Creative Inquiry Projects
See something interesting you'd like to be a part of? Contact the professor listed to see if you can get involved!
Below is a comprehensive list of past and in-progress Creative Inquiries:
Dr. Kevin Taaffe, taaffe@clemson.edu
#844: Human Performance Engineering: Developing Applications in Sports, Health and Human Machine Interface
This is a multidisciplinary research approach in trying to understand human capability with cutting edge technological developments. Using a mobile and wireless EED (electroencephalograph) technology we are able to record brain wave activity and analyze its meanings. We are engaging with the most complex system in the universe as we apply various engineering tools. Our goals are to improve human performance when considering our physiology, cognition and emotions. The human developmental aspects ranging from genes, that establishes our limitations, to experience, which shapes our capabilities, are critical to multidimensional research collaboration. Experts in different fields are working with us to examine ideas that may innovate our way of thinking when trying to solve problems. Looking at disability as well as high athletic capability allow us to learn the extremes of performance and create relative scales. Innovative technology allows us to directly communicate with our brain as we can code brain activity and use that code to activate a remote-control device. This capability give raise to shorten to distance between thought and action and present tremendous potential ready to be explore. Being a part of this research require creativity, adaptability and motivation. This area presents many challenges as we face grate uncertainty in every aspect, thus a research member is expected to initiate research progress on a weekly basis. This is internally funded research and its funds support our technological equipment and student presentation in professional conferences.
#244: Logistics Management: Mobile Learning Systems in Healthcare Operations
The Creative Inquiry Team will participate in investigating how the use of mobile technology can improve coordination of tasks and departments in perioperative services. The care provided by perioperative services is given before, during and after surgery, and takes place in three main areas — pre-op, the operating room (OR), and post-anesthesia care. When there are several ORs that serve many patients per day, the process of delivering care becomes increasingly difficult. The Creative Inquiry Team will support a larger research team (at both Clemson University and the University of South Carolina) that has been funded under a National Science Foundation grant to study this research issue. The collaboration will provide expertise in operations research, data mining, computer science, simulation, human-computer interaction, and quality and process management focused on day-to-day coordination problems in a typical hospital setting. As part of the research, smart apps and simulation models will be developed to assist in data gathering, analysis, and decision making at the hospital sites. The purpose is to enhance cooperation and coordination between staff within and across perioperative services departments. During the research and development, different visual displays will be tested to obtain responses from medical staff. In addition to the research and training benefits for healthcare professionals, the smart-apps and simulation model will provide the team with a teaching and training tool that can be used in classrooms at Clemson to teach students information and workflow management techniques across a variety of fields, including business, engineering, science, and health care.
Dr. Scott Mason, mason@clemson.edu
Statistical Analysis of Clemson Football Games
Clemson University has always taken great pride in its athletics programs. This is especially true for the
football team, which has been fortunate to experience incredible success in the past few years.
Nevertheless, Coach Tony Elliott, the co-offensive coordinator who is an Industrial Engineering alumnus
from Clemson, understands that the team’s use of film analysis could be expanded to further benefit the
program. With this in mind, he is welcoming the opportunity for a select group ofstudents to obtain access
to game film data for the purpose of statistical analysis.
My vision for this CI is to assemble a team of talented, self-starting, driven students who will partner with
and be led by one of my outstanding PhD students to complete some, if not all, of the following tasks in
the Spring 2017 semester:
• Conduct a literature review and internet search to understand how film analysis previously has
been used in other sports and how this can translate to football analyses.
• Watch game film and document factors to be used in our analysis (e.g., down, distance, quarter,
coverage, play call, previous play calls, etc.).
• Use statistical software to identify significant factors of the opposing team relating to the
probability of completions/first downs and expected gains. We will also look at trends of opposing
defensive coordinators including, but not limited to, what formations/packages they blitz out of,
what situations they blitz in, when they are more susceptible to the run, and when passing is more
effective. For each coach, we will examine whether the trends have changed over time, as well as
factors that may cause the trends to change (e.g., team is ranked vs. unranked, age and experience
of players, etc.)
The ultimate goal of our research effort is to create a database that stores the “best” play call for each
scenario that is presented during the course of a game for each team that Clemson will face in the
following season. “Best” can be classified by highest expected gain, highest probability of achieving first
down, lowest chance of turnover, or best chance of achieving a touchdown, depending on the situation.
Students interested in participating in this CI should have completed IE 3610 and IE 3810 successfully by
the end of fall 2016, or have completed courses covering the materials taught in these classes. Preference
may be given to students who will be available to continue this CI project into the fall 2017 semester if
necessary.
Please send 1) your resume and 2) a statement of no more than 100 words explaining why this CI
experience would be of interest/importance to your future goals and/or graduate school plansto Dr. Scott
Mason (mason@clemson.edu). All applications received by Wednesday November 9, 2016 at 12:00 pm
will receive full consideration.
If selected, each student will be expected to register for 1-3 hours of IE 4040 Creative Inquiry Research,
CRN #19638, in the spring 2017 semester. Each student’s prescribed workload will be directly proportional
to the number of hours for which they sign up.
Parking Servies
Clemson University’s Parking Services Department (PSD) needs help with on-campus parking, as the
number of students enrolled increases every year while parking space available is limited. In addition,
faculty and staff also feel the challenge of getting a parking spot on campus. The goal of this project is 1)
to identify the current parking situation/issues as experienced by both Parking Services and the
customers (faculty, students, staff) and 2) identify appropriate solution options/technologies/strategies
to improve the current situation.
Work Products:
1) PPT presentation describing the current parking situation/issues at Clemson University
2) PPT presentation benchmarking other universities’ efforts towards effective parking
services/strategies
3) PPT presentation and accompanying methodology/model to improve parking services
effectiveness.
Trailer Yard
South Carolina is home to many major manufacturers and third-party logistics (3PL) providers. One thing
these firms have in common is the need for over-the- road trucking of freight through our state and the
borders beyond. Large facilities, such as Wal-Mart’s Laurens DC or BMW’s Plant Spartanburg, are visited
by 100s of trucks every day who both bring in parts/raw materials/sub-assemblies and haul away
finished goods/backhaul items. The yard process can become quite complicated as multiple trucks show
up simultaneously, parking spots become occupied/congested, and drivers do not follow directions such
that locating trailers becomes a game of hide-and- seek. Students enrolled in this course will 1) attend
site visits to multiple companies’ yards to watch the process in action (costs to be reimbursed by my
chair); 2) investigate the current state of the practice via interviews/industry survey
creation/dissemination; 3) study current commercially available yard management system (YMS)
software tools; and 4) develop a list of recommended best practices for yard management (which will
most probably depend on many different factors including demand, capacity, location, freight type, etc.)
Work Products:
1) Literature review and internet search to understand the basic processes at a trailer yard
2) Completed survey on the current state of the trailer yard management practice
3) PPT presentation summarizing current commercially available yard management system
(YMS) software tools
4) PPT presentation summarizing recommended best practices for yard management
Sreenath Chalil Madathil
Advisor: Dr. Scott J Mason. Collaborators: Dr. Russell Bent, Dr. Harsha Nagarajan
Resilient Off-grid Microgrids: Capacity Planning and N-1 Security
Over the past century the electric power industry has evolved to support the delivery of power over long distances with highly interconnected transmission systems that span large geographic regions. Despite this evolution, in some parts of the United States and other parts of the world, some communities are not connected to these systems. These communities rely on small, disconnected distribution systems, i.e., offgrid microgrids to deliver power. More importantly, perhaps, there is a general trend to support microgrid development within large transmission systems for economic, environmental, and reliability reasons. However, microgrids are not held to same reliability standards as transmission grids can place many communities at risk for extended black-outs. To address this issue, we develop an optimization model and algorithm for capacity planning and operations of microgrids that includes N-1 security and other modeling features. The effectiveness of the approach is demonstrated using the IEEE 13 node test feeder and a model of the Nome, Alaska distribution system
This project is a collaboration with Los Alamos National Lab.
Jonathan Lonski
Football CI
Working with undergrads with the goal of identifying situations in which Clemson's football team could gain a statistical advantage through play calls by analyzing historical data of an opposing team's strategies. Techniques that are being attempted thus far include Machine Learning and Support Vector Machines.
Project for Michelin
First we studied the tedious and extremely manual process by which the company keeps track of tire shipments. After understanding that process, we have begun creating a tool in excel that will automate as much of the updating process as possible and also provide valuable information including information about volumes on a lane, information about rate changes, and keeping track of various other performance measures in order to assist management with decision making.