Digital Commons Network^™

Economic Impacts Of Electric Vehicle Adoption, Florida Solar Energy Center, Makena Coffman

FSEC Energy Research Center®

The objective of the Economic Impacts of Electric Vehicle Adoption research project was to examine the predicted levels of electric vehicle (EV) adoption, to analyze the life cycle costs of EVs compared to internal combustion engine vehicles and to evaluate EV impacts on GHG emissions for Hawaii. The results were presented in three publications. The first report evaluated EV penetration rates and provided an assessment of expected EV penetration over time. The research also assessed factors that affect EVs adoption, including regulatory mechanisms. The results estimated there will be 140,000 EVs on the road in Hawaii by the year 2040 …

Pathways To Increasing Farmer-Led Investments In Sustainable Agricultural Water Management In Sub-Saharan Africa, Douglas J. Merrey, Peter G. Mccornick, Molly C. Nance

Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute: Faculty Publications

Without a transformative leap forward in the use of irrigation, Africa will continue falling short in the struggle to feed its growing population, improve its people’s nutrition, grow its economies, adapt to the impacts of climate change, and eliminate poverty. While Africans must lead this transformation for it to be successful, the international community can help African countries substantially increase the use of more productive and sustainable water management practices and unlock the potential of farmer-led irrigated agriculture. Achieving highly productive irrigated agricultural systems in Africa requires an enabling environment that facilitates the full engagement of farmers, public and private …

The Effects Of Airline Behavior On Aircraft Accidents, Anneliese S. Brown

Gettysburg Economic Review

The purpose of this paper is to study the effects of specific airline business decisions on aircraft accident propensity. Airline safety affects everyone and has large regulatory and policy implications. Existing research has focused largely on three areas: airline financial health, safety and the resulting effects of accidents. I use both Poisson and Negative Binomial models to study two different airline features: low-cost carriers and flight length, and how they relate to the probability of an aircraft accident. Based on results using a Generalized Negative Binomial model, I find statistically significant evidence at the 99% confidence level that a 1-unit …

2017 Nebraska Water Monitoring Programs Report, Marty Link, Ryan Chapman

Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality: Reports

The Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality (NDEQ) is charged with monitoring, assessing, and to the extent possible, managing the state’s water resources. The purpose of this work is to protect and maintain high quality water and encourage or execute activities to improve poor water quality. Monitoring is done on nearly 17,000 miles of flowing rivers and streams, more than 134,000 acres of surface water in lakes and reservoirs, as well as the vast storage of groundwater in Nebraska’s aquifers.

Survey Of Lean Management Practices In Pakistani Industrial Sectors, Khurrum Bhutta, Gokhan Egilmez, Kamran Chatha, Faizul Huq

Mechanical and Industrial Engineering Faculty Publications

This research was undertaken to study the implementation and adoption of Lean management practices across several industrial sectors in Pakistan. A total of 100 companies were surveyed across five industries. The objective was to determine if there was disparity in the implementation of Lean practices and to provide a yardstick to measure that disparity. Furthermore, this study identified Lean management best practices across several industries in Pakistan, thus providing benchmarks for other industrial sectors. The data collected was analysed using various descriptive statistical methods. The results indicated robust adoption and implementation of Lean practices in Pakistani industry, though there were …

Context-Dependence Of Physiological Systems: Environment-Physiology Interactions In The Respiratory Control System, Joseph M. Santin

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

We know that animals are tuned to survive different environmental conditions or else life would not exist. Unfortunately, this is often forgotten or ignored when designing experiments. As Marsh Tenney articulated, "The physiologist keeps the whole always in mind. He accepts the tactical necessity of reductionism to understand parts, but, once done, for him it is only the beginning, never the end” (from Remmers, 2005). In an era when it is all too common to take environmental complexity out of the organism to understand physiology, my work puts some of that complexity back in the study of organisms. I take …

Evaluating Sediment Accumulation Behind Dams In The Great Lakes Watershed From Past To Present, Fatemeh Alighalehbabakhani Alighalehbabakhani

Wayne State University Dissertations

Reservoir sedimentation and the consequence long term loss of storage capacity have been a serious threat to the natural environmental system. However, there is only few information and physical measurements regarding to the sediment accumulation rate within the reservoirs. The average age of dams in the country is more than 50 years old, and with aging dams, the number of high-hazard dams continues to increase. There are some serious risks associated with aging dams. Dam removal or dam failure can release considerable sediment load to downstream reaches, eventually deteriorate water quality and fish habitat. The present dissertation investigates the historical …

Assimilation Of Tracking Technology In The Supply Chain, Rahul Basole, Maciek Nowak

Information Systems and Operations Management: Faculty Publications & Other Works

While tracking technology has become increasingly accessible, firms still struggle with deploying these technologies into the supply chain. Using the complementary perspectives of transaction cost and institutional theory, we develop an understanding of how supply network, product, and environmental characteristics jointly impact tracking technology assimilation. We empirically test our model on a global dataset of 535 supply chain executives and decision makers. The results suggest that assimilation is frequently initiated by an external stakeholder in a firm's supply chain and that firms must develop strong collaborative ties with their partners in order to take full advantage of this technology.

Computational Modeling Of A Williams Cross Flow Turbine, Sajjan Pokhrel

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

Hydropower is not only the most used renewable energy source in the United States, but in the world. While it is well known that large hydropower facilities, like the Hoover Dam, provide large amounts of electrical power, there is also a tremendous opportunity for hydroelectric power generation from small scale facilities that has largely been overlooked. The work being presented here studies a new cross flow turbine called the Williams Cross Flow Turbine (WCFT), which was designed to extract electric energy from low head, run-of-the-river, small hydropower sites. To spur the implementation of the WCFT in small hydropower applications, and …

Laboratory X - Autonomous Vehicle Application, Nate Lant, Matthew Strong

Engineering Applications of GIS - Laboratory Exercises

Autonomous vehicles are currently the newest and hottest technology and show tremendous potential in making current transportation much more efficient. GIS is a key element in providing different mapping solutions and satellite assistance to support the cars in addition to their LIDAR and camera systems. Over the last few decades, different technologies have been integrated into cars to make them more user friendly--more autonomous. Recently, cars have been given a standardized range to categorize them into different levels of autonomy. The levels range from 0 to 5. Level 0 has no capacity of any autonomous technology; level 1 has cruise …

Laboratory Exercise – Calculating Runoff Over Land Parcels, Wade Bozeman, Steven Evans, Ryan Selee

Engineering Applications of GIS - Laboratory Exercises

When developing land, most municipalities will require that all runoff from the site be retained on site or flow into a storm water conveyance system. In the near future, new regulation will require that all runoff be retained on site. For this reason, it is important to know how much runoff can be expected to flow over a potential development site. In this lab, you will use ArcMap ModelBuilder to predict the amount of flow which can be expected over a land parcel in a storm event.

Laboratory Exercise – Frontrunner Extension, Meeya Apelu, Jordan Arrowchris, Joseph Browning

Engineering Applications of GIS - Laboratory Exercises

The Utah Transit Authority’s (UTA) FrontRunner is a commuter rail line that runs 89 miles through Weber, Davis, Salt Lake, and Utah counties. There are 16 different stops along this line which are: Pleasant View, Ogden, Roy, Clearfield, Layton, Farmington, Woods Cross, North Temple, Salt Lake Central, Murray Central, South Jordan, Draper, Lehi, American Fork, Orem and Provo (UTA 2017). Using the FrontRunner is easy and is very convenient. The popularity of this transit system is increasing and UTA has announced their future plans to continue the rail line. UTA is exploring ways to go forward with this plan and …

Built-In Bicycle Rack For Cars, Scott A. Hansberry

All Undergraduate Projects

Transporting a bicycle after riding somewhere and then needing to be pickup can be problematic. Bicycles will not fit in most vehicles without removing components. There is also the risk of damaging the inside of the vehicle. Expecting everyone to have a bike rack for their vehicle is unrealistic because the bike rack could be considered unappealing visually, take up to much space in the trunk, or limit the vehicle owner’s access to the trunk. The solution to this problem is a bike rack that mounts onto your car and then mounts your bike onto the rack. Most people don’t …

Sediment Transport Modelling Using Dynamic (Dis)Connectivity Prediction For A Bedrock Controlled Catchment, David Tyler Mahoney

Theses and Dissertations--Civil Engineering

The (dis)connectivity of sediment, defined as the detachment and transport of sediment from source to sink between geomorphic zones, is a major control on sediment transport rates but has seldom taken precedence in sediment transport models that focus on assessment of sediment impacts on water supply. A watershed-scale sediment transport model was formulated that incorporates sediment (dis)connectivity knowledge and subroutines and predicts sediment flux through coupling with an excessive shear stress erosion equation. The intersecting probabilities of sediment supply, detachment, transport, and (dis)connectivity produce the probability of sediment connectivity for a watershed or region of a watershed. The integration of …

A Novel Diffuse Fraction-Based Two-Leaf Light Use Efficiency Model: An Application Quantifying Photosynthetic Seasonality Across 20 Ameriflux Flux Tower Sites, Hao Yan, Shao-Qiang Wang, Kai-Liang Yu, Bin Wang, Qin Yu, Gil Bohrer, Dave P. Billesbach, Rosvel Bracho, Faiz Rahman

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

.

Diffuse radiation can increase canopy light use efficiency (LUE). This creates the need to differentiate the effects of direct and diffuse radiation when simulating terrestrial gross primary production (GPP). Here, we present a novel GPP model, the diffuse-fraction-based two-leaf model (DTEC), which includes the leaf response to direct and diffuse radiation, and treats maximum LUE for shaded leaves (ε_msh defined as a power function of the diffuse fraction (D_f)) and sunlit leaves (ε_msu defined as a constant) separately. An Amazonian rainforest site (KM67) was used to calibrate the model by simulating the linear relationship between …

Using Remote Sensing To Estimate Crop Water Use To Improve Irrigation Water Management, Arturo Reyes-Gonzalez

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Irrigation water is scarce. Hence, accurate estimation of crop water use is necessary for proper irrigation managements and water conservation. Satellite-based remote sensing is a tool that can estimate crop water use efficiently. Several models have been developed to estimate crop water requirement or actual evapotranspiration (ETa) using remote sensing. One of them is the Mapping EvapoTranspiration at High Resolution using Internalized Calibration (METRIC) model. This model has been compared with other methods for ET estimations including weighing lysimeters, pan evaporation, Bowen Ratio Energy Balance System (BREBS), Eddy Covariance (EC), and sap flow. However, comparison of METRIC model outputs to …

Emergent Ai, Social Robots And The Law: Security, Privacy And Policy Issues, Ramesh Subramanian

Journal of International Technology and Information Management

The rapid growth of AI systems has implications on a wide variety of fields. It can prove to be a boon to disparate fields such as healthcare, education, global logistics and transportation, to name a few. However, these systems will also bring forth far-reaching changes in employment, economy and security. As AI systems gain acceptance and become more commonplace, certain critical questions arise: What are the legal and security ramifications of the use of these new technologies? Who can use them, and under what circumstances? What is the safety of these systems? Should their commercialization be regulated? What are the …

Final Group Project - Optimal Route Finding, Jason Biesinger, Levi Burr, Tyson Terry

Engineering Applications of GIS - Laboratory Exercises

Emergency response teams are always preparing rescue plans and protocols so they may respond quickly to various incidents. Fire trucks and ambulances need to arrive at the scene of the incident rapidly to mitigate injury, and avoid more damage to property in the case of a fire (Kolesar et al. 1973). Holidays are times of high incidence, and officials always plan for potential risks that surround large events. The network analysis toolbox can be used to find and map out the quickest route from a variety of locations. The network analysis toolset in ArcMap makes it possible for us to …

Laboratory Exercise - Ideal Stargazing Locations Background, Michael Adamson, Brandon Walker, Nicholas Smith

Engineering Applications of GIS - Laboratory Exercises

Astrophotography is a specialized type of photography for recording photos of astronomical objects, celestial events, and large areas of the night sky. Astronomical photography employs long exposures so film or digital imaging devices can accumulate light photons over long periods of time. Urban areas produce light pollution so equipment and observatories doing astronomical imaging are often located in remote areas to allow long exposures without the film or detectors being swamped with stray light. Astrophotography is a popular hobby among photographers and amateur astronomers. Images of the night sky can be obtained with some of the most basic film and …

Laboratory Exercise: Calculating Hobble Creek 100 Year Flow Using Arcmap, Micklane Farmer, Saul Ramirez, Riley Vane

Engineering Applications of GIS - Laboratory Exercises

GIS is used extensively in watershed analysis. In previous labs, students have determined a watershed from DEM data. Calculating flow can be very useful in many engineering aspects. With the correct data, GIS can be used to develop a hydrologic model to calculate the flow from a watershed. The purpose of this lab is to develop a model to calculate the flow for the Hobble Creek 100 year event.

Final Laboratory Exercise - Amazon Hq2 Site Selection, Jared Lillywhite, Travis Mcstraw, Marco Rosas Rodriguez

Engineering Applications of GIS - Laboratory Exercises

GIS is often used by major corporations around the world to help manage processes such as shipping, inventory, sales, and expansion. GIS is specifically used in expansion to help determine suitable site locations for new stores, Headquarters, warehouses and other assets to a given corporation. This exercise is based on a real case study. On September 12th, 2017 Amazon announced that it would be opening up a second headquarters that would be equal in operation and size to its Seattle Headquarters. The company is currently taking proposals from different cities, however they are trying to determine which U.S. cities would …

Laboratory Exercise - Calculating The Volume Of Material Displaced By Mount St. Helens Eruption Of 1980, Donald Anderson, Alex Fisher, Ken Lippold

Engineering Applications of GIS - Laboratory Exercises

There are several active volcanoes in the state of Washington. On May 18, 1980, one of these volcanoes, Mount St. Helens, erupted. On March 1, 1980, the University of Washington set up a seismograph in the area to monitor the volcano’s activity. On March 20, a minor earthquake was recorded under Mount St. Helens and the entire area was put on alert. Thanks to this warning, the locals were able to evacuate before the mountain erupted. Before fully erupting, some steam and ash was seen billowing out of the top, and on May 18, the volcano was ready to blow. …

Laboratory Exercise - Temple-View Least- Cost Mountain Bike Trail, Brad Wells, Jacob Wilcock

Engineering Applications of GIS - Laboratory Exercises

The International Mountain Bicycling Association (IMBA) has created several guidelines that are used when locating and building new mountain bike trails. A GIS is can be used to generate possible locations for mountain bike trails while following guidelines given by the IMBA. These guidelines include maximum allowable slopes, avoiding fall lines, avoiding flat areas, and seeking areas that include control points such as viewpoints, water, or other attractions. One way to determine the most appropriate placement of a mountain bike trail is to create and run a model in ArcMap that has the necessary input parameters defined within the model. …

Laboratory Exercise – Possible Zara Locations In Utah, Garlick Alyssa, Whitney Robison, Olivia Sorenson

Engineering Applications of GIS - Laboratory Exercises

GIS ModelBuilder can be used well for site selection. For this exercise, we will build a model that will automate the process of creating a map for the best locations in Utah to open a new Zara store. The principles presented here can easily be extrapolated to another state, country, or dataset to automate the process of site selection for retail stores.

Laboratory Exercise – Saratoga Springs Temple Site Locator, Jordi Berrett, Josh Gibbons, Tyler Mickelson

Engineering Applications of GIS - Laboratory Exercises

On April 2, 2017, President Thomas S. Monson of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS) announced that the LDS Church would build a temple in Saratoga Springs, Utah. The temple will be the eighteenth LDS temple built in Utah and the fifth in Utah County. It is anticipated that the temple will serve church members in Saratoga Springs, Eagle Mountain, Lehi, and other surrounding areas. The LDS Church carefully chooses optimal sites for their temples. LDS temples tend to be view-able from the surrounding area, usual. Temples are also usually near major highways and in areas that …

Zombie Shelter Location, Shanna Carroll, Tyler Lindsay, Hannah Rasmussen

Engineering Applications of GIS - Laboratory Exercises

One common use of GIS is determining ideal locations for projects. This is because GIS makes it very easy to combine and analyze spatial data in a customized way. In this exercise, assume that there has been a recent zombie outbreak in Utah, USA. To determine the ideal hideout location, data that indicates a safe location must be acquired and combined with geography that is conducive to wilderness survival. Once the data is gathered, spatial analysis using GIS overlay tools must be conducted to determine the ideal location for an anti-zombie hideaway hut. In this exercise, multiple tools will be …

Kentucky Water Resources Research Institute Annual Technical Report Fy 2016, Kentucky Water Resources Research Institute, University Of Kentucky

KWRRI Annual Technical Reports (USGS’s 104b Grant Program)

The 2016 Annual Technical Report for Kentucky consolidates reporting requirements for the Section 104(b) base grant award into a single document that includes: 1) a synopsis of each student research enhancement project that was conducted during the period, 2) citations for related publications, reports, and presentations, 3) a description of information transfer activities, 4) a summary of student support during the period, and 5) notable awards and achievements.

No funds were requested for general program administration activities. However, travel funds were provided to support the participation of the director and associate director in the annual meeting of the National Institutes …

Features Of Agent-Based Models, Reiko Heckel, Alexander Kurz, Edmund Chattoe-Brown

Engineering Faculty Articles and Research

The design of agent-based models (ABMs) is often ad-hoc when it comes to defining their scope. In order for the inclusion of features such as network structure, location, or dynamic change to be justified, their role in a model should be systematically analysed. We propose a mechanism to compare and assess the impact of such features. In particular we are using techniques from software engineering and semantics to support the development and assessment of ABMs, such as graph transformations as semantic representations for agent-based models, feature diagrams to identify ingredients under consideration, and extension relations between graph transformation systems to …

Normalization Of Pseudo-Invariant Calibration Sites For Increasing The Temporal Resolution And Long-Term Trending, Harika Vuppula

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Given their low level of temporal, spatial, and spectral variability, Pseudo-Invariant Calibration Sites (PICS) have been increasingly desired as data sources for radiometric calibration of Earth imaging satellite sensors. The temporal resolution for PICS data acquired by any sensor is limited by the amount of time required for it to make subsequent passes over the site. Consequently, for any given PICS, it can take many years of imaging to develop a sufficient amount of cloud-free data to perform radiometric calibration; this can be especially problematic for sensors in their early years after launch. This thesis presents techniques to combine Landsat-8; …

Data Masking, Encryption, And Their Effect On Classification Performance: Trade-Offs Between Data Security And Utility, Juan C. Asenjo

CCAC Theses and Dissertations

As data mining increasingly shapes organizational decision-making, the quality of its results must be questioned to ensure trust in the technology. Inaccuracies can mislead decision-makers and cause costly mistakes. With more data collected for analytical purposes, privacy is also a major concern. Data security policies and regulations are increasingly put in place to manage risks, but these policies and regulations often employ technologies that substitute and/or suppress sensitive details contained in the data sets being mined. Data masking and substitution and/or data encryption and suppression of sensitive attributes from data sets can limit access to important details. It is believed …