Abdullah Konak

• Doctor of Engineering
• Distinguished Professor of Information Sciences and Technology at Pennsylvania State University

The water-energy-food (WEF) Nexus is an integrative framework for addressing the multi-scalar interdependencies that challenge sustainability solutions across the water, energy, and food systems. However, challenges linked to scale and data availability often make WEF analyses more theoretical, limiting their ability to offer practical, implementab...

Besides fostering career readiness, innovation competitions and programs (ICPs), such as hackathons, start-up incubator competitions, and customer discovery laboratories, are essential to college entrepreneurship ecosystems. However, there is a participation gap in ICPs among traditionally underrepresented students (e.g., students identifying as wo...

This paper describes the process of creating a global survey of experts to evaluate drought resilience indicators. The lessons learned include five main points: (1) the heterogeneity in the conceptual background should be minimized before the construction of the survey; (2) large numbers of indicators decrease the engagement of respondents through...

Student innovation competitions and programs (ICPs), including hackathons, start-up competitions, and customer discovery labs, have had a transformative impact on the higher education entrepreneurial ecosystem. They have also facilitated students’ experiences in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM). However, there is a disparity in the...

In order to gain technical and professional experience, many students in STEM fields participate in extracurricular activities, called such as Innovation Competition and Programs (ICPs). ICPs can offer students a hands-on experience in their field, fostering creativity and entrepreneurship while also solving problems as a team. While the literature...

Student innovation competitions and programs have gained substantial recognition as the number of students entering science, technology, engineering, mathematics, entrepreneurial, and business fields continues to increase. Student participants, mentors, organizers, and faculty members see these competitions and programs as catalysts for fostering c...

Innovation Competitions and Programs (ICPs), encompassing hackathons, startup incubators, design challenges, boot camps, and customer discovery labs, have become pivotal in shaping higher education entrepreneurial ecosystems. Moreover, ICPs enrich students’ STEM experiences and serve as a bridge to career readiness. However, a significant participa...

Drought resilience indexes are essential tools for an evidence-based decision-making process. They can be constructed by enquiring experts about the most relevant indicators. This communication presents the challenges found a priori of creating a global survey with experts in drought. The lessons learned include: (1) the heterogeneity of the concep...

This paper considers solving the unequal area Dynamic Facility Layout Problem (DFLP) using a zone-based structure. Zone-based layouts have significant advantages, such as being easily transferable to a detailed layout with innately included possible aisle structures; therefore, they can be fitted to the unique needs of the layout designers. The une...

There has been an emerging trend of expanding entrepreneurship educational programs/events to broader student populations. Similarly, the focus of this paper is broadening participation in student innovation competitions, exhibitions, and training programs. Therefore, through student surveys, factors and barriers affecting student participation in...

Continuing care facilities are a rapidly growing segment of senior living communities providing end-to-end solutions comprising independent living, assisted living, nursing home care, and ultimately hospice. All these establishments contain (in addition to other facilities associated with living, exercising, learning, activities, etc.) dining servi...

We introduce a regret-based fitness assignment strategy for evolutionary algorithms to find Nash equilibria in noncooperative simultaneous combinatorial game theory problems where it is computationally intractable to enumerate all decision options of the players involved in the game. Applications of evolutionary algorithms to non-cooperative simult...

This paper addresses the economic emission dispatch (EED) problem where the goal is to allocate the power output of power generation units to satisfy power demand and minimize the cost and emissions simultaneously. We propose a multiobjective differential evolution algorithm and a reinforcement learning technique to adaptively control the parameter...

This paper examines two core issues of the university-based entrepreneurship education ecosystem by explicating the key elements of the ecosystem and their roles, and the development process and sustainable construction strategy of the ecosystem. Thirty stakeholders of ecosystems from the US universities were interviewed, and the transcripts of the...

Based on the Methodological Triangulation, this paper proposes and validates a new model for measuring the effectiveness of entrepreneurship education on the three dimensions- entrepreneurial competencies, barriers, and intentions, which are usually studied independently in the literature. A total of 308 entrepreneurship education students, who enr...

In this article, a new genetic algorithm (GA), called the Nash equilibrium sorting genetic algorithm (NESGA,) is introduced to identify Nash equilibria for the competitive maximal covering location problem with two and three competitors, which is a combinatorial game theory problem where it is computationally intractable to enumerate all decision o...

All levels of education are facing an unprecedented challenge because of the pandemic; therefore, instructors are making all kinds of efforts to ensure to keep the high-quality education and exploring diverse ways to reach out and engage students in the content delivered. We redesigned a creative problem-solving workshop for online settings to help...

The lack of professional skills in project teams is one of the most important factors contributing to the high failure rate of Information Technology (IT) projects. Therefore, preparing students for increasingly complex IT projects has been an important learning objective in information sciences and technology programs. This article investigates th...

In power systems, economic dispatch (ED) deals with the power allocation of power generation units to meet the power demand and minimize the cost. Many metaheuristics have been proposed to solve the ED problem with promising results. However, the performance of these algorithms might be sensitive to their parameter settings, and parameter tuning re...

In many seasonal industries, customer demands are constantly changing over time, and accordingly the facility layout should be re-optimized in a timely manner to adapt to changing material handling patterns among manufacturing departments. This paper investigates the aperiodic facility layout problem (AFLP) that involves arranging facilities layout...

In this paper, we presented an ε-accurate approach to conduct a continuous optimization on the pollution routing problem (PRP). First, we developed an ε-accurate inner polyhedral approximation method for the nonlinear relation between the travel time and travel speed. The approximation error was controlled within the limit of a given parameter ε, w...

Creative Problem Solving is an important learning outcome of entrepreneurship as well as almost all academic programs. This paper presents the program and sample activities of a creative problem-solving workshop. This hour-long workshop discusses why individuals cannot be creative in some situations. The workshop is a part of a broader project that...

The lack of professional skills in project teams is one of the most important factors contributing to the high failure rate of Information Technology (IT) projects. Therefore, preparing students for increasingly complex IT projects has been an important learning objective in information sciences and technology programs. This article investigates th...

Purpose Challenges of teamwork in online classes may adversely affect students’ future attitudes toward teamwork. Further, there is a concern about whether online programs foster students’ teamwork skills. To answer these questions, the purpose of this paper is to compare online and face-to-face students’ attitudes toward teamwork, interest in lear...

The aim of this work was to examine the use of the Model of Domain Learning (MDL) framework to determine the level of students' ethics learning during their progress in the engineering curriculum, considering three constructs through which learning is gained: knowledge, strategic processing, and interest. The MDL has been validated and used in diff...

In this paper, a new modeling approach is introduced for a competitive facility location problem in which multiple competitors aim to maximize their market shares. The problem is called the Competitive Maximal Covering Location Problem (CMCLP) based on the classical Maximal Covering Location Problem. Typically, the CMCLP is modeled as a Stackelberg...

This work presents the results of an assessment instrument designed to assess the progressive learning of ethics in the engineering curriculum at different stages known as acclimation, competency, and proficiency, and to determine the relation of the development stages with three components that contribute to learning: interest, knowledge and strat...

Facility layout problems (FLPs) are quite common and important in many industries. This paper presents a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) model for the dynamic facility layout problem, which is a generalization of several special cases of FLPs studied in recent years. A new evolutionary meta-heuristic framework, named as the Problem Evolutio...

Most existing research on facility layout problems (FLPs) considers a single distance metric, mainly Rectilinear distance, in the calculation of the material handling cost between departments. However, there are many industrial cases in which heterogeneous distance metrics may need to be used simultaneously to cater for different styles of material...

Given a set of commodities to be routed over a network, the network design problem with relays involves selecting a route for each commodity and determining the location of relays where the commodities must be reprocessed at certain distance intervals. We propose a hybrid approach based on variable neighborhood search. The variable neighborhood alg...

Professional skills are expected from college students; however, assessing students' professional skill development is challenging. In order to better prepare students for a career in today's global business environment, it is essential students develop interest and knowledge toward global awareness. This research is primarily concerned with the un...

Aim/Purpose This paper utilizes the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) to examine the extent to which acceptance of Remote Virtual Computer Laboratories (RVCLs) is affected by students’ technological backgrounds and the role of collaborative work. Background RVCLs are widely used in information technology and cyber security education to provide st...

Traffic congestion significantly increases CO2 (a well-known greenhouse gas) emissions of vehicles in road transportation and causes other environmental costs as well. A road-based delivery company can reduce its CO2 emissions through operational decisions such as efficient vehicle routes and delivery schedules by considering time-varying traffic c...

Engineers and information technology professionals often work in international settings or teams, as well as across diverse cultures in today’s global economy. Ever expanding globalized society has required updates in organizational procedures and practices, especially for engineering and information technology organizations, to keep up with increa...

In the last decade, virtual computer laboratories have been successfully used to provide students with hands-on experimentation in information technology fields in a cost effective and secure manner. In this paper, we study the effect of collaborative learning on student perception and acceptance of virtual computing as a learning medium. Virtual c...

The green vehicle routing and scheduling problem (GVRSP) aims to minimize green-house gas emissions in logistics systems through better planning of deliveries/pickups made by a fleet of vehicles. We define a new mixed integer liner programming (MIP) model which considers heterogeneous vehicles, time-varying traffic congestion, customer/vehicle time...

This paper studies the non-permutation solution for the problem of flow shop scheduling with order acceptance and weighted tardiness (FSS-OAWT). We formulate the problem as a linear mixed integer programming (LMIP) model that can be optimally solved by AMPL/CPLEX for small-sized problems. In addition, a non-linear integer programming (NIP) model is...

The complex and multidisciplinary nature of today’s engineering problems demands that new graduates excel in not only technical knowledge but also teamwork skills. In fact, the lack of effective teamwork has been identified among the most important factors contributing to the high failure rate of complex engineering projects. In this paper, we focu...

The complex and multidisciplinary nature of to-day's engineering problems demands that new graduates excel in not only technical knowledge but also teamwork skills. In fact, the lack of effective teamwork has been identified among the most important factors contributing to the high failure rate of complex engineering projects. In this paper, we foc...

We present a green vehicle routing and scheduling problem (GVRSP) considering general time-dependent traffic conditions with the primary objective of minimizing CO2 emissions and weighted tardiness. A new mathematical formulation is proposed to describe the GVRSP with hierarchical objectives and weighted tardiness. The proposed formulation is an al...

We introduce the reliable server assignment problem considering attacks, which seeks to choose the locations of servers on a network in order to maximize the network reliability that results from a worst-case attack on the edges of the network. The problem is formulated on an unreliable network such that edges are subject to fail independently, and...

This paper describes a new k-out-of-n system reliability model that is appropriate for certain design problems when the minimum number of required components, k, changes dynamically in response to failures to maximize the utility of the available collection of functioning components. This new model shares some distinct similarities with weighted k-...

The assessment of students’ development in their professional skills has been discussed to be challenging not only for the engineering curriculum but also in other undergraduate programs, including information sciences, business, and other disciplines. Given the importance of developing these skills in students, an assessment framework based on the...

Professional skills, such as teamwork, global awareness, creative problem solving, and ethics, are essential for the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields. The focus of this paper is teamwork. In particular, this paper discusses how efficacy and attitudes affect teamwork for the students majoring in Information Sciences an...

Effective teamwork is an important aspect of value creation in many organizations; appropriately, organizations are looking for potential employees who can work well in a team from the start. This has created the need to introduce activities to build collaboration and teamwork skills in many college curricula. Peer evaluation is one of the best way...

Students’ professional skills, such as teamwork, global awareness, ethics, and creative problem solving, increase their likelihood for success throughout their education and career paths, especially in the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) disciplines. In particular, effective teamwork can improve an engineering team’s perfor...

We present a linear mixed integer programming model for the time-dependent heterogeneous green vehicle routing and scheduling problem (GVRSP) with the objective of minimizing total carbon dioxide emissions and weighted tardiness. Instead of discrete time intervals, the proposed model takes the traveled distances of arcs in different time periods as...

In this paper, an unequal area Cyclic Facility Layout Problem (CFLP) is studied. Dynamic and seasonal nature of the product demands results in the necessity for considering the CFLP where product demands as well as the departmental area requirements are changing from one period to the next one. Since the CFLP is NP-hard, we propose a Simulated Anne...

Today's global economy demands that new graduates excel in not only technical knowledge but also professional skills. In fact, the lack of professional skills in project teams has been identified among the most important factors contributing to the high failure rate of complex engineering projects. As a response, academic programs have incorporated...

The cyclic facility layout problem (CFLP) is a special case of the dynamic facility layout problem (DFLP) in which there are several production periods and the production cycle repeats itself by going to the first period after the last one because of the seasonal nature of products. In this article, a mixed integer programming formulation is develo...

Due to the importance of ethics in the professional practice, a great effort has been undertaken by the academia to prepare students with the necessary ethical skills. However, the big challenge has been to assess the development of those skills. The aim of this work is to create an assessment tool that enables: (1) evaluation of development of eth...

Professional skills expected from science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) students are well-aligned with the broad learning outcomes defined by the Accreditation Board of Engineering and Technology (ABET). While acquisition of professional skills in our graduates is increasingly crucial due to global competition and intensifying pressures...

In information security education, learning experiences that involve hands-on experimentation are extremely important. However, information security topics are challenging to teach in traditional computer laboratories mainly due to restrictive information technology policies. In the literature, virtual computer laboratories have been proposed to ad...

The Center for Entrepreneurship and Economic Development (CEED) at the Penn State Berks Campus conducts Entrepreneurship Workshops facilitated by college student mentors for middle and high school students from inner-city Reading, PA. These workshops serve to incubate early entrepreneurship exposure, promote creative problem solving, and to highlig...

This paper discusses the importance of assessing teamwork professional skills, in the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines. There is a difficulty in assessing teamwork skills in an educational setting. The main objective of this research is to propose an assessment framework and rubric for facilitating the assessment...

With projected high growth in STEM occupations and the desire to keep the U.S. competitive in the global economy, there are many initiatives in STEM education to develop highly skilled workers. In addition to preparing for careers in the STEM fields, it is being more and more recognized that STEM training is a valuable part of an education in any f...

This article presents a network design problem with relays considering the two-edge network connectivity. The problem arises in telecommunications and logistic networks where a constraint is imposed on the distance that a commodity can travel on a route without being processed by a relay, and the survivability of the network is critical in case of...

The facility layout problem (FLP) is generally defined as locating a set of departments in a facility with a given dimension. In this paper, a hybrid genetic algorithm (GA)/linear programming (LP) approach is proposed to solve the FLP on the continuous plane with unequal area departments. This version of the FLP is very difficult to solve optimally...

This paper puts forward a novel assessment framework, based on the Model of Domain Learning (MDL), to assess student development in various professional skills across Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) disciplines. New graduates are not only required to have good technical skills but also excel in professional skills to be succ...

In this paper, we introduce a collaborative virtual computer laboratory and discuss best strategies to foster student learning using virtual computers, particularly in information security which requires substantial hands-on experimentation to master the subject matter. Unfortunately, information security topics are challenging to teach in traditio...