03/20/2024
By Danielle Fretwell

The Francis College of Engineering, Department of Industrial Engineering, invites you to attend a Doctoral Dissertation defense by Kenneth Martinez entitled "Developing Resilience-Survivability Engineering Models for Resilient Techno-Human-Economic Systems under Stress."

Candidate Name: Kenneth Martinez
Degree: Doctoral
Defense Date: Wednesday, April 3, 2024
Time: Noon to 2 p.m.
Location: Dandeneau 105

Committee:

  • Advisor: David Claudio
  • Jasmina Burek, Assistant Professor, Mechanical & Industrial Engineering Dept., UMass Lowell
  • Maria Velazquez, Associate Professor, Mechanical & Industrial Engineering Dept., UMass Lowell

Brief Abstract:

Some scenarios find system components struggling to comply with performance thresholds and crossing a breaking point. It is therefore discovered in this study that systems can be survivable, instead of resilient, when they pose the resurgence property. This property signifies the systematic behavior of overcoming a certain stagnation period and, after a time range, returning as a transformed version of the system with a new purpose. Through this study, it was found that symmetries between resilience and survivability split as systems start to conceive the factual causes of failure. To discover these causes, this dissertation presents a Markov-based approach that integrates technological, human, and economic (THE)* aspects that monitors a system under stress. THE models reproduce the behavior of different social sectors and enterprises in a graphical-numerical fashion. THE models also incorporate resilience-survivability measures, the concepts of breaking points (referred to as divergence), and the resurgence property as they evaluate systems’ performance at different levels and states across time.

To prove the legitimacy of the model, the most recent predicaments of Puerto Rico (PR) have been transcribed to the mathematical dialect of a THE under stress with real historical data, socioeconomic indicators, and technical innovation indicators. To further expand the assessment on PR, a simulation model was designed and run to determine the contribution percentages of the three THE components in PR’s resilience behavior over sixty-two years. It was discovered that these percentages are not necessarily divided into three equal parts: the technological aspect showed a 25.66% of the system load; the human aspect showed 39.77%, and the economic aspect showed 34.57%. A practical insight can be drawn from these values as the human side of THE model is claimed as the main influence in PR; the human aspect is also claimed as the one carrying the most effects of the system’s divergence.

*Formerly named HIS in the proposal's abstract