Engineering Commons^™

Predicting The Dynamic Behavior Of Coal Mine Tailings Using State-Of-Practice Geotechnical Field Methods, Ali Salehian

Theses and Dissertations--Civil Engineering

This study is focused on developing a method to predict the dynamic behavior of mine tailings dams under earthquake loading. Tailings dams are a by-product of coal mining and processing activities. Mine tailings impoundments are prone to instability and failure under seismic loading as a result of the mechanical behavior of the tailings. Due to the existence of potential seismic sources in close proximity to the coal mining regions in the United States, it is necessary to assess the post-earthquake stability of these tailings dams.

To develop the aforementioned methodology, 34 cyclic triaxial tests along with vane shear tests were ...

College Of Engineering Senior Design Competition Spring 2013, University Of Nevada, Las Vegas

Senior Projects (COE)

Senior Design Experience

Part of every UNLV engineering student's academic experience, the Senior Design project stimulates engineering innovation and entrepreneurship. Each student in their senior year chooses, plans, designs and prototypes a product in this required element of the curriculum. Working in teams, the senior design project encourages students to use everything learned in the engineering and computer design programs to create a practical, real world solution to an engineering challenge.

Beyond the classroom ...

Because of the requirement to work in teams, students also build good communication skills, presentation skills and even business writing skills. They also have to ...

Reconfigurable Threshold Logic Gates Using Memristive Devices, Adrian Rothenbuhler, Thanh Tran, Elisa H. Barney Smith, Vishal Saxena, Kristy A. Campbell

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

We present our design exploration of reconfigurable Threshold Logic Gates (TLG) implemented using silver–chalcogenide memristive devices combined with CMOS circuits. Results from simulations and physical circuits are shown. A variety of linearly separable logic functions including AND, OR, NAND, NOR have been realized in discrete hardware using a single-layer TLG. The functionality can be changed between these operations by reprogramming the resistance of the memristive devices.

Three Essays On Law Enforcement And Emergency Response Information Sharing And Collaboration: An Insider Perspective, Joseph Treglia

iSchool Information Science and Technology - Dissertations

This dissertation identifies what may be done to overcome barriers to information sharing among federal, tribal, state, and local law enforcement agencies and emergency responders. Social, technical, and policy factors related to information sharing and collaboration in the law enforcement and emergency response communities are examined. This research improves information sharing and cooperation in this area. "Policing in most societies exists in a state of "dynamic tension" between forces that tend to isolate it and those that tend to integrate its functioning with other social structures" (Clark, 1965). Critical incidents and crimes today cross jurisdictions and involve multiple stakeholders and ...

Collaborative Estimation In Distributed Sensor Networks, Kar Swarnendu

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science - Dissertations

Networks of smart ultra-portable devices are already indispensable in our lives, augmenting our senses and connecting our lives through real time processing and communication of sensory (e.g., audio, video, location) inputs. Though usually hidden from the user's sight, the engineering of these devices involves fierce tradeoffs between energy availability (battery sizes impact portability) and signal processing / communication capability (which impacts the "smartness" of the devices). The goal of this dissertation is to provide a fundamental understanding and characterization of these tradeoffs in the context of a sensor network, where the goal is to estimate a common signal by ...

Design Science In Human-Computer Interaction: A Model And Three Examples, Nathan Prestopnik

iSchool Information Science and Technology - Dissertations

Humanity has entered an era where computing technology is virtually ubiquitous. From websites and mobile devices to computers embedded in appliances on our kitchen counters and automobiles parked in our driveways, information and communication technologies (ICTs) and IT artifacts are fundamentally changing the ways we interact with our world. Indeed, the world itself changing, becoming ever more artificial. It is a designed world that we have created for ourselves.

Human-computer interaction (HCI) scholars are concerned with the interactions that occur between people and technology in this new world: how do IT artifacts impact the human experience, and how can knowledge ...

Using Ipads In The Reading Room, Jim Duran, Cheryl Oestreicher, Kent Randell, Julia Stringfellow

Library Faculty Publications and Presentations

In 2010, Boise State University began integrating mobile technology into teaching and learning environments on campus. Albertsons Library Special Collections and Archives (ALSCA) at the university soon followed; as an experiment in November 2012, we gave patrons access to four iPads in our reading room. We asked researchers to use them and share their experiences. Although the iPads were available for only six weeks, we quickly realized the benefits of making iPads a permanent addition to our reading room.

An Fptas For Total Weighted Earliness Tardiness Problem With Constant Number Of Distinct Due Dates And Polynomially Related Weights, Jingjing Huang

Open Access Dissertations and Theses

We are given a sequence of jobs on a single machine, and each job has a weight, processing time and a due date. A job is early when it finishes before or on its due date and its earliness is the amount of time between its completion time and its due date. A job is tardy when it finishes after its due date and its tardiness is the amount of time between its due date and its completion time. The TWET problem is to find a schedule which minimizes the total weighted earliness and tardiness. We are focusing on the ...

What We Have Learned About Experience, Time Pressure, And Difficult Tradeoffs From Experiments With Firefighters In Virtual Reality, Nir Keren

Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering Presentations, Posters and Proceedings

In general, attendees will learn that experience does not guarantee faster and more accurate decisions. Furthermore, experienced firefighters demonstrated higher level of threat‐related stress than inexperienced firefighters.

Evaluating Program Outcomes Via Decision Making Simulations, Steven A. Freeman, Nir Keren

Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering Presentations, Posters and Proceedings

Decision making-based methodology was proposed for evaluating program outcomes. The methodology was tested to measure the effect of safety enhancing curriculum on Safety Awareness, one of the 15 competencies ABE is using in program outcome evaluations. The results indicated a significant increase in safety awareness and shift in cognitive processes following implementation of the curriculum. Since ABE measures competencies via supervisory evaluation of graduates, the authors examine the opportunity of developing a longitudinal study for measuring the magnitude of impact of curriculum on outcomes at the workplace.

Student Professional Development: Competency-Based Learning And Assessment, Jacqulyn A. Baughman, Thomas J. Brumm

Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering Presentations, Posters and Proceedings

The audience will understand the need for student professional development, as well as, the role that competencies and the 360-degree feedback assessment process play. Additionally, a foundational framework for further research studies in competency-based learning and assessment will be presented.

Holistic Student Professional Development In A Lean Manufacturing Course, Jacqulyn A. Baughman, Thomas J. Brumm

Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering Presentations, Posters and Proceedings

The audience will understand the need for a “holistic” student professional development approach using competency-assessment and backwards design. Specifically, the course design and approach can help provide U.S. manufacturers with the employees they need in order to implement and sustain a lean manufacturing structure vital for competitiveness.

Measurement Of Quality-Based Risks In The Bulk Material Supply Chain, Gretchen A. Mosher

Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering Presentations, Posters and Proceedings

The audience will learn about the process used to identify, quantify, and evaluation quality risks in the bulk material supply chain. Use of the process map will be discussed from a quality management perspective. Implications for industrial practice will be shared.

Factors Considered In The Development Of Curricular Content In Engineering Technology For Diverse Audiences, Gretchen A. Mosher, Chad M. Laux

Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering Presentations, Posters and Proceedings

The audience will learn about the curricular needs of process-based supply chain professionals and how engineering technology is poised to meet these needs. The development of core learning competencies and delivery options will also be shared.

Optimal Breast Cancer Screening Policies, Junxiang Chen

Electrical and Computer Engineering Master's Theses

Breast cancer is the most common non-preventable cancer among women. Although it has been demonstrated in randomized trials that mammography screening reduces the breast cancer mortality rate, the optimal screening policy is not known. When screening should start and stop, and the optimal interval between screening sessions are controversial issues. In this thesis, we present dynamic programming algorithms that find optimal variable-interval screening policies that can either minimize lifetime cancer mortality risk or maximize life expectancy. We evaluate these policies using a simulation based on the MISCAN-Fadia breast cancer model. By applying the optimal policies, we can typically either increase ...

Bibliotherapy: Tracing The Roots Of A Moral Therapy Movement In The United States From The Early Nineteenth Century To The Present, Len L. Levin, Ruthann Gildea

Library Publications and Presentations

Introduction: Hospital libraries, including ones designed for patient use, share a common history with hospitals in the evolution of health care delivery 1. The library as a component of the early “insane asylum” in the United States is well documented, and many had been established by the mid-nineteenth century. While these libraries certainly existed as a means of recreation for asylum patients, this historical communication will demonstrate they also served as a center for “bibliotherapy,” the use of reading as a means of healing.

A Power Line Inspector Device, Brendan Gates

Honors College

The goal of this project is to create a functional power line inspection device which could replace the old inspection method of using helicopters. This microchip based robotic device is able to ride along a conductor and send video feed, encoder readouts, and temperature measurements to the user. The user operating system consists of an LCD screen, two potentiometers for motor control, and a screen to display video feed. Achieved specifications include a battery lifetime of 1 hour and 45 minutes, distance measurements within 1 inch, and temperature accuracy within 2 °C. This thesis includes a brief discussion on previous ...

The Public Library As Health Information Resource?, Mary Grace Flaherty

iSchool Information Science and Technology - Dissertations

Public libraries have adapted a variety of services into their institutional missions, including: promoting early literacy, publicly available Internet access, children's summer reading programs, and the dissemination of tax forms. Libraries are disproportionately rural institutions, often serving people with limited health care access. Thus, by public demand they have evolved to become important resources for rural health consumers to acquire information. Some public libraries have approached this role by subscribing to health databases, or by providing a link on their homepage to a health resource such as MedlinePlus, but most have undertaken little organizational change to meet growing patron ...

An Investigation Of Digital Reference Interviews: A Dialogue Act Approach, Keisuke Inoue

iSchool Information Science and Technology - Dissertations

The rapid increase of computer-mediated communications (CMCs) in various forms such as micro-blogging (e.g. Twitter), online chatting (e.g. digital reference) and community- based question-answering services (e.g. Yahoo! Answers) characterizes a recent trend in web technologies, often referred to as the social web. This trend highlights the importance of supporting linguistic interactions in people's online information-seeking activities in daily life - something that the web search engines still lack because of the complexity of this hu- man behavior. The presented research consists of an investigation of the information-seeking behavior of digital reference services through analysis of discourse semantics ...

Towards A Service-Oriented Enterprise: The Design Of A Cloud Business Integration Platform In A Medium-Sized Manufacturing Enterprise, Paul John Stamas

iSchool Information Science and Technology - Dissertations

This case study research followed the two-year transition of a medium-sized manufacturing firm towards a service-oriented enterprise. A service-oriented enterprise is an emerging architecture of the firm that leverages the paradigm of services computing to integrate the capabilities of the firm with the complementary competencies of business partners to offer customers with value-added products and services. Design science research in information systems was employed to pursue the primary design of a cloud business integration platform to enable the secondary design of multi-enterprise business processes to enable the dynamic and effective integration of business partner capabilities with those of the enterprise ...