Science and Technology Studies Commons^™

Toward A More Scientifically Literate Public, Michael Bass

UCF Forum

As a society we do a terrible job of educating our children to become scientifically literate. Sure, we have STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) programs throughout the country, and with some justification we can brag about the successes of students that are in or who have graduated from such learning experiences.

Predicting Public Bicycle Adoption Using The Technology Acceptance Model, Benjamin T. Hazen, Robert E. Overstreet, Yacan Wang

Faculty Publications

Bicycle sharing programs provide a sustainable mode of urban transportation. Although cities across the globe have developed these systems for their citizens and visitors, usage rates are not as high as anticipated. This research uses the technology acceptance model as the basis to understand one’s intention to adopt bicycle sharing programs. Using survey data derived from 421 participants in Beijing, China, the proposed covariance-based structural equation model consisting of perceived quality, perceived convenience, and perceived value is found to predict 50.5% of the variance in adoption intention. The findings of this research contribute to theory and practice in the burgeoning …

Don't Just Blindly Follow All 'Green' Trends -- Do Your Research First, Michael Bass

UCF Forum

Nowadays it is politically correct to be “green” – to say and do things that seem to minimize one’s impact on the environment and to preach to others to do the same.

Exploring Bridge-Engine Control Room Collaborative Team Communication, Aditi Kataria, Eric Holder, Gesa Praetorius, Michael Baldauf, Jens-Uwe Schröder-Hinrichs

Journal Publications

The EC funded CyClaDes research project is designed to promote the increased impact of the human element in shipping across the design and operational lifecycle of ships. It addresses the design and operation of ships and ship systems. One of the CyClaDes’ tasks is to create a crew‐centered design case‐study examination of the information that is shared between the Bridge and Engine Control Room (ECR) that helps the crew coordinate to ensure understanding and complete interconnected tasks. This information can be provided in various ways, including communication devices or obtained from a common database, display, or even the ship environment …

Design, Programming, And User-Experience, Kaila G. Manca

Honors Scholar Theses

This thesis is a culmination of my individualized major in Human-Computer Interaction. As such, it showcases my knowledge of design, computer engineering, user-experience research, and puts into practice my background in psychology, com- munications, and neuroscience.

I provided full-service design and development for a web application to be used by the Digital Media and Design Department and their students.This process involved several iterations of user-experience research, testing, concepting, branding and strategy, ideation, and design. It lead to two products.

The first product is full-scale development and optimization of the web appli- cation.The web application adheres to best practices. It was …

Waste And Duplication In Nasa Programs: The Need To Enhance U.S. Space Program Efficiency, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

The U.S. Government faces acute budgetary deficits and national debt problems in the Obama Administration. These problems have been brought about by decades of unsustainable government spending affecting all agencies including the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. (NASA). An outgrowth of this fiscal profligacy is the presence of wasteful and duplicative programs within NASA that prevent this agency from achieving its space science and human spaceflight objectives. These problems occur due to mismanagement of these programs from NASA and the creation of these programs by the U.S. Congress and congressional committees. This occurs because congressional appropriators tend to be more …

Using Photogrammetry To Document, Analyze, And Reverse-Engineer Grave Markers, Robert Z. Selden Jr.

CRHR: Archaeology

There are a wide range of applications for three-dimensional (3D) data in archaeology, and a diverse array of methods for collecting and analyzing those data. In this article, free 3D photogrammetry software (Autodesk 123D Catch) is used to document a series of grave markers. The data are subsequently exported to Geomagic Design X to demonstrate and briefly discuss the various potential analyses that might be used to illustrate the effects of preservation treatments and marker degradation through time. Further, one marker is reverse-engineered, illustrating the capacity of 3D modeling to expedite the process of design, should elements warrant replacement. Additional …

Facile Synthesis Of Coaxial Cnts/Mnox-Carbon Hybrid Nanofibers And Their Greatly Enhanced Lithium Storage Performance, Zunxian Yang, Jun Lv, Haidong Pang, Wenhuan Yan, Kun Qian, Tailiang Guo, Zaiping Guo

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

Carbon nanotubes (CNTs)/MnO_x-Carbon hybrid nanofibers have been successfully synthesized by the combination of a liquid chemical redox reaction (LCRR) and a subsequent carbonization heat treatment. The nanostructures exhibit a unique one-dimensional core/shell architecture, with one-dimensional CNTs encapsulated inside and a MnO_x-carbon composite nanoparticle layer on the outside. The particular porous characteristics with many meso/micro holes/pores, the highly conductive one-dimensional CNT core, as well as the encapsulating carbon matrix on the outside of the MnOx nanoparticles, lead to excellent electrochemical performance of the electrode. The CNTs/MnO_x-Carbon hybrid nanofibers exhibit a high initial reversible capacity of …

Energy Exchange Between Electric Vehicle Load And Wind Generating Utilities, Ahmad Tavakoli, Michael Negnevitsky, Duc Thanh Nguyen, Kashem M. Muttaqi

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

This paper proposes a novel approach to energy exchange between electric vehicle (EV) load and wind generation utilities participating in the day-ahead energy, balancing, and regulation markets. An optimal bidding/offering strategy model is developed to mitigate wind energy and EV imbalance threats, and optimize EV charging profiles. A new strategy model is based on optimizing decision making of a wind generating company (WGenCO) in selecting the best option among the use of the balancing or regulation services, the use of the energy storage system (ESS) and the use of all of them to compensate wind power deviation. Energy imbalance is …

Development And Optimization Of An Innovative Hvac System With Integrated Pvt And Pcm Thermal Storage For A Net-Zero Energy Retrofitted House, Massimo Fiorentini, Paul Cooper, Zhenjun Ma

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

This paper describes a novel solar-assisted HVAC system developed for the Team UOW 'Illawarra Flame' Solar Decathlon house, the winner of the Solar Decathlon China 2013 competition. This HVAC system consists of an air-based photovoltaic-thermal (PVT) collector and a phase change material (PCM) thermal storage unit integrated with a reverse cycle heat pump, in a ducted system. The system was designed for operation during both winter and summer using daytime solar radiation and night-time sky radiative cooling, respectively. The PVT collector heats or cools fresh air from ambient and thereby provides heating or cooling either directly to the indoor space, …

A Distributed Broadcast Algorithm For Duty-Cycled Networks With Physical Interference Model, Dianbo Zhao, Kwan-Wu Chin

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

Broadcast is a fundamental operation in multi-hop wireless networks. Given a source node with a message to broadcast, the objective is to propagate the message to all nodes in an interferencefree manner while incurring minimum latency. This problem, called Minimum-Latency Broadcast Scheduling (MLBS), has been studied extensively in wireless networks whereby nodes remain on all times and has been shown to be NP-hard. However, only a few studies have addressed this problem in the context of duty-cycled wireless networks, which unfortunately, remains NP-hard. In these networks, nodes do not wake up simultaneously, and hence, not all neighbors of a transmitting …

Improving Low Voltage Ride-Through Using Super Capacitor At The Dc Link Of Doubly-Fed Induction Generator Based Wind Turbine, Ahmed M. Haidar, Mehrdad Tarafdar Hagh, Kashem M. Muttaqi

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

This paper presents a simple methodology to improve the low voltage ride-through (LVRT) capability of Doubly Fed Induction Generator (DFIG) based wind turbines in order to ride through higher voltage sags and durations. The proposed method is based on selection of an appropriate value for DC side super capacitor (SC) in such a way that it could help wind turbine for LVRT without any need to crowbar protection. The operation of SC based wind turbine in normal and fault conditions is simulated using MATLAB/SIMULINK. The simulation results show that the proposed method can be used effectively for LVRT improvement and …

Behaviour Of Perforated Gfrp Tubes Under Axial Compression, Weiqiang Wang, M Neaz Sheikh, Muhammad N. S Hadi

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

This study investigates the influences of various parameters on the behaviour of perforated Glass Fibre Reinforced Polymer (GFRP) tubes under axial compression. A total of 15 GFRP tubes with and without perforations were tested under axial compression. All the GFRP tubes were divided into two groups: 12 tubes with 89 mm outer diameter and 6 mm wall thickness and 3 tubes with 183 mm outer diameter and 8 mm wall thickness. The influences of hole diameter, vertical hole spacing, tube diameter, perforation pattern, transverse hole spacing, and hole reinforcement on the axial compressive behaviour of perforated GFRP tubes were experimentally …

Performance Monitoring: Case Studies Of Tracks Stabilised By Geosynthetic Grids And Prefabricated Vertical Drains, Buddhima Indraratna, Sinniah K. Navaratnarajah, Sanjay Nimbalkar, Cholachat Rujikiatkamjorn, Tim Neville

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

This paper focusses on assessing the performance of rail track through field trials conducted in the towns of Bulli, Singleton, and Sandgate in the state of New South Wales, Australia. In Bulli and Singleton, different types of geosynthetics (geogrid, geotextile and geocomposite) were installed to investigate their relative advantages in relation to various aperture sizes and types of subgrade. A key objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of these artificial inclusions on the vertical and lateral track deformation as the largescale laboratory tests provided evidence that grids reduce particle breakage by restraining the movement of aggregates and …

Fractional Order Modelling Of The Cumulative Deformation Of Granular Soils Under Cyclic Loading, Yifei Sun, Yang Xiao, Khairul Fikry Hanif

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

To model the cumulative deformation of granular soils under cyclic loading, a mathematical model was proposed. The power law connection between the shear strain and loading cycle was represented by using fractional derivative approach. The volumetric strain was characterized by a modified cyclic flow rule which considered the effect of particle breakage. All model parameters were obtained by the cyclic and static triaxial tests. Predictions of the test results were provided to validate the proposed model. Comparison with an existing cumulative model was also made to show the advantage of the proposed model.

Design Of Earth Retaining Structures And Tailing Dams Under Static And Seismic Conditions, S S. Nimbalkar, D Choudhury

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

In this paper the seismic active earth pressure is determined by using pseudo-dynamic method. Mononobe-Okabe method by pseudo-static approach gives the linear distribution of seismic earth pressure behind retaining wall in an approximate way. A rigid vertical retaining wall supporting cohesionless backfill material with horizontal ground has been considered in the analysis with planar rupture surface. Results highlight the non-linearity of seismic earth pressures distribution. Applications of pseudo-dynamic method for stability assessment of gravity dams and tailing dams are presented. A new simplified method to include soil arching effect on determination of earth pressures is also proposed.

Geotechnics Of Granular Materials For Railways And Port Reclamation, Buddhima Indraratna, Sanjay Nimbalkar, Ana Heitor

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

Rail is one of the largest transportation modes offering freight and passenger traffic in rapidly developing nations, including India. Concerted efforts to improve productivity, modernization and technology upgrading have led to an impressive growth in railways and port infrastructure. Large-scale physical modelling and full-scale field monitoring often provide significant knowledge to better understand performance and to extend the current state-of-the-art in design of rail and port. A series of large-scale laboratory tests were conducted to analyse behaviour of granular materials (ballast, sub-ballast) under cyclic and impact loads. Effectiveness of using geosynthetic grids, geocells and shock mats was also studied. Comprehensive …

Using Diffusion Of Innovation Theory To Understand The Factors Impacting Patient Acceptance And Use Of Consumer E-Health Innovations: A Case Study In A Primary Care Clinic, Xiaojun Zhang, Ping Yu, Jun Yan, Ir Ton A M Spil

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

Background Consumer e-Health is a potential solution to the problems of accessibility, quality and costs of delivering public healthcare services to patients. Although consumer e-Health has proliferated in recent years, it remains unclear if patients are willing and able to accept and use this new and rapidly developing technology. Therefore, the aim of this research is to study the factors influencing patients' acceptance and usage of consumer e-health innovations. Methods A simple but typical consumer e-health innovation - an e-appointment scheduling service - was developed and implemented in a primary health care clinic in a regional town in Australia. A …

Effects Of Fouling And Degradation On Geotechnical Behaviour Of Railway Ballast, S S. Nimbalkar, N Tennakoon, B Indraratna

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

Conventionally, rail tracks are positioned on ballast due to economy, rapid drainage and high shear strength. However, the ballast becomes fouledand degraded as track ages. In order to identify the risk associated with fouling, it is important to accurately assess the amount of fouling using volume based parameter, Void Contaminant Index (VCI). A series of isotropically consolidated drained triaxial tests using a large scale triaxial apparatus were conducted on both clean and fouled ballast with varying VCI to establish the relationship between the amountof fouling and the strength-deformation characteristics. Based on the laboratory findings, an empirical relationship between the peak …

Privacy-Preserving Ciphertext Multi-Sharing Control For Big Data Storage, Kaitai Liang, Willy Susilo, Joseph K. Liu

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

The need of secure big data storage service is more desirable than ever to date. The basic requirement of the service is to guarantee the confidentiality of the data. However, the anonymity of the service clients, one of the most essential aspects of privacy, should be considered simultaneously. Moreover, the service also should provide practical and fine-grained encrypted data sharing such that a data owner is allowed to share a ciphertext of data among others under some specified conditions. This paper, for the first time, proposes a privacy-preserving ciphertext multi-sharing mechanism to achieve the above properties. It combines the merits …

Generating Searchable Public-Key Ciphertexts With Hidden Structures For Fast Keyword Search, Peng Xu, Qianhong Wu, Wei Wang, Willy Susilo, Josep Domingo-Ferrer, Hai Jin

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

Existing semantically secure public-key searchable encryption schemes take search time linear with the total number of the ciphertexts. This makes retrieval from large-scale databases prohibitive. To alleviate this problem, this paper proposes searchable public-key ciphertexts with hidden structures (SPCHS) for keyword search as fast as possible without sacrificing semantic security of the encrypted keywords. In SPCHS, all keyword-searchable ciphertexts are structured by hidden relations, and with the search trapdoor corresponding to a keyword, the minimum information of the relations is disclosed to a search algorithm as the guidance to find all matching ciphertexts efficiently. We construct an SPCHS scheme from …

An Analysis Of A Standard Reactor Cascade And A Step-Feed Reactor Cascade For Biological Processes Described By Monod Kinetics, Harvinder S. Sidhu, Mark Ian Nelson, Easwaran Balakrishnan

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

We analyse the steady-state operation of two types of reactor cascade without recycle. The first is a standard reactor cascade in which the feed stream enters into the first reactor. The second is a step-feed reactor cascade in which an equal proportion of the feed stream enters each reactor in the cascade. The reaction is assumed to be a biological process governed by Monod growth kinetics with a decay coefficient for the microorganisms. The steady-states of both models are found for an arbitrary number of reactors and their stability determined as a function of the residence time. We show that …

Analysis Of An Activated Sludge Model In Which Dead Biomass Is Recycled Into Slowly Biodegradable Particulate Substrate, Asma O. Alharbi, Mark Ian Nelson, Annette L. Worthy, Harvinder S. Sidhu

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

A significant drawback of the activated sludge process is the production of excess 'sludge'; the disposal of which can account for 50-60% of the running costs of a wastewater treatment plant. We investigate a model for the activated sludge process in which the influent contains a mixture of soluble and slowly biodegradable particulate substrate. Within the bioreactor, the particulate substrate is hydrolyzed to form soluble substrate. In turn, these are used for growth by the biomass. Biomass decay produces slowly biodegradable substrate and non-biodegradable particulates. Steady-state analysis is used to investigate how the amount of sludge formed depends upon the …

Who Kicks Whom? Contextual And Temporal Effects In The It Use - Performance Relationship, Abhijith Anand, Rajeev Sharma, Rajiv Kohli

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

This research extends extant literature examining the relationship between IS use and performance. While prior theory has predominantly treated IS use as an antecedent of performance and hypothesized a positive effect of use on performance, this research provides an alternative perspective. Specifically, this paper theorizes that under certain contexts performance can be an antecedent of use and that the effect can be in the opposite direction. In contrast to non-contingent models, this paper proposes a contingent model in which the IS use-performance relationship is contingent on organizational performance and varies over time. The model proposed here is tested on longitudinal …

Valuation Of Options On Oil Futures Under The 3/4 Oil Price Model, Mohammed A. Aba Oud, Joanna Goard

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

Recently, an empirically-validated one-factor model with a 3/4-power diffusion term was introduced in the literature to model oil prices and value futures contracts on oil. In this paper, we provide an exact and analytic approximation for European call option prices on futures under a 3/4-power futures model. The analytic approximation, valid for short times to expiry is then calibrated to market prices. Results from the calibration show that the analytic approximation formula outperforms current popular options on futures formulae in capturing market prices.

Models For Predicting The Axial Compressive Strength Of Steel Fibre Reinforced Normal And High Strength Concrete Square Columns, Emdad K. Z Balanji, M Neaz Sheikh, Muhammad N. S Hadi

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

Over the last three decades, fibre has been commonly used in reinforced concrete (RC) columns to enhance their strength and ductility. In the available studies on Steel Fibre Reinforced Concrete (SFRC) columns, axial compressive strength of the columns is expressed as functions of unconfined concrete compressive strength and the lateral confinement pressure. In this study, available experimental investigation results of the axial compressive strength of SFRC square columns have been compiled. This study also proposes axial compressive strength models of the SFRC square columns using artificial neural network (ANN). In the proposed models, axial compressive strength of SFRC columns has …

Tension And Compression Testing Of Fibre Reinforced Polymer (Frp) Bars, Qasim S. Khan, M Neaz Sheikh, Muhammad N. S Hadi

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

Corrosion of reinforcement in steel Reinforced Concrete (RC) columns significantly decreases both the strength and ductility of RC columns. Fibre Reinforced Polymer (FRP) bars have emerged as an attractive alternative to the traditional steel bars because of higher ultimate tensile strength to weight ratio and higher corrosion resistance of the FRP bars. However, Standard test methods for different types of FRP bars both in tension and compression have not been fully developed. This study presents the results of tension and compression tests of circular pultruded Glass FRP (GFRP) bars and Carbon FRP (CFRP) bars of 15 mm and 15.9 mm …

Behaviour Of Gfrp Tube Reinforced Concrete Columns Under Eccentric Loading, Weiqiang Wang, Ali Q. Al-Baali, M Neaz Sheikh, Muhammad N. S Hadi

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

This study investigated the behaviour of glass fibre reinforced polymer (GFRP) tube reinforced concrete columns under eccentric loading. A total of four reinforced concrete columns with 240 mm in diameter and 800 mm in height were cast and tested under concentric or eccentric loading conditions. The first column was the reference column which was reinforced with steel helix and longitudinal steel bars, and the other three identical columns were reinforced with GFRP tubes. The cover thickness was 28 mm on the sides and 20 mm at the top and bottom ends. All the columns were made from normal strength concrete …

Confining Concrete Cover Of Gfrp Tube Reinforced Concrete Columns With Polymer Grids, Weiqiang Wang, M Neaz Sheikh, Muhammad N. S Hadi

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

This study presents the results of an experimental investigation on the behaviour of glass fibre reinforced polymer (GFRP) tube reinforced concrete columns under axial compression. The polymer grids were embedded into the concrete cover of glass fibre reinforced polymer (GFRP) tube reinforced concrete columns to reduce the spalling of concrete cover. A total of four column specimens were prepared and tested under axial compression. The columns were 150 mm in diameter and 300 mm in height. The first column was the reference column without any reinforcement. The second column was reinforced with GFRP tube without cover confinement. For the third …

Axial Compressive Behaviour Of Circular Concrete Filled Fibre Reinforced Polymer Tube (Cfft) Columns, Qasim S. Khan, M Neaz Sheikh, Muhammad N. S Hadi

Faculty of Engineering and Information Sciences - Papers: Part A

Concrete Filled Fibre Reinforced Polymer Tube (CFFT) technique for new reinforced concrete (RC) column construction has attracted significant research attention in recent years. The CFFT acts as a longitudinal and transverse reinforcement and serves as a formwork. The CFFT also acts as a barrier to corrosion accelerating agents and reduces the corrosion phenomenon in RC column specimens. A total of six circular CFFT specimens of 152.5 mm in diameter and 305 mm in height were cast to investigate the axial compressive behaviour of two types of circular CFFT specimens with similar nominal confinement ratios. Type-1 CFFT specimens consisted of 0.5 …