Digital Commons Network^™

Wildfire Spread Prediction Using Attention Mechanisms In U-Net, Kamen Haresh Shah, Kamen Haresh Shah

Master's Theses

An investigation into using attention mechanisms for better feature extraction in wildfire spread prediction models. This research examines the U-net architecture to achieve image segmentation, a process that partitions images by classifying pixels into one of two classes. The deep learning models explored in this research integrate modern deep learning architectures, and techniques used to optimize them. The models are trained on 12 distinct observational variables derived from the Google Earth Engine catalog. Evaluation is conducted with accuracy, Dice coefficient score, ROC-AUC, and F1-score. This research concludes that when augmenting U-net with attention mechanisms, the attention component improves feature suppression …

Nigeria’S Budding Digital Economy: Coping With Disruptive Technology, Olugbenga Agboola

Economic and Financial Review

For a thriving and inclusive digital economy, African countries such as Nigeria need to build the critical foundations of the digital economy (World Bank Group, 2019). These foundations are interdependent and require public and private sector solutions.

Schematic Design And Peer Review Of Gayaza Medical Center And Walk-In Clinic, Abigail Coffing, Alexis Buhr

Architectural Engineering

This report outlines the structural portion of the work done for the Gayaza Medical Center in Kampala, Uganda. This project was funded by HIINGA, an impact fund doing work in Eastern Africa, who tasked an interdisciplinary group of Cal Poly students with developing a preliminary design for the the medical center. The team consisted of Annebel van der Meulen (architecture), Abigail Coffing and Alexis Buhr (structural), and Arley Landis and Brett Shank (construction management). After completing the initial design, the structural team at Cal Poly rejoined the project the following quarter to do a peer analysis of the finalized structural …

A Qualitative Multi-Disciplinary Analysis Of Employers’ Technology Competency Perceptions For Graduates Readiness To The Workforce, Marcel Maghiar, Christopher M. Brown

Civil Engineering & Construction: Faculty Publications

To fully prepare college graduates to function competently and productively in their career, it is important to examine employers’ views of technology competency and graduates’ readiness. Using a qualitative approach by interviewing employers in South-eastern United States across a range of fields, the authors describe the major functions and dimensions of technology competency, compare similarities and differences across the disciplines, and integrate the results to inform theory and pedagogy. The main purpose of this research is to investigate how well new graduates from selected disciplines can transfer technological skills, how they learned and/or used these skills during their program of …

Cooperative Wide Area Search Algorithm Analysis Using Sub-Region Techniques, Shawn Whitney

Theses and Dissertations

Recent advances in small Unmmaned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) technology reinvigorates the need for additional research into Wide Area Search (WAS) algorithms for civilian and military applications. But due to the extremely large variability in UAV environments and design, Digital Engineering (DE) is utilized to reduce the time, cost, and energy required to advance this technology. DE also allows rapid design and evaluation of autonomous systems which utilize and support WAS algorithms. Modern WAS algorithms can be broadly classified into decision-based algorithms, statistical algorithms, and Artificial Intelligence (AI)/Machine Learning (ML) algorithms. This research continues on the work by Hatzinger and Gertsman …

Application Of Uas‑Based Remote Sensing In Estimating Winter Wheat Phenotypic Traits And Yield During The Growing Season, Kianoosh Hassani, Hamed Gholizadeh, Saleh Taghvaeian, Victoria Natalie, Jonathan Carpenter, Jamey Jacob

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

Phenotyping approaches have been considered as a vital component in crop breeding programs to improve crops and develop new high-yielding cultivars. However, traditional field-based monitoring methods are expensive, invasive, and time-intensive. Moreover, data collected using satellite and airborne platforms are either costly or limited by their spatial and temporal resolution. Here, we investigated whether low-cost unmanned/unoccupied aerial systems (UASs) data can be used to estimate winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) nitrogen (N) content, structural traits including plant height, fresh and dry biomass, and leaf area index (LAI) as well as yield during different winter wheat growing stages. To achieve …

Aviation Supply And Demand In The São Paulo And Rio De Janeiro Systems Evolution: An Exploratory Study, Leila Halawi, Bruno De Paula Balan, Renan Cipriano Da Cunha, Maria Claudia Ferreira Da Cunha

Publications

Aim/purpose – Multiple factors affect a passenger’s origin and destination airport choice. This study explores some of the leading indicators associated with performance in cities with more than one airport. Two important Multi-Airport Systems (MAS) in Brazil were the object of this study: São Paulo (Congonhas and Guarulhos) and Rio de Janeiro (Santos Dumont and Galeão), the most significant demand-generating centers in the country and the most critical distribution centers of flights from South America.

Design/methodology/approach – Using public databases presenting the evolution of supply and demand from 2013 to 2018, the evolution of flights, and the sales by airlines …

Remote Sensing Evidence For Significant Variations In The Global Gross Domestic Product During The Covid-19 Epidemic, Bin Guo, Wencai Zhang, Lin Pei, Xiaowei Zhu, Pingping Luo, Weili Duan

Mechanical and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has been spreading rapidly and is still threatening human health currently. A series of measures for restraining epidemic spreading has been adopted throughout the world, which seriously impacted the gross domestic product (GDP) globally. However, details of the changes in the GDP and its spatial heterogeneity characteristics on a fine scale worldwide during the pandemic are still uncertain. We designed a novel scheme to simulate a 0.1° × 0.1° resolution grid global GDP map during the COVID-19 pandemic. Simulated nighttime-light remotely sensed data (SNTL) was forecasted via a GM(1, 1) model under the assumption that there …

An Anthropology With Human Waste Management: Non-Humans, The State, And Matters Of Care On The Placencia Peninsula, Belize, William Alex Webb

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The management of human waste is a seldom studied phenomenon in anthropology. Yet across the globe, in countries both rich and poor, it presents pervasive and difficult to tame problems. This dissertation draws on complimentary theories of management and entanglements to explore the practices and processes of organizing human waste on the Placencia Peninsula, Belize. The results illustrate how problems are conditioned and defined by messy relations between institutions, people, technologies, materials, and ecological life.

Fieldwork and analysis for this work was a culmination of years of interdisciplinary collaboration between other anthropologists and engineers at the University of South Florida. …

Comparison Study Of Consumer’S Perception Toward Urban Air Mobility In The United States And Rest Of The World Using Social Media Information, S M Toki Tahmid

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Urban Air Mobility (UAM) is a wide concept that will enable access to on-demand air mobility, cargo delivery, medical applications, and emergency services that is run through a connected and integrated transportation system. This study aims to investigate social media data to compare the major topics discussed in the United States and rest of the world and perform a sentiment analysis to see if the comments are positive, negative, or neutral. Twitter was the primary source of information that was used in this thesis, as it is a place where people interact, create, and share information and ideas online. In …

Geospatial Analysis Of Impact On Evacuation Routes And Urban Areas In South Texas Due To Flood Events, Layda B. Spor Leal, Jungseok Ho, Sara E. Davila

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications

The Lower Rio Grande Valley has historically faced a variety of hurricanes and tropical storms that have led to sever flooding. As a consequence, waves of mass evacuation of the local population with the means of transportation occur frequently. While evacuation is encouraged in some cases of disaster, the routing is not always available as water takes to roads and drainage capacities are overwhelmed. In order to dissert the most appropriate evacuation routes, it is necessary to analyze the areas that will be affected in the future based on urban locations, elevation, and historical information. This project utilizes a semi-coupled …

Modeling Airport Catchment Areas: Using Spatial Analysis Approach, Sitong Chen

The Journal of Purdue Undergraduate Research

Th e airport catchment area is the geographic area from which an airport can reasonably expect to draw commercial air service passengers. Th e purpose of this interdisciplinary research is to estimate airport catchment areas using a spatial analysis method for informed airport management. In order to ensure the comprehensiveness and reliability of the research, we chose to analyze the catchment areas for five airports of different sizes and in different geographic locations in the United States. The Huff model, which is usually used in marketing, economics, and retail research, was adopted in this study. We applied this model in …

The Smithvent Experience And A Framework For Collaborative Distributed Design And Fabrication, Susannah Howe, Eleanor C. Ory, Devin Carroll, Sarah Chu, Kalifa Clarke, Beatrix Dalton, Claire Dudek, Adrienne Horne, Nicholas Howe, Sangye Kazi, Astrid Landeau, Dan Lin, Phoebe Degroot, Emily Dixon, Farida Sabry, Alex Widstrand

Engineering: Faculty Publications

This paper addresses the collaborative journey of the SmithVent team, a 30-person distributed group of volunteers, who designed, fabricated, and tested a simplified and cost-efficient ventilator over a three-month period, and won the CoVent19 Challenge in July 2020. The paper first presents the SmithVent experience through a co-constructed narrative that describes the team’s approaches to collaborative distributed design and fabrication. The paper next reviews frameworks from five theoretical lenses and then details the process of extracting, synthesizing, and organizing relevant factors to create a new and emergent framework reflective of the SmithVent experience. Lastly, the paper discusses educational implications of …

The Impact Of Various Safety Leadership Styles On Construction Safety Climate: A Case Of South India, S. Senthamizh Sankar, K. S. Anandh, Sathyanarayanan Rajendran, K. N. Sen

Engineering Technologies, Safety, and Construction Faculty Scholarship

The Indian construction industry is the second-largest job-providing sector in the country, which comprises many investments. According to the International Labour Organization (ILO) report, India is a significant contributor to construction site accidents and fatalities among world nations. The poor Safety Leadership (SL) style and the diminished leader's commitment to quality safety outcomes have caused misfortunes in construction sites. This paper aims to identify the impact of various safety leadership styles on the Organisational Safety Climate (OSC) predictors and propose a conceptual model explaining the relationship between SL styles and OSC. The study identifies six leadership styles from the works …

A Comprehensive Evaluation Of Satellite-Based Precipitation Products And Their Performance In Arid And Temperate Climates, Mohammed Tarig Mahmoud

Dissertations

Accurate and continuous precipitation monitoring is critical to enable effective water resources management; the challenge arises from the spatial and temporal variability of precipitation. The recently launched Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) satellite has the capability to detect and measure all types of precipitation using advanced instruments. Being at its early stages of development, the products of the GPM IMERG (early, late, and final-run-products) need to be validated using multiple spatial and temporal assessment techniques. Several studies have emerged over the past few years evaluating GPM IMERG results over areas of limited size. These areas were set by hydrologic interest (e.g., …

Travel Behavior Change And Economic Transition In Gentrified Neighborhoods, Maryam Izadi

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Post-industrial cities in the US have experienced social and economic transitions, mostly in declining downtown neighborhoods. This process, known as gentrification, typically involves revitalization that reverses the decline and disinvestment in inner-city neighborhoods. The industrial shift increased the demand for housing near downtown. The employment of college-educated and high-skill workers has been centralized, while low-skilled jobs continue to decline downtown. While the impacts of gentrification on housing and residential displacement is frequently investigated, little attention has been given to its impact on travel behavior change and economic transition, which is the focus of this research. Change in travel behavior is …

Automatic Concrete Sidewalk Deficiency Detection And Mapping With Deep Learning, Yuhan Jiang, Sisi Han, Dapeng Li, Yong Bai, Mingzhu Wang

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

Vertical displacement is a common concrete slab sidewalk deficiency, which may cause trip hazards and reduce wheelchair accessibility. This paper presents an automatic approach for trip hazard detection and mapping based on deep learning. A low-cost mobile LiDAR scanner was used to obtain full-width as-is conditions of sidewalks, after which a method was developed to convert the scanned 3D point clouds into 2D RGB orthoimages and elevation images. Then, a deep learning-based model was developed for pixelwise segmentation of concrete slab joints. Algorithms were developed to extract different types of joints of straight and curved sidewalks from the segmented images. …

Evaluation Of The Operation Of Lighthouses And Beacons In The Gulf Of Suez, Tamer Saber Abdelhafez Elsayed

World Maritime University Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Injustice Within Renewable Energy Life Cycles: Can Irena Offer A Solution?, G. Webster Ross

IdeaFest: Interdisciplinary Journal of Creative Works and Research from Cal Poly Humboldt

This paper explores case studies of green colonialism, supply chain injustices, and poor e-waste management within renewable energy life cycles, and investigates how the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) may be the best suited organization to address and mitigate these issues on a global scale. While renewable energy technology is often heralded as the key to a sustainable future, the life cycle of these technologies is riddled with human rights violations and other injustices. To begin with, many of the minerals required for assembling the hardware are mined in unregulated environments, resulting in several injustices such as health and safety …

Analysis Of Functionality Of Statistical Data In Geovisualization Of Population Dynamics, L Gulyamova, M Sh Shafkarova, D N. Rakhmonov

Technical science and innovation

The article deals with the analysis of population density with the help of geo information programs, the process of visualization of the integration of statistical and geographical data, the structure of the technological sequence. One of the methods for describing the relative productivity of land data is considered. Geo information systems can support the decision-making process in the design and selection phase with limited capabilities, and these systems provide a very static modeling environment. This limits their scope as a decision support tool, especially at stages where collaborative problem solving decisions are required.

Justification For The Creation Of A Pumped Storage Power Plant On The Basis Of The Cascade Of The Urta-Chirchik Hpps, M M. Mukhammadiev, K S. Dzhuraev, E D. Ismailov

Technical science and innovation

The article deals with the creation of a pumped storage power plant. PSPP is the most efficient option for generating electricity in the conditions of Uzbekistan, especially at the Urta-Chirchik cascade. We have discovered a pumped storage power plant in Bustanlik region, Bulaksu-Khojikent PSPP, Kizilsui-Khojikent PSP, Charvak HPP-PSPP and Pskem PSPP, and were convinced that they would justify all the money spent. In the pumped storage power plant in Bustanlik region the necessary infrastructure is available in full, and the production base of the Tashkent region and Bostanlyk district of the Republic is subject to use, taking into account the …

The Professional Constructor, Full Issue, Volume 47, Number 02

The Professional Constructor

No abstract provided.

2022 Symposium On Education In Entertainment And Engineering, Mary K. Pillotte, Rich Dionne

Symposium on Education in Entertainment and Engineering

No abstract provided.

Investigating The First/Last Mile Problem In Underserved Communities: A Case Study In Camden City, Nj, Ruqaya Alfaris

Theses and Dissertations

The first/last mile (FLM) is defined as the distance a transiting person should complete before boarding or after alighting at a transit station. The FLM trip is one of the major barriers to access transit, which significantly affects individuals' accessibility to critical services. Specifically, this is prevalent in underserved communities in which public transportation constitutes the major mode of travel. As a case study, the current study discusses the FLM barriers in Camden City, NJ. The study comprehensively reviews the existing literature of the FLM practice to identify the lessons learned from previously conducted plans and programs. To supplement the …

Typical Coalbed Methane (Cbm) Enrichment And Production Modes Under The Control Of Regional Structure And Evolution, Ju Yiwen, Qiao Peng, Wei Mingming, Li Xin, Xu Fengyin, Feng Guorui, Li Yong, Wu Caifang, Cao Yunxing, Li Guofu, Han Yuming, Li Zhen, Lu Zhigang, Jiang Lei

Coal Geology & Exploration

Coalbed methane (CBM) exploration and development is of great significance to optimize China’s energy structure and cope with coal mine disasters and ecological environment problems. In this paper, combined with regional structure and evolution and CBM geological conditions, the enrichment and recovery modes of CBM are innovatively divided into four categories: simple structural fracture system, fold system (shallower synclinal shaft, fold limb, secondary structural high position), thrust system (fault-thrust-fold belt, high-steep thrust structure) and structural superposition system. Among them, simple structural fracture system mode is often encountered in the areas with relatively stable structure, where the CBM is mainly derived …

Wastewater-Informed Public Health Intervention Playbook

Sustain Magazine

As the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic quickly spread from country to country and continent to continent in 2020, governments and scientists needed a way to track COVID-19 through populations in order to position public health interventions in the most impactful locations. Having a decision-based risk framework may help to guide policy creation that could minimize or prevent possible outbreaks and surges of infection within communities. The University of Louisville in partnership with Louisville’s Department of Public Health and Wellness tested this strategy in 2021 and 2022. This Wastewater-Informed Public Health Intervention Playbook describes the decisions and actions of that academic and public …

Science And Food Fictions: Agricultural Technologies, The Evolution Of The Modern Industrial Diet, And Calls For A Food Revolution, Tracey Daniels-Lerberg

Green Humanities: A Journal of Ecological Thought in Literature, Philosophy & the Arts

[First paragraph] Individual food choices are culturally and historically contingent practices that arise through an amalgamation of often hidden political, scientific, and economic policies that shape desire and influence access. Food, like all other man-made mechanisms of control and authority, has been used “as a political tool for […] subjugating (either economically or politically) other nations” according to William A. Dando, a professor at the University of North Dakota, who in 1975 urged American agricultural officials not to use food as “a weapon” against starving nations, something he feared was eminently possible given the economic and political climate of agricultural …

Minimizing Surface Run-Off, Improving Underground Water Recharging, And On-Site Rain Harvesting In The Kathmandu Valley, Ambika P. Adhikari, Keshav Bhattarai

Himalayan Research Papers Archive

Nepal's political institutions and administrative units were thoroughly restructured in 2015 with the promulgation of the new Constitution. Several rural areas were combined to meet the definition of urban threshold criteria to classify rural areas into urban categories. Accordingly, over 3,900 local political and administrative units were amalgamated into 753 units, of which, 293 units are classified as urban. Within these newly defined urban areas, many natural environments have been converted into impervious surfaces such as paved roads, sidewalks, and building roofs. These impervious surfaces have drastically increased the amount of surface run-offs-often termed as "urban floods"--under increasing precipitation caused …

Thermodynamic Limits Of Atmospheric Water Harvesting, Akshay K. Rao, Andrew J. Fix, Yun Chi Yang, David M. Warsinger

School of Mechanical Engineering Faculty Publications

Atmospheric water harvesting (AWH) is a rapidly emerging approach for decentralized water production, but current technology is limited by trade-offs between energy consumption and yield. The field lacks a common basis to compare different AWH technologies and a robust understanding of the performance impacts of water recovery, desorption humidity (for sorbent systems), and realistic component-level efficiencies. By devising a set of unifying assumptions and consistent parameters across technologies, we provide the first fair thermodynamic comparison over a broad range of environmental conditions. Using 2nd law analysis, or least work, we study the maximum efficiency for common open system AWH methods …

Permafrost Landscape History Shapes Fluvial Chemistry, Ecosystem Carbon Balance, And Potential Trajectories Of Future Change, Scott Zolkos, Suzanne E. Tank, Steven V. Kokelj, Robert G. Striegl, Sarah Shakil, Carolina Voigt, Oliver Sonnentag, William L. Quinton, Edward A.G. Schuur, Donatella Zona, Peter M. Lafleur, Ryan C. Sullivan, Masahito Ueyama, David Billesbach, David Cook, Elyn R. Humphreys, Philip Marsh

Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute: Faculty Publications

Intensifying permafrost thaw alters carbon cycling by mobilizing large amounts of terrestrial substrate into aquatic ecosystems. Yet, few studies have measured aquatic carbon fluxes and constrained drivers of ecosystem carbon balance across heterogeneous Arctic landscapes. Here, we characterized hydrochemical and landscape controls on fluvial carbon cycling, quantified fluvial carbon fluxes, and estimated fluvial contributions to ecosystem carbon balance across 33 watersheds in four ecoregions in the continuous permafrost zone of the western Canadian Arctic: unglaciated uplands, ice-rich moraine, and organic-rich lowlands and till plains. Major ions, stable isotopes, and carbon speciation and fluxes revealed patterns in carbon cycling across ecoregions …