Digital Commons Network^™

Late Morning Concurrent Sessions: Emergency Response: Presentation, Robert Sumwalt

Aviation / Aeronautics / Aerospace International Research Conference

No abstract provided.

A Decision Model For Recommending Which Building Occupants Should Move Where During Fire Emergencies, Norman E. Groner

Publications and Research

This paper describes a decision model for managing the movement of building occupants during fire emergencies. Currently available guidance from standard practice, egress modeling, codes and the re-search literature, is too general to provide much help to persons charged with the responsibility of where groups of occupants should be located given a fire scenario. The occupant movement decision model described in the paper uses three basic yes–no questions to divide building occupants into groups during a fire emergency. For any particular group, the decision model recommends one of two basic actions:(1) people remain where they are already located; or, (2) …

Anchor-Assisted And Vote-Based Trustworthiness Assurance In Smart City Crowdsensing, Maryam Pouryazdan, Burak Kantarci, Tolga Soyata, Houbing Song

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

Smart city sensing calls for crowdsensing via mobile devices that are equipped with various built-in sensors. As incentivizing users to participate in distributed sensing is still an open research issue, the trustworthiness of crowdsensed data is expected to be a grand challenge if this cloud-inspired recruitment of sensing services is to be adopted. Recent research proposes reputation-based user recruitment models for crowdsensing; however, there is no standard way of identifying adversaries in smart city crowdsensing. This paper adopts previously proposed vote-based approaches, and presents a thorough performance study of vote-based trustworthiness with trusted entities that are basically a subset of …

Internet Of Things And Big Data Analytics For Smart And Connected Communities, Yunchuan Sun, Houbing Song, Antonio J. Jara, Rongfang Bie

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

This paper promotes the concept of smart and connected communities SCC, which is evolving from the concept of smart cities. SCC are envisioned to address synergistically the needs of remembering the past (preservation and revitalization), the needs of living in the present (livability), and the needs of planning for the future (attainability). Therefore, the vision of SCC is to improve livability, preservation, revitalization, and attainability of a community. The goal of building SCC for a community is to live in the present, plan for the future, and remember the past. We argue that Internet of Things (IoT) has the potential …

Development Of Cloud-Based Uav Monitoring And Management System, Mason Itkin, Mihui Kim, Younghee Park

Faculty Publications

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are an emerging technology with the potential to revolutionize commercial industries and the public domain outside of the military. UAVs would be able to speed up rescue and recovery operations from natural disasters and can be used for autonomous delivery systems (e.g., Amazon Prime Air). An increase in the number of active UAV systems in dense urban areas is attributed to an influx of UAV hobbyists and commercial multi-UAV systems. As airspace for UAV flight becomes more limited, it is important to monitor and manage many UAV systems using modern collision avoidance techniques. In this paper, …

Use Of A Small Unmanned Aerial System For The Sr-530 Mudslide Incident Near Oso, Washington, Robin Murphy, Brittany Duncan, Tyler Collins, Justin Kendrick, Patrick Lohman, Tamara Palmer, Frank Sanborn

School of Computing: Faculty Publications

The Center for Robot-Assisted Search and Rescue deployed three commercially available small unmanned aerial systems (SUASs)—an AirRobot AR100B quadrotor, an Insitu Scan Eagle, and a PrecisionHawk Lancaster—to the 2014 SR-530 Washington State mudslides. The purpose of the flights was to allow geologists and hydrologists to assess the eminent risk of loss of life to responders from further slides and flooding, as well as to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the event. The AirRobot AR100B in conjunction with PrecisionHawk postprocessing software created two-dimensional (2D) and 3D reconstructions of the inaccessible “moonscape” region of the slide and provided engineers with a …

Broadband And Mobile Internet Services In Nonmetropolitan Nebraska, Rebecca Vogt, Cheryl Burkhart-Kriesel, Randolph Cantrell, Bradley Lubben, L. J. Mcelravy

Rural Futures Institute: Publications

A recent Pew Research Center survey revealed that home broadband adoption has plateaued in the United States. In addition, there has been an increase in adults who use a smartphone to access the Internet but do not have traditional broadband service in their home. Given these national trends, how do rural Nebraskans access the Internet? Are they accessing the Internet from their cell phones? Are they subscribing to high-speed Internet services at home? How satisfied are they with their Internet services? How important do they feel Internet access is for various items? This paper provides a detailed analysis of these …

Bakken Crude Oil And The Changing Logistics Of The American Oil Industry, Austin Rau

Independent Research

The extraction of Bakken crude oil in the Williston Basin of North Dakota is transforming how petroleum is shipped. Before 2008, North American oil was carried primarily via pipeline from source regions to refineries along the Gulf Coast or to metropolitan areas close to consumers. The current pipeline system is ill-equipped to accommodate massive volumes of oil from this previously low producing region. Lack of infrastructure and high demand for “light tight oil” (LTO) led to the use of railroads as a means of moving the product to refineries across the nation. Transporting oil via rail over long distances was …

Tier 1 Highway Security Sensitive Material Dynamic Risk Management, Steven Douglas Kreis

Theses and Dissertations--Civil Engineering

Each year, over 2 billion tons of hazardous materials are shipped in the United States, with over half of that being moved on commercial vehicles. Given their relatively poor or nonexistent defenses and inconspicuousness, commercial vehicles transporting hazardous materials are an easy target for terrorists. Before carriers or security agencies recognize that something is amiss, their contents could be detonated or released. From 2006 to 2015, the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) recorded 144,643 incidents involving a release of hazardous materials. Although there were no known instances of terrorism being the cause, accidental releases …

Cyber-Physical Systems: Complex System Governance As An Integrating Construct, Polinpapilinho F. Katina, Charles B. Keating, Adrian V. Gheorghe

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

This paper examines contributions of Complex System Governance (CSG) as an integrating construct for the emerging fields of critical cyber-physical systems (CPS). CPS is concerned with physical entities that are controlled by computational elements. The field is relatively new, emerging, and also somewhat fragmented in development. There are multiple agencies, entities, and activities being undertaken to address a nexus of emerging issues (e.g., cybersecurity) in critical infrastructures. However, the development of critical CPS, as a field, albeit with good intentions and efforts, appears to be largely ‘self-organizing.’ In response, we suggest CSG as an organizing construct capable of provided a …

A Tool For Beamforming And Real-Time Link Budget Analysis In Aeronautical Communications Using Kinematics, M. Cenk Erturk, Yasin Aksan

Electrical Engineering Faculty Publications

Aeronautical Communication (AC) systems are likely to be a part of future tiered communication network structures. Therefore maintaining a robust AC link with a minimum power burden on the host platform has a critical importance. In this paper, we analyze the AC systems from a link budget analysis point of view and define the requirements for the parameters of link budget with an emphasize on antenna gains. First, we study the link budget analysis in an AC system. Then, we present a mathematical framework to provide an end-to-end link budget analysis utilizing the platform kinematics. Finally, we present the numerical …

Evaluating Wrong-Way Driving For Florida Interstates And Toll Road Facilities: A Risk-Based Investigation, And Countermeasure Development, John Rogers

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The focus of this dissertation was to examine wrong-way driving (WWD) events on Florida toll roads and Interstates. The universe of WWD data contains many sources of WWD events or incidents. Most of the previous research focused only on WWD crashes without considering other data such as WWD citations and 911 calls related to WWD incidents. While WWD citations and 911 calls data is abundant, this data has been largely overlooked in other studies. This dissertation provides a novel and holistic approach for evaluating WWD risk, which considers other risk factors such as WWD citations and 911 calls in addition …

Bridge Rating Based On In-Situ Weigh-In-Motion And Health Monitoring Data, Dana Feng

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Parallel to the bridge design methodology changes from the Allowable Stress Design to the Load Factor Design, and then to the reliability based Load and Resistance Factor Design (LRFD), bridge load rating method has also been evolving. Applying the reliability theory to the bridge load rating is more complex than applying to the LRFD since any conservatism can have a significant effect on the assessment of bridge capacity, particularly in load posting and bridge replacement. Although the current Load and Resistant Factor Rating (LRFR) method applying the concept of reliability analyses, it uses very limited site-specific data due to practical …

Heterogeneous Dynamic Spectrum Access In Cognitive Radio Enabled Vehicular Networks Using Network Softwarization, Swetha R. Reddy

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

Dynamic spectrum access (DSA) in cognitive radio networks (CRNs) is regarded as an emerging technology to solve the spectrum scarcity problem created by static spectrum allocation. In DSA, unlicensed users access idle channels opportunistically, without creating any harmful interference to licensed users. This method will also help to incorporate billions of wireless devices for different applications such as Internet-of-Things, cyber-physical systems, smart grids, etc. Vehicular networks for intelligent transportation cyber-physical systems is emerging concept to improve transportation security and reliability. IEEE 802.11p standard comprising of 7 channels is dedicated for vehicular communications. These channels could be highly congested and may …

Oh The Drone-Abilities!: Hollywood's Drone Pursuit Heats Up And The Faa Can't Stop It, Matthew J. Strong

Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Composite Confinement Systems For Rc Column Repair And Construction Under Seismic Loads: Concept, Characterization And Performance, Mostafa Fakharifar

Doctoral Dissertations

"This study aims at developing, characterizing and validating an integrated composite confinement system of conventional jackets for: (1) repair and retrofit of existing bridge columns; and (2) construction of new bridge columns, subjected to earthquake excitations.

A new composite steel confinement jacket was proposed by combining a thin steel sheet and prestressing strands as a hybrid jacket, incorporating active and passive confining pressure on damaged RC columns. Both experimental and analytical studies were conducted to understand the performance and effectiveness of the proposed repair method. The experimental study involved two 1/2-scale lap-spliced deficient RC bridge columns originally tested to failure …

A Multi-Objective Sustainable Model For Transportation Asset Management Practices, Marketa Vavrova

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Transportation Asset Management (TAM) practices have gained popularity in the United States and worldwide with the aim to provide the required level of service for the transportation infrastructure network in the most cost-effective manner. However, TAM is a complex decision-making process because many objectives and different perspectives, often producing conflicting goals, must be considered.

This Dissertation presents a Multi-Objective Sustainable (MOS) model to integrate economic, social, and environmental sustainable objectives into TAM decision-making. The objective is to develop a holistic multi-objective asset management approach integrating environmental and social sustainability related performance measures with traditional indicators, such as asset condition and …

Internet Of Things To Smart Iot Through Semantic, Cognitive, And Perceptual Computing, Amit P. Sheth

Publications

Rapid growth in the Internet of Things (IoT) has resulted in a massive growth of data generated by these devices and sensors put on the Internet. Physical-cyber-social (PCS) big data consist of this IoT data, complemented by relevant Web-based and social data of various modalities. Smart data is about exploiting this PCS big data to get deep insights and make it actionable, and making it possible to facilitate building intelligent systems and applications. This article discusses key AI research in semantic computing, cognitive computing, and perceptual computing. Their synergistic use is expected to power future progress in building intelligent systems …

Strategies To Improve Data Quality For Forecasting Repairable Spare Parts, Uyi Harrison Eguasa

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Poor input data quality used in repairable spare parts forecasting by aerospace small and midsize enterprises (SME) suppliers results in poor inventory practices that manifest into higher costs and critical supply shortage risks. Guided by the data quality management (DQM) theory as the conceptual framework, the purpose of this exploratory multiple case study was to identify the key strategies that the aerospace SME repairable spares suppliers use to maximize their input data quality used in forecasting repairable spare parts. The multiple case study comprised of a census sample of 6 forecasting business leaders from aerospace SME repairable spares suppliers located …

Design, Analysis And Evaluation Of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Ad Hoc Network For Emergency Response Communications, Robin D. Grodi

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

In any emergency situation, it is paramount that communication be established between those affected by an emergency and the emergency responders. This communication is typically initiated by contacting an emergency service number such as 9-1-1 which will then notify the appropriate responders. The communication link relies heavily on the use of the public telephone network. If an emergency situation causes damage to, or otherwise interrupts, the public telephone network then those affected by the emergency are unable to call for help or warn others. A backup emergency response communication system is required to restore communication in areas where the public …

Development And Evaluation Of A Coaxial Cable Sensing System For Co₂ Sequestration Wellbore Integrity Monitoring, Yurong Li

Doctoral Dissertations

"Downhole monitoring plays a crucial part in geological carbon dioxide (₂) sequestration. Various downhole monitoring technologies have been explored and applied, but they are either expensive or have system longevity issues. To address this issue, a robust and cost-effective downhole sensing system based on distributed coaxial cable sensors is developed and evaluated in laboratory, and a numerical simulation with staged finite element model is conducted to study the feasibility of using the coaxial cable sensing system for monitoring and evaluation of wellbore stability during CO₂ injection.

The real-time distributed sensing system is composed of Fabry-Perot interferometer based …

Experimental Evaluations Of Selected Sealants To Remediate Co₂ Leakage, Aaron Jeffrey Blue

Masters Theses

"Carbon Dioxide (CO₂) sequestration into porous and permeable brine-filled aquifers is seen as one of the most feasible solutions for reducing the amount of greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere from coal-fired power plants. To safely store the CO₂, it must be trapped under an impermeable rock acting as a seal. One of the concerns with CO₂ sequestration is the generation of new fractures or reopening of existing fractures caused by CO₂ injection in the sealing formation. This project evaluates the potential of sealing these fractures by injecting sealing materials into them. These sealing …

Behavior Of Concrete Beams With Corroded Reinforcement Retrofitted With Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer, Needa Marwan Lingga

Civil and Environmental Engineering Master's Project Reports

Severe premature deterioration has been reported in a large number of reinforced concrete (RC) structures in corrosive environments. This research project focused on the behavior of beams that contained corroded steel and were retrofitted with CFRP. The steel in RC beams were assumed to be fully corroded, representing the most severe loss in steel cross-section. Unidirectional CFRP sheets were used to strengthen the deteriorated beams. The experimental program included testing five simply supported rectangular cross section concrete beams. All beams were approximately 1/3^rd scale models, 4in. x 6in. cross sections, and 6ft. long. In three beams, the oiled steel …

Automated Generation And Visualization Of Initial Construction Schedules From Building Information Models, Yibrah Weldemihret Weldu

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Recent advances in digital technology have had a significant influence on the quality and speed of sharing and communicating project information in the architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) industry. The process of acquiring the design intent in order to develop and communicate project schedules, as critical components of project delivery, have similarly been benefitting from such progress. With the relatively recent techniques of Building Information Modeling (BIM) and its capability to integrate the facility design with its construction schedule, meaningul strides have been made in improving the information flow and eventually visualizing the final schedule in 4D. However, the need …

Data To Decisions For Cyberspace Operations, Steve Stone

Military Cyber Affairs

In 2011, the United States (U.S.) Department of Defense (DOD) named cyberspace a new operational domain. The U.S. Cyber Command and the Military Services are working to make the cyberspace environment a suitable place for achieving national objectives and enabling military command and control (C2). To effectively conduct cyberspace operations, DOD requires data and analysis of the Mission, Network, and Adversary. However, the DOD’s current data processing and analysis capabilities do not meet mission needs within critical operational timelines. This paper presents a summary of the data processing and analytics necessary to effectively conduct cyberspace operations.

Fiscal Year 2015 Fhwa-536 Report For The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet, Steven Douglas Kreis, Candice Y. Wallace, Bryan Gibson, Sarah M. Mccormack

Kentucky Transportation Center Research Report

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) requires state transportation agencies to submit a biennial report on local highway finances. The purpose of these reports is to provide FHWA with the data it needs to capture the financing of highway activities at the local level. Based on this information, it can identify trends in revenue, expenditures, investments, and program development, and in turn make decisions about future investments. The report, FHWA-536, asks agencies to report on four areas of local highway finance: 1) disposition of highway-user revenues; 2) revenues used for roads and streets identified by source and funding type; 3) road …

Effects Of Sediments On Bmps For Highway Runoff Control, Matthew Garder

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Numerous studies conducted on highway stormwater runoff and its control with Best Management Practices (BMPs) indicate that sediment is the major pollutant that affects performance and longevity of BMPs. Currently, there are several knowledge gaps related to the effects of sediments on highway BMPs: a) how much sediment will be generated by a construction site by a section of highway with its surrounding watershed under different conditions; b) how sediment is intercepted by different BMPs with or without pretreatment sections; and c) what are the effects of these sediments on BMPs’ hydraulic behavior, longevity, and pollutants removal or release. The …

Automatic License Plate Recognition Using Deep Learning Techniques, Naga Surya Sandeep Angara

Electrical Engineering Theses

Automatic License Plate Recognition (ALPR) systems capture a vehicles license plate and recognize the license number and other required information from the captured image. ALPR systems have number of significant applications: law enforcement, public safety agencies, toll gate systems, etc. The goal of these systems is to recognize the characters and state on the license plate with high accuracy. ALPR has been implemented using various techniques. Traditional recognition methods use handcrafted features for obtaining features from the image. Unlike conventional methods, deep learning techniques automatically select features and are one of the game changing technologies in the field of computer …

Use Of Personality Profile Assessments In The Construction Industry, Brian Richard Childs

Theses and Dissertations

Various industries are using personality profile assessments as tools to help reduce employee turnover. Employee turnover is a continuing challenge in the construction industry that has negative effects on construction companies. Research found that it was difficult to know if companies in the construction industry are using personality profile assessments as a tool to help reduce employee turnover. After understanding that other industries were using personality profile assessments in their hiring, promoting, team building and leadership development to reduce turnover, it was desired to understand if the construction industry was doing the same. This research performed a survey among the …

Integrating Freight Into Livable Communities, Kristine M. Williams, Alexandria Carroll

TREC Final Reports

Where livability is a goal of the planning process, freight runs the risk of not being considered except as an afterthought or as something to be excluded. Yet, freight is an integral part of local economic development. Because economic prosperity is a key characteristic of livable communities, freight must be incorporated into the planning process. This study explores the relationship between freight and livability through a comprehensive literature review and case study research. The final report includes a menu of strategies and case study perspectives that highlight the importance of transportation and land use integration, interagency coordination, and context-sensitivity in …