Engineering Commons^™

Exploration Of Shared Passenger Urban Air Mobility – Integrated Network Design, Operation Scheduling And System Configuration, Zhiqiang Wu

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Urban air mobility (UAM) is an emerging concept proposed in recent years that uses electric vertical take-off and landing vehicles (eVTOLs). UAM is expected to offer an alternative way of transporting passengers and goods in urban areas with significantly improved mobility by making use of low-altitude airspace. Considering the high capital investment of eVTOLs and relative high fee of using UAM passenger service, a viable UAM format is shared passenger service. Such a service is usually station-based, i.e., with vertiport located in popular sites where potential passengers can access. To understand the viability of such use cases, the vertiport owners …

Security-Enhanced Serial Communications, John White, Alexander Beall, Joseph Maurio, Dane Fichter, Dr. Matthew Davis, Dr. Zachary Birnbaum

Military Cyber Affairs

Industrial Control Systems (ICS) are widely used by critical infrastructure and are ubiquitous in numerous industries including telecommunications, petrochemical, and manufacturing. ICS are at a high risk of cyber attack given their internet accessibility, inherent lack of security, deployment timelines, and criticality. A unique challenge in ICS security is the prevalence of serial communication buses and other non-TCP/IP communications protocols. The communication protocols used within serial buses often lack authentication and integrity protections, leaving them vulnerable to spoofing and replay attacks. The bandwidth constraints and prevalence of legacy hardware in these systems prevent the use of modern message authentication and …

Enhancing The Battleverse: The People’S Liberation Army’S Digital Twin Strategy, Joshua Baughman

Military Cyber Affairs

No abstract provided.

What Senior U.S. Leaders Say We Should Know About Cyber, Dr. Joseph H. Schafer

Military Cyber Affairs

On April 6, 2023, the Atlantic Council’s Cyber Statecraft Initiative hosted a panel discussion on the new National Cybersecurity Strategy. The panel featured four senior officials from the Office of the National Cyber Director (ONCD), the Department of State (DoS), the Department of Justice (DoJ), and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The author attended and asked each official to identify the most important elements that policymakers and strategists must understand about cyber. This article highlights historical and recent struggles to express cyber policy, the responses from these officials, and the author’s ongoing research to improve national security cyber policy.

Operationalizing Deterrence By Denial In The Cyber Domain, Gentry Lane

Military Cyber Affairs

No abstract provided.

An Anthropology With Human Waste Management: Non-Humans, The State, And Matters Of Care On The Placencia Peninsula, Belize, William Alex Webb

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The management of human waste is a seldom studied phenomenon in anthropology. Yet across the globe, in countries both rich and poor, it presents pervasive and difficult to tame problems. This dissertation draws on complimentary theories of management and entanglements to explore the practices and processes of organizing human waste on the Placencia Peninsula, Belize. The results illustrate how problems are conditioned and defined by messy relations between institutions, people, technologies, materials, and ecological life.

Fieldwork and analysis for this work was a culmination of years of interdisciplinary collaboration between other anthropologists and engineers at the University of South Florida. …

Towards More Task-Generalized And Explainable Ai Through Psychometrics, Alec Braynen

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this work, we propose that adopting the methods, principles, and guidelines of the field of psychometrics can help the Artificial Intelligence (AI) community to build more task-generalizable and explainable AI. Three arguments are presented and explored. These arguments are that psychometrics can help by providing 1) a framework for formulating better datasets, 2) psychometric AI data that can lead to models of generalization in AI, and 3) explainable AI through more informative evaluations.

A review of psychometrics and psychological generalization is performed, along with an overview of evaluation, generalization, and explainability in AI. Various ideas are presented throughout for …

Defensive Industrial Policy: Cybersecurity Interventions To Reduce Intellectual Property Theft, Dr. Chad Dacus, Dr. Carl (Cj) Horn

Military Cyber Affairs

Through cyber-enabled industrial espionage, China has appropriated what Keith Alexander, the former Director of the National Security Agency, dubbed “the largest transfer of wealth in history.” Although China disavows intellectual property (IP) theft by its citizens and has set self-sustained research and development as an important goal, it is unrealistic to believe IP theft will slow down meaningfully without changing China’s decision calculus. China and the United States have twice agreed, in principle, to respect one another’s IP rights. However, these agreements have lacked any real enforcement mechanism, so the United States must do more to ensure its IP is …

Enter The Battleverse: China's Metaverse War, Josh Baughman

Military Cyber Affairs

No abstract provided.

Novel Approach To Integrate Can Based Vehicle Sensors With Gps Using Adaptive Filters To Improve Localization Precision In Connected Vehicles From A Systems Engineering Perspective, Abhijit Vasili

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Research and development in Connected Vehicles (CV) Technologies has increased exponentially, with the allocation of 75 MHz radio spectrum in the 5.9 GHz band by the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) dedicated to Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) in 1999 and 30 MHz in the 5.9 GHz by the European Telecommunication Standards Institution (ETSI). Many applications have been tested and deployed in pilot programs across many cities all over the world.

CV pilot programs have played a vital role in evaluating the effectiveness and impact of the technology and understanding the effects of the applications over the safety of road users. The …

Driver Perceptions On Taxi-Sharing And Dynamic Pricing In Taxi Services: Evidence From Athens, Greece., Christina Milioti, Konstantinos Kepaptsoglou, Konstantinos Kouretas, Eleni Vlahogianni

Journal of Public Transportation

The taxi industry has changed dramatically during the last decade, as ride-sourcing applications, ride-sharing and alternative pricing schemes have emerged, either as complementing or competitive services and strategies. After some years of familiarity with such trends, it is interesting to explore where the taxi industry stands with respect to possible service innovations. This paper explores behavioral patterns of drivers, focusing on issues such as their preferred way of conducting business, and their views on introducing taxi-sharing and dynamic pricing. Data collected from a face-to-face questionnaire survey in Athens, Greece are exploited, and appropriate econometric models are developed for the purposes …

Theory And Algorithms For Systems Optimization, Vahid Mahmoodian

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation presents four sets of contributions in the field of theory and algorithms for system optimization. In the first set, we introduce a simulation optimization method for redistributing bikes in a free-floating bike sharing system. The second set of contributions is a framework for batching queries in large databases to optimize the data retrieval time. The third set includes two branch-and-bound algorithms to solve minimum multiplicative programming problems and one branch-and-bound algorithm to solve the maximum form of the mentioned problems. At last, the fourth set presents an approach to fairlyassign delivery tasks in an outsourcing last-mile delivery system …

Using Fuzzy Clustering Of User Perception To Determine The Number Of Level-Of-Service Categories For Bus Rapid Transit, Yueying Huo, Jinhua Zhao, Xiaojuan Li, Chen Guo

Journal of Public Transportation

The concept of level of service (LOS) is meant to reflect user perception of the quality of service provided by a transportation facility or service. Although the LOS of bus rapid transit (BRT) has received considerable attention, the number of levels of service of BRT that a user can perceive still remains unclear. Therefore, in this paper, we address this issue using fuzzy clustering of user perception. User perception is defined as a six-dimension vector of the perceived arrival time, perceived waiting time, bus speed perception, passenger load perception, perceived departure time, and overall perception. A smartphone-based transit travel survey …

Understanding Transantiago Users’ Motivations For Paying Or Evading Payment Of Bus Fares, Carolina Busco, Felipe González, Yamil Jaqueih, Felipe Jiménez, Borja Alonso

Journal of Public Transportation

Transantiago, the public transport system implemented in Santiago, Chile, remains a controversial subject of public debate due to constantly increasing fare evasion rates throughout its decade-long existence. The

Transantiago, the public transport system implemented in Santiago, Chile, remains a controversial subject of public debate due to constantly increasing fare evasion rates throughout its decade-long existence. The research question under consideration in this paper is as follows: What motivates individuals to evade or pay bus fares? To answer this question, we developed a multidisciplinary study that combined relevant engineering expertise with a sociological perspective and combined quantitative analyses with qualitative methodologies …

Constructing Frameworks For Task-Optimized Visualizations, Ghulam Jilani Abdul Rahim Quadri

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Visualization is crucial in today’s data-driven world to augment and enhance human understanding and decision-making. Effective visualizations must support accuracy in visual task performance and expressive data communication. Effective visualization design depends on the visual channels used, chart types, or visual tasks. However, design choices and visual judgment are co-related, and effectiveness is not one-dimensional, leading to a significant need to understand the intersection of these factors to create optimized visualizations. Hence, constructing frameworks that consider both design decisions and the task being performed enables optimizing visualization design to maximize efficacy. This dissertation describes experiments, techniques, and user studies to …

People-Focused And Near-Term Public Transit Performance Analysis, Alex Karner

Journal of Public Transportation

Public transit ridership forecasts have long played a role in understanding the potential success of a policy or investment, but their limitations have led researchers and practitioners to identify other performance analysis approaches. Accessibility, or the ease of reaching opportunities, has become very popular and widely used for this purpose. But commonly used accessibility measures also embody weaknesses that are seldom acknowledged; these limit their utility for truly understanding the benefits of transit investments. In this paper, we identify the pros and cons of these competing approaches and offer a third strategy. Specifically, we describe how revealed travel behavior data, …

Data-Driven Studies On Social Networks: Privacy And Simulation, Yasanka Sameera Horawalavithana

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Social media datasets are fundamental to understanding a variety of phenomena, such as epidemics, adoption of behavior, crowd management, and political uprisings. At the same time, many such datasets capturing computer-mediated social interactions are recorded nowadays by individual researchers or by organizations. However, while the need for real social graphs and the supply of such datasets are well established, the flow of data from data owners to researchers is significantly hampered by privacy risks: even when humans’ identities are removed, or data is anonymized to some extent, studies have proven repeatedly that re-identifying anonymized user identities (i.e., de-anonymization) is doable …

Adaptive Network Slicing In Fog Ran For Iot With Heterogeneous Latency And Computing Requirements: A Deep Reinforcement Learning Approach, Almuthanna Nassar

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In view of the recent advances in Internet of Things (IoT) devices and the emerging new breed of smart city applications and intelligent vehicular systems driven by artificial intelligence, fog radio access network (F-RAN) has been recently introduced for the next generation wireless communications. The capability of F-RAN has emerged to overcome the latency limitations of cloud-RAN (C-RAN) and assure the quality-of-service (QoS) requirements of the ultra-reliable-low-latency-communication (URLLC) for IoT applications. To this end, fog nodes (FNs) are equipped with computing, signal processing and storage capabilities to extend the inherent operations and services of the cloud to the edge. However, …

Increasing Boarding Lost Time At Regular Bus Stops During Rainy Conditions: A Case Study, Margarita Novales, Alfonso Orro, José-Benito Pérez-López, Jorge Feal, Miguel R. Bugarín

Journal of Public Transportation

Inclement weather conditions affect the behavior of travelers and transportation system operations. Understanding this influence can help improve operational planning schemes for any mode of transport, especially for buses. One of the factors that can be affected by rainfall is the time expended by a passenger from the moment a bus opens its doors until he/she boards the bus. This time is known as the boarding lost time (BLT); it was first introduced in the last edition of the Transit Capacity and Quality of Service Manual (TCQSM). TCQSM only considers the BLT for bus rapid transit (BRT) stations with more …

Longitudinal Trajectory Tracking Analysis For Autonomous Electric Vehicles Based On Pid Control, Hossein Amiri

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The implementation of autonomous vehicles has huge potential for revolutionizing transportation as we currently know it. All use cases of autonomous vehicles require the vehicle to travel on a pre-specified path. Accurate tracking of this defined trajectory is a crucial aspect of the implementation of autonomous vehicles; a controller system is required to translate this pre- defined trajectory in the form of the throttle, brake, and steering inputs. This project covers the application of a Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) controller to achieve longitudinal trajectory tracking of autonomous electric vehicles with stability and accuracy in the CARLA autonomous driving simulation platform. The implemented …

Designing Next-Generation Transportation Systems With Emerging Vehicle Technologies, Zhiwei Chen

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Recent advances in computing and artificial intelligence have enabled the development of various emerging vehicle technologies, e.g., autonomous vehicles (AV) and modular autonomous vehicles (MAV). These technologies bring new scientific and engineering problems challenging transportation researchers and practitioners. This dissertation aims to develop a suite of scalable computational and analytical tools for designing and analyzing next-generation transportation systems with the MAV technologies. Also, we intend to empirically study the system impacts in terms of the quality of service, energy implications, and inequality impacts.

For MAV system design, we develop a methodological framework centering at theoretical properties of the optimal system …

An Inferential Study Of The Potential Consumer Value Of Free Charging For Users Of Public Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure, Divyamitra Mishra

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Although there is economic and marketing evidence of consumers assigning additional benefits to free products and bundles, there is limited research into the behavioral consequences of offering public electric vehicle charging for free. Previous exploratory research by Maness and Lin analyzed possible economic and environmental benefits from offering free public charging infrastructure and policy. Their work found that providing free public charging infrastructure could increase plug-in electric vehicle sales and cause decreased reliance on fossil fuels in the personal transportation sector. However, their study assumed the increased value which consumers would place on free charge events. This project proposes to …

Using Optimization Methods For Solving Problems In Sustainable Urban Mobility And Conservation Planning, Zulqarnain Haider

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation considers three separate optimization problems related to sustainable urban and environmental systems. The first problem relates to the nightly relocation and recharging operations for Free-floating electric vehicle sharing (FFEVS) systems. Such operations involve a crew of drivers to move the shared electric vehicles (EVs), and a fleet of shuttles to transport those drivers. Mixed integer programs are used to model the relocation and recharging operations. Two approaches are devised: sequential and synchronized approaches. In the sequential approach, the movement of EVs is first decided, then the routing of shuttles and drivers is determined. In the synchronized approach, all …

Post-Overlay Flexible Pavement Performance Modeling And Its Application In Sustainable Asphalt Overlay Policy Making, Chunfu Xin

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Highway pavement is a critical component of the highway transportation infrastructure. After the construction of a pavement system, pavement condition will deteriorate over time due to a combination effect of material aging, traffic loading, and environmental impact. To restore the pavement performance and to reduce its adverse effects on public users and environment, asphalt overlay activities are conducted frequently during the service life of a pavement. As a key component that bridges the overlay policies with future pavement performance, economic cost and environmental impact, the forecast accuracy of post-overlay pavement performance model is extremely important. However, most of previous studies …

Game Theory Approaches For Transportation Problems, Mahdi Takalloo

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation considers three separate game theory problems in transportation. In the first problem, a combinatorial auction market has been proposed for fractional ownership of autonomous vehicles. The proposed combinatorial auction has two unique features. First, the items are continuous time slots defined by bidders and second, the spatial information of bidders has been incorporated so that sharing becomes a viable plan. A conflict-based formulation of the winner determination problem has been proposed, for which an effective solution approach based on a heuristic and a maximal-clique based relaxation has been presented. The second part of the dissertation examines a pessimistic …

Valuing Public Transport Customer Amenities: International Transit Agency Practice, Chris De Gruyter, Graham Currie

Journal of Public Transportation

Public transport customer amenities cover a range of measures that can enhance the quality of the passenger experience, such as information provision and station quality. While much research has determined the value that users place on amenities, there is little understanding of current practice in the use of customer amenity valuations in project appraisal. A survey of transit agencies in 11 cities (Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, Auckland, London, Paris, Toronto, Vienna, Oslo and Singapore) was undertaken showing that Australasian cities, albeit Melbourne, generally have widespread inclusion of customer amenities as part of advanced appraisals for all relevant types of public …

Exploring Low-Carbon Bus Options For Urban Brt Systems: The Case Of Amman, Rana Imam, Seong-Cheol Kang, Diana Quezada

Journal of Public Transportation

Being able to provide high-quality, metro-like transit service at a fraction of the cost of other options, bus rapid transit (BRT) has been viewed as one of the most cost-effective public mass transport systems suitable for urban areas. Considering significant amounts of greenhouse gas (GHG) and air pollutant emissions are attributed to the transport sector, deploying low carbon buses for BRT systems should be of high priority. With a view to promoting low carbon buses instead of diesel buses for a BRT system currently being planned in Amman, Jordan, this paper evaluates several low carbon bus options – hybrid, plug-in …

Trajectory Based Traffic Analysis And Control Utilizing Connected Autonomous Vehicles, Yu Wang

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Recent scholars have developed a number of stochastic car-following models that have successfully captured driver behavior uncertainties and reproduced stochastic traffic oscillation propagation. While elegant frequency domain analytical methods are available for stability analysis of classic deterministic linear car-following models, there lacks an analytical method for quantifying the stability performance of their peer stochastic models and theoretically proving oscillation features observed in the real world. To fill this methodological gap, this study proposes a novel analytical method that measures traffic oscillation magnitudes and reveals oscillation characteristics of stochastic linear car-following models. We investigate a general class of stochastic linear car-following …

Dynamic Prediction Of Runway Configuration And Airport Acceptance Rate, Yuan Wang

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Automated prediction of runway configuration and airport capacity is critical for the future generation of air traffic management. In the future aviation industry, multi-sources weather forecast information will be available for air traffic decision-making units; how to use these data efficiently is key for overall efficiency of air traffic management. Currently, air traffic management personnel lack tools to assist them to translate weather forecast data into real-time airport capacity. Runway configurations and AARs of airports in a multi-airport system are determined by different air traffic controller personnel. The lack of synchronization may lead to the loss of efficiency of the …

Cyber Metaphors And Cyber Goals: Lessons From “Flatland”, Pierre Trepagnier

Military Cyber Affairs

Reasoning about complex and abstract ideas is greatly influenced by the choice of metaphors through which they are represented. In this paper we consider the framing effect in military doctrine of considering cyberspace as a domain of action, parallel to the traditional domains of land, sea, air, and space. By means of the well-known Victorian science-fiction novella Flatland, we offer a critique of this dominant cyber metaphor. In Flatland, the problems of lower-dimensional beings comprehending additional dimensions are explored at some length. Inspired by Flatland, our suggested alternate metaphor for cyber is an additional (fourth) dimension. We …