Theses and Dissertations from UMD
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New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a give thesis/dissertation in DRUM
More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.
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Item Harboring Identity: Community-Informed Design for Belonging in Westport and Curtis Bay(2023) Abe, Danielle; Filler, Kenneth; Architecture; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This thesis is a community-informed exploration of South Baltimore’s Westport and Curtis Bay neighborhoods. It is about listening, empathizing, and starting the design process with these communities and then exploring forms and spaces that can serve current community anchors and community needs while acknowledging complicated histories. In the U.S., the pattern of redlining and disinvestment of resources from communities of color is sometimes followed by re-investment that leads to physical and/or cultural displacement of long-time residents. The Baltimore Harbor is experiencing pressure of potentially speculative gentrifying re-investment that would serve future hypothetical residents instead of existing ones. The design intent is to empower residents to stay, strengthen, and feel a sense of belonging in their home neighborhoods.Item CIVIC DRAMATURGY: CULTURAL SPACE, ARTISTIC LABOR, AND PERFORMANCES OF URBAN PLANNING IN 21ST CENTURY CHICAGO(2022) Thomas, LaRonika; Harding, James; Theatre; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation develops a theory of “civic dramaturgy.” Civic dramaturgy is a process of performing identity through changes to and impacts on the built environment, as well as a method of analyzing and contextualizing those performances to better understand the multiple modes of identity expression that make up a specific place, in the case of this dissertation, that place is the city of Chicago. Civic dramaturgy joins theories of “performance and the city” together with theatre history and urban studies to examine cultural space, cultural policy, performances of urban planning, and the ways in which artistic labor is used by individuals, corporations, and governments in non-representational performances of civic and urban identity in the United States. This study first establishes a working definition of civic dramaturgy, tracing the development of the ideas of the “civic” and “dramaturgy” through western theatre history, as well as examining other theories significant to urban planning, critical space theory, spatial representations of gender and race, and performance of cities. Dramaturgy involved four main areas of practice: analysis of plot structure, relationship between artist and audience, locality and spatial awareness, and contextualization. Each of chapters one through four examine an aspect of Chicago through one of these practices to build toward this definition of civic dramaturgy. I identified the city of Chicago as the site of study for this work because of its history of planning the built environment and its robust theatre history, including the way in which its theatre has been intertwined with social and spatial movements through the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries. In addition to an examination of the development of the city and its theatre, civic dramaturgy requires an analysis of the ways in which artistic labor co-creates civic identity, the social space of the city, and the built environment. In particular, the work of Theaster Gates, an artist and planner working on the south side of Chicago, provides a poignant example of the ways cultural planning, performance, and labor work to craft a civic identity; and the structure of these interwoven performances are examples of civic dramaturgy. Finally, the performance of the digital space of the city is also an important component of civic dramaturgy and the fourth chapter breaks down the ways in which actor and audience relationships manifest through sensory-inscribed bodies in performance and planning of the built environment. This study builds upon existing scholarship that posits dramaturgy as a way to understand performance, architecture, policy-making, and politics, extending the use of the structural and spatial concepts of dramaturgy beyond the rehearsal room, the stage, and the site-specific performance, in order to craft a more comprehensive means by which to understand performance and the city, and providing an example of a kind of dramaturgically-based analysis that may also be used when looking at all kinds of urban spaces and phenomena, and which may be theorized as “civic dramaturgy.”Item MULTI-VEHICLE ROUTE PLANNING FOR CENTRALIZED AND DECENTRALIZED SYSTEMS(2019) Patel, Ruchir; Herrmann, Jeffrey W; Azarm, Shapour; Mechanical Engineering; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Multi-vehicle route planning is the problem of determining routes for a set of vehicles to visit a set of locations of interest. In this thesis, we describe a study of a classical multi-vehicle route planning problem which compared existing solutions methods on min-sum (minimizing total distance traveled) and min-max (minimizing maximum distance traveled) cost objectives. We then extended the work in this study by adapting approaches tested to generate robust solutions to a failure-robust multi vehicle route planning problem in which a potential vehicle failure may require modifying the solution, which could increase costs. Additionally, we considered a decentralized extension to the multi-vehicle route planning problem, also known as the decentralized task allocation problem. The results of a computational study show that our novel genetic algorithm generated better solutions than existing approaches on larger instances with high communication quality.Item PRIORITIZING AND SCHEDULING INTERRELATED ROAD PROJECTS USING METAHEURISTIC ALGORITHMS(2015) Shayanfar, Elham; schonfeld, paul m; Civil Engineering; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Projects are considered interrelated when their benefits or costs depend on which other projects are implemented. Selection and scheduling of interrelated projects is a challenging optimization problem which has applications in various fields including economics, operations research, business, management and transportation. The goal is to determine which projects should be selected and when they should be funded in order to minimize the total system cost over a planning horizon subject to a budget constraint. The budget is supplied by both external and internal sources from fuel tax revenues. This study then applies three meta-heuristic algorithms including a Genetic Algorithm (GA), Simulated Annealing (SA) and, Tabu Search (TS) in seeking efficient and consistent solutions to the selection and scheduling problem. These approaches are applied to a special case of link capacity expansion projects to showcase their functionality and compare their performance in terms of solution quality, computation time and consistency.Item The Refugee Experience: Individual Survival to Community Engagement(2015) Chaudhry, Lubna Halim; Quiros, Luis D; Architecture; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)As the world population expands with no reduction in conflict, there has been a rapid increase in the numbers of refugees. With such a massive increase in refugees, it is important to review the built environment that people inhabit within refugee camps. In theory, refugee camps are built to be a temporary settlement, whether planned or impromptu it is meant to meet basic human needs for a short period of time. But in reality, these temporary settlements end up being populated for long periods of time, mimicking the physical organizations seen in small towns and cities. Such places should no longer be seen as short term transitional population centers but permanent settlements. In this thesis I will explored the long-term planning of refugee camps with a critical look at: how refugee camps evolve over time; the strategies people use to make these spaces their own as the camp evolves; whether camp plans relate to the cultural living patterns of the refugees; how camps might be planned to reduce dependence on the host country; and how the design of the camps might be guided by an understanding of these factors. This thesis was explored through the lens of the Syrian Civil War and the refugees that it has unfortunately produced. Through the study of precedent camps, a cluster formation of shelter was observed. The thesis proposes to give refugees a plot of land as well as a shelter that is modifiable over time. The cluster formation of plots is used as module to create community spaces at all different scales.Item Planning During the Internship: A Study of the Planning Practices of Preservice English Teachers(2014) Hessong Grove, Rebecca M.; Koziol, Stephen; Curriculum and Instruction; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This collective case study investigated the planning practices of six English education interns during the full time internship, including planning for edTPA. Research and professional standards emphasize the importance of planning, as it undergirds every aspect of what happens in a classroom. By understanding how interns learn to plan, teacher educators can better facilitate interns' development of planning skills. Using activity theory as a theoretical framework, this study describes how interns' planning practices changed over the course of the internship and identifies factors that influenced changes. Data sources included lesson plans, interviews with interns and mentors, and edTPA lesson plans. Findings showed most interns did not write detailed daily plans, but those who did experienced fewer planning and teaching struggles. Communication and feedback from the mentor were major factors in creating successful plans and planning routines. Three of the interns began writing more detailed plans to improve their teaching, motivated by a desire to be more organized and effective. All interns wrote detailed, formal plans for edTPA, and these plans included elements that were not part of typical written plans, such as differentiation and formative assessment. Other areas of change included increased planning for scaffolding and addressing students' confusion. Graduate interns expressed increased confidence in planning student-centered lessons. Factors that influenced such changes included experience, mentor guidance, and support from a methods course. Interns also drew on their increasing knowledge of students and district curriculum to plan relevant lessons. Interns consistently planned at the whole-class level, with little evidence of planning for individual learning. This study has implications for teacher educators aiming to strengthen candidates' planning practices. Programs must facilitate proactive mentoring and structured co-planning. Pre-service coursework should help candidates integrate student-centered pedagogy, formative assessment, and differentiation into lesson plans. The impact of internship length and undergraduate vs. graduate program structures must be investigated further. Finally, this study indicates that planning for edTPA was educative for interns. This, along with other findings, suggests that more formal planning can improve intern learning and program coherence.Item Agent-Based Models of Highway Investment Processes: Forecasting Future Networks under Public and Private Ownership Regimes(2012) Yusufzyanova, Dilya; Zhang, Lei; Civil Engineering; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The present highway funding system, especially fuel taxes, may become a less reliable revenue source in the future, while the transportation public agencies do not have sufficient financial resources needed to meet the increasing traffic demand. In the last two decades there has been increasing interest in utilizing private sector to develop, finance and operate new and existing roadways in the United States. While transportation privatization projects have shown signs of success, it is not always clear how to measure the true benefits associated with these projects for all stakeholders, including the public sector, the private sector and the public. "Win-win" privatization agreements are tricky to make due to conflicting nature of the various stakeholders involved. Therefore, there is a huge need to study the welfare impacts of various road privatization arrangements for the society as a whole, and the financial implications for private investors and public road authorities. In order to address these needs, first, an empirical analysis is performed to study the investment decision processes of public transportation agencies. Second, the agent-based decision-making model is developed to consider transportation investment processes at different levels of government which forecasts future transportation networks and their performance under both existing and alternative transportation planning processes. Third, various highway privatization schemes currently practiced in the U.S. are identified and an agent-based model for analyzing regulatory policies on private-sector transportation investments is developed. Fourth, the above mentioned models are demonstrated on the networks with grid and beltway topologies to study the impacts of topology configuration on the privatization arrangements. Based on the simulation results of developed models, a number of insights are provided about impacts of ownership structures on the socio-economic performance in transportation systems and transportation network changes over time. The proposed models and the approach can be used in long-run prediction of economic performance intended for describing a general methodology for transportation planning on large networks. Therefore, this research is expected to contribute significantly to the understanding and selecting proper road privatization programs on public networks.Item "Let the People Have a Victory": The Politics of Transportation in Philadelphia, 1946-1984(2010) Kobrick, Jacob Ian; Muncy, Robyn L; History; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Urban transportation planning in the United States underwent important changes in the decades after World War II. In the immediate postwar period, federal highway engineers in the Bureau of Public Roads dominated the decision-making process, creating a planning regime that focused almost entirely on the building of modern expressways to relieve traffic congestion. In the 1960s, however, local opposition to expressway construction emerged in cities across the nation, reflecting growing discontent with what many citizens perceived to be a closed planning process that resulted in the destruction of urban neighborhoods, environmental degradation, and inadequate attention paid to alternative modes of transportation. Local freeway protestors found allies in the new U.S. Department of Transportation, which moved in the mid-1960s to absorb the Bureau of Public Roads and support legislation promoting a planning process more open to local input as well as a greater emphasis on federal aid for urban mass transportation. The changing culture of transportation planning produced a series of freeway revolts, resulting in the cancellation or modification of interstate highway projects, in major American cities. Changes in transportation planning played out differently in every city, however. This dissertation examines controversies over Philadelphia's major expressway projects - the Schuylkill Expressway, the Delaware Expressway, and the never-built Crosstown Expressway, in addition to major mass transit developments such as the city's subsidization of the commuter railroads, the creation of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority, and the building of a railroad tunnel known as the Center City Commuter Connection, in order to trace the evolution of the city's transportation politics between 1946 and 1984. Significantly, Philadelphia's own freeway revolt succeeded in eliminating the proposed Crosstown Expressway, which would have created a daunting racial barrier while decimating several low-income African American neighborhoods. The Crosstown Expressway revolt, however, failed to change the overall trajectory of Philadelphia's transportation planning politics, which continued to be dominated by an exceptionally strong alliance between City Hall and large business interests. Philadelphia's turn to mass transit in the 1970s, in contrast to those of other cities, failed to redistribute transportation resources to its low-income residents, mainly because the city chose to devote a massive percentage of its federal funding to the Center City Commuter Connection, a downtown rail tunnel designed to serve approximately 8% of the region's commuters. The prioritization of a rail system serving predominantly affluent white suburbanites left Philadelphia's lower-income population saddled with a crumbling urban mass transit system, demonstrating that, despite a more open planning process and a greater emphasis on mass transportation, fundamental inequalities persisted.Item Algorithms for generating multi-stage molding plans for articulated assemblies(2006-10-09) Priyadarshi, Alok Kumar; Gupta, Satyandra K; Mechanical Engineering; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Plastic products such as toys with articulated arms, legs, and heads are traditionally produced by first molding individual components separately, and then assembling them together. A recent alternative, referred to as in-mold assembly process, performs molding and assembly steps concurrently inside the mold itself. The most common technique of performing in-mold assembly is through multi-stage molding, in which the various components of an assembly are injected in a sequence of molding stages to produce the final assembly. Multi-stage molding produces better-quality articulated products at a lower cost. It however, gives rise to new mold design challenges that are absent from traditional molding. We need to develop a molding plan that determines the mold design parameters and sequence of molding stages. There are currently no software tools available to generate molding plans. It is difficult to perform the planning manually because it involves evaluating large number of combinations and solving complex geometric reasoning problems. This dissertation investigates the problem of generating multi-stage molding plans for articulated assemblies. The multi-stage molding process is studied and the underlying governing principles and constraints are identified. A hybrid planning framework that combines elements from generative and variant techniques is developed. A molding plan representation is developed to build a library of feasible molding plans for basic joints. These molding plans for individual joints are reused to generate plans for new assemblies. As part of this overall planning framework, we need to solve the following geometric subproblems -- finding assembly configuration that is both feasible and optimal, finding mold-piece regions, and constructing an optimal shutoff surface. Algorithms to solve these subproblems are developed and characterized. This dissertation makes the following contributions. The representation for molding plans provides a common platform for sharing feasible and efficient molding plans for joints. It investigates the multi-stage mold design problem from the planning perspective. The new hybrid planning framework and geometric reasoning algorithms will increase the level of automation and reduce chances of design mistakes. This will in turn reduce the cost and lead-time associated with the deployment of multi-stage molding process.Item MULTIOBJECTIVE OPTIMIZATION MODELS AND SOLUTION METHODS FOR PLANNING LAND DEVELOPMENT USING MINIMUM SPANNING TREES, LAGRANGIAN RELAXATION AND DECOMPOSITION TECHNIQUES(2005-08-04) Faria, Jose Alberto; Gabriel, Steven A; Civil Engineering; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The land development problem is presented as the optimization of a weighted average of the objectives of three or more stakeholders, subject to develop within bounds residential, industrial and commercial areas that meet governmental goals. The work is broken into three main sections. First, a mixed integer formulation of the problem is presented along with an algorithm based on decomposition techniques that numerically has proven to outperform other solution methods. Second, a quadratic mixed integer programming formulation is presented including a compactness measure as applied to land development. Finally, to prevent the proliferation of sprawl a new measure of compactness that involves the use of the minimum spanning tree is embedded into a mixed integer programming formulation. Despite the exponential number of variables and constraints required to define the minimum spanning tree, this problem was solved using a hybrid algorithm developed in this research.