Bibliographic record
Abstract
In an age of dwindling fossil fuels, increased air pollution, and toxic groundwater, it is time we embrace renewable energy sources and commit to global green initiatives. In principle, biomass could be used to manufacture all the fuels and chemicals currently being manufactured from fossil fuels. Unlike fossil fuels, which take millions of years to reach a usable form, biomass is an energy source that can close the loop on many of our recycling and hazardous waste problems. The goal of this research is to develop flexible and easy to use mathematical frameworks suitable for the design and planning of biomass supply chains. This thesis deals with the development of discrete-continuous decision support methodology and algorithms for solving complex optimization problems frequently encountered in the procurement of biomass for bioenergy production. Uncertainty and randomness is predominant, although often ignored, throughout the biomass supply chain. Uncertainty in the biomass supply chain may be classified as upstream (supply) uncertainty, internal (process) uncertainty, and downstream (demand) uncertainty. This thesis endeavors to incorporate uncertainty in the modeling of biomass supply chains. For this purpose, stochastic modeling and scenario analysis methodologies are utilized. The main contributions of this thesis are: (i) the development of a novel stochastic optimization methodology, called quantile-based scenario analysis (QSA); and (ii) the development of optimization algorithms, namely constrained cluster analysis (CCA) and min-min min-max optimization algorithm (MMROA), for the collection of bales across multiple adjoining fields. These methodologies are applied to three distinct biomass procurement case studies. Results show that QSA achieves more favorable solutions than those obtained using existing stochastic or deterministic approaches. In addition, QSA is found to be computationally more efficient. In a case study involving the collection of forest harvest residues for several competing power plants, QSA achieved an average cost reduction of 11%. In a case study involving the collection of sawmill residues, QSA obtained a 6% gain in performance by accounting for uncertainty in the model parameters. In a case study involving the collection of bales, an 8.7% reduction in the total travel distance was obtained by the MMROA.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.004 | 0.008 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.003 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".