Alice Kalush's Projects at MSU
Alice Kalush worked for Applications Programming which was part of the Computer Laboratory (now called IT Services) at
Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan. She developed programs for clients in other MSU departments.
Photos from Alice's MSU Projects
Supply Chain Operational Development Environment Simulator
Another current project, which I am developing with my coworker Jim Murphy, is a supply chain simulator for the MSU Supply Chain department. This system models the supply chain process with Suppliers who supply raw materials, Plants which produce products, Distribution Centers and Market Areas. The system processes orders of raw materials, schedules production, moves products to Distribution Centers and to Market Areas based on customer demand. The system uses Excel spreadsheets as input and output, an Access database and is written in Visual Basic .Net 2008.
MSU Today Research and Creative Activities newsletter (Summer 2008)
Leadership Development Simulator
One of my current projects is a war game simulation for the MSU Department of Management. This system is being used by the US Air Force at Maxwell AFB to train officers in teamwork and strategy. The game is played by twelve to fourteen players using five or six computers on a local area network. Whenever a player makes a move the move is displayed on all the other computers playing the game. The game includes operations players who move vehicles and intelligence players who make intelligence queries. The object of the game is to destroy as many enemy vehicles as possible while minimizing the number of friendly vehicles which are destroyed. Another goal of the game is to build a picture of where the players think the enemy vehicles are located during each turn of the game. The system also includes many outcome measures which measure how well the players did. This system is written in Visual Basic .Net 2008 and Access and uses GDI+ graphics.
Leadership Development Simulator by Alice Kalush
Statistical Consulting and Programming
Another one of my job responsibilities is to provide statistical consulting and data analysis. This is done with the SPSS software and with customized programs written in Visual Basic or Visual Basic .Net. One recent project for the College of Medicine was a study in which I matched up records from 5 different Michigan based sources with records from the Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. This study used capture/recapture techniques to show that workplace injuries and illnesses were undercounted by BLS. Below is a 2006 news article from the Wall Street Journal about the findings of this study and a JOEM article about the study. As a result of this study in April 2009, Congress directed OSHA to increase enforcement of injury and illness reporting.
Data Matching Project at Bureau of Labor Statistics by Alice Kalush
Wall Street Journal News Article
High-risk notification of chromate and bichromate production workers - PubMed (nih.gov)
Smoking Cessation Interviewing System
I developed a Smoking Cessation Interviewing system for the MSU College of Medicine. This system was used to conduct interviews and record the responses that the patients made. The system included sections for scheduling appointments, reviewing what had happened since the last interview and recommendations to prevent relapses until the next interview. This system was written in Visual Basic 5.0 and 6.0. This system has been used by Michigan Public Health Institute and Blue Cross Blue Shield. The link below is a news release about the program from 1998.
Smoking Cessation Software News Release
MicroMARC
I developed MicroMARC:amc which was a database system for archival records utilizing the USMARC data exchange format for MSU Archives and Historical Collections. Fred Honhart, MSUAHC, received the C.F.W. Coker Award from the Society of American Archivists in 1988 for his work in bringing archival software (MicroMARC:amc) to personal computers. Later MicroMARC for Integrated Format was released which supported all types of materials stored in libraries. MicroMARC:IF was developed in CBasic and Visual Basic for DOS. The link below is a 1998 review of MicroMARC for Integrated Format and shows many of the screens in the system.
MicroMARC - My First Major Software Development Project
(Or How We Programmed Computers in the 1980s and 1990s)
MicroMARC for Integrated Formats by Nancy Fleck and Margaret Rust (1998) - a review