Digital Commons Network^™

Human Reliability Analysis In The Performance Of Advanced Cardiac Life Support Tasks, Lucia Veronica Rosas

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

Error reduction in the performance of medical emergency situations is an area of great concern in today's society. This is specially the case when the situation involves a cardiac arrhythmia. These situations are generally categorized as Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS) events. The American Heart Association provides the proper procedures that practitioners of ACLS should follow to provide care to patients presenting heart arrhythmia problems. These situations occur inside and outside the hospital, outside the hospital being the most critical ones considering the limitation of equipment and availability of qualified care. Errors made by the practitioners of ACLS in this …

Expert System Development For Hard Disk Drive Failure Analysis, Fernando Rodriguez Rosas

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

The Computer's Hard Disk Drive is a complex high technology device, diagnosis of a failure is difficult even using sophisticated test equipments. These Drives are expensive and returning a new one when it fails within the warranty period is not an option. The failed drive must be tested and repaired. In the repair process the analysis and diagnosis of the failures is a key point in the process where decisions regarding the repair process that the failed Drive will follow. Therefore, there is a requirement to perform an effective analysis and provide an accurate diagnosis. The standard system utilized for …

Providing Central And East European Engineering Students With International Experience, Radu Chisleag

Enhancement of the Global Perspective for Engineering Students by Providing an International Experience

Historically, the academic life in Romania as well as in the other Central and East European countries had strong connections with Western Europe and some connections with the rest of the world. These connections were almost entirely forbidden by the communist soviet type political power imposed to these countries, following the Second World War. The 1989 anticommunist revolution in Central and East Europe opened the way for re-establishing contacts with the western World, offering Romanians and particularly to the students of the "POLITEHNICA" University in Bucharest, opportunities to get International Experience. Due, mainly, to the activity of some promoters, without …

Assessing Classification Confidence Using A Weighted Exponential Based Technique With The Learn++ Incremental Learning Algorithm, Jeffrey T. Byorick

Theses and Dissertations

Pattern recognition problems span a broad range of applications, where each application has its own tolerance on classification error. The varying levels of risk associated with many pattern recognition applications indicate the need for a versatile algorithm with the ability to measure its own reliability. In this work, the supervised incremental learning algorithm Learn++ [1, 2], which exploits the synergistic power of an ensemble of classifiers, is further developed to add the capability of assessing its own confidence. Estimation of the true generalization performance of the classifier as well as the confidences on classification of individual data instances is investigated …

Fuzzy System Identification Based Upon A Novel Approach To Nonlinear Optimization, Raymond Scott Starsman

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Fuzzy systems are often used to model the behavior of nonlinear dynamical systems in process control industries because the model is linguistic in nature, uses a natural-language rule set, and because they can be included in control laws that meet the design goals. However, because the rigorous study of fuzzy logic is relatively recent, there is a shortage of well-defined and understood mechanisms for the design of a fuzzy system. One of the greatest challenges in fuzzy modeling is to determine a suitable structure, parameters, and rules that minimize an appropriately chosen error between the fuzzy system, a mathematical model, …

Automatic Speaker Identification Using Reusable And Retrainable Binary-Pair Partitioned Neural Networks, Ashutosh Mishra

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

This thesis presents an extension of the work previously done on speaker identification using Binary Pair Partitioned (BPP) neural networks. In the previous work, a separate network was used for each pair of speakers in the speaker population. Although the basic BPP approach did perform well and had a simple underlying algorithm, it had the obvious disadvantage of requiring an extremely large number of networks for speaker identification with large speaker populations. It also requires training of networks proportional to the square of the number of speakers under consideration, leading to a very large number of networks to be trained …

Voice Activated Display Of American Sign Language For Airport Security, Glenn Lancaster, Karen Alkoby, Jeff Campen, Roymieco Carter, Mary Jo Davidson, Dan Ethridge, Jacob Furst, Damien Hinkle, Bret Kroll, Ryan Layesa, Barbara Loeding, John Mcdonald, Nedjla Ougouag, Jerry Schnepp, Lori Smallwood, Prabhakar Srinivasan, Jorge Toro, Rosalee Wolfe

Visual Communications and Technology Education Faculty Publications

Conference proceedings from the Technology and Persons with Disabilities Conference-2003.

California State University at Northridge, Los Angeles, CA March 17-22, 2003.

Use Of Fuzzy Expert's Information In Measurement And What We Can Gain From Its Application In Geophysics, Leon Reznik, Vladik Kreinovich, Scott A. Starks

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

The paper considers the problem of measurement information fusion from different sources, when one of the sources is an information about approximate values of the measured variables or their combinations. The information is given with fuzzy models and is used in combination with the measurement results. The properties of the modified estimates are studied in comparison with the conventional ones. The conditions when an expert's information application can give a high gain are derived, the gain value is estimated, the recommendations to an expert on making predictions are given. The possible gain in measurement result efficiency in geophysical applications is …

Multimission Aircraft Design Study, Payload, Ahmet Kahraman

Theses and Dissertations

It is proposed that a Multi-Mission Aircraft (MMA) be prepared to combine some or all the functions of the aging AWACS, JSTARS, RIVET JOINT, COMPASS CALL, and AECCC fleet. Three different thesis studies have been developed by three Air Force Institute of Technology GSE students to show the feasibility of replacing the current aging fleet with one or more MMA platforms. This is the thesis in which the payload issuer have been examined. Within this thesis, two different alternative architectures, which are One Tail Number and Different Tail Numbers including nine different configurations, have been considered. Estimated payload characteristics of …

Inside Unlv, Gian Galassi, Jennifer Vaughan, Carol C. Harter, Carolyn Sabo

Inside UNLV

No abstract provided.

Efficient Decomposition Of Large Fuzzy Functions And Relations, Paul Burkey, Marek Perkowski

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper presents a new approach to decomposition of fuzzy functions. A tutorial background on fuzzy logic representations is first given to emphasize next the simplicity and generality of this new approach. Ashenhurst-like decomposition of fuzzy functions was discussed in [3] but it was not suitable for programming and was not programmed. In our approach, fuzzy functions are converted to multiple-valued functions and decomposed using an mv decomposer. Then the decomposed multiple-valued functions are converted back to fuzzy functions. This approach allows for Curtis-like decompositions with arbitrary number of intermediate fuzzy variables, that have been not presented for fuzzy functions …

Multimission Aircraft Design Study-Operational Scenarios, Nevin Coskuner

Theses and Dissertations

In the most recent years, the Command, Control and Communications, Counter Measures, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (C3CMISR) aircrafts are used commonly in many NATO and UN Operations around the world. These aircrafts are AWACS, JSTARS, Rivet Joint, Compass Call and ABCCC. They provide close air support in the name of airborne surveillance, ground moving target surveillance, target reconnaissance, jamming, and command, control and communications issues in operational environments. Those aircrafts are tasked with a wide variety of missions than ever before in operational theaters and each one of them comprises a specific amount of cost and risk factors. As a …

Design And Evaluation Of Processes For Fuel Fabrication: Quarterly Progress Report #6, Georg F. Mauer

Fuels Campaign (TRP)

The sixth quarter of the project covered the following:

• Mr. Richard Silva continued the development of a simulation model with a Waelischmiller hot cell robot. Rich will continue to develop detailed 3-D process simulation models as his M.Sc. thesis project. Rich is employed with Bechtel at the Yucca Mountain project.

• Concepts and Methods for Vision-Based Hot Cell Supervision and control (Ph.D. Student Jae-Kyu Lee )

• An undergraduate senior student in mechanical engineering, Mr. Jamil Renno, was hired to develop the simulation model for the hot cell manipulator.

Inside Unlv, Gian Galassi, Richard Jensen, Carol C. Harter, Kenneth E. Marks

Inside UNLV

No abstract provided.

Importance Of Entrepreneurs To The U.S. Economy, Joseph Bordogna

Teaching Entrepreneurship to Engineering Students

No abstract provided.

Creating An Entrepreneurial Culture At Mit, Joel Moses

Teaching Entrepreneurship to Engineering Students

No abstract provided.

Towards Foundations Of Processing Imprecise Data: From Traditional Statistical Techniques Of Processing Crisp Data To Statistical Processing Of Fuzzy Data, Hung T. Nguyen, Tonghui Wang, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

In traditional statistics, we process crisp data - usually, results of measurements and/or observations. Not all the knowledge comes from measurements and observations. In many real-life situations, in addition to the results of measurements and observations, we have expert estimates, estimates that are often formulated in terms of natural language, like "x is large". Before we analyze how to process these statements, we must be able to translate them in a language that a computer can understand. This translation of expert statements from natural language into a precise language of numbers is one of the main original objectives of fuzzy …

An Interaction Initiative Model For Documentation, David G. Novick, Karen Ward

Departmental Papers (CS)

In this paper we propose a model of creation and use of documentation based on the concept of mixed-initiative interaction. In our model, successful single-initiative interaction is characterized by grounding of contributions, and successful mixed-initiative interaction is characterized by both grounding and agreement. Just as in spoken conversation, achievement of actual agreement depends on the intentions of both parties; agreement is achieved when the reader follows the documentation’s instructions. In fact, readers are not obligated to—and often do not—act according to the author’s intentions. By making these dynamics explicit, the model can aid authors in developing effective documentation. The paper …

Larger-First Partial Parsing, Sebastian Alexander Van Delden

Retrospective Theses and Dissertations

Larger-first partial parsing is a primarily top-down approach to partial parsing that is opposite to current easy-first, or primarily bottom-up, strategies. A rich partial tree structure is captured by an algorithm that assigns a hierarchy of structural tags to each of the input tokens in a sentence. Part-of-speech tags are first assigned to the words in a sentence by a part-of-speech tagger. A cascade of Deterministic Finite State Automata then uses this part-of-speech information to identify syntactic relations primarily in a descending order of their size. The cascade is divided into four specialized sections: (1) a Comma Network, which identifies …

The Sentient Web, Michael N. Huhns

Faculty Publications

In a startling revelation, a team of university scientists has reported that a network of computers has become conscious and sentient, and is beginning to assume control of online information system. In spite of the ominous tone typically chosen for dramatic effect, a sentient Web would be more helpful and much easier for people to use. An agent is an active, persistent software component that perceives, reasons, and acts, and whose actions include communication. Agents inherently take intentional actions based on sensory information and memories of past actions. All agents have necessary communication ability, but they do not necessarily possess …

Commitments Among Agents, Ashok U. Mallya, Michael N. Huhns

Faculty Publications

Commitments are a powerful representation for modeling multiagent interactions. Previous approaches have considered the semantics of commitments and how to check compliance with them. However, these approaches do not capture some of the subtleties that arise in real-life applications such as e-commerce, in which contracts and institutions have implicit temporal references. In this column, we describe a rich representation for the temporal content of commitments that lets us capture realistic contracts and avoid ambiguities. Consequently, this approach lets us reason about whether, and at what point, a commitment is satisfied or breached, and whether it is or ever becomes unenforceable.

Being And Acting Rational, Michael N. Huhns

Faculty Publications

Rationality alone is insufficient to specify agent design. Using economic theory, we can program agents to behave in ways that maximize their utility while responding to environmental changes. However, economic models for agents, although general in principle, are typically limited in practice because the value functions that are tractable essentially reduce an agent to acting selfishly. Building a stable social system from a collection of agents motivated by self-serving interests is difficult. Finally, understanding rationality and knowledge requires interdisciplinary results from artificial intelligence, distributed.

Imaging And Locating Buried Utilities, Hyung Seok Jeong, Carlos A. Arboleda, Dulcy M. Abraham, Daniel W. Halpin, Leonhard E. Bernold

JTRP Technical Reports

The urban underground has become a spider’s web of utility lines, including phones, electricity, gas, cable TV, fiber optics, traffic signals, street lighting circuits, drainage and sanitary sewers and water mains. Utility damages during construction are very significant and on the rise, resulting in construction delays, design changes, claims, property damages, service breakdowns, disruption of neighboring businesses and even injuries and lost lives. The American Institute of Constructors (AIC) reported that damage to utility lines is the third most significant crisis for contractors. The state-of-the-art and the state-of-the-practice imaging technologies that have potential for being applied in locating underground utilities …

An Industrial Food Processing Plant Automation Using A Hybrid Of Pi And Fuzzy Logic Control, Ganesh K. Venayagamoorthy, D. Naidoo, P. Govender

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

An industrial food processing plant consisting of nonlinear dynamics requires pressure and temperature controllers to be nonlinear. In this paper, nonlinear controllers are designed using fuzzy logic to augment the conventional pressure and temperature PI controllers for an industrial food processing plant. Simulation results are presented to show improvement in the plant response with the hybrid controllers.

Development Of An Aggregation Methodology For Risk Analysis In Aerospace Conceptual Vehicle Design, Trina Marsh Chytka

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The growing complexity of technical systems has emphasized a need to gather as much information as possible regarding specific systems of interest in order to make robust, sound decisions about their design and deployment. Acquiring as much data as possible requires the use of empirical statistics, historical information and expert opinion. In much of the aerospace conceptual design environment, the lack of historical information and infeasibility of gathering empirical data relegates the data collection to expert opinion.

The conceptual design of a space vehicle requires input from several disciplines (weights and sizing, operations, trajectory, etc.). In this multidisciplinary environment, the …

Universal Approximation Theorem For Uninorm-Based Fuzzy Systems Modeling, Ronald R. Yager, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

Most existing universal approximation results for fuzzy systems are based on the assumption that we use t-conorms and t-conorms to represent "and" and "or". Yager has proposed to use, within the fuzzy system modeling paradigm, more general operations based on uninorms. In this paper, we show that the universal approximation property holds for an arbitrary choice of a uninorm.

Cortical Response To Facial Expressions Of Young Adult Males With Autism Spectrum Disorders And Controls Using Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (Fmri), Jagriti Arora

Theses

Autism is a neurodevelopmental disorder that is defined by deficits in social and emotional impairments and this study aims to identify specific brain regions involved during facial processing. The simple task of focusing on the face during social interactions for the normal group is found difficult by the autistic group.

In this study, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used as subjects performed two experimental tasks (EXPLICIT and IMPLICIT) in which a series of photographs of nine males and nine females displaying three affective states (6 fear, 6 happy and 6 neutral) and six scrambled- face control stimuli were presented …

Measuring The Performance Of Online Distributed Team Innovation (Learning) Services, Larry Leifer, Jack Culpepper, Wendy Ju, David Cannon, Ozgur Eirs, Tao Ling, David Bell, Eric Bier, Ken Pier

e-Technologies in Engineering Education: Learning Outcomes Providing Future Possibilities

No abstract provided.

Using E-Mail Logbooks To Facilitate Scientific Publication, Nancy Lea Eik-Nes

e-Technologies in Engineering Education: Learning Outcomes Providing Future Possibilities

No abstract provided.

Sum Normal Optimization Of Fuzzy Membership Functions, Daniel J. Simon

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Given a fuzzy logic system, how can we determine the membership functions that will result in the best performance? If we constrain the membership functions to a certain shape (e.g., triangles or trapezoids) then each membership function can be parameterized by a small number of variables and the membership optimization problem can be reduced to a parameter optimization problem. This is the approach that is typically taken, but it results in membership functions that are not (in general) sum normal. That is, the resulting membership function values do not add up to one at each point in the domain. This …