Date of Award

12-2018

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

School of Computing

Committee Member

Ilya Safro, Committee Chair

Committee Member

Mashrur Chowdhury

Committee Member

Brian Dean

Committee Member

Feng Luo

Abstract

In this dissertation, we introduce different models for understanding and controlling the spreading dynamics of a network with a consumable resource. In particular, we consider a spreading process where a resource necessary for transit is partially consumed along the way while being refilled at special nodes on the network. Examples include fuel consumption of vehicles together with refueling stations, information loss during dissemination with error correcting nodes, consumption of ammunition of military troops while moving, and migration of wild animals in a network with a limited number of water-holes. We undertake this study from two different perspectives. First, we consider a network science perspective where we are interested in identifying the influential nodes and estimating a nodes’ relative spreading influence in the network. For this reason, we propose generalizations of the well-known centrality measures to model such a spreading process with consumable resources. Next, from an optimization perspective, we focus on the application of an Electric Vehicle road network equipped with wireless charging lanes as a resource allocation problem. The objective is this case is to identify a set of nodes for optimal placement of the wireless charging lanes. For this reason, we propose an integer programming model formulation and use it as a building block for different realistic scenarios. We conclude this dissertation by giving an approach to improve route selection for the optimization model proposed by using feedback data while giving comparisons to different realistic scenarios.

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