Civil and Environmental Engineering Commons^™

Improving Concept Learning In Green Building By Addressing Students' Learning Styles And Prior Knowledge, Sreelatha Chunduri

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In green building there is a requirement for the collaboration of students from different disciplines in order to solve challenging problems. Successful collaboration depends on the establishment of a common understanding of the subject matter among those involved. To gain common understanding concept learning is critical. A concept learning process may be improved when factors affecting it are addressed. Prior knowledge and learning styles of the students may influence the way they learn concepts. This thesis is focused on studying the relationship between a concept learning process and prior knowledge and learning styles of students. An experiment was conducted by …

Mechanical Properties Of Self-Consolidating Concrete With Pozzolanic Materials, Indra Prasad Chapagain

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Self-consolidating concrete has been described as the most revolutionary development in concrete technology in several decades with the ability to flow freely through closely spaced reinforcements, expel entrapped air and self compact without vibration. Since it was first developed in Japan in the early 1980's, major development in the chemical admixture technology has made SCC more viable.

An experimental study was conducted to identify the mechanical properties of SCC by optimizing the use of pozzolanic materials and local aggregates with some proposed statistical models. The research was focused to investigate compressive strength, splitting tensile strength, modulus of elasticity and drying …

Predicting Delay Reductions From Freeway Traffic Diversion For Incident Management, Jie Bian

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Traffic incidents are a major source of traffic congestion on freeways. Freeway traffic diversion using pre-planned alternate routes has been used as a strategy to reduce traffic delays due to major traffic incidents. However, it is not always beneficial to divert traffic when an incident occurs. Route diversion may adversely impact traffic on the alternate routes and may not result in an overall benefit.

This dissertation research attempts to apply Artificial Neural Network (ANN) and Support Vector Regression (SVR) techniques to predict the percent of delay reduction from route diversion to help determine whether traffic should be diverted under given …

Evaluating The Effectiveness Of Signal Timing Optimization Based On Microscopic Simulation Evaluation, Patricio Alvarez Mendoza

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The optimization of the timing parameters of traffic signals provides for efficient operation of traffic along a signalized transportation system. Optimization tools with macroscopic simulation models have been used to determine optimal timing plans. These plans have been, in some cases, evaluated and fine tuned using microscopic simulation tools. A number of studies show inconsistencies between optimization tool results based on macroscopic simulation and the results obtained from microscopic simulation. No attempts have been made to determine the reason behind these inconsistencies. This research investigates whether adjusting the parameters of macroscopic simulation models to correspond to the calibrated microscopic simulation …

Investigating The Origin Of Pm2.5 In Baltimore Using Highly Time-Resolved Organic Molecular Markers Measured During The Baltimore Pm-Supersite, Anna R. Bernardo-Bricker

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The detailed organic composition of atmospheric fine particles with an aerodynamic diameter smaller than or equal to 2.5 micrometers (PM 2.5) is an integral part of the knowledge needed in order to fully characterize its sources and transformation in the environment. For the study presented here, samples were collected at 3-hour intervals. This high time resolution allows gaining unique insights on the influence of short- and long-range transport phenomena, and dynamic atmospheric processes. A specially designed sequential sampler was deployed at the 2002-2003 Baltimore PM Supersite to collect PM2.5 samples at a 3-hourly resolution for extended periods of consecutive days, …