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Full-Text Articles in Engineering

Successful Organizational Change: Aligning Change Type With Methods, Serina Al-Haddad Jan 2014

Successful Organizational Change: Aligning Change Type With Methods, Serina Al-Haddad

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The motivation behind this research is the prevalence of challenges and ambiguity associated with successful organizational change and the numerous available approaches in dealing with these challenges and ambiguity. Many definitions and methods have been suggested to manage change; however, organizations still report a high failure rate of their change initiatives. These high failure rates highlight the continuing need for research and investigation, and imply a lack of a valid framework for managing successful organizational change. This dissertation critically reviews the concept of having one change approach as the “silver-bullet”. In pursuit of this goal, this research contributes a roadmap …


Shop Scheduling In The Presence Of Batching, Sequence-Dependent Setups And Incompatible Job Families Minimizing Earliness And Tardiness Penalties, Patricia Buchanan Jan 2014

Shop Scheduling In The Presence Of Batching, Sequence-Dependent Setups And Incompatible Job Families Minimizing Earliness And Tardiness Penalties, Patricia Buchanan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The motivation of this research investigation stems from a particular job shop production environment at a large international communications and information technology company in which electro-mechanical assemblies (EMAs) are produced. The production environment of the EMAs includes the continuous arrivals of the EMAs (generally called jobs), with distinct due dates, degrees of importance and routing sequences through the production workstations, to the job shop. Jobs are processed in batches at the workstations, and there are incompatible families of jobs, where jobs from different product families cannot be processed together in the same batch. In addition, there are sequence-dependent setups between …


Computational Fluid Dynamics Uncertainty Analysis For Payload Fairing Spacecraft Environmental Control Systems, Curtis Groves Jan 2014

Computational Fluid Dynamics Uncertainty Analysis For Payload Fairing Spacecraft Environmental Control Systems, Curtis Groves

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Spacecraft thermal protection systems are at risk of being damaged due to airflow produced from Environmental Control Systems. There are inherent uncertainties and errors associated with using Computational Fluid Dynamics to predict the airflow field around a spacecraft from the Environmental Control System. This paper describes an approach to quantify the uncertainty in using Computational Fluid Dynamics to predict airflow speeds around an encapsulated spacecraft without the use of test data. Quantifying the uncertainty in analytical predictions is imperative to the success of any simulation-based product. The method could provide an alternative to traditional “validation by test only” mentality. This …


Structural Health Monitoring Using Novel Sensing Technologies And Data Analysis Methods, Seyedmasoud Malekzadeh Jan 2014

Structural Health Monitoring Using Novel Sensing Technologies And Data Analysis Methods, Seyedmasoud Malekzadeh

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The main objective of this research is to explore, investigate and develop the new data analysis techniques along with novel sensing technologies for structural health monitoring applications. The study has three main parts. First, a systematic comparative evaluation of some of the most common and promising methods is carried out along with a combined method proposed in this study for mitigating drawbacks of some of the techniques. Secondly, nonparametric methods are evaluated on a real life movable bridge. Finally, a hybrid approach for non-parametric and parametric method is proposed and demonstrated for more in depth understanding of the structural performance. …


Identifying Influential Agents In Social Systems, Mahsa Maghami Jan 2014

Identifying Influential Agents In Social Systems, Mahsa Maghami

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation addresses the problem of influence maximization in social networks. In- fluence maximization is applicable to many types of real-world problems, including modeling contagion, technology adoption, and viral marketing. Here we examine an advertisement domain in which the overarching goal is to find the influential nodes in a social network, based on the network structure and the interactions, as targets of advertisement. The assumption is that advertisement budget limits prevent us from sending the advertisement to everybody in the network. Therefore, a wise selection of the people can be beneficial in increasing the product adoption. To model these social …


Complementary Layered Learning, Sean Mondesire Jan 2014

Complementary Layered Learning, Sean Mondesire

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Layered learning is a machine learning paradigm used to develop autonomous robotic-based agents by decomposing a complex task into simpler subtasks and learns each sequentially. Although the paradigm continues to have success in multiple domains, performance can be unexpectedly unsatisfactory. Using Boolean-logic problems and autonomous agent navigation, we show poor performance is due to the learner forgetting how to perform earlier learned subtasks too quickly (favoring plasticity) or having difficulty learning new things (favoring stability). We demonstrate that this imbalance can hinder learning so that task performance is no better than that of a suboptimal learning technique, monolithic learning, which …


Dishwashing Water Recycling System And Related Water Quality Standards For Military Use, Jared Church Jan 2014

Dishwashing Water Recycling System And Related Water Quality Standards For Military Use, Jared Church

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

As the demand for reliable and safe water supplies increases, both water quality and available quantity are being challenged by population growth and climate change. Greywater reuse is becoming a common practice worldwide; however, in remote locations of limited water supply, such as those encountered in military installations, it is desirable to expand its classification to include dishwashing water to maximize the conservation of fresh water. Given that no standards for dishwashing greywater reuse by the military are currently available, the current study determined a specific set of water quality standards for dishwater recycling systems for U.S military field operations. …


Automatic Detection Of Brain Functional Disorder Using Imaging Data, Soumyabrata Dey Jan 2014

Automatic Detection Of Brain Functional Disorder Using Imaging Data, Soumyabrata Dey

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Recently, Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD) is getting a lot of attention mainly for two reasons. First, it is one of the most commonly found childhood behavioral disorders. Around 5-10% of the children all over the world are diagnosed with ADHD. Second, the root cause of the problem is still unknown and therefore no biological measure exists to diagnose ADHD. Instead, doctors need to diagnose it based on the clinical symptoms, such as inattention, impulsivity and hyperactivity, which are all subjective. Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) data has become a popular tool to understand the functioning of the brain such …


Modeling And Spray Pyrolysis Processing Of Mixed Metal Oxide Nano-Composite Gas Sensor Films, Seyed Mohammad Navid Khatami Jan 2014

Modeling And Spray Pyrolysis Processing Of Mixed Metal Oxide Nano-Composite Gas Sensor Films, Seyed Mohammad Navid Khatami

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The role of sensor technology is obvious in improvement and optimization of many industrial processes. The sensor films, which are considered the core of chemical sensors, have the capability to detect the presence and concentration of a specific chemical substance. Such sensor films achieve selectivity by detecting the interaction of the specific chemical substance with the sensor material through selective binding, adsorption and permeation of analyte. This research focuses on development and verification of a comprehensive mathematical model of mixed metal oxide thin film growth using spray pyrolysis technique (SPT). An experimental setup is used to synthesize mixed metal oxide …


Urban Expressway Safety And Efficiency Evaluation And Improvement Using Big Data, Qi Shi Jan 2014

Urban Expressway Safety And Efficiency Evaluation And Improvement Using Big Data, Qi Shi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In an age of data explosion, almost every aspect of social activities is impacted by the abundance of information. The information, characterized by alarming volume, velocity and variety, is often referred to as "Big Data". As one fundamental elements of human life, transportation also confronts the promises and challenges brought about by the Big Data era. Big Data in the transportation arena, enabled by the rapid popularization of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) in the past few decades, are often collected continuously from different sources over vast geographical scale. Huge in size and rich in information, the seemingly disorganized data could …


Frequency Selective Detection Of Infrared Radiation In Uncooled Optical Nano-Antenna Array, Sushrut Modak Jan 2014

Frequency Selective Detection Of Infrared Radiation In Uncooled Optical Nano-Antenna Array, Sushrut Modak

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Mid-infrared (mid-IR) detection and imaging over atmospheric transparent 3-5 μm and 8-12 μm bands are increasingly becoming important for various space, defense and civilian applications. Various kinds of microbolometers offer uncooled detection of IR radiation. However, broadband absorption of microbolometers makes them less sensitive to spectrally resolved detection of infrared radiation and the fabrication is also very tedious involving multiple complex lithography steps. In this study, we designed an optical nano-antenna array based detector with narrow frequency band of operation. The structure consists of a two-element antenna array comprised of a perforated metallic hole array coupled with an underneath disk …


Graphene Oxide Reinforcement In Plasma Sprayed Nickel-5%Aluminum Coatings, David Ward Jan 2014

Graphene Oxide Reinforcement In Plasma Sprayed Nickel-5%Aluminum Coatings, David Ward

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Metallic plasma sprayed coatings are widely used in the aerospace industry for repair on worn engine components. However, the inherent defects in these coatings limit the variety of repairs and reduce the service life of the repaired parts. A potential solution to overcome this problem is to mix small amounts of inexpensive graphene oxide in the powder feedstock. The incredible strength to weight ratio of graphene oxide makes it a viable additive to improve mechanical properties of metallic plasma sprayed coatings. The powder system chosen for this research is Nickel-5Aluminum since it is a common coating for such repairs. The …


In-Situ Synchrotron Studies Of Turbine Blade Thermal Barrier Coatings Under Extreme Environments, Kevin Knipe Jan 2014

In-Situ Synchrotron Studies Of Turbine Blade Thermal Barrier Coatings Under Extreme Environments, Kevin Knipe

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Thermal Barrier Coatings have been used for decades to impose a thermal gradient between the hot combustion gases and the underlying superalloy substrate in engine turbine blades. Yttria Stabilized Zirconia (YSZ) is an industry standard high temperature ceramic for turbine applications. The protective coating is adhered to the substrate using a nickel based alloy bond coat. Through exposure to high temperature, a Thermally Grown Oxide (TGO) layer develops at the bond coat-YSZ interface. Large residual stresses develop in these layers due to thermal expansion mismatch that occurs during cool down from high temperature spraying and cyclic operating conditions. Despite their …


Nondestructive Analysis Of Advanced Aerospace Materials Via Spectroscopy And Synchrotron Radiation, Albert Manero Jan 2014

Nondestructive Analysis Of Advanced Aerospace Materials Via Spectroscopy And Synchrotron Radiation, Albert Manero

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Advanced aerospace materials require extensive testing and characterization to anticipate and ensure their integrity under hostile environments. Characterization methods utilizing synchrotron X-Ray diffraction and spectroscopy can decrease the time required to determine an emerging material's readiness for application through intrinsic information on the material response and failure mechanisms. In this study, thermal barrier coating samples applicable to turbine blades of jet engines were studied using Raman and Photoluminescence spectroscopy as well as Synchrotron X-ray diffraction while Kevlar based fiber composites applicable to ballistic resistant armor were studied using Raman spectroscopy to investigate the mechanical state and corresponding damage and failure …


Bio-Inspired Attitude Control Of Micro Air Vehicles Using Rich Information From Airflow Sensors, He Shen Jan 2014

Bio-Inspired Attitude Control Of Micro Air Vehicles Using Rich Information From Airflow Sensors, He Shen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Biological phenomena found in nature can be learned and customized to obtain innovative engineering solutions. In recent years, biologists found that birds and bats use their mechanoreceptors to sense the airflow information and use this information directly to achieve their agile flight performance. Inspired by this phenomenon, an attitude control system for micro air vehicles using rich amount of airflow sensor information is proposed, designed and tested. The dissertation discusses our research findings on this topic. First, we quantified the errors between the calculated and measured lift and moment profiles using a limited number of micro pressure sensors over a …


Synchrotron X-Ray Diffraction And Piezospectroscopy Used For The Investigation Of Individual Mechanical Effects From Environmental Contaminants And Oxide Layer Undulations In Thermal Barrier Coatings, Sanna Siddiqui Jan 2014

Synchrotron X-Ray Diffraction And Piezospectroscopy Used For The Investigation Of Individual Mechanical Effects From Environmental Contaminants And Oxide Layer Undulations In Thermal Barrier Coatings, Sanna Siddiqui

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The durability of Thermal Barrier Coatings (TBCs) used on the turbine blades of aircraft and power generation engines has been known to be affected by sand particle ingression comprised of Calcium-Magnesium-Alumina-Silicate (CMAS). Previous studies have shown that these effects present themselves through variations in the thermomechanical and thermochemical properties of the coating. This study investigated the impact of CMAS ingression on the Yttria Stabilized Zirconia Topcoat (YSZ) and Thermally Grown Oxide (TGO) strain in sprayed Thermal Barrier Coating (TBC) samples of varying porosity with and without CMAS ingression. In-Situ Synchrotron X-ray Diffraction measurements were taken on the sample under thermal …


Self-Heating Control Of Edge Emitting And Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Lasers, Yu Zhang Jan 2014

Self-Heating Control Of Edge Emitting And Vertical Cavity Surface Emitting Lasers, Yu Zhang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Self-heating leads to temperature rise of laser diode and limits the output power, efficiency and modulation bandwidth due to increased loss and decreased differential gain. The main heat sources in laser diode during continuous wave operation are Joule heating and free carrier absorption loss. To control device self-heating, the epi structure needs to be designed with low electrical resistance and low absorption loss, while the heat flux must spread out of the device efficiently. This dissertation presents the control of self-heating of both edge emitting laser diodes and vertical cavity surface emitting lasers (VCSELs). For the 980nm high power edge …


Nanocomposite Coating Mechanics Via Piezospectroscopy, Gregory Freihofer Jan 2014

Nanocomposite Coating Mechanics Via Piezospectroscopy, Gregory Freihofer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Coatings utilizing the piezospectroscopic (PS) effect of alpha alumina could enable on the fly stress sensing for structural health monitoring applications. While the PS effect has been historically utilized in several applications, here by distributing the photo-luminescent material in nanoparticle form within a matrix, a stress sensing coating is created. Parallel to developing PS coatings for stress sensing, the multi-scale mechanics associated with the observed PS response of nanocomposites and their coatings has been applied to give material property measurements, providing an understanding of particle reinforced composite behavior. Understanding the nanoparticle-coating-substrate mechanics is essential to interpreting the spectral shifts for …


An Unsupervised Consensus Control Chart Pattern Recognition Framework, Siavash Haghtalab Jan 2014

An Unsupervised Consensus Control Chart Pattern Recognition Framework, Siavash Haghtalab

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Early identification and detection of abnormal time series patterns is vital for a number of manufacturing. Slide shifts and alterations of time series patterns might be indicative of some anomaly in the production process, such as machinery malfunction. Usually due to the continuous flow of data monitoring of manufacturing processes requires automated Control Chart Pattern Recognition(CCPR) algorithms. The majority of CCPR literature consists of supervised classification algorithms. Less studies consider unsupervised versions of the problem. Despite the profound advantage of unsupervised methodology for less manual data labeling their use is limited due to the fact that their performance is not …


Distribution Of Laser Induced Heating In Multi-Component Chalcogenide Glass And Its Associated Effects, Laura Sisken Jan 2014

Distribution Of Laser Induced Heating In Multi-Component Chalcogenide Glass And Its Associated Effects, Laura Sisken

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Chalcogenide glasses are well known to have good transparency into the infrared spectrum. These glasses though tend to have low thresholds as compared to oxide glasses for photo-induced changes and thermally-induced changes. Material modification such as photo-induced darkening, bleaching, refractive index change, densification or expansion, ablation of crystallization have been demonstrated, and are typically induced by a thermal furnace-based heat treatment, an optical source such as a laser, or a combination of photo-thermal interactions. Solely employing laser-based heating has an advantage over a furnace, since one has the potential to be able to spatially modify the materials properties with much …


Highly-Sensitive Stoichiometric Analysis Of Yag Ceramics Using Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (Libs), Jahromi, Ali Kazemi Jan 2014

Highly-Sensitive Stoichiometric Analysis Of Yag Ceramics Using Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (Libs), Jahromi, Ali Kazemi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Transparent ceramics are an important class of optical materials with applications in high-strength windows, radiation detectors and high-power lasers. Despite the many successful developments of the past decades, their challenging fabrication still needs to be perfected to achieve a better consistency in optical quality. In particular, ternary phase materials such as Yttrium Aluminum Garnet (YAG, Y3Al5O12), a long standing high-power laser host, require a precise control of stoichiometry, often beyond the precision of current analytical techniques, in order to reduce scattering losses and the presence of deleterious point defects. This work explores the potential of Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS) for …


Investigation Of Different Dielectric Materials As Gate Insulator For Mosfets, Ritika Oswal Jan 2014

Investigation Of Different Dielectric Materials As Gate Insulator For Mosfets, Ritika Oswal

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The scaling of semiconductor transistors has led to a decrease in thickness of the silicon dioxide layer used as gate dielectric. The thickness of the silicon dioxide layer is reduced to increase the gate capacitance, thus increasing the drain current. If the thickness of the gate dielectric decreases below 2nm, the leakage current due to the tunneling increases drastically. Hence it is necessary to replace the gate dielectric, silicon dioxide, with a physically thicker oxide layer of high-k materials like Hafnium oxide and Titanium oxide. High-k dielectric materials allow the capacitance to increase without a huge leakage current. Hafnium oxide …


Design And Development Of Heterogenous Combustion Systems For Lean Burn Applications, Anthony Terracciano Jan 2014

Design And Development Of Heterogenous Combustion Systems For Lean Burn Applications, Anthony Terracciano

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Combustion with a high surface area continuous solid immersed within the flame, referred to as combustion in porous media, is an innovative approach to combustion as the solid within the flame acts as an internal regenerator distributing heat from the combustion byproducts to the upstream reactants. By including the solid structure, radiative energy extraction becomes viable, while the solid enables a vast extension of flammability limits compared to conventional flames, while offering dramatically reduced emissions of NOx and CO, and dramatically increased burning velocities. Efforts documented within are used for the development of a streamlined set of design principles, and …


A Lab-Scale Experimental Framework For Studying The Phenomenon Of Autorotation, Sigitas Rimkus Jan 2014

A Lab-Scale Experimental Framework For Studying The Phenomenon Of Autorotation, Sigitas Rimkus

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

While wind energy has emerged as a popular source of renewable energy, the traditional wind turbine has an inherent limitation, namely that it only generates power in the presence of sufficiently high and consistent wind speeds. As a result, wind farms are typically built in areas with a high probability of the required wind speeds, which are geographically sparse. One way of overcoming this drawback is to tap into the energy available in winds at high altitudes which are not only consistent and of high magnitude, but also globally pervasive. An airborne wind energy device based upon the phenomenon of …


A Framework For The Development Of A Model For Successful, Sustained Lean Implementation And Improvement, Julie Sisson Jan 2014

A Framework For The Development Of A Model For Successful, Sustained Lean Implementation And Improvement, Julie Sisson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Lean is a business philosophy focused on shortening lead times by removing waste and concentrating on value-added processes. When implemented successfully, it not only allows for cost reduction while improving quality, but it can also position a company to achieve tremendous growth. The problem is that though many companies are attempting to implement lean, it is estimated that only 2-3% are achieving the desired level of success. The purpose of this research is to identify the key interrelated components of successful lean transformation. To this end, a thorough literature review was conducted and the findings indicate six key constructs that …


Automatic 3d Human Modeling: An Initial Stage Towards 2-Way Inside Interaction In Mixed Reality, Yiyan Xiong Jan 2014

Automatic 3d Human Modeling: An Initial Stage Towards 2-Way Inside Interaction In Mixed Reality, Yiyan Xiong

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

3D human models play an important role in computer graphics applications from a wide range of domains, including education, entertainment, medical care simulation and military training. In many situations, we want the 3D model to have a visual appearance that matches that of a specific living person and to be able to be controlled by that person in a natural manner. Among other uses, this approach supports the notion of human surrogacy, where the virtual counterpart provides a remote presence for the human who controls the virtual character's behavior. In this dissertation, a human modeling pipeline is proposed for the …


An Analysis Of The Protected-Permitted Left Turn At Intersections With A Varying Number Of Opposing Through Lanes, Alexander Navarro Jan 2014

An Analysis Of The Protected-Permitted Left Turn At Intersections With A Varying Number Of Opposing Through Lanes, Alexander Navarro

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Flashing Yellow Arrow Left Turn signal is quickly becoming prominent in Central Florida as a new method of handling left turns at traffic signals. While the concept of a protected-permitted left turn is not groundbreaking, the departure from the typical display of a five-section signal head is, for this type of operation. The signal head introduced is a four-section head with a flashing yellow arrow between the yellow and green arrows. With this signal head quickly becoming the standard, there is a need to re-evaluate the operational characteristics of the left turning vehicle and advance the knowledge of the …


Evaluating The Effectiveness Of Conversion Of Traditional Five Section Head Signal To Flashing Yellow Arrow (Fya) Signal, Meshal Almoshaogeh Jan 2014

Evaluating The Effectiveness Of Conversion Of Traditional Five Section Head Signal To Flashing Yellow Arrow (Fya) Signal, Meshal Almoshaogeh

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In the United States, there are two schemes of operating traffic signal controls for permitted protected left turns (PPLT) namely the traditional five-section head system (known as Dog-House) and the flashing yellow arrow system (FYA). Past studies have agreed that these controls lead to decrease the average delay per left turn vehicle, decrease the protected green time, increase the left turn capacity, and enhance the intersection overall operation. The flashing yellow arrow (FYA) has been approved by the Federal Highway Administration as the national standard for the PPLT operations at signalized intersections. So, the Florida Department of Transportation also approved …


High Resolution Time-Resolved Imaging System In The Vacuum Ultraviolet Region, Yuseong Jang Jan 2014

High Resolution Time-Resolved Imaging System In The Vacuum Ultraviolet Region, Yuseong Jang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

High-power debris-free vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) light sources have applications in several scientific and engineering areas, such as high volume manufacturing lithography and inspection tools in the semiconductor industry, as well as other applications in material processing and photochemistry. For the past decades, the semiconductor industry has been driven by what is called "Moore's Law". The entire semiconductor industry relies on this rule, which requires chip makers to pack transistors more tightly with every new generation of chips, shrinking the size of transistors. The ability to solve roadmap challenges is, at least partly, proportional to our ability to measure them. The …


Beneficial Utilization Of Municipal Solid Waste Incineration Ashes As Sustainable Road Construction Materials, Kazi Tasneem Jan 2014

Beneficial Utilization Of Municipal Solid Waste Incineration Ashes As Sustainable Road Construction Materials, Kazi Tasneem

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Incineration of municipal solid waste (MSW) is common for energy recovery, and management of municipal solid waste incineration (MSWI) ashes has received a growing attention around the world. In the U.S., generation of MSW has increased up to 65% since 1980, to the current level of 251 million tons per year with 53.8% landfilled, 34.5% recycled and composted, and 11.7% incinerated with energy recovery. In the process of incineration, MSWI ash is being produced as byproducts; about 80 to 90% of the MSWI ash is bottom ash (BA) and 10 to 20% is fly ash (FA) by weight. The current …