Funded Projects

Project Title: International Manufacturing Research Conference  (NAMRC/MSEC/ICM&P)

Organizing Committee: Yong Chen, Berok Khoshnevis, S.K. Gupta, Steven Nutt, Stephen Lu, Maged Dessouky, Yan Jin, Michael Kassner, Qiang Huang, Qiming Wang

The Viterbi School of Engineering at the University of Southern California (USC) hosted the 2017 International Manufacturing Research Conference June 4 - 8, 2017.  The conference is the foremost international forum for applied research and industrial applications in manufacturing and design and combined the following three organizations:

• 45th North American Manufacturing Research Conference (NAMRC), sponsored by the North American Manufacturing Research Institution of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers (NAMRI/SME)
• American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) International Manufacturing Science and Engineering Conference (MSEC 2017)
• Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers (JSME) International Conference on Materials Processing (ICM&P 2017), sponsored by the JSME and ASME

The conference was held on the main campus and included keynote and technical presentations, expert panels, student poster presentations, industry partner exhibitions, an early career forum, lab tours and receptions at The California Science Center Samuel Oschin Shuttle Endeavor Display Pavilion and the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

Project Title: Conference on Nonconvex Statistical Learning (CNSL)

Organizing Committee: Jong-shi Pang, Meisam Razaviyan, Phebe Vayanos

The aim of the conference is to bring together researchers at all levels, from established to junior, and from cross disciplines that include computational and applied mathematics, optimization, statistics, computer science, and engineering to report on the state of the art of the conference subject, to exchange ideas for its further development, and to foster collaborations among the participants with the goal of advancing the science of the field of statistical learning and promoting the interfaces of the involved disciplines.

Project Title: Workshop on Theoretical Foundations for Accuracy Control in Additive Manufacturing (FACAM)

Investigator: Yong Chen, Qiang Huang

The workshop was held in response to DARPA’s request for transformative ideas to create a unified theory of accuracy that will serve as a new mathematical and computational foundation for tying computational accuracy to fabrication variations and product performance metrics.

Project Title: Workshop on Stochastic Optimization and Equilibrium

Investigator:  The Epstein Department of Industrial & Systems Engineering

This was a one-day workshop with numerous researchers to discuss ideas on stochastic optimization and equilibrium. Some of the presentations discussed “Modeling, Equilibria, Power, and Risk”, Stochastic Gradient Descent: Recent Advances and Applications in Machine Learning”, “Stochastic Non-Cooperative Games”, and “Multiple Roles of Regularization in Stochastic Programming”.

Project Title:  Transportation System Optimization Workshop

Investigator:  Maged Dessouky, Jong-Shi Pang

The Epstein Institute and the METRANS Center conducted a one day workshop with top researchers to discuss traffic and routing problems in cities.  Some topics discussed were “Joint Traffic Routing and Signal Control”, “Worst-Case Demand Distributions in Transportation Problems”, “Peer-to-Peer Ride-Share Systems”, and “Efficient Algorithms in the Redesign of an Emergency Dispatching System”.

Project Title: 3D Printing Equipment Purchase

Investigator: Yong Chen, Qiang Huang

The Epstein Institute purchased two Makerbot Replicator 3D printers, one DAVID SLS2 3D scanner, one Delta Desktop 3D printer, and supplier materials for curriculum and student use. Additive manufacturing or 3D printing can not only revolutionize manufacturing, but also provide exciting opportunities to improve engineering curriculum in areas such as design, manufacturing, and quality control.

Project Title:  Prompting Regular Physical Activity among Type 2 Diabetes Safety-net Patients through Personalized Messaging and Social Network

Investigator: Shinyi Wu

In coordination with the USC Clinical and Translational Science Institute (STSI) mHealth Pilot Funding Program, the purpose of the research is to design and test the feasibility of a behavioral change and social support prompting mHealth system via personalized phone messaging to increase physical activity (PA) among underserved adults with type 2 diabetes (T2D). The burden of T2D is much higher for racial/ethnic minorities as evident by a higher prevalence of the diseased and higher rates of diabetes-related complications when compared to Whites.  People with T2D who exercise regularly have improved blood glucose control and a greater increase in insulin sensitivity; however, racial/ethnic minorities have some of the highest rates of physical inactivity. In this study, a systems approach will be used to design a mHealth messaging intervention that prompts patients to increase PA by a process of needs assessment, awareness awakening, knowledge enhancement, barrier reduction, self-efficacy building, goal setting, positive feedback, and social support, through mHealth messaging.  Thirty-six low income Spanish-speaking adults with T2D will be recruited from a safety-net clinic.  They will be randomly assigned to one of three study arms.  The first arm will receive no intervention.  The second arm will periodically receive personalized short text or voice messages (ST/VM) that address barriers to PA, prompt PA behavior, and assess/provide feedback on PA goals.  The third arm will receive ST/VM plus social support.  That is, participants will invite a family or a friend (FF) to participate in the study.  The FF will receive ST/VM designed to raise awareness on how he/she can support the patient in his/her PA behavior change.  The results of the 12-week study may lay the groundwork for future-full-scale interventions that want to capitalize on the use of phone messaging and social support to increase PA among underserved adults with T2.

Project Title: Applying ISE Principles at Valley Presbyterian Hospital 

Investigator: David Belson
The objective of this project is to apply Industrial Engineering methods to improve productivity and operational success to problems identified by the hospital. The experience is intended to add to the student’s learning as well as to produce significant and sustained improvement at the hospital. The project will redesign the Emergency Department to improve the workflow.

Project Title: Engineers Without Borders: La Estanzuela Water Project

Investigator: Mansour Rahimi and Dana Sherman

The purpose of this project is to improve the quality of life for the small, underprivileged community of La Estanzuela, Honduras by utilizing the engineering skills and team management learned in the classroom to develop a water filtration and distribution system for the community. In order to collect water, the members of La Estanzuela, most often women and children, have to travel 1 km to the closest river. The water they are collecting is contaminated and would be deemed “undrinkable” by U.S. standards. EWB-USC’s student-designed, sustainable system will provide clean, accessible water to La Estanzuela. Having accessible water will allow the children time to go to school and the women time to earn additional income for the family. Similarly, with access to filtered and chlorinated water there will be significant decreases in water-related illnesses. With clean water flowing directly to homes, women and children will spend less time every day carrying water home.

Project Title: Product Dissection Project Development for ISE232L - Manufacturing 

Investigator: Yong Chen

ISE232L “Manufacturing Processes” is a hard course to teach to undergraduate students since all the manufacturing processes are quite abstract and have no direct link to the students’ everyday life. To motivate the students in learning the course material, a product dissection project is assigned to the students to illustrate the link between the course materials and their everyday life. However, there are several problems associated with quality control with the current approach of students self-selecting their projects. The purpose of this project is to overcome this problem by developing a set of standardized products that will be used in the product dissection project in ISE232L.