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Congestion is one of the most important and complex transportation problems facing the American population. The Texas Transportation Institute reported that delays due to congestion cost up to an average of $63.1 billion per year and 5.7 billion gallons of wasted fuel every year. An important area of interest is Seattle Washington, where, according to the Washington State Department of Transportation,...
The US bridge infrastructure, an essential element to the transportation network, has been steadily deteriorating. Due to substandard levels of maintenance, bridges now pose serious risks to citizens. The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) estimates that an investment of 2.2 trillion dollars would be required over a five year horizon in order to upgrade the nation's infrastructure to good...
The Chesapeake Yacht Club (CYC) is a not-for-profit yacht club located on the West River in Maryland. In order to remain financially viable the CYC must maintain a certain level of membership. Lack of a long-term investment plan places the CYC at risk due to a decrease in membership resulting from an increase in fuel prices or failure to maintain and/or improve its current infrastructure. Our team...
This paper investigates a systematic quantitative investment strategy utilizing closed-end funds (CEFs). CEFs are advantageous to investors because they can be traded at a discount from their net asset value (NAV), as opposed to mutual funds which are traded at their exact NAV. The authors seek to explore different methods for taking advantage of this discount. They developed a program that exploits...
Terrorist attacks on a physical site can be detrimental in terms of lives and monetary loss. A major component of preparing for such an attack is deciding how to allocate funds; insufficient budgeting may expose the site to worst-case consequences, whereas over-budgeting may create inefficiency. Thus deciding how many funds to allocate for attack preparation should incorporate information regarding...
This project examines an alternative technique for calculating the probability distribution of returns of equities and assets consisting of equities, such as exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and equity indexes. In particular, Bayesian networks are used, which allow conditioning upon prior information and are capable of evolving and adapting to current market trends through learning processes. Posterior...
This project examined the profitability of applying momentum-investing strategies to commodity futures markets. Momentum strategies exploit short-term price continuation of securities by buying the highest performers, selling the lowest performers, and holding the positions for short periods of time. This project focused on twenty of the highest volume futures contracts and narrowed the scope of the...
The following topics are dealt with: simulation; human factors; energy; optimisation; regional and community planning; data mining; statistical analysis; health care; water and sanitation; risk analysis; economic systems;systems integration; networks; and transportation systems.
The village of Wum, located in the Northwest province of Cameroon, West Africa, is home to over 30,000 people, most of whom gather water from local, contaminated streams and are vulnerable to many water-borne and water-related illnesses. Not only is their water ridden with bacteria, but they are also unable to collect sufficient amounts of water due to low supply in the streams and the distance they...
Students in the engineering in context program at the University of Virginia have formed a partnership in international development with the San Lucas mission in San Lucas Toliman, Guatemala. The Mission tasked the team to assist with the planning of a new community, La Puerta. Through a systems engineering framework and application of participatory design principles, the engineering team developed...
Evidence based evaluation systems are critical to the analysis and improvement of programs aimed at providing consumers of mental health services with proper treatment. This paper describes enhancements to the evidence based evaluation tools used by the Crisis Intervention System (CIS), a program run by the Thomas Jefferson Area Community Criminal Justice Board, to provide a more effective approach...
This paper proposes a quantitative model for assessing cyber security risk in information security. The model can be used to evaluate the security readiness of firms in the marketplace through qualitative and quantitative tools. We propose a Bayesian network methodology that can be used to generate a cyber security risk score that takes as input a firm's security profile and data breach statistics...
The objective of this project with United Parcel Service, UPS, is to design a small sort configuration module, which is expected to maximize handles saved. ldquoMaximizing handles savedrdquo is defined by UPS as the minimization of the number of times a worker in the small sort packaging area has to handle each package. Based on the historical data which UPS has given us, we had a very specific direction...
The complex nature of program management creates a very difficult task for those responsible for the allocation of resources, program structuring, and the overall program outcome. Decisions are often made in the face of considerable uncertainty. Since the performance of managers is frequently judged upon near-term results, managers may not have sufficient incentive to contemplate the long-term effects...
In this paper we are discussing the prospect of biogas in eradicating various problem in a developing country like India, its impact on environment, society etc. We will show that India can be a great market for its production. We will show that its production on mass scale will have a significant impact on rural prosperity and energy dependency of India.
This paper summarizes a Capstone Project focused on evaluating the energy use of the John Paul Jones Arena (JPJ). JPJ is a multipurpose arena and uses a tremendous amount of energy each day. An energy analysis of the John Paul Jones Arena was conducted and primary categories of energy use were identified as: electricity, hot water, and chilled water. Linear regression and time series analyses were...
George Mason University uses photo identification cards with magnetic stripes. This system contains multiple points of vulnerability for the campus community which could lead to identification theft. This problem may further result in unauthorized purchases and entries into buildings and dormitories. Security issues have become increasingly relevant on university campuses due to random occurrences...
In recent years, an ensuing energy crisis has increased concern over home energy expenditures. Homeowners, through just their power meter or electricity bills, will know how much energy they consume over any given month. With just an energy bill, there is little to tell which devices in the home are consuming the most energy. Through the University of Virginia's ecoMOD project, several energy efficient...
The city of New York is served by the largest and busiest airport complex in the world. The three metropolitan airports, LaGuardia (LGA), Newark Liberty International (EWR), and John F. Kennedy International (JFK), are consequently plagued by flight delays. Since population density and economic feasibility prohibit further development of New York City airports, the New York New Jersey Port Authority...
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