Committee Chair

Weerasena, Lakmali

Committee Member

Aniekan, Ebiefung; Gao, Lani; Bandara, Damitha

Department

Dept. of Mathematics

College

College of Arts and Sciences

Publisher

University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

Place of Publication

Chattanooga (Tenn.)

Abstract

This study extends the classical smallest enclosing circle problem in location science to optimize healthcare communication hubs. Given a set of demand points and potential groups, we identify the optimal number of subgroups to cover all points and the circle enclosing them with minimum radius. The center of this circle serves as the communication hub location, minimizing the distance between demand points and facilities subject to customer demand. We develop a nonconvex-nonlinear optimization model and propose a quadratic programming-based approximation algorithm to solve it. Tested on various hypothetical and real scenarios, our model effectively reduces the facility setup cost and identifies the optimal communication hub location.

Acknowledgments

This work was possible due to the support and guidance received from many people. I first want to express my sincere gratitude to the Graduate School and the Department of Mathematics at UTC for the opportunity offered to me to pursue a graduate degree in Mathematics. I especially want to thank my Mentor and Supervisor Dr. Lakmali Weerasena for her invaluable knowledge and advice to get this work done. I would also like to thank my committee members, Prof. Aniekan Ebiefung, Prof. Lani Gao, and Prof. Damitha Bandara for their critiques and advice. My sincere appreciation also goes to Chris Tompkins and Hunt Nyssa for their support with my GIS analysis in this work. Also, I will like to thank Israel Adikah and Gertrude Osei for their encouragement and support. I would like to express my utmost gratitude, with one final appreciation, to the National Science Foundation (NSF) for generously funding my graduate school fees, stipend, and health insurance. This funding has been critical in enabling me to complete my research successfully. Thank you, NSF, for your invaluable support.

Degree

M. S.; A thesis submitted to the faculty of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Master of Science.

Date

5-2023

Subject

Facility management--Mathematics; Mathematical optimization; Geometry, Differential

Keyword

Optimization; Location-allocation models; Facility location problem;Heuristics and metaheuristics for facility location

Document Type

Masters theses

DCMI Type

Text

Extent

xi, 90 leaves

Language

English

Rights

http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

License

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

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