF RECENTLY COMPLETED EPP DOCTORAL THESIS
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Karen L. Chess,
Quality Design of Emission Control Strategies and Control Technology
Development.
Committee: Hadi Dowlatabadi (EPP), Edward Rubin (EPP/MechE), Ted
Russell - chair (Georgia Inst. of Tech.), and Shi-Chune Yao (MechE)
Ozone is formed in the atmosphere from nitrogen oxides (NOx) and volatile
organic compounds. Reducing the concentration of ambient ozone
requires the control of its precursor emissions. The first part
of the thesis develops a new technique for NOx reduction through experimental
and analytical research. The technique uses an ammonia-doped plasma
device to create NOx-reducing radicals. The process, termed Plasma DeNOx,
has been previously demonstrated to achieve high (>90%) NOx reduction.
Although previous investigators hypothesized that the plasma device
produced significant amidogen (NH2) radicals directly for NOx reduction,
the thesis suggests that hydrogen (H) radicals generating NH2 from unspent
ammonia (NH3) play the dominate role in the process mechanism.
The second part of the thesis examines the
levels of NOx and VOC emission controls needed to meet current and future
ozone reduction goals, as well as the criteria to be used to choose
from among alternatives. The new 8-hour standard can probably not be
achieved without significant NOx control, regardless of cost.
The application of "quality design" techniques, which reduce variation
in design performance about its average value, are found to hold promise
for making control strategies more robust to meteorological variation
and other uncontrollable factors affecting control strategy performance.
The work was supported by the US Department
of Energy, an NSF graduate fellowship, and an EPA STAR Fellowship.
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Charles D. Linville,
Mathematical and Computational Techniques for Research Prioritization
with an Application to Global Climate Change Research.
Committee: Hadi Dowlatabadi (EPP), Paul Fischbeck - chair (SDS/EPP),
Baruch Fischhoff (SDS/EPP), Granger Morgan (EPP/ECE/Heinz), Mitchell Small
(CEE/EPP) and Herbert Simon (Psych)
Two
new techniques are presented for analyzing the results of large complex
computer simulation models that incorporate and propagate uncertainty.
The "measurement of uncertainty importance through reweighting" (MUIR)
is a way to characterize efficiently the relative importance of uncertainties
in model inputs that is robust with respect to non-monotonic relationships
between model inputs and outputs. The approach draws upon variance-importance
measures of uncertainty importance, but extends these by providing computational
savings through the use of techniques for reweighting Monte Carlo simulation
results. The "value of information through reweighting" (VOIR) is a way
to estimate the expected value of imperfect information efficiently.
It relies on the same reweighting technique that underlies MUIR.
In some cases, the VOIR approach may provide sufficient computational
savings to avoid major simplifications to decision problems.
This work also reports estimates of the expected
value of research related to climate change decision making using VOIR
and a global climate change integrated assessment model.
The work was supported by NSF grants SBR 9521714
and SBR 9209873, EPRI grant RP 3441-14, NSF through the Workbench for
Integrated Assessment Modeling project at the Institute for Decision Systems
Research, The Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center of the Consortium
for International Earth Science Information Network, and The Energy Modeling
Forum.
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| Hung-Yao
Yeh, Designing Wireless Local Loops Using Low Tier Technology: An
approach to providing basic telecommunications service in less developed
countries.
Committee: V.S. Arunachalam (EPP/MSE/Robotics), Alex Hills - chair
(Vice Provost for Computing/EPP), Granger Morgan (EPP/ECE/Heinz), and
Dan Stancil (ECE)
The
provision of basic telephone service represents a huge worldwide market
for the wireless communications industry. The opportunity may be
greatest in nations that currently have inadequate telecommunication infrastructure.
Although cellular radio has been used to quickly deploy telephone service
in less developed countries (LDCs), this is a high cost approach.
In contrast, the cost of using the next generation of wireless equipment
will likely be substantially lower than that of conventional outside copper
plant.
Several telecommunications manufacturers are
involved in producing the next generation of wireless equipment or provide
personal communications service (PCS). Major manufacturers have
designed and announced products which they believe will be successful.
Among those, the wireless local loop concept is particularly interesting.
It offers a low cost solution for replacing capital and labor intense
"last mile" wireline drop to subscribers by mass-produced integrated electronics
wireless transceivers. However, if manufacturers follow past practice,
product designs will be focused on industrialized world needs and may
not optimally meet the needs of the LDCs. This study investigates
how the designs might be shaped to serve the basic telecommunications
needs of the LDCs. While the LDCs have historically used whatever
equipment the industrialized countries produced, some foresight now might
make new wireless technologies more attractive and cost-effective in LDC
applications.
To utilize new wireless technologies, authorities
in LDCs need to create an environment that will promote technology and
economic development as while protecting and fulfilling the public interest.
With appropriate analytical support, LDCs should be able to exert their
market power to influence manufacturers to produce products that have
the technical characteristics which will meet their special needs.
This work was supported by Bell Communications
Research, Inc. and Carnegie Mellon's Information Networking Institute.
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