Systems Modeling and Computational Optimization (SyMCO) Lab

Director: Dr. L. Ntaimo     Location: Zachry 304    Phone: 979-847 8507

Many real life problems are characterized by data uncertainties, and often, are of a large scale nature. Large-scale problems have lots of decision variables, data, and constraints, and call for decision making under uncertainty. The SyMCO lab focuses on modeling, simulation and optimization research for such real life problems. Inevitably, to effectively model and develop algorithms to solve decision making problems under uncertainty, our research calls for a systems modeling and stochastic optimization approach. Our specific main research areas are:

• Decomposition algorithms for stochastic mixed-integer programs
• Systems modeling and systems engineering processes
• Discrete event modeling and simulation

 The lab is currently involved in research with applications that include:

• Healthcare:
  • Patient service management in hospital nuclear medicine departments
  • Medication reconciliation for patient safety in rural healthcare settings
    • Collaborators:
    • Dr. Josie Williams, M.D., Director,  Rural and Community Health Institute
  • Scheduling cancer treatments
  • Optimal Vaccination Strategies for Disease Spread
• Wildfires
  • Modeling and simulation of wildfire spread and suppression
  • Firefighting resource location/allocation under uncertainty
    • Collaborators:
    •  Xiaolin Hu, Assistant Professor, Computer Science, Georgia State University
    •  Dr. Sorin Popescu , Assistant Professor, Spatial Sciences Lab, Forest Science, Texas A&M University
    •  Dr. Jianbang Gan, Associate Professor, Forest Science, Texas A&M University
    •  T. Spencer, state fire risk assessment coordinator, Texas Forest Service
• Electrical power generation adequacy planning under uncertainty
  • Collaborator: Professor Chanan Singh
• Stochastic facility and resource location/allocation for telecommunications 

People:

• Matthew Tanner -- Ph.D. Student
• Eric Beier -- Ph.D. Student (DHS Fellowship)
• Eduardo Perez -- Ph.D. Student
• Ewelina Zwierzykowski -- Senior, REU
• Won Ju Lee -- M.S. (Aluminus, graduated Aug 06)

Computing Equipment and Other Resources:

SyMCO Lab currently has three Dell OptPlex GX620, 3.20GZH Dual Core Processor with 4GB RAM; seven Dell OptPlex GX240 with 512MB RAM); PI Ntaimo also has a Dell Precision 470 Workstation in his campus office and a 1.80GHz Dell Latitude D800 notebook computer with 1GB RAM. All the computers have LINDO, AMPLE and ILOG CPLEX 9.0, IBM Rational Data Modeler, DEVSJAVA, and FARSITE.

Funded Projects:

1. "DDDAS-SMRP: Dynamic Data Driven Integrated Simulation and Stochastic Optimization for Wildland Fire Containment"

• PI: L. Ntaimo, Co-PI: X. Hu,  Dept. of Computer Science,  Georgia State University
• Sponsor: National Science Foundation
• Grant No. CNS 0540000
• Duration: Dec 05 - Nov 08.

2. "Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) - Dynamic Data Driven Integrated Simulation and Stochastic Optimization for Wildland Fire Containment"

• PI: L. Ntaimo
• Sponsor: National Science Foundation
• Under Grant No.CNS 0540000
• Duration: Dec 05 - Nov 08.

Send mail to ntaimo@tamu.edu with questions or comments about this web site.
Copyright © 2007 L. Ntaimo
Last modified: 09/19/07