Engineering Commons^™

Image Segmentation For Quantification Of Air-Water Interface In Micro-Ct Soil Images, Kranthi Kumar Potteti

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Soils are complex environments comprising various biological (roots, water, air etc) and physical constituents (minerals, aggregates, etc). Synchrotron radiation based X-ray microtomography (XMT) is widely used in extracting qualitative and quantitative information regarding spatial distribution of biological and physical soil constituents. Segmentation of these micro-CT soil images is of interest to geologists, hydrologists, civil and petroleum engineers and soil scientists. In this present work, we study and implement segmentation algorithms for microhydrology studies, specifically for soil water conductivity. Three well-known image segmentation algorithms are studied for evaluating their performance for the task. We demonstrate the problems and ways to segment …

Adaptive Local And Global Synchronization And Phase Control Of Inferior Olive Neurons (Ions), Srujan Kumar Chalike

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Clusters of inferior olive neurons (IONs) in the olive-cerebellar system play an important role in providing synchronized motor control signals for the activation of large number of muscles. However, the dynamics of IONs are highly nonlinear and the system parameters are assumed to be unknowm. The IONs evolving from arbitrary initial conditions are not synchronized. However the application of IONs for control of BAUV's requires that IONs oscillate in unison. The objective is to design control laws such that the controlled ION tracks the trajectories of the reference ION. The two control laws are derived based on tuning functions adaptive …

Hybrid Plasmonic Nanoantennas: Fabrication, Characterization, And Application, Shengjie Zhai

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

As optical counterpart of microwave antennas, plasmonic nanoantennas are important nanoscale devices for converting propagating optical radiation into confined/enhanced electromagnetic fields. Presently, nanoantennas, with a typical size of 200-500 nm, have found their applications in bio-sensing, bio-imaging, energy harvesting, and disease cure and prevention. With the device feature size of next generation IC goes down to 22 nm or smaller, and biological/chemical sensing reaches the Gene’s level, the sizes of the corresponding nanoantennas have to be scaled down to sub-100nm level. In the literature, these sub-100nm nanoantennas are referred as deep subwavelength nanoantennas as size of such miniaturized nanoantennas is …

Hardware Implementation Of Processor Allocator For Mesh Connected Chip Multiprocessors, Rana Sangram Reddy Marri

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The advancements in the semiconductor process technology and the current demand for highly parallel computing has led to the advent of Chip Multiprocessors (CMPs). CMP is the integration of two or more independent processor cores, which can read and execute program instructions, on to a single integrated circuit die. CMPs are the main computing platforms for research and development in parallel and high performance computing environments. They offer minimum inter-core communication latencies as the processor cores are present on a single chip.

The Operating System (OS) plays a key role in using a CMP effectively. The OS should support a …

Heuristic Algorithms For Optimization Of Task Allocation And Result Distribution In Peer-To-Peer Computing Systems, Grzegorz Chmaj, Krzysztof Walkowiak, Michal Tarnawski, Michal Kucharzak

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Research

Recently, distributed computing system have been gaining much attention due to a growing demand for various kinds of effective computations in both industry and academia. In this paper, we focus on Peer-to-Peer (P2P) computing systems, also called public-resource computing systems or global computing systems. P2P computing systems, contrary to grids, use personal computers and other relatively simple electronic equipment (e.g., the PlayStation console) to process sophisticated computational projects. A significant example of the P2P computing idea is the BOINC (Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing) project. To improve the performance of the computing system, we propose to use the P2P …

Basic Research On The Characteristics Of A Constricted Pulsed Glow Discharge, Sean Daniel Andersen

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

In certain plasma discharge experiments, it has been observed that under specific conditions a plasma glow discharge column tends to seek the central location of the discharge electrodes away from the electrode edges and chamber walls. Further, the column appears to have the properties of a stabilized equilibrium plasma pinch in a glow (non-arc-like) state. This is unusual since, normally field enhancements occur on edges resulting in arc-like discharge breakdown. Also, the column of plasma that protrudes from the anode emits highly intense, non-uniform light that is uncharacteristically bright for a glow discharge.

The main purpose of this thesis is …

College Of Engineering Senior Design Competition Spring 2018, University Of Nevada, Las Vegas

Fred and Harriet Cox Senior Design Competition Projects

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. A capstone to the student’s educational career, the senior design project encourages the student to use everything learned in the engineering program to create a practical, real world solution to an engineering challenge. The senior design competition helps focus the senior students in increasing the quality and potential for commercial application for their design projects. Judges from local industry evaluate the projects on …

Evaluation Of Highly Efficient Distribution Transformer Design And Energy Standards Based On Load, James Sanguinetti

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Power distribution transformers have been prevalent in commercial building distribution systems since the inception of modern commercial electricity. Yet as more and more manufactures seek to improve transformer efficiencies by making changes to the design of the transformer itself, a fundamental concept may be overlooked - the impact transformer demand sizing has on power losses. When modern transformers are improperly sized for the application they will be installed for they are not being utilized at their optimum design loading range, which may impact operating efficiency.

This thesis will aim to test and evaluate modern day transformer design coupled with currently …

Dynamic Modelling Of Single Phase Grid Connected Photovoltaic System, Gopi Krishna Ari

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Grid-connected photovoltaic (PV) power systems have been sustaining an exponential growth rate during the past decade. This steep growth is driven by a growing concern about climate change, the adoption of an aggressive regional renewable portfolio standard, rebates and tax incentives, and reduction in PV system cost. One of the main technical barriers that can ultimately limit further PV penetration is the fast variations in the PV system's output power induced by cloud transients. Such events are known to cause voltage fluctuations which may lead to excessive operations of voltage regulation equipment and light flickering.

Solar irradiance variability, which can …

Buffering Pv Output During Cloud Transients With Energy Storage, Yacouba Moumouni

College of Engineering: Graduate Celebration Programs

The Problem

• Photovoltaic output power can be affected by many factors including clouds passing overhead.

• Utilities in generally prefer a guaranteed power delivery level over some specified power delivery period.

• Power delivered during peak demand hours is generally more valued by utilities. For the Desert Southwest this is in the summertime afternoons. For the local area this will be defined as 1-5 pm for the three summer months.

• While battery power can be adapted to this problem, large batteries to be expensive.

Energy Consumption In Large Wastewater Treatment Plants As A Function Of Wastewater Strength, Timothy Newell, Jacimaria R. Batista, Sajjad Ahmad, Walter Johnson

College of Engineering: Graduate Celebration Programs

Wastewater treatment (WWT) is an energy-intensive process. Strict standards for discharge often require energy intensive advanced treatment technologies. As a result, the number of plants using advanced treatment has increased (Figure 1).

Rising energy costs and concerns about greenhouse gas generation present a major incentive for tracking energy usage of WWT. Energy usage in plant, for instance, typically represents 18 to 30% of the operational budget.

Water efficient fixtures are also increasing loadings of organic matter to plants while lowering or maintaining overall liquid flow. The increased loadings have a significant impact on energy consumption.

Previous work has focused primarily …

A Consumer Level Simulation Model For Demand Response Analysis On Smart Grid, Sungchul Lee, Yoohwan Kim

College of Engineering: Graduate Celebration Programs

With the growing awareness of the need for Smart Grid, various countries are taking initiatives for developing Smart Grid.

However, there is limited research on utilizing Smart Grid for Demand-Response (DR).

This study advances the current system of DR by creating a Smart Grid Simulator that allows an intuitive demand response analysis.

The simulator demonstrates that substantial amount of electric power can be reduced efficiently by selective demand control over Smart Grid.

The graphical interface allows generating the electrical usage data and displays both individual and aggregate usage data over time.

This research employs U.S. census data for accurate estimate …

Real-Time Face Detection And Recognition, Parker Hill, Brendan Morris

College of Engineering: Graduate Celebration Programs

The face has become a popular biometric for identification due to the wide range of features and difficulty in manipulation of the metric. In order to work towards a robust facial recognition system, this work contains a foundation for using the face as a recognition metric. First, faces are detected from still images using a Viola-Jones object detection algorithm. Then, Eigenfaces is applied to the detected faces. The system was tested on face databases as well as real-time feed from a web camera.

A Refreshable And Portable E-Braille System For The Blind And Visually Impaired, Mohammad Saadeh, Mohamed Trabia

College of Engineering: Graduate Celebration Programs

• Braille is a communication system to assist the blind and visually impaired.
• Present an approach to measure fingertip forces while identifying Braille characters.
• Implement a force sensory feedback in the device to measure the force developed on the fingertip.
• Introduce a preliminary design for the device.
• Build a prototype for the device and evaluate its functionality and integrate its components

Thermal Conductivity Measurement With 3Ω Method Background And Synopsis Of Its Implementation, Fiifi Blankson

College of Engineering: Graduate Celebration Programs

ABSTRACT

Continued advances in nanostructured materials have made it necessary to develop materials with specific thermoelectric properties. The 3ω Method provides an accurate measurement of one such property, thermal conductivity. It will be used in this research to find high electrical conductivity alloys with low thermal conductivity.

Location Of Processor Allocator And Job Scheduler And Its Impact On Cmp Performance, Dawid Zydek, Grzegorz Chmaj, Alaa Shawky, Henry Selvaraj

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Research

High Performance Computing (HPC) architectures are being developed continually with an aim of achieving exascale capability by 2020. Processors that are being developed and used as nodes in HPC systems are Chip Multiprocessors (CMPs) with a number of cores. In this paper, we continue our effort towards a better processor allocation process. The Processor Allocator (PA) and Job Scheduler (JS) proposed and implemented in our previous works are explored in the context of its best location on the chip. We propose a system, where all locations on a chip can be analyzed, considering energy used by Network-on-Chip (NoC), PA and …

Unlv Em-Dot Research, Highlights Of Improvised Electric Detonator (Wire Melt) Research, And Comments On Basic Research With Unlv Non-Equilibrium Plasma Pinch, Robert A. Schill Jr.

NSTec UNLV Symposium

UNLV EM DOT

•Patented
–Patent Number: 7,482,814 [1/27/2009]
•Novel Differential Dot
–Wide bandwidth & Matched
–Symmetric, shielded sensor
–Measures the E and B fields at a single point in space simultaneously
•Transient Calibration Technique Developed –Excellent Agreement
–Low inductance test stand –relatively uniform B-field
–Low capacitance test stand –relatively uniform E-field
–Test stand is the limiting factor at this time

Matter Under Unusual Conditions, Bernard Zygelman

NSTec UNLV Symposium

What is curiosity – driven research and why do we support it?

Vannevar Bush Science The Endless Frontier (1945)

“Science is the pacemaker of technological progress … New productsand new processes do not appear full-grown. They are founded on newprinciples and new conceptions, which in turn are painstakingly developedby research in the purest realms of science“

•Magnetic Resonance Imaging
•Positron Emission Tomography
•Laser applications
•GPS
•Nano Technology

Development Of Smart Pv Inverters For The Smart Grid, Yahia Baghzouz

NSTec UNLV Symposium

The Electric Grid has become more complex with recent technological developments. There are more alternative power sources and sensors added into the mix at every part of the grid. The Energy Meter has changed over the past several years as well. The older meters were checked only once a month with a meter reader, but the new "Smart" Meters are capable of reporting energy usage at fifteen minute intervals.

Decision Strategies For A P2p Computing System, Grzegorz Chmaj, Krzysztof Walkowiak

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Research

Peer-to-Peer (P2P) computing (also called ‘public-resource computing’) is an effective approach to perform computation of large tasks. Currently used P2P computing systems (e.g., BOINC) are most often centrally managed, i.e., the final result of computations is created at a central node using partial results – what may be not efficient in the case when numerous participants are willing to download the final result. In this paper, we propose a novel approach to P2P computing systems. We assume that results can be delivered to all peers in a distributed way using three types of network flows: unicast, Peer-to-Peer and anycast. We …

Assessing The Therapeutic Effect Of 630 Nm Light-Emitting Diodes Irradiation On The Recovery Of Exercise-Induced Hand Muscle Fatigue With Surface Electromyogram, Dandan Yang, Xiaoying Wu, Wensheng Hou, Xiaolin Zheng, Jun Zheng, Yingtao Jiang

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Research

This paper aims to investigate the effect of light emitting diode therapy (LEDT) on exercise-induced hand muscle fatigue by measuring the surface electromyography (sEMG) of flexor digitorum superficialis. Ten healthy volunteers were randomly placed in the equal sized LEDT group and control group. All subjects performed a sustained fatiguing isometric contraction with the combination of four fingertips except thumb at 30% of maximal voluntary contraction (MVC) until exhaustion. The active LEDT or an identical passive rest therapy was then applied to flexor digitorum superficialis. Each subject was required to perform a re-fatigue task immediately after therapy which was the same …