Digital Commons Network^™

Monitoring Of Indoor Relative Humidity Levels In Residential Dwellings: A Sensor Network Application, Lizabeth Lee

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Indoor Air Quality is an increasing concern in the world today. The mere presence of people in a building or residence can significantly alter indoor air quality. Relative humidity over the range of normal indoor temperatures (66 - 80 degrees Farenheit) has been linked both directly and indirectly to various health and structural problems. The purpose of this project was to discover whether residential dwellings might benefit from an indoor humidification system. The project consisted of the deployment of three separate sensor networks consisting of 12 tmote sky modules manufactured by the Moteiv corporation, each equipped with a temperature and …

Development Of A Microelectrode Array Sensing System For Water Quality Monitoring, Robert D. Gardner

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This thesis reports the design and fabrication of a low-cost reliable microelectrode array sensing platform and its application toward water quality monitoring, including heavy metal ion detection. Individually addressable microelectrodes were designed in a planar array on a nonconductive glass substrate by a photolithography method. The size, shape, composition, and functionality of the microelectrodes were theoretically explored in order to maximize performance.

The microelectrode array sensing platform was proven and characterized in the K3Fe(CN)₆ electrochemical standard using cyclic voltammetry. The sensor platform exhibited well defined voltammograms and had increased sensitivity relative to a commercially available microelectrode of similar size. …

Katp Channel Openers Have Opposite Effects On Mitochondrial Respiration Under Different Energetic Conditions, Matthias L. Riess, Amadou K.S. Camara, André Heinen, Janis T. Eells, Michele M. Henry, David F. Stowe

Biomedical Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

Mitochondrial (m) K_ATP channel opening has been implicated in triggering cardiac preconditioning. Its consequence on mitochondrial respiration, however, remains unclear. We investigated the effects of two different K_ATP channel openers and antagonists on mitochondrial respiration under two different energetic conditions. Oxygen consumption was measured for complex I (pyruvate/malate) or complex II (succinate with rotenone) substrates in mitochondria from fresh guinea pig hearts. One of two mK_ATP channel openers, pinacidil or diazoxide, was given before adenosine diphosphate in the absence or presence of an mK_ATP channel antagonist, glibenclamide or 5-hydroxydecanoate. Without ATP synthase inhibition, both mK_{ATP …}

New Freedom: An Investigation Into The World Of Prosthetics, Jenna Marcus

Senior Honors Projects

Prosthetics dates back thousands of years, with some of the earliest recorded devices dating back to the ancient Egyptians. The devices are used to replace a limb that may have been lost due to a variety of reasons. Of course, much has changed since the basic wooden devices. What is exceptionally fascinating about prosthetics and orthotics is that the field is always changing and become more advanced; it truly has infinite potential. Prosthetics has evolved over many centuries to be what it is today, but where will the technology go in the future?

Focusing on one area of prosthetics, specifically …

Multimodal Solution For A Rectangular Waveguide Radiating Into A Multilayered Dielectric Structure And Its Application For Dielectric Property And Thickness Evaluation, Mohammad Tayeb Ahmad Ghasr, R. Zoughi

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Open-ended rectangular waveguides are widely used for microwave and millimeter wave nondestructive testing applications. Applications have included detecting disbonds and delaminations in multilayered composite structures, thickness evaluation of dielectric sheets and coatings on metal substrates, etc. When inspecting a complex multilayered composite structure, made of generally lossy dielectric layers with arbitrary thicknesses and backing, the dielectric properties of a particular layer within the structure is of particular interest, such being health monitoring of structures such as radomes. The same is also true where one may be interested in the thickness or more importantly thickness variation of a particular layer within …

Effect Of Shear On Performance And Microbial Ecology Of Continuously Stirred Anaerobic Digesters Treating Animal Manure, Rebecca A. Hoffmann, Marcelo L. Garcia, Mehul Veskivar, Khursheed Karim, Muthanna H. Al-Dahhan, Largus T. Angenent

Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

We Determined the Effect of Different Mixing Intensities on the Performance, Methanogenic Population Dynamics, and Juxtaposition of Syntrophic Microbes in Anaerobic Digesters Treating Cow Manure from a Dairy Farm. Computer Automated Radioactive Particle Tracking in Conjunction with Computational Fluid Dynamics Was Performed to Quantify the Shear Levels Locally. Four Continuously Stirred Anaerobic Digesters Were Operated at Different Mixing Intensities of 1,500, 500, 250, and 50 Revolutions Per Min (RPM) over a 260-Day Period at a Temperature of 34 ± 1°C. Animal Manure at a Volatile Solids (VS) Concentration of 50 G/L Was Fed into the Digesters Daily at Five Different …

The Cyber-Workplace – Identifying Liability Issues In The Information Age And Managing E-Risk, Nigel Wilson

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

The information age provides numerous opportunities for modern society but also presents significant challenges in identifying liability issues and in managing risk. Technological change has occurred rapidly and is continuing at the same time as other major trends and changes are taking place in society and, in particular, in the workplace. The prospect of global liability and the complexity of jurisdictional differences present a considerable hurdle to the uniform regulation of liability issues. General legislation and legal principles have been readily applied to the cyber-world and to modern business practices and the workplace. Where necessary, legislatures have introduced specific legislation …

Data Mining Techniques For Fraud Detection, Rekha Bhowmik

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

The paper presents application of data mining techniques to fraud analysis. We present some classification and prediction data mining techniques which we consider important to handle fraud detection. There exist a number of data mining algorithms and we present statistics-based algorithm, decision tree-based algorithm and rule-based algorithm. We present Bayesian classification model to detect fraud in automobile insurance. Naïve Bayesian visualization is selected to analyze and interpret the classifier predictions. We illustrate how ROC curves can be deployed for model assessment in order to provide a more intuitive analysis of the models.

Keywords: Data Mining, Decision Tree, Bayesian Network, ROC …

The Draft Genome Of The Transgenic Tropical Fruit Tree Papaya ( Carica Papaya Linnaeus), Ray Ming, Shaobin Hou, Yun Feng, Qinguyi Yu, Jyothi Thimmapuram

Cyber Center Publications

Papaya, a fruit crop cultivated in tropical and subtropical regions, is known for its nutritional benefits and medicinal applications. Here we report a 3 draft genome sequence of 'SunUp' papaya, the first commercial virus-resistant transgenic fruit tree¹ to be sequenced. The papaya genome is three times the size of the Arabidopsis genome, but contains fewer genes, including significantly fewer disease-resistance gene analogues. Comparison of the five sequenced genomes suggests a minimal angiosperm gene set of 13,311. A lack of recent genome duplication, atypical of other angiosperm genomes sequenced so far may account for the smaller papaya gene number in …

Solar 2007: Renewable Energy Disaster Relief Fund Gives A Helping Hand, Florida Solar Energy Center, William Young

FSEC Energy Research Center®

In a disaster, support and utility services are damaged or destroyed leaving people without electricity, water, sanitation, and communication. Thousands of people from emergency management agencies and volunteer organizations are deployed to help after a disaster to provide life support and basic services. In this response effort, energy resources and services are lacking, making recovery efforts difficult in our high-tech world. In response to this problem, the National Energy Foundation and the Florida Solar Energy Center have formed the Renewable Energy Disaster Relief Fund (REDRF).

REDRF will collect donations from the general public, businesses, and various organizations through a variety …

Measurement Of Oxygen Saturation In The Retina With A Spectroscopic Sensitive Multi Aperture Camera, Jessica C. Ramella-Roman, Scott A. Mathews, Haripriya Kandimalla, Afshin Nabili, Donald D. Duncan, Salvatore A. D'Anna, Syed M. Shah, Quan D. Nguyen

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

We introduce a new multi aperture system capable of capturing six identical images of the human fundus at six different spectral bands. The system is based on a lenslet array architecture and is well suited for spectroscopy application. The multi-aperture system was interfaced with a fundus camera to acquire spectroscopic sensitive images of the retina vessel and ultimately to calculate oxygen saturation in the retina in vivo. In vitro testing showed that the system is able to accurately reconstruct curves of partially oxygenated hemoglobin. In vivo testing on healthy volunteers was conducted and yielded results of oxygen saturation similar to …

Ceas E-News 04.15.2008, College Of Engineering And Applied Sciences

College of Engineering and Applied Sciences News

CEAS leads the way at WMU's first Science Olympiad

2008 - The Thirteenth Annual Symposium Of Student Scholars

Symposium of Student Scholars Program Books

The full program book from the Thirteenth Annual Symposium of Student Scholars, held on April 14, 2008. Includes abstracts from the presentations and posters.

2008 Directory Of Indiana State, County, City And Town Officials Responsible For Road And Street Work, Indiana Ltap

Indiana Local Technical Assistance Program (LTAP) Directory

Contact information for agency officials and employees responsible for Indiana’s local road infrastructure.

Implementing Mass Nutrient Balance Procedures On Swine Production Facilities, Richard Koelsch, Alan Sutton

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

Whole Farm Nutrient Balance (WFNB) approaches have been used to provide a measure of environmental performance (Aarts et al., 1992; Lanyon and Beegle, 1993; Klausner, 1995). Whole farm balance concepts are used as part of the Netherlands Mineral Accounting System public policy that includes compulsory mineral input and output reports from livestock farms and levies for excess imbalances (Jongbloed and Lenis, 1998). Procedures for measuring WFNB will be followed in measurements made on commercial swine facilities for 2006 and 2007. The conclusions developed based upon data from 13 for 2006 include:

• On average, the participating swine producers import 1.5 units …

Nuclear Energy, Steve Kraft

Native American Forum on Nuclear Issues

Abstract:

-Why Nuclear Energy?

-The lesson of the last 20 years in U.S. electricity policy:

– Diversified fuel and technology portfolio is essential

– All fuels and technologies (nuclear, coal, natural gas, renewables, efficiency) have a legitimate role

-The challenge for the future:

– Preserving/restoring diversified portfolio

– Ensuring resource adequacy, particularly in competitive markets

-Expanded use of nuclear energy is part of the answer

– Integrated used fuel management supports nuclear competitiveness

Clustering And Its Application In Requirements Engineering, Chuan Duan

Technical Reports

Large scale software systems challenge almost every activity in the software development life-cycle, including tasks related to eliciting, analyzing, and specifying requirements. Fortunately many of these complexities can be addressed through clustering the requirements in order to create abstractions that are meaningful to human stakeholders. For example, the requirements elicitation process can be supported through dynamically clustering incoming stakeholders’ requests into themes. Cross-cutting concerns, which have a significant impact on the architectural design, can be identified through the use of fuzzy clustering techniques and metrics designed to detect when a theme cross-cuts the dominant decomposition of the system. Finally, traceability …

Asymmetric Paternalism: Description Of The Phenomenon, Explanation Based On Decisions Under Uncertainty, And Possible Applications To Education, Olga Kosheleva, Francois Modave

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

In general, human being are rational decision makers, but in many situations, they exhibit unexplained "inertia", reluctance to switch to a better decision. In this paper, we show that this seemingly irrational behavior can be explained if we take uncertainty into account; we also explain how this phenomenon can be utilized in education.

42nd Conference On Senior Engineering Design Projects, College Of Engineering And Applied Sciences

Senior Engineering Design Conference

The 42nd Conference on Senior Engineering Design Projects was held on April 15, 2008 at the College of Engineering and applied Sciences on the Parkview Campus of Western Michigan University. The college sponsors the conference to showcase the work of its graduating seniors, who are required to complete a capstone project that puts into practice what they have learned. Many of the projects are sponsored by business and industry.

Ole Miss Engineer 2008

Ole Miss Engineer

No abstract provided.

Sustainable Portland: Implementation Series 1, New England Environmental Finance Center

Climate Change

When the Sustainable Portland Task Force Report was released in November 2007, under the leadership of Mayor Jim Cohen, Portland Councilor Kevin Donoghue had the idea that students at the Muskie School of Public Service might be able to help implement recommendations from the report. It may have helped that Kevin was himself a graduate of the Community Planning and Development Master’s program at the Muskie School, but it was a good idea nevertheless. He approached Professor Sam Merrill in the CPD program, who spoke with the new Mayor Ed Suslovic about a possible partnership between the City and the …

Santa Clara Magazine, Volume 49 Number 4, Spring 2008, Santa Clara University

Santa Clara Magazine

14 - LET THE SUN SHINE IN By Steven Boyd Saum. In the international Solar Decathlon competition, a team from Santa Clara blazed a dazzling trail from almost-ran to third in the world.

20 - VISIONS FROM THE SIXTIES By Lisa Taggart. It was art that broke all the rules. And now an exhibit at the de Saisset Museum, curated by Santa Clara scholar Andrea Pappas, captures the sense of optimism and energy when the only limits were imagination itself.

26 - JORMA'S JOURNEY By Mark Purdy. With Jefferson Airplane, he helped define the San Francisco sound. With Hot Tuna …

Impulse, Kyle Johnson, Cindy Rickeman

Impulse (Jerome J. Lohr College of Engineering Publication)

Features:
[Page] 2 Department of Defense research: An alternative power technology project is part of a $7.8-million DoD grant awarded to the college.
[Page] 4 Weapons wear and tear: A storage room has been renovated to do fatigue testing on military weapons.
[Page] 6 Staying at State: An increasing number of alums are finding there is no place like their alma mater to get an advanced degree.
[Page] 8 Record enrollment: Math, mechanical engineering, and construction management are among the programs helping to push the college to record enrollment.
[Page] 10 A new home: Fund-raising has not finished, but …

Flight Physician - April, 2008, Civil Aviation Medical Association

Browse all Civil Aviation Medical Association Newsletters

A sixteen page newsletter of the Civil Aviation Medical Association. The newsletter provided news about civil aviation medicine and information related to the organization.

Wireless Sensor Network Modeling Using Modified Recurrent Neural Network: Application To Fault Detection, Azzam Issam Moustapha

Doctoral Dissertations

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) consist of a large number of sensors, which in turn have their own dynamics. They interact with each other and the base station, which controls the network. In multi-hop wireless sensor networks, information hops from one node to another and finally to the network gateway or base station. Dynamic Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs) consist of a set of dynamic nodes that provide internal feedback to their own inputs. They can be used to simulate and model dynamic systems such as a network of sensors.

In this dissertation, a dynamic model of wireless sensor networks and its …

Fabrication Of Bioactive Osteogenic Controlled-Release Systems, Cellular Platforms, And Cellular Capsules Using Layer -By -Layer Nanoassembly, Skylar Stewart-Clark

Doctoral Dissertations

There is an ever-increasing awareness that the field of tissue engineering offers many potential solutions to clinical problems. While advances along these lines have been made, the design and implementation of an "off the shelf" tissue is yet to be realized. Thus, the objectives of this work were largely aimed at the design and fabrication of biocompatible, bioactive structures which could be integrated into existing biomaterial products.

The electrostatic layer-by-layer (LbL) self-assembly technique was used to incorporate biologically relevant molecules within controlled release systems, cell culture platforms, and 3-D cellular capsules. Two delivery systems were investigated to determine the release …

Acquisition Of Cardiac Control Parameters From Whole Vagus Nerve Recordings, Marcia A. Pool

Doctoral Dissertations

Heart rate varies continuously depending on the amount of activity being performed or the emotional state of an individual. Both branches of the autonomic nervous system work to alter heart rate depending on the needs of the body. While healthy individuals are capable of altering their heart rate, individuals with certain types of heart disease do not have this ability. For these individuals, cardiac pacemakers are used to alter heart rate. Cardiac pacemakers use sensors to determine the pacing frequency for the heart; however, there is no current optimum sensor. In order to discover a better sensor, this study investigated …

Engineering@Nebraska - Spring 2008

Engineering@Nebraska (Alumni Magazine)

Table of Contents:

Front & Center
Engineering Students Enjoy Spain Firsthand: With Nebraska Engineering’s focus on international education, “live and learn” happens in amazing settings. Warm up to the wonders of winter break in Spain.
Spring Break at 35,000 Feet: Nebraska Engineering’s undergraduate research reaches new heights in service to NASA. Ride along with blog posts from an uplifting experience in microgravity.
UNL Experts Build Better Bridges: Atorod Azizinamini—professor of Civil Engineering, researcher and director of UNL's National Bridge Research Organization (NABRO)—leads a team in applying a $2 million grant for safer spans.
Tiny Fibers, Huge Potential: The longterm research …

Incorporation Of Space Syntax Theory In Determining Safe And Efficient Construction Site Layout, Minsuck Cho

Masters Theses

Facility layout is an important to determine a proper arrangement of temporary facilities in a construction site. It significantly impacts productivity and safety of construction. The objectives of layout planning are to minimize travel distance and time, to decrease the facility transportation and setup costs, and to improve site safety. Despite the importance of facility layout, it is often overlooked in the planning phase. Several models have been developed taking some of these factors into consideration; however, construction managers and site planners often regard cost as the most important factor in layout planning and pay less attention to safety and …

Oxygen Diffusion Through Natural Extracellular Matrices: Implications For Estimating "Critical Thickness" Values In Tendon Tissue Engineering, Caroline Androjna, Jorge E. Gatica, Joanne M. Belovich, Kathleen A. Derwin

Chemical & Biomedical Engineering Faculty Publications

Oxygen is necessary for maintaining cell proliferation and viability and extracellular matrix (ECM) production in 3-dimensional tissue engineering. Typically, diffusion is the primary mode for oxygen transport in vitro; thus, ensuring an adequate oxygen supply is essential. In this study, we determined the oxygen diffusion coefficients of 3 natural ECMs that are being investigated as construct scaffolds for tendon tissue engineering: small-intestine submucosa (SIS), human dermis (Alloderm (R)), and canine fascia lata. Diffusion coefficients were determined using a standard diffusion cell system. The ranges for each matrix type were: SIS: 7 x 10(-6) - 2 x 10(-5) cm(2)/s, Alloderm (R): …