ABET Symposium - Lebanese International Universitymoodle.liu.edu.lb/liu/soe/seminars/ABET/Invited Presentation.pdf · Class discussion topics hit the impact of engineering solutions

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To any reviewer: This is an invited presentation. It serves to demonstrate how a Systems Design and Analysis course addresses ABET outcome “h”. The slides contain, basically, talking points for the presentation. A number of slides contain multiple images that occlude one another.

April 19-21, 2012, in St. Louis, MO.

Glenn S. Kohne Associate Professor Electrical & Computer Engineering Loyola University Maryland

ABET Symposium

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Criterion 3: student outcomes. Outcome (h): the broad education necessary to understand the impact of engineering solutions in a global, economic, environmental, and societal context

Why am I here?

We chose EG 441 Engineering Systems Design and Analysis to assess outcome h.

After review of the course materials, one of the ABET visitors thought others might benefit by seeing how we addressed outcome h

Boring slide #1

A hunter pitches his tent………………..

How do you communicate to them what that means? By example.

Two brothers …………….

Much of engineering is about using existing knowledge (facts) to evaluate something or to solve problems

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• what is a system

Presentation of how this course addresses:

• how is engineering perceived and accepted by the public

• ethical dilemmas

• how is data used (and misused)

• what do various terms actually mean

• consequences of improper/incomplete analysis

• complete life-cycle

What follows are lecture topics and student exercises that address these issues

• evaluation of claims

Engineers solve problems, improve life by using existing science and materials to engineer new products and systems. Design solutions with a maximum of suitability and safety and a minimum of cost and materials.

How does an engineer answer the question ?

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Important tools for engineering design and analysis:

Perception Curiosity Creativity Point of view Plausibility Estimation Ability to select and use things we know to solve problems Power of observation

The course and this talk center on discussing by example

The biggest challenge is to get the students to sit still and THINK.

Read this as quickly as you can.

i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was

rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a

rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht

oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht

the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a

taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is

bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but

the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot

slpeling was ipmorantt!

What we see and what we perceive are two entirely different things.

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A man’s face

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Thinking outside the box is thinking in ways that are less than obvious

Like…

Mt. Rushmore from the Canadian side

Ladders have about 11 warning labels.

Do they improve safety? Usefulness?

Do air bags improve your safety? Worth the cost?

Do motorcycle helmets improve safety? (and why does government care?)

Does the warning label on your sun visor improve your safety?

There have been warning labels on every pack of cigarettes sold in the last 60 years. Has the label helped?

Electric plugs have 3rd prong ground. Does it improve safety?

Class discussion topics hit the impact of engineering solutions in a global, economic, environmental, and societal context

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Do seat belts improve your safety?

Do seat belts improve safety for the population at large?

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Ferrari hits a post at 200 mph.....Unbelievable! The driver only had some bruising (seat belt) and 2 small cuts. Car loss 1 million dollars! Car only had 9 miles on it!

Do you feel safer knowing this dude is still out there driving ?

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How do we make decisions?

Question 1: If you knew a woman who was pregnant, who had 8 kids already, three who were deaf, two who were blind, one mentally retarded, and she had syphilis, would you recommend that she have an abortion? Why or why not?

Lets consider a second question before seeing the consequence of our first question.

Question 2: It is time to elect a new world leader, and only your vote counts. Here are the facts about the three candidates. Who would you vote for? Candidate A.

Associates with crooked politicians, and consults with astrologist. He's had two mistresses. He also chain smokes and drinks 8 to 10 martinis a day.

Candidate B.

He was kicked out of office twice, sleeps until noon, used opium in college and drinks a quart of whiskey every evening.

Candidate C.

He is a decorated war hero. He's a vegetarian, doesn't smoke, drinks an occasional beer and never cheated on his wife.

Which of these candidates would be our choice? Why?

Candidate A is Franklin D. Roosevelt. Candidate B is Winston Churchill Candidate C is Adolph Hitler.

And, by the way, on your answer to the abortion question:

If you said YES, you just killed Beethoven.

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Trolley car dilemma

Einstein bin Laden, Hitler, Mao, 9/11 hijackers(2)

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If you are not in danger,

and you take an action, with intent, that causes a death,

it’s first degree murder under most States’ law.

Are there any consequences to your decision ?

Decision making where either choice has a consequence.

The trolley car decision is not one of engineering, but it is a direct parallel with actual engineering dilemmas.

Check the I35W bridge collapse in Minnesota – Decision to reduce DOT costs by reducing maintenance.

Maintenance design and execution is part of engineering design.

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W35 Bridge, Minneapolis, Minnesota

As a US attorney, you swear an oath to uphold, protect and defend the Constitution.

To get a security clearance, you swear an oath not to disclose classified material.

You become aware that the Justice department is operating a classified wire-tapping program without any Judicial approval (that is really unconstitutional).

What do you do? How can the system be redesigned?

You are working for Raytheon as part of a large team designing a new, classified weapon system and you know that another group has used “manufactured” data that will result in the weapon system not working properly. Your supervisor knows that the company needs the contract and will not listen to your position. What do you do?

Engineering equivalent of the Trolley dilemma

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Can a given question be answered at all ?

General belief that the earth is getting warmer

Indicators both ways

Artic ice is in fact receding. Greenland ice is receding

While Antarctic ice shelves are calving, 90% of Antarctica is getting colder (we are measuring it) and interior ice is thickening

What was the average global temperature today ???

When analyzing a system and justifying your conclusions, it is important to use factual data and numbers.

for example:

Support for claim on previous slide

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The Claim - Greenland Ice Melting

If all the ice on Greenland melts, will New York city be under water.

See if we can figure it out.

Is this plausible ? Should we all worry ?

Estimation, plausibility analysis

700

2400

Area = 700 * 2400 = 1.68 * 106 square kilometers

Guess Thickness at 1.5 km (5,000 ft)

Volume is 2.52 * 106 km3 .

Figure world surface area

148,326,000 km2 land 361,740,000 km2 water 510,066,000 km2 total

Total area * rise = total ice volume.

Rise = (2.52 * 106 km3)/(5.1 * 108 km2)

Rise = (0.494 * 10-2 km)

Rise = 4.94 m

That’s 0.036 inches/year.

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Consider this -

Plates 2 mi to 36 mi thick

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Skyhook the ice – “Isostatic Rebound”

The point is that our “assumptions” can have dramatic impact on our conclusions

Show and Distribute the Ethanol article.

There’s a big push by politicians and maybe some environmental groups to move from gasoline to E85 (ethanol blend).

Do you think that this could significantly reduce our reliance on imported oil?

Do you think that this would be better for our environment?

Homework #2 Due:

If this class were the U.S. Congress, would you pass legislation to mandate the production of enough E85 to supply 20% of the US automobile fleet?

Classroom discussion – HW: reading lengthy scientific article, researching and evaluating claims made, drawing (supported) conclusions, making recommendations

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Most of these decisions discussed here were made as a result of social and political rhetoric, not scientific study.

Once you understand system analysis, you can apply it to “hot topics of the day”.

Then, we’ll know whether or not it makes sense to support today’s hot topic.

Proposal – To reduce our need for imported oil, we will always walk trips that are 3 miles or shorter.

How can we evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed policy?

As an example:

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Units, Relationships, Energy Source

The calorie, c The kilocalorie, C The British Thermal Unit, BTU

One C = 4 BTUs

Walking @ 3 mph takes 300 C/hr. 220 C in excess of BMR.

Farmers use about 40 BTU to produce 1C of food. Tractor fuel, fertilizer, transportation to your table, etc..

So eating 1/3 meat and 2/3 other foodstuff requires 1/3 * 160 + 2/3*40 = 53 + 27 = 80 BTU for each C of food produced

Raising meat requires about 160 BTU to produce 1 C of food Fertilizer for corn to feed the cows, pigs, chickens, processing and transportation, etc

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1 Gal of gas has about 114,000 BTU, so the equivalent of 0.154 gal.

In your walk, you burned an excess 220 C To produce that food required 80 * 220 = 17,600 BTU.

To produce the food you use to walk 3 miles requires 0.154 gal. You get 19.4 mpg. While walking!

This gives us real information to use when making the decision. We’ll know what we are talking about.

The “sniff test” - plausibility analysis - Who says?

In August, oil will reach $200/barrel by Christmas

Is there any way that those making a claim can possibly know what they are asserting?

Impact of “predictions” by the “experts”

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So what effect does this nonsense of predicting things have on you? (You are part of the economic system of the US)

As a direct result of the high gas prices in the summer and the prediction that they will only go up further ; because world-wide demand exceeds supply:

The bottom falls out of the SUV and pick-up truck market

GM and Ford approach “real” bankruptcy. Chrysler had already screwed itself into the ground for other reasons.

Thousands autoworkers out of a job.

People made decisions, based on the predictions, that resulted in huge economic distress.

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Chapter 1 Systems Science and Engineering 2 Chapter 2 Bringing Systems Into Being 23 Part II The System Design Process 55 Chapter 3 Conceptual System Design 56 Chapter 4 Preliminary System Design 100 Chapter 5 Detail Design and Development 128 Chapter 6 System Test, Evaluation, and Validation 150 Part III Systems Analysis and Design Evaluation 169 Chapter 8 Models For Economic Evaluation 204 Chapter 9 Optimization in Design and Operations 239 Part IV Design for Operational Feasibility 361 Chapter 12 Design for Reliability 362 Chapter 13 Design for Maintainability 410 Chapter 14 Design For Usability (Human Factors) 468

What is a system ?

Definition: A system is a set of interrelated components working together toward some common objective or purpose that have these properties:

each component effects other components and the set as a whole. each component is effected by at least one other component in the set. the components cannot be divided into independent subsets. Components: Attributes: Relationships

How about the entire, observable universe?

How about just our solar system?

How about the planet, earth?

How about a dog?

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Pension Plans in the US

Components

Management, employees, bank account, employee salary, corporate payroll, corporate stock

Attributes

Longevity of employment, # of dollars in account, amount promised, # dollars in salary, employee skill level, loyalty (desire to remain with company), employee demographics

Relationships

Promise of pension improves management’s ability to hire employees with better skill sets

It allows employees to be hired at lower salaries.

It gives older employees a stronger desire to remain with company. (vested interest)

The promise doesn’t cost much up front. The company’s stock is frequently used to fund plan. If stock tanks, so does the plan.

Chapter 1

Components

apartments, landlords, tenants, politicians, media, rents, operating costs, elections, laws, profit, tenants assets

Attributes

size of rent increases, increased operating costs, # landlords, # tenants

Relationships

politicians prone to please tenants (more to vote), increasing operating costs require increasing rent or loss of profit, tenant retains assets if rents controlled

Montgomery County Rent Control

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Components

Hospitals, ERs, Doctors, Patients, Lawyers, law suits, damage awards, standards of practice, medicines, insurance, juries, government policy makers, drug companies

Attributes

differing physiology, $ for insurance, $ for tests, $ for awards, likelihood for medical outcomes, drug interactions, skill of doctors, effectiveness of drugs, patient expectations, safety of drugs, safety of surgeries

Relationships

cycle of money, juries decide guilt/ make awards, society has a general expectation that drives juries/ policymakers. drugs available or removed by media (social) pressure rather than for science

Run away Cost Of Healthcare

Federal No Child Left Behind

Components

Federal Government, State Governments, Schools, The Constitution, teachers, students, parents, tests, budgets, Special needs students, extracurricular activities (band, sports, clubs, etc.), media

Attributes

$ Federal aid, $state budgets, difficulty of standard tests (Federal & State), skill level of teachers, efficacy of tests, $ per student

Relationships

including all students’ scores brings down total because of special needs students, low test scores means less federal aid, teaching the test contrary to a good curriculum, loss of money ends extracurricular activities

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Components

flight crew, aircraft structures (doors), federal regulations, OPSPECs, bad guys, passengers, carryon items, media, the general public, airline assets, tickets, security check-ins

Attributes

physical attributes (all humans on aircraft), door strength, bad guys’ expectation of surviving, degree of danger for carry-on items, public belief in level of security/risk, $ per ticket, $ per check-in, time per check-in

Relationships

crew response to bad guys, passengers response to bad guys, public willingness to fly, belief in safety increases ridership, increased ridership yields airline assets, media is operating as a tool to form public opinion,

Aircraft in-flight security

Katrina

Components

Levees, hurricanes, first responders, mayor, city council, university studies, busses, evacuation plan, federal funds to reinforce levees, gambling boats/marina, city budget, state budget, taxes, governor, state legislature, FEMA, news media

Attributes

level 4-5, $ in each budget, $ in taxes, data in university studies, # busses, #people/hour that can be evacuated, # $ given over 10 years to re-inforce, # $ actually used to re-inforce. Level of corruption city/state.

Relationships

diverted fed $, disallowed improved strength/capacity of levees, $ spent preparing for disaster relief not available for politically popular activities, media used to shift blame, political repercussions of actually telling the truth.

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New Orleans Disaster Emergency Plan

Why weren’t busses used to evacuate?

Why wasn’t road used more effectively?

Why no provisions (water, etc) at Superdome?

Why no police protection at Superdome?

Why no learn from Ivan (the year before)?

Basically, New Orleans had no system in place to deal with the Hurricane. It had not used funds that were provided by the Federal Government over the years to buttress disaster relief efforts.

New York first-responders had used FEMA well prior to 9/11, and were extremely well prepared to deal with the disaster.

Feasibility Analysis

Identify possible system level design approaches

Evaluate the most likely approaches in terms of performance, effectiveness, maintenance and logistic support, economic criteria

Recommend (or select) a preferred course of action

System Requirements Analysis Feasibility Analysis Functional Analysis and Allocation Synthesis, analysis, and evaluation System specification (document) Conceptual design review

Gasoline vs diesel vs hybrid vs E85 Fiberglass body vs plastic vs metal Disc brakes vs drum brakes Automatic transmission vs manual transmission Proportional steering vs linear steering Fixed rear wheels vs steerable rear wheels 4-wheel drive vs 2-wheel drive (front vs rear)

Chapter 3

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System Requirements Analysis Feasibility Analysis Functional Analysis and Allocation Synthesis, analysis, and evaluation System specification (document) Conceptual design review

Air Frame Wiring Power train Environment Entertainment Lighting

Air Frame Wings

Ailerons Hinge Formers Skin Trim mechanism

Flaps Main spar Secondary spar

Aileron hinge Former attachments Skin attachments

Formers Skin

Fuselage Vertical stabilizer Horizontal stailizer

Sub-divide

Chapter 5

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Bridge Analysis is to optimize S, the span between piers.

For the moment, assume you can have a non-integer number of piers and spans.

L

S

Chapter 9 - Optimization

Overall consideration: Understanding this is central to the whole book.

Understanding this is central to understanding our society It costs money to have money.

Chapter 8 Economic evaluation

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How much did it cost me ? The principle is guaranteed as well as the 6% interest.

Therefore it cost me $60,000. (lost earnings)

If inflation was roughly 2% per year,

it cost me $200,000.

In Maryland, 6% sales tax.

Therefore it cost me $60,000.

Intangible:

10 years of beachfront house

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So, How much did it cost me to own the picture ?

All together, it cost me either $310,000 or the intangibles to own the picture for 10 years.

Another perfectly legitimate answer would be: Nothing.

Neither answer is more correct than the other.

Yet they differ by $310,000.

See the problem?

And, we haven’t begun to use math formulas.

That will further obfuscate the problem.

Look at it in another way - I could have bought a gas station with it.

Say the business cost $1,000,000 to acquire. Required 6 full time employees @ $32,000 each Income from sales was just enough to pay all my costs. When the business gets sold (at the end of the ten years) it yields $1,000,000

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Would it have made economic sense to have bought the gas station?

I provided 60 man-years of employment for people. The federal government would have collected ___ income tax from others (benefits me) The state would have collected ___ gas tax from others (fixes my roads, benefits me) It guarantees that if anyone gets gas, I get gas, no matter what happens (Katrina, middle east wars, etc) (intangible, but very real benefit to me)

Spring 2009 - Car Allowance Rebate System (CARS)

A vehicle at 15 mpg and 12,000 miles per year uses 800 gallons a year of gasoline.

A vehicle at 25 mpg and 12,000 miles per year uses 480 gallons a year.

So, the average clunker transaction will reduce US gasoline consumption by 320 gallons per year.

The Government claims 700,000 vehicles – so that's 224 million gallons / year.

That equates to a bit over 5 million barrels of oil.

5 million barrels of oil is about ¼ of one day's US consumption.

And, 5 million barrels of oil costs about $350 million dollars at $75/bbl.

So, we all contributed to spending $3 billion to save $350 million.

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Assume that a waste recirculation system is contemplated for a small building. The anticipated costs and savings of this project are given below. Interest rate is 12%. What is the life-cycle cost/savings?

Initial cost Jan 1, base year 28,000 Overhaul cost Jan 1, 3rd year 2,500 Salvage value Jan 1, 5th year 8,000 Savings each year 9,500

We do study traditional problems using standard evaluation techniques

Evaluating a single alternative under certainty

Present Equivalent Evaluation

Annual Equivalent Evaluation

Rate of return evaluation

Payout Evaluation OR When does this thing pay for itself?

At what interest rate will one alternative be cheaper than another?

Make-or-Buy Decisions

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Purposeful mis-representation will lead to false conclusions

How we use and misuse data

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There are very strong power, control, and economic reasons for both the Federal and State governments to convince the public (and the courts) that global warming is occurring and that it is caused by human activity.

Virginia Governor Timothy Kaine Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski Delaware Governor Ruth Ann Minner Washington (state) governor thru his State climatologist ….. Are all strong advocates to control carbon dioxide

Cap-and-trade laws to limit emission of carbon dioxide would provide huge income to the Fed and State governments by taxing electric power generation, gasoline, farming and other sources of carbon dioxide.

They support their position by claiming that the depth of the winter snowpack in the Cascade Mountains is in continual decline.

They show the data from 1950 to 1995, as in this graph…

To support their claims they use data collected and published by Jones (2007).

This dataset is the depth of maximum snowpack between the years 1915-2005, expressed as the departure (in each year) from the 1971-2000 average. (This technique

is a perfectly legitimate way to present the data)

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The average shows a steady, continual decline

The problem is … they did not show the whole dataset

Patrick J. Michaels Full Professor University of Virginia - State Climatologist -----Gagged by Virginia Governor Timothy Kaine, then fired

George Taylor – Oregon State University; 2-time president of the American Association of State Climatologists ----Gagged by Governor Ted Kulongoski, later resigned, not allowed to tell the truth.

David Legates, University of Delaware – State Climatologist ---- Gagged by Governor Ruth Ann Minner

Mark Albright - Assistant State Climatologist for Washington State ----Fired from University of Washington’s atmospheric science department.

These scientists were fired by the State Governors for…

Telling the truth !

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This presentation is not a commentary on the question of carbon dioxide causing global warming.

It is a demonstration of how advocates of a cause can manipulate scientific data to prove their point.

The lesson is to dig deeper. The truncated graph is not factually wrong --- It just misrepresents the scientific study’s actual findings !

Assuming one causes the other, which is the causal one?

How we interpret data

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Experimental data was collected under the following conditions:

At regular intervals, one cubic yard of water was removed from the same location of Deep Creek Lake in Maryland. The samples were always taken at 12 noon. The intensity of sunlight at the site was recorded.

Two properties of the water samples were measured.

Property A is recorded by the blue line on the graph.

Property B is recorded by the brown on the graph.

Students must analyze the graph and draw conclusions

1. On sunny days, the sunshine directly causes increases both property A and property B

2. On sunny days, the sunshine directly increases property A, but has no direct effect on property B. However, the increased property A causes an increase of property B.

3. On sunny days, the sunshine directly increases property B, but has no direct effect on property A. However, the increased property B causes an increase of property A.

There are 3 possible relationships among them.

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Regretfully, the intensity of the sunshine data is unavailable, so option #1 cannot be confirmed or rejected. So we will reject the premise that both property A and property B are independent results of the sunshine. That means that we must conclude either that property A causes property B, OR, that property B causes property A From the data, determine whether you believe option #2 or option #3 to be correct. Homework #3 - Prepare a written argument justifying your determination. You must use specific items from the data to support your position.

Roughly 75% of students find that B causes A

CO2

Temp

When shown what the data is --- Half of the 75% change their mind !!

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When performing Systems Analysis on any system there are a lot of questions that must be answered before legitimate analysis can be done.

Only in the context of the answers, can the results of the analysis make any sense.

How, where, and when were measurements made and data taken?

What assumptions were made?

What types of arithmetic was used?

These can all be summed up as -----

How, where, and when were measurements made and data taken?

Do any of these places seem likely to have any temperature data, whatsoever, from 1880? Today?

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What types of arithmetic was used?

Same two glasses of water, different averages. Both are correct, Both are useful.

Same averages

No wind Big wind

Cold air settles and expands under warm

Cold front

Thunderstorms

Tornados

Same average temps, vastly different weather

Weather is not driven primarily by temperature, but by temperature differences !

Systems on the scale of global weather cannot be analyzed based on a single property (like average temperature).

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How society comes to terms with new Scientific Theories

The modern field of Theory-X, and term itself were first formulated by Sir Francis Galton in 1865 , drawing on the recent work of his cousin Charles Darwin.

Imagine that there is a new scientific theory that warns of an impending crisis, and points to a way out. Call it Theory-X

This theory quickly draws support from leading scientists, politicians and celebrities around the world.

The crisis is reported frequently in the media.

How society drives “scientific” theory This material has been condensed from the class analysis Move thru it quickly

By 1930 in New York, many of the wealthiest people in the world were members of the Theory-X Society.

Theory-X becomes an academic discipline at many colleges and universities.

Important work was done at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford and Johns Hopkins. By 1928, 75% of all colleges and universities offered courses in Theory-X

Three International Theory-X Conferences presented a global venue for Theory-Xists with meetings in 1912 in London, and in 1921 and 1932 in New York.

The first International Congress of Theory-X was held in London in 1912.

Among its directors were Winston Churchill and Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone.

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By 1917, fifteen US States had Theory-X laws, and all but a few of them made legal the compulsory application of Theory-X

During the height of the popular American Theory-X movement, 30 of the United States, two Canadian Provinces, and a large number of other nations had Theory-X laws on the books. (Only 45 states at that time)

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the 1927 Buck v. Bell case that the state of Virginia could impose Theory-X on individuals against their will.

The National Academy of Sciences The American Medical Association The National Research Council The Ford Foundation The Carnegie Institution of Washington The Cold Springs Harbor Institute was built to carry out this research

Theory-X had strong institutional support

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Theory-X had the public support of many notables:

Theodore Roosevelt president Woodrow Wilson president Winston Churchill prime minister Oliver Wendell Holmes supreme court justice Louis Brandeis supreme court justice Luther Burbank botanist Leland Stanford founder of Stanford University Alexander Graham Bell inventor George Bernard Shaw playwright H. G. Wells novelist John Harvey Kellogg, M.D. Kellogg Cornflakes Co. Clarence J. Gamble Procter & Gamble J. P. Morgan, Jr. chairman, U. S. Steel John Davison Rockefeller founded Standard Oil H. B. DuPont founder DuPont Chemicals Andrew Carnegie railroads then steel Cleveland H. & Cleveland E. Dodge Phelps Dodge & Co. copper mines Nobel Prize winners several

Those who opposed Theory-X were shouted down and called reactionary, blind to reality, or just plain ignorant.

All of the preceding is factually true ! (and relatively modern)

We have examined the position of:

Major universities

Major National research organizations

Major philanthropic organizations

Major celebrities

State Laws

US Supreme Court decisions

Canadian Laws

International Scientific Conferences

You do not know what Theory-X is.

You do not know the scientific/engineering data used to support it.

However, what do you conclude as to the likely validity of Theory-X ?

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Theory-X

“Eugenics” is a social philosophy which advocates the improvement of human hereditary traits through various forms of intervention.

Throughout history, eugenics has been regarded by its various advocates as a social responsibility, an altruistic stance of a society, meant to create healthier and more intelligent people, to save resources, and lessen human suffering.

The Point Man may or may not be causing global warming. This should be determined by engineering mechanisms to factually relate cause to effect, not by public popularity.

When doing a system analysis, it’s important to consider all of the components of the system, to evaluate the various relationships between all of the components.

Only then can you draw realistic conclusions about how a system works and/or how it will respond to change.

The following few slides give topics that are discussed

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Our elected officials are pushing for things like cars that get 80 miles/gallon.

Is there enough energy in a gallon of gasoline to move your Honda Civic 80 miles?

Do cell phones increase your changes of getting brain cancer?

Does talking on a cell phone while driving increase your risk more than talking to a passenger in your car?

Choices you will make.

Does sterilizing baby bottles, sanitizing surfaces, staying away from sick people, etc… improve your kid’s health? (over lifetime)

Young immune systems need exposure to germs to develop resistance to them. Traditionally, nursing exposes infants to germs on the mother’s skin. Bottle-fed infants miss the chance.

Might all of this clean-ness be causing the dramatic increase in asthma, food and environmental allergies?

It seems like common sense, but….

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Should your kids be allowed to have fist-fights? (What are the pluses and minuses?)

Should your kids be exposed to alcohol under family control, or just set free at 21?

Should the government be deciding when and what your kids are being told about sex?

We can consider the collection of US families and their health as a system in an engineering context.

These generally accepted “truths” and government regulations absolutely affect the health in our system.

Should your kids be required to get the 50some vaccinations currently public policy?

Conclusion:

While studying

probability-density functions

present-equivalent value functions

various mathematical models

are important parts of Systems Analysis & Design

Students become much more engaged when Systems Analysis & Design techniques are applied to systems with which they are familiar.

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