by John P. Woods., Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design & Management Program, 2001., Includes bibliographical references (p. 85).

Drawing on an empirical study on automakers? management of supplier
involvement in product development in Japan, this paper shows that when the design of
a component is outsourced to a supplier, how much and what automakers know about
the component…

The convergence of three distinct but interconnected trends - unrelenting globalization,
growing worldwide electronic connectivity, and increasing knowledge intensity of
economic activity - is creating powerful new opportunities and challenges for global
politics. This rapidly changing environment…

This paper derives recursive algorithms for efficiently computing event probabilities related to order statistics and applies the results in a queue inferencing setting. Consider a set of N i.i.d. random variables in [0, 1]. When the experimental values of the…

Industrial Ecology (IE) is a systems approach to efficient resource use and protection of the
environment. Instead of just devising improved methods of waste treatment and disposal, we look for the best
opportunities to reduce waste throughout the total material…

Policies to avert the threat of dangerous climate change focus on stabilizing atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations by drastically reducing anthropogenic emissions of carbon. Such reductions require limiting the use of fossil fuels-which supply the bulk of energy to economic activity,…

The objective of this thesis is to clarify the ways that organizational factors influence nuclear power plant performance in order to improve performance. Therefore, this thesis studied the nuclear power plant organizational environment by identifying and detailing its important work…

The activity of designing and developing large, complex, discrete, physical, and engineered products faces the challenges in the physical product system, the organization of people, and the larger systems in which the product resides-the natural and societal systems. This thesis…

In order to understand and create human-level intelligence I have developed the Polyscheme cognitive architecture to build systems that combine several representation and inference schemes when they think. Polyscheme is based on three principles. First, different (aspects of) situations that…

As part of its national obligations, ONR must ensure US world leadership in those unique technology areas that insure naval superiority. ONR accomplishes this mission through research, recruitment and education, maintaining an adequate base of talent, and sustaining critical infrastructure…