Boise State University

About: Boise State University is a education organization based out in Boise, Idaho, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & Poison control. The organization has 3698 authors who have published 8664 publications receiving 210163 citations. The organization is also known as: BSU & Boise State.

Parade Game: Impact of Work Flow Variability on Trade Performance

Abstract: The Parade Game illustrates the impact work flow variability has on the performance of construction trades and their successors. The game consists of simulating a construction process in which resources produced by one trade are prerequisite to work performed by the next trade. Production-level detail, describing resources being passed from one trade to the next, illustrates that throughput will be reduced, project completion delayed, and waste increased by variations in flow. The game shows that it is possible to reduce waste and shorten project duration by reducing the variability in work flow between trades. Basic production management concepts are thus applied to construction management. They highlight two shortcomings of using the critical-path method for field-level planning: The critical-path method makes modeling the dependence of ongoing activities between trades or with operations unwieldy and it does not explicitly represent variability. The Parade Game can be played in a classroom setting eith...

Defense of trust management vulnerabilities in distributed networks

Abstract: Establishing trust among distributed network entities has been recognized as a powerful tool to secure distributed networks such as MANETs and sensor networks. Similar to most security schemes, trust establishment methods themselves can be vulnerable to attacks. In this article we investigate the benefits of introducing trust into distributed networks, the vulnerabilities in trust establishment methods, and the defense mechanisms. Five attacks against trust establishment methods are identified, and defense techniques are developed. Effectiveness of the attacks and the defense is demonstrated in the scenarios of securing routing protocols and detecting malicious nodes in MANETs.

Emergence of room-temperature ferroelectricity at reduced dimensions

Abstract: The enhancement of the functional properties of materials at reduced dimensions is crucial for continuous advancements in nanoelectronic applications. Here, we report that the scale reduction leads to the emergence of an important functional property, ferroelectricity, challenging the long-standing notion that ferroelectricity is inevitably suppressed at the scale of a few nanometers. A combination of theoretical calculations, electrical measurements, and structural analyses provides evidence of room-temperature ferroelectricity in strain-free epitaxial nanometer-thick films of otherwise nonferroelectric strontium titanate (SrTiO3). We show that electrically induced alignment of naturally existing polar nanoregions is responsible for the appearance of a stable net ferroelectric polarization in these films. This finding can be useful for the development of low-dimensional material systems with enhanced functional properties relevant to emerging nanoelectronic devices.