Digital Commons Network^™

Evaluation Of The Flail Space Model Utilizing Event Data Recorder Technology, Douglas John Gabauer

Theses and Dissertations

Developed in the early 1980's, the flail space model has become the standard method for estimating occupant risk in full-scale crash tests involving roadside safety features. The widespread availability of airbags and increased seat belt usage rates in today's vehicle fleet, however, raise serious questions regarding the validity of the model. Recent implementation of Event Data Recorder (EDR) technology in a number of late model vehicles presents a different perspective on the assessment of the validity of occupant risk based on the flail space model. EDRs are capable of electronically recording data such as vehicle speed, brake status and throttle …

Development Of An Augmented Haptic Control For In-Vehicle Law Enforcement Applications, Edward R. Guest Iii

Theses and Dissertations

Typical police vehicles are filled with as much technology as the department can afford. Everything from the newest digital camera system to a simple entertainment radio is within the reach of an officer. Currently, most of these systems are installed without any consideration toward the other systems or the interaction required between the driver and the car. The lack of a systems approach in the installation has spawned a project to look at the safety and overall system installation in the New Jersey State Police vehicles.

The research presented in this thesis suggests consolidation of the various controls into one …

Multi-Sensor Data Fusion Using Geometric Transformations For The Nondestructive Evaluation Of Gas Transmission Pipelines, Philip James Kulick

Theses and Dissertations

Nondestructive evaluation (NDE) plays a vital component in the operation and maintenance of large infrastructure such as gas transmission pipelines, nuclear power plants, aircraft, bridges and highways, etc. As this infrastructure continues to age it is essential that the inspection techniques reliably and accurately predict the integrity of these systems. No single NDE method is capable of inspecting all types of anomalies and extracting all required information – a combination of methods must be used and the resulting data fused. Moreover, newer systems that are developed are often made of composite materials that include metals and dielectrics. One interrogation modality …

Spatially Varying Threshold Models For The Automated Segmentation Of Radiodense Tissue In Digitized Mammograms, Richard Edson Eckert Iii

Theses and Dissertations

The percentage of radiodense (bright) tissue in a mammogram has been correlated to an increased risk of breast cancer. This thesis presents an automated method to quantify the amount of radiodense tissue found in a digitized mammogram. The algorithm employs a radial basis function neural network in order to segment the breast tissue region from the remainder of the X-ray. A spatially varying Neyman-Pearson threshold is used to calculate the percentage of radiodense tissue and compensate for the effects of tissue compression that occurs during a mammography procedure. Results demonstrating the efficacy of the technique are demonstrated by exercising the …

Hdl Implementation Of A Controller Area Network Node, Anthony Richard Marino

Theses and Dissertations

With increasing technology inside automobiles, especially law enforcement vehicles, there is a growing need for centralized wiring and device interconnection methods. Each new technology, such as GPS navigation units and in-vehicle video systems, includes a corresponding wiring harness that needs installation. The summation of all these hardwired technologies leads to large volumes of wire that negatively affect safety, power demands, and future design opportunities. A new trend among automotive manufacturers is to design and implement innovative networks that allow for shared communications between technologies.

This thesis presents the design, development, and implementation of an in-vehicle network that will centralize connections …

Wind Scatterometry With Improved Ambiguity Selection And Rain Modeling, David W. Draper

Theses and Dissertations

Although generally accurate, the quality of SeaWinds on QuikSCAT scatterometer ocean vector winds is compromised by certain natural phenomena and retrieval algorithm limitations. This dissertation addresses three main contributers to scatterometer estimate error: poor ambiguity selection, estimate uncertainty at low wind speeds, and rain corruption. A quality assurance (QA) analysis performed on SeaWinds data suggests that about 5% of SeaWinds data contain ambiguity selection errors and that scatterometer estimation error is correlated with low wind speeds and rain events.

Ambiguity selection errors are partly due to the "nudging" step (initialization from outside data). A sophisticated new non-nudging ambiguity selection approach …

Selecting Appropriate Product Concepts For Manufacture In Developing Countries, Danielle Johnson

Theses and Dissertations

There is a noticeable lack of production of indigenously engineered and manufactured products in Less Developed Countries (LDC's). Few products developed in these LDC's could be viable in competitive markets or even sold as components and supplies to other manufacturers of competitive goods. Assumintg that these less developed countries do not innovate and manufacture because they cannot, the next logical question to ask is why can they not?

This thesis looks at the problems of manufacture and design in LDC's from the standpoint of Product Development. It begins by looking at development theories, namely top down and bottom up and …

Establishing A Quantitative Foundation For Exactly Constrained Design, Alisha M. Hammond

Theses and Dissertations

Exactly constrained (EC) design is a robust design method which can be used for mechanical assemblies. It entails using the minimum number of constraints to eliminate all desired motion.

While found by some engineers in industry to have many benefits (including robust assembly, no binding or play, ease of assembly, and the ability to tolerate the wear of parts), EC designs remain somewhat unrecognized by academia. One reason for this minimal exposure may be the lack of a quantitative foundation for such designs. This thesis describes the history and current background for EC designs, and it also begins to develop …

An Accurate Vo2max Non-Exercise Regression Model For 18 To 65 Year Old Adults, Danielle I. Bradshaw

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to develop a regression equation to predict VO2max based on non-exercise (N-EX) data. All participants (N = 100), aged 18-65 years old, successfully completed a maximal graded exercise test (GXT) to assess VO2max (mean ± SD; 39.96 mL∙kg-¹∙min&sup-1; ± 9.54 mL∙kg-¹∙min-¹). The N-EX data collected just before the maximal GXT included the participant's age, gender, body mass index (BMI), perceived functional ability (PFA) to walk, jog, or run given distances, and current physical activity (PA-R) level. Multiple linear regression generated the following N-EX prediction equation (R = .93, SEE = 3.45 mL∙kg-¹∙min-¹, %SEE = …

Camden City Environmental Center Site Based Curriculum And Teacher Activity Guide, Wanda D. Little

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this curriculum and teacher activity guide is to provide Camden City School District's Environmental Center Program with a curriculum for kindergarten through fourth grade students. The curriculum provides students with site-based lessons and activities that are aligned and correlated with New Jersey Core Curriculum Content Standards for Science, and the Excellence in Environmental Education Guidelines For Learning (K - 12). The Site-Based Curriculum and Teacher Activity Guide, upon approval by the Camden City School District Board of Education, will provide students with guided discovery experiences that introduce new ideas, dispel misconceptions and reinforce previous learning.

The scope …

Solutions To The Navier-Stokes Equations In A Non-Inertial Reference Frame, Kishore Satya Majety

Theses and Dissertations

A general rotating frame formulation of the Navier-Stokes equations has been added to the incompressible and arbitrary Mach number versions of UNCLE. While eliminating the need for moving grids, this formulation also reduces the error caused by linear approximations of rotational motion. The formulation is validated for single axis rotations by comparing the simulations of a marine propeller and an isolated helicopter rotor with experimental data. A simulation of the helicopter rotor in pitching motion is also performed. Results are compared between the non-inertial reference frame formulation and absolute frame solver for a prolate spheroid with all the components of …

Limitations Of Principal Component Analysis For Dimensionality-Reduction For Classification Of Hyperspectral Data, Anil Meerasa Cheriyadat

Theses and Dissertations

It is a popular practice in the remote-sensing community to apply principal component analysis (PCA) on a higher-dimensional feature space to achieve dimensionality-reduction. Several factors that have led to the popularity of PCA include its simplicity, ease of use, availability as part of popular remote-sensing packages, and optimal nature in terms of mean square error. These advantages have prompted the remote-sensing research community to overlook many limitations of PCA when used as a dimensionality-reduction tool for classification and target-detection applications. This thesis addresses the limitations of PCA when used as a dimensionality-reduction technique for extracting discriminating features from hyperspectral data. …

Service Based Marketplace For Applications, Anand Kumar Kalyanasundaram

Theses and Dissertations

The Grid has revolutionized the way computations are done on the Internet. Access to remote computational resources and ad hoc creation of virtual organizations across administrative domains opens new opportunities on the Grid. The newly developed web services based Open Grid Services Architecture makes the Grid more accessible by allowing the Grid to be constructed from distinct platform independent components. Together they provide an environment for application sharing (or trading), collaborations and access to remote data repositories. The application marketplace is a natural extension to this application sharing environment. The marketplace addresses the fact that the existing infrastructure is still …

Fully Scalable Video Coding Using Redundant-Wavelet Multihypothesis And Motion-Compensated Temporal Filtering, Yonghui Wang

Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, a fully scalable video coding system is proposed. This system achieves full temporal, resolution, and fidelity scalability by combining mesh-based motion-compensated temporal filtering, multihypothesis motion compensation, and an embedded 3D wavelet-coefficient coder. The first major contribution of this work is the introduction of the redundant-wavelet multihypothesis paradigm into motion-compensated temporal filtering, which is achieved by deploying temporal filtering in the domain of a spatially redundant wavelet transform. A regular triangle mesh is used to track motion between frames, and an affine transform between mesh triangles implements motion compensation within a lifting-based temporal transform. Experimental results reveal that …

Generalizing List Scheduling For Stochastic Soft Real-Time Parallel Applications, Yoginder Singh Dandass

Theses and Dissertations

Advanced architecture processors provide features such as caches and branch prediction that result in improved, but variable, execution time of software. Hard real-time systems require tasks to complete within timing constraints. Consequently, hard real-time systems are typically designed conservatively through the use of tasks? worst-case execution times (WCET) in order to compute deterministic schedules that guarantee task?s execution within giving time constraints. This use of pessimistic execution time assumptions provides real-time guarantees at the cost of decreased performance and resource utilization. In soft real-time systems, however, meeting deadlines is not an absolute requirement (i.e., missing a few deadlines does not …

Design, Assembly, And Assessment Of An Experimental Apparatus To Measure Fouling Of Condenser Tubes, Gregory J. Zdaniuk

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis discusses the design, construction, and debugging of an experimental apparatus to measure fouling in smooth and/or augmented copper alloy condenser tubes. In addition, guidelines and recommendations are made for construction of similar devices. Specification sheets of the system components, detailed design calculations, and photographs of the apparatus are included in the appendices.

Coupling Heat Transfer And Fluid Flow Solvers For Multi-Disciplinary Simulations, Qingyun Liu

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to build, test, validate, and implement two heat transfer models, and couple them to an existing fluid flow solver, which can then be used for simulating multi-disciplinary problems. The first model is for heat conduction computations, the other one is a quasi-one-dimensional cooling channel model for water-cooled jacket structural analysis. The first model employs the integral, conservative form of the thermal energy equation, which is discretized by means of a finite-volume numerical scheme. A special algorithm is developed at the interface between the solid and fluid regions, in order to keep the heat flux …

Performance Analysis Of Advanced Front Ends On The Aurora Large Vocabulary Evaluation, Naveen Parihar

Theses and Dissertations

Over the past few years, speech recognition technology performance on tasks ranging from isolated digit recognition to conversational speech has dramatically improved. Performance on limited recognition tasks in noiseree environments is comparable to that achieved by human transcribers. This advancement in automatic speech recognition technology along with an increase in the compute power of mobile devices, standardization of communication protocols, and the explosion in the popularity of the mobile devices, has created an interest in flexible voice interfaces for mobile devices. However, speech recognition performance degrades dramatically in mobile environments which are inherently noisy. In the recent past, a great …

Structural Controls On Megaporosity In Eogenetic Carbonate Rocks: Tinian, Cnmi, Kevin Wayne Stafford

Theses and Dissertations

Tinian and Aguijan, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), are volcanic, back arc islands in the western Pacific formed by Pacific Plate subduction under the Philippine Plate. The islands are composed of Eocene volcanic cores mantled by Plio-Pleistocene carbonate facies and raised Holocene beach and reef deposits. The entire sequence has been tectonically uplifted and contains high-angle normal faults, while isostatic subsidence and scarp failures overprint tectonic brittle failure features. A cave and karst inventory on Tinian and Aguijan surveyed 114 features and is believed to adequately represent the megaporosity (cave) development. Two distinct cave classes were identified: mixing …

Improvements On Heat Flux And Heat Conductance Estimation With Applications To Metal Castings, Xingjian Xue

Theses and Dissertations

Heat flux and heat conductance at the metal mold interface plays a key role in controlling the final metal casting strength. It is difficult to obtain these parameters through direct measurement because of the required placement of sensors, however they can be obtained through inverse heat conduction calculations. Existing inverse heat conduction methods are analyzed and classified into three categories, i.e., direct inverse methods, observer-based methods and optimization methods. The solution of the direct inverse methods is based on the linear relationship between heat flux and temperature (either in the time domain or in the frequency domain) and is calculated …

Integrating Algorithmic And Systemic Load Balancing Strategies In Parallel Scientific Applications, Sheikh Khaled Ghafoor

Theses and Dissertations

Load imbalance is a major source of performance degradation in parallel scientific applications. Load balancing increases the efficient use of existing resources and improves performance of parallel applications running in distributed environments. At a coarse level of granularity, advances in runtime systems for parallel programs have been proposed in order to control available resources as efficiently as possible by utilizing idle resources and using task migration. At a finer granularity level, advances in algorithmic strategies for dynamically balancing computational loads by data redistribution have been proposed in order to respond to variations in processor performance during the execution of a …

Investigating Cottonwood Leaf Beetle, Chrysomela Scripta F., Defoliation In Cottonwood Plantations Utilizing Remote Sensing And Geostatistical Techniques, Gensheng Shi

Theses and Dissertations

This study was designed to investigate the relationships between spectral properties of cottonwood plantations and defoliation by the cottonwood leaf beetle (CLB), Chrysomela scripta F., as well as to develop and analyze the spatial structure of CLB and associated defoliation using geospatial information technology. Multispectral imagery data from airborne platforms were acquired using three remote sensing systems: (1) GeoVantage remote sensing system with 450 nm, 550 nm, 650 nm and 850 nm wavelengths; (2) RDACS (real time digital airborne camera system) with 540 nm, 675 nm, 695 nm and 840 nm wavelengths; and (3) Kodak DCS420 digital camera with the …

Quality Improvements In Extruded Meshes Using Topologically Adaptive Generalized Elements, Satish Chalasani

Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, a novel method to extrude near-body meshes from surface meshes of arbitrary topology that exploits topologically adaptive generalized elements to improve mesh quality is presented. Specifically, an advancing layer algorithm to generate near-body meshes which are appropriate for viscous fluid flows is discussed. First, an orthogonal two-layer algebraic reference mesh is generated. The reference mesh is then smoothed using a locally three-dimensional Poisson-type mesh generation equation that is generalized to smooth extruded meshes of arbitrary surface topology. Local quality improvement operations such as edge collapse, face refinement, and local reconnection are performed in each layer to drive …

Remote Control Of Heating, Ventilating, And Air Conditioning System With Labview, Yu-Loong Liew

Theses and Dissertations

Recent technological advances have extended the use of some old technology such as the X-10 home automation. With the use of X-10 and the Internet, a remote control home is possible. One of the major energy consumption appliances in a house is the heating, ventilating, and air conditioning system. The main objective of this study is to explore the possibility of using X-10 and the Internet to serve as an energy saving system. A simulation is used to estimate the energy consumption.

The Spatial And Temporal Distributions And Thermodynamic Characteristics Of Tornadoes In Mississippi, Jennifer M. Call

Theses and Dissertations

The vast majority of severe storm and tornado research is conducted in the natural laboratory of the Great Plains region of the United States. As a result, much of the knowledge and technology applied to storm forecasting is developed in the Great Plains environment. However, it has been shown that there is a maximum of strong and violent tornadoes in the region extending from Arkansas eastward into Alabama. In addition, various researchers have found strong severe storm thermodynamic signatures unique to regions such as the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic. This study has analyzed five decades of tornado data for the state …

Network Training For Continuous Speech Recognition, Issac John Alphonso

Theses and Dissertations

Spoken language processing is one of the oldest and most natural modes of information exchange between humans beings. For centuries, people have tried to develop machines that can understand and produce speech the way humans do so naturally. The biggest problem in our inability to model speech with computer programs and mathematics results from the fact that language is instinctive, whereas, the vocabulary and dialect used in communication are learned. Human beings are genetically equipped with the ability to learn languages, and culture imprints the vocabulary and dialect on each member of society. This thesis examines the role of pattern …

New Visualization Techniques For Multi-Dimensional Variables In Complex Physical Domains, Rhonda J. Vickery

Theses and Dissertations

This work presents the new Synthesized Cell Texture (SCT) algorithm for visualizing related multiple scalar value fields within the same 3D space. The SCT method is particularly well suited to scalar quantities that could be represented in the physical domain as size fractionated particles, such as in the study of sedimentation, atmospheric aerosols, or precipitation. There are two components to this contribution. First a Scaling and Distribution (SAD) algorithm provides a means of specifying a multi-scalar field in terms of a maximum cell resolution (or density of represented values). This information is used to scale the multi-scalar field values for …

An Investigation Of The Standardized Multiple-Choice Departmental Calculus I Final Examination, Maria Elizabeth Bearden

Theses and Dissertations

At Mississippi State University, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, a standardized multiple-choice departmental final examination (SMCDF) was administered at the end of the Calculus I mathematics course. This practice was abolished at the end of the spring 1997 semester. The purpose of this study was to determine if there was a difference in students¡¯ success in subsequent calculus courses as measured by a student¡¯s grade. If there was a difference, was it consistent along varying levels of students¡¯ ACT mathematics scores. A two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was run on the data. The variables were the five student ACT Mathematics …

Effects Of Transcription Errors On Supervised Learning In Speech Recognition, Ramasubramanian H. Sundaram

Theses and Dissertations

Supervised learning using Hidden Markov Models has been used to train acoustic models for automatic speech recognition for several years. Typically clean transcriptions form the basis for this training regimen. However, results have shown that using sources of readily available transcriptions, which can be erroneous at times (e.g., closed captions) do not degrade the performance significantly. This work analyzes the effects of mislabeled data on recognition accuracy. For this purpose, the training is performed using manually corrupted training data and the results are observed on three different databases: TIDigits, Alphadigits and SwitchBoard. For Alphadigits, with 16% of data mislabeled, the …

Probabilistic Design Optimization Of Built-Up Aircraft Structures With Application, Qiulin Xie

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis discusses a methodology for probabilistic design optimization of aircraft structures subject to a multidisciplinary set of requirements originating from the desire to minimize structural weight while fulfilling the demands for quality, safety, producibility, and affordability. With this design methodology as the framework, a software is developed, which is capable of performing design optimization of metallic built-up beam structures where the material properties, external load, as well as the structural dimensions are treated as probabilistic random variables. The structural and failure analyses are based on analytical and semi-empirical methods whereas the component reliability analysis is based on advanced first-order …