Problem Definition and Identification of Contradictions in the Interdisciplinary Areas of Mechatronic Engineering

2018 ◽  
pp. 231-242
Author(s):  
Pavel Livotov ◽  
Didier Casner ◽  
Rémy Houssin ◽  
Jean Renaud
Keyword(s):  
Problem Definition

Linking Creativity With Problem Definition

1994 ◽  
Vol 39 (7) ◽  
pp. 765-766
Author(s):  
Stanley S. Gryskiewicz
Keyword(s):  
Problem Definition

scholarly journals Resource Scarcity and Sustainability—The Shapes Have Shifted but the Stakes Keep Rising

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (10) ◽  
pp. 5751
Author(s):  
Alan Randall
Keyword(s):  
Environmental Policy ◽  
Renewable Resource ◽  
Resource Scarcity ◽  
Problem Definition ◽  
Planetary Boundaries ◽  
Strong Sustainability ◽  
Management Concepts ◽  
Special Cases ◽  
Sustainability Theory ◽  
Assimilation Capacity

The objective is to provide an interpretive reading of the literature in resource scarcity and sustainability theory from the nineteenth century to the present time, focusing on shifts that have occurred in problem definition, conceptual framing, research tools applied, findings, and their implications. My reading shows, as one would expect, that the discourse has become more technical and the analysis more sophisticated; special cases have been incorporated into the mainstream of theory; and, where relevant, dynamic formulations have largely supplanted static analysis. However, that is barely scratching the surface. Here, I focus on more fundamental shifts. Exhaustible and renewable resource analyses were incorporated into the mainstream theory of financial and capital markets. Parallels between the resources and environmental spheres were discovered: market failure concepts, fundamental to environmental policy, found applications in the resources sector (e.g., fisheries), and renewable resource management concepts and approaches (e.g., waste assimilation capacity) were adopted in environmental policy. To motivate sustainability theory and assessment, there has been a foundational problem shift from restraining human greed to dealing with risk viewed as chance of harm, and a newfound willingness to look beyond stochastic risk to uncertainty, ambiguity, and gross ignorance. Newtonian dynamics, which seeks a stable equilibrium following a shock, gave way to a new dynamics of complexity that valued resilience in the face of shocks, warned of potential for regime shifts, and focused on the possibility of systemic collapse and recovery, perhaps incomplete. New concepts of sustainability (a safe minimum standard of conservation, the precautionary principle, and planetary boundaries) emerged, along with hybrid approaches such as WS-plus which treats weak sustainability (WS) as the default but may impose strong sustainability restrictions on a few essential but threatened resources. The strong sustainability objective has evolved from maintaining baseline flows of resource services to safety defined as minimizing the chance of irreversible collapse. New tools for management and policy (sustainability indicators and downscaled planetary boundaries) have proliferated, and still struggle to keep up with the emerging understanding of complex systems.

scholarly journals Knowledge Acquisition and Representation for High-Performance Building Design: A Review for Defining Requirements for Developing a Design Expert System

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (9) ◽  
pp. 4640
Author(s):  
Seung-Yeoun Choi ◽  
Sean-Hay Kim
Keyword(s):  
Decision Support ◽  
Expert System ◽  
Expert Systems ◽  
Knowledge Acquisition ◽  
Data Analytics ◽  
High Performance ◽  
Problem Definition ◽  
Design Expert ◽  
Decision Support Process ◽  
High Performance Building

New functions and requirements of high performance building (HPB) being added and several regulations and certification conditions being reinforced steadily make it harder for designers to decide HPB designs alone. Although many designers wish to rely on HPB consultants for advice, not all projects can afford consultants. We expect that, in the near future, computer aids such as design expert systems can help designers by providing the role of HPB consultants. The effectiveness and success or failure of the solution offered by the expert system must be affected by the quality, systemic structure, resilience, and applicability of expert knowledge. This study aims to set the problem definition and category required for existing HPB designs, and to find the knowledge acquisition and representation methods that are the most suitable to the design expert system based on the literature review. The HPB design literature from the past 10 years revealed that the greatest features of knowledge acquisition and representation are the increasing proportion of computer-based data analytics using machine learning algorithms, whereas rules, frames, and cognitive maps that are derived from heuristics are conventional representation formalisms of traditional expert systems. Moreover, data analytics are applied to not only literally raw data from observations and measurement, but also discrete processed data as the results of simulations or composite rules in order to derive latent rule, hidden pattern, and trends. Furthermore, there is a clear trend that designers prefer the method that decision support tools propose a solution directly as optimizer does. This is due to the lack of resources and time for designers to execute performance evaluation and analysis of alternatives by themselves, even if they have sufficient experience on the HPB. However, because the risk and responsibility for the final design should be taken by designers solely, they are afraid of convenient black box decision making provided by machines. If the process of using the primary knowledge in which frame to reach the solution and how the solution is derived are transparently open to the designers, the solution made by the design expert system will be able to obtain more trust from designers. This transparent decision support process would comply with the requirement specified in a recent design study that designers prefer flexible design environments that give more creative control and freedom over design options, when compared to an automated optimization approach.

scholarly journals 3D Acoustic Mapping in Automotive Wind Tunnel: Algorithm and Problem Analysis on Simulated Data

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
pp. 3241
Author(s):  
Gianmarco Battista ◽  
Paolo Chiariotti ◽  
Milena Martarelli ◽  
Paolo Castellini ◽  
Claudio Colangeli ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Wind Tunnel ◽  
Problem Definition ◽  
Aerodynamic Noise ◽  
Accurate Information ◽  
Problem Analysis ◽  
Wind Tunnel Testing ◽  
Experimental Conditions ◽  
Automotive Manufacturing ◽  
Acoustic Mapping ◽  
Tunnel Testing

Localization and quantification of noise sources are important to fulfill customer and regulation requirements in a such competitive sector like automotive manufacturing. Wind tunnel testing and acoustic mapping techniques based on microphone arrays can provide accurate information on these aspects. However, it is not straightforward to get source positions and strengths in these testing conditions. In fact, the car is a 3D object that radiates noise from different parts simultaneously, involving different noise generation mechanisms such as tire noise and aerodynamic noise. Commonly, acoustic maps are produced on a 3D surface that envelopes the objects. However, this practice produces misleading and/or incomplete results, as acoustic sources can be generated outside the surface. When the hypothesis of sources on the model surface is removed, additional issues arise. In this paper, we propose exploiting an inverse method tailored to a volumetric approach. The aim of this paper is to investigate the issues to face when the method is applied to automotive wind tunnel testing. Two different kinds of problem must be considered: On the one hand, the results of inverse methods are strongly influenced by the problem definition, while, on the other hand, experimental conditions must be taken into account to get accurate results. These aspects have been studied making use of simulated experiments. Such a controlled simulation environment, by contrast to a purely experimental case, enables accurate assessment of both the localization and quantification performance of the proposed method. Finally, a set of scores is defined to evaluate the resulting maps with objective metrics.

scholarly journals Managing Shutdown Decisions in Merchant Commodity and Energy Production: A Social Commerce Perspective

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alessio Trivella ◽  
Selvaprabu Nadarajah ◽  
Stein-Erik Fleten ◽  
Denis Mazieres ◽  
David Pisinger
Keyword(s):  
Energy Production ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Binary Classification ◽  
Problem Definition ◽  
Stochastic Dynamic ◽  
Anticipated Regret ◽  
Social Commerce ◽  
Asset Value ◽  
Plant Closures ◽  
Operating Policies

Problem definition: Merchant commodity and energy production assets operate in markets with volatile prices and exchange rates. Plant closures adversely affect societal entities beyond the specific plant being shut down, such as the parent company and the local community. Motivated by an aluminum producer, we study if mitigating these hard-to-assess broader impacts of a shutdown is financially viable using the plant’s operating flexibility. Academic/practical relevance: Our social commerce perspective toward managing shutdown decisions deviates from the commonly used asset value maximization objective in merchant operations. Identifying operating policies that delay or decrease the likelihood of a shutdown without incurring a significant asset value loss supports socially responsible plant shutdown decisions. Methodology: We formulate a constrained Markov decision process to manage shutdown decisions and limit the probability of future plant closures. We provide theoretical support for approximating this intractable model using unconstrained stochastic dynamic programs with modified shutdown costs and explore two classes of operating policies. Our first policy leverages anticipated regret theory, and the second policy generalizes, using machine learning, production-margin heuristics used in practice. We compute the former and latter policies using a least squares Monte Carlo method and combining this method with binary classification, respectively. Results: Anticipated-regret policies possess desirable asymptotic properties absent in classification-based policies. On instances created using real data, anticipated-regret and classification-based policies outperform practice-based production-margin strategies. Significant reductions in shutdown probability and delays in plant closures are possible while incurring small asset value losses. Managerial implications: A plant’s operating flexibility provides an effective lever to balance the social objective to reduce closures and the financial goal to maximize asset value. Adhering to both objectives requires combining short-term commitments with external stakeholders to avoid shutdown with longer-term internal efforts to reduce the probability of plant closures.

Effects of Consultee Problem Presentation and Consultant Training on Consultant Problem Definition

1992 ◽  
Vol 71 (1) ◽  
pp. 60-62 ◽  
Author(s):  
Collie W. Conoley ◽  
Jane Close Conoley ◽  
William B. Gumm
Keyword(s):  
Problem Definition ◽  
Problem Presentation

On the influence of problem definition in sensor placement optimization

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chris L. Pettit ◽  
Sergey N. Vecherin ◽  
D. Keith Wilson
Keyword(s):  
Sensor Placement ◽  
Problem Definition ◽  
Placement Optimization ◽  
Sensor Placement Optimization

Partial Completion as a Nonprofit Strategy

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Can Zhang ◽  
Atalay Atasu ◽  
Karthik Ramachandran
Keyword(s):  
Nonprofit Organizations ◽  
Service Provision ◽  
Problem Definition ◽  
Product Service ◽  
Service Portfolio ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Partial Completion ◽  
Innovative Solution ◽  
Managerial Implications ◽  
Level 3

Problem definition: Faced with the challenge of serving beneficiaries with heterogeneous needs and under budget constraints, some nonprofit organizations (NPOs) have adopted an innovative solution: providing partially complete products or services to beneficiaries. We seek to understand what drives an NPO’s choice of partial completion as a design strategy and how it interacts with the level of variety offered in the NPO’s product or service portfolio. Academic/practical relevance: Although partial product or service provision has been observed in the nonprofit operations, there is limited understanding of when it is an appropriate strategy—a void that we seek to fill in this paper. Methodology: We synthesize the practices of two NPOs operating in different contexts to develop a stylized analytical model to study an NPO’s product/service completion and variety choices. Results: We identify when and to what extent partial completion is optimal for an NPO. We also characterize a budget allocation structure for an NPO between product/service variety and completion. Our analysis sheds light on how beneficiary characteristics (e.g., heterogeneity of their needs, capability to self-complete) and NPO objectives (e.g., total-benefit maximization versus fairness) affect the optimal levels of variety and completion. Managerial implications: We provide three key observations. (1) Partial completion is not a compromise solution to budget limitations but can be an optimal strategy for NPOs under a wide range of circumstances, even in the presence of ample resources. (2) Partial provision is particularly valuable when beneficiary needs are highly heterogeneous, or beneficiaries have high self-completion capabilities. A higher self-completion capability generally implies a lower optimal completion level; however, it may lead to either a higher or a lower optimal variety level. (3) Although providing incomplete products may appear to burden beneficiaries, a lower completion level can be optimal when fairness is factored into an NPO’s objective or when beneficiary capabilities are more heterogeneous.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document