Digital Commons Network^™

Racial Profiling: Understanding The Practice Of Stop-And-Frisk In New York City, Lisa Ly

Spectra Undergraduate Research Journal

Racial profiling has become a prominent issue in modern policing today. Instead of being based on individual suspicion, racial profiling embodies a belief that people of color are continuously singled out by the police for scrutiny and harassment. Policies and procedures make the Black community vulnerable to police discrimination and racial profiling. Floyd et al. v. City of New York et al. (2013) declared that the New York Police Department’s (NYPD) practice of stop-and-frisk was racially profiling Black civilians. This study sought (1) to determine if the NYPD post-Floyd is still engaging in racial profiling towards Black civilians; and (2) …

Infrastructure Deficiency Correlation With Pedestrian/Cyclist Crashes: A Data-Driven Approach, Farbod Tavakkoli Khomeini, Barbara Minsker, Michael Hahler, Janille Smith-Colin, Xinlei Wang

Civil and Environmental Engineering Theses and Dissertations

A model for identifying the impacts of infrastructure deficiency on road traffic safety is needed to help governments prioritize strategic investments to increase public safety. During the 2010-2019 period, U.S. pedestrian and cyclist fatalities rose by 44% and 36%, respectively, and previous studies have shown a positive correlation between pedestrian/cyclist crashes and low-income areas. To our knowledge, this study is the first to investigate further the reasons behind the higher probability of pedestrian and cyclist crashes in low-income areas. The proposed hypothesis is that the higher probability of pedestrian and cyclist crashes in low-income areas correlates with higher infrastructure deficiencies …

Analysis Of Benefits Of An Expansion To Udot's Incident Management Program, Logan Stewart Bennett

Theses and Dissertations

In 2018 the Utah Department of Transportation (UDOT) funded a study in which data were collected to evaluate performance measures for UDOT's Incident Management Team (IMT) program. After that study was completed, UDOT received funding to expand the size of its IMT program. Additionally, TransSuite, a data source used by the UDOT Traffic Operations Center to log incident-related data, was reconfigured to provide a higher quantity of performance measure data. This study made use of the new data source, in addition to Computer Aided Dispatch logs provided by the Utah Highway Patrol that were used in the first study, to …

Agent-Based Model Simulation For Police Deployment Decision-Making In Patrol Operations, Yasaman Ghasemi

Industrial, Manufacturing, and Systems Engineering Dissertations - Archive

Police patrolling plays a key role in responding to 911 calls and reducing crimes. The effectiveness of patrol operations heavily depends on the deployment of police officers – e.g., the number of officers assigned to specific policing districts or beats. The complex nature of the policing system – dynamic and stochastic criminal behavior, compounded with limited policing resources, render current (traditional) police operations, which are often managed in a reactive and stationary manner – often makes it very challenging to manage and control. This study develops an agent-based simulation framework to address the dynamically changing environment in police operations and …

Signal Fingerprinting And Machine Learning Framework For Uav Detection And Identification., Olusiji Oloruntobi Medaiyese

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Advancement in technology has led to creative and innovative inventions. One such invention includes unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). UAVs (also known as drones) are now an intrinsic part of our society because their application is becoming ubiquitous in every industry ranging from transportation and logistics to environmental monitoring among others. With the numerous benign applications of UAVs, their emergence has added a new dimension to privacy and security issues. There are little or no strict regulations on the people that can purchase or own a UAV. For this reason, nefarious actors can take advantage of these aircraft to intrude into …

Spectrum Sharing And Interference In Smart Homes, Biswajit Kumar Dash

Theses and Dissertations

Internet of Things networks using Zigbee are very popular in smart homes. However, Zigbee networks are vulnerable to the interference of Wi-Fi networks because they share the same 2.4 GHz Industrial, Scientific, and Medical radio frequency band. Studies have shown that weaker Zigbee signals might be significantly interfered by stronger Wi-Fi signals. This type of interference may cause severe problems when these types of networks coexist in an indoor environment such as in a smart home. In this thesis, the performance of a Zigbee network with and without the presence of a Wi-Fi network has been evaluated in …

Safety In Numbers: Models Of Pedestrian And Bicycle Crash Frequency And Severity At Signalized Intersections In Utah Using Innovative Measure Of Exposure, Ahadul Islam

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Recent trends indicate a dramatic increase in both the number and share of pedestrian and bicyclist injuries and fatalities nationally and in many states. This study aimed at understanding (geometric, traffic, operational, and other) factors associated with pedestrian and bicycle safety and also to assist in the prioritization and selection of countermeasures to improve pedestrian and bicycle safety at signalized intersections. Several negative binomial models were estimated to investigate factors affecting pedestrian and bicycle crash frequency. The models suggested several characteristics of the road network, land use, built environment, and neighborhood sociodemographics were significantly associated with more (or fewer) pedestrian …

Qos Performance Analysis Of Application Layer For Lte C-V2x, Real-Time V2v Communication, And Applications Of Machine Learning-Based Techniques, Ahmed Yahya Awad

Theses and Dissertations

The field of connected vehicles (CV) stands at the confluence of three evolving disciplines – the Internet of Things (IoT), emerging standards for connectivity of vehicles, and AI/machine learning. CV regarded as a true solution to reduce the number of accidents. in this work conducting a protocol performance road test and applying machine learning algorithms have been investigated. we used Universal Software Radio Peripheral (USRP) N210 devices to build ad hoc Vehicles Network based on IEEE 802.11p protocol and create an application layer using python language to build drowsiness detection system which resolve a significant safety issue nowadays. The application …

A Conceptual Framework For Phase-Dependent, Composite Flood Risk Index (Fri) Curves Based On The Relationship Between Temporal Probability Of Flood Occurring (Ph) And Flood Vulnerability Index (Fvi) Along With Maps Of Fvi Within The Amite River Basin Based On The August 2016 Flood., Austin S. Guerin Mr.

LSU Master's Theses

Efforts directed at determining community vulnerability to flooding are limited and only include economic (dollar damages) and public safety impacts and do not consider the phase dependency of the system, i.e., pre-, during- and post-storm, both critical shortcomings for more broadly assessing community risk and developing comprehensive plans and mitigation strategies. This thesis first develops a framework based on a Flood-Vulnerability Index (FVI) approach and then demonstrates its usefulness, at the census tract level of detail, for three parishes in the Greater Baton Rouge, LA area, based on the August 2016 flood. FVI’s indicators are multidimensional and phase dependent: “Pre-Flood” …

New U.S. Gps Policy From A European Perspective, Martin U. Ripple, Alexis Vidal

Online Journal of Space Communication

On December 8, 2004, the President of the United States of America authorized the new U.S. Space-based Positioning, Navigation and Timing Policy. This new policy sets forth a forward-looking framework for the management of GPS and its augmentations. In particular, the new U.S. policy mentions interaction with other satellite navigation systems.

Following the establishment of a U.S.-E.U. framework agreement for cooperation between GPS and Galileo, signed on June 26, 2004, European policy makers and industrialists expected clear statements on cooperation and interoperability issues from the new U.S. GPS policy. Regrettably, the related recommendations hold short of the need for cooperation …

Assessment Of Pluvial Flooding In Syracuse, Ny, Using High-Resolution Topographic Data, Yngrid Pereira Marques

Theses - ALL

Although there have been many advances in regulations to assess flood risk in urban environments, the majority of these investigations to date have focused on fluvial or coastal flooding. However, in urban systems, pluvial flooding continues to be a pressing issue in need of attention. Due to the limited research on pluvial flooding in Syracuse, NY, its population and assets are exposed to the risks imposed by this type of flooding, as their primary metric for delineating flood risk is the traditional riverine flood zones designated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). To address this issue, this research implemented …

Studying Complex Aquifer Systems From Large-Scale Stratigraphy Development To Local Aquifer Storage And Recovery, Hamid Vahdat Aboueshagh

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Hydrostratigraphy model is an essential component of building valid groundwater models. Many challenges are associated with constructing hydrostratigraphy models which include geological complexities such as faults, domes, and angular unconformities. Developing a method with an emphasis on capturing big data to thoroughly inform large-scale models is one of the challenges addressed in the first part of this study. The method is predicated upon discretization of the study domain into tiles based on the geological dip direction and faults. The application of the method in the state of Louisiana with the utilization of more than 114000 well logs demonstrates promising results …

Probability Of Woody Debris Passage At Rock Weirs, Kathryn A. Margetts, B. M. Crookston

International Junior Researcher and Engineer Workshop on Hydraulic Structures

Often, large woody debris (LWD) at hydraulic structures is considered hazardous from a performance and public safety perspective. However, the sustainable management of rivers requires the consideration of ecological impacts of LWD such as cover for aquatics and the natural movement of LWD through a catchment. Therefore, this study explores the interaction of natural (nonuniform) LWD with rock weirs through field observations in the Blacksmith Fork River in Utah, USA and laboratory testing at the Utah Water Research Laboratory. The passage probability of individual LWD at rock weirs is observed and tested in an effort to describe the balance between …

A Half- Yearly E-Newsletter Of The Department Of Computer Science And Engineering, Manipal Institute Of Technology - Jul 2021, Ashalatha Nayak Dr.

Faculty work

No abstract provided.

Mitigating Calcium Oxychloride Damage In Cementitious Paste And Concrete Utilizing Supplementary Cementitious Materials, Casey Jones

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

It is understood among engineers in the United States (U.S.) that improvement is needed throughout the transportation infrastructure. In the 2021 Infrastructure Report Card produced by the American Society of Civil Engineers, the roadways of this nation merit a D. This leaves room for improvement in order to provide durable pavements throughout this nation. Areas with significant winter weather may have exacerbated effects in decreased roadway longevity due to freezing/thawing cycles and the use of chemical deicers to mitigate gelid roadway conditions. Much research focuses on surface scaling and reinforcement corrosion using these materials; however, joint deterioration, due to chemical …

Implications Between Uav And Atm Systems In Commercial Airspace Incorporation, Linda Vee Weiland

Publications

The integration of sUAS in commercial airspace is complicated and faces many challenges to ensure a safe and secure incorporation into the National Airspace System (NAS). This research analyzes the interconnectedness between the air traffic controller and the sUAS through HF implications when sUAS enter the NAS. To mitigate negative consequences in the integration, it examined the human performance of the controllers, the sUAS operators, commercial pilots, and the equipment. This study used a quantitative research approach from both the Software Hardware Environment, Liveware, and Liveware (SHELL), and the Swiss Cheese models (SCM) for analysis of UAS sightings that are …

Towards Intelligent Structural Health Monitoring Of Infrastructure Systems: An Interdisciplinary Study Of Acoustic Emission Monitoring, Numerical Simulation, And Artificial Intelligence, Li Ai

Theses and Dissertations

Some complex infrastructure systems, such as nuclear facilities and bridges, are subject to structural damage due to environmental erosion, material deterioration, and other factors after long periods of use. Stress corrosion cracking (SCC) and alkali-silica reaction (ASR) have been identified as the primary degradation mechanisms for steel and concrete structures in nuclear facilities and bridges. Ensuring the integrity and operational safety of structures during their lifetime is an important task. Nondestructive methods and structural health monitoring can be used to detect damage caused by SCC and ASR instead of conventional visual inspection. Among the nondestructive methods, acoustic emission (AE) is …

Resilience-Driven Post-Disruption Restoration Of Interdependent Critical Infrastructure Systems Under Uncertainty: Modeling, Risk-Averse Optimization, And Solution Approaches, Basem A. Alkhaleel

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Critical infrastructure networks (CINs) are the backbone of modern societies, which depend on their continuous and proper functioning. Such infrastructure networks are subjected to different types of inevitable disruptive events which could affect their performance unpredictably and have direct socioeconomic consequences. Therefore, planning for disruptions to CINs has recently shifted from emphasizing pre-disruption phases of prevention and protection to post-disruption studies investigating the ability of critical infrastructures (CIs) to withstand disruptions and recover timely from them. However, post-disruption restoration planning often faces uncertainties associated with the required repair tasks and the accessibility of the underlying transportation network. Such challenges are …

Rainfall-Runoff Mechanisms And Flood Mitigation In A Coastal Watershed With Numerous Wetlands And Ponds, Homa Jalaeian Taghadomi

Civil & Environmental Engineering Theses & Dissertations

This study analyzed mechanisms of flooding in Blackwater River Watershed, located in coastal Virginia and hydraulically connected with mid-Atlantic Ocean. The analysis was based on the examination and simulation of the rainfall-runoff relationship, and such an analysis is very important for conventional water resource management and dealing with hydrologic extremes (e.g., floods and droughts, as well as ecological and pollution discharges). The rainfall-runoff relationship is a quantitative description of the hydrologic cycle, a dynamic process that can be interactively influenced by various factors, namely climate, topography, soils, land use and land cover, and land management practice.

In the past 60 …

Regulatory Reform: Strengthening Access To Information & Communications Technologies: Guidelines To Facilitate Policy & Regulation For Satellite Services, Global Vsat Forum

Online Journal of Space Communication

This document was prepared by GVF, an association of organisations engaged in the delivery of advanced broadband and narrowband satellite services to consumers, and commercial and government enterprises worldwide.

Lean Six Sigma As An Enabler For Healthcare Operational Excellence In Covid-19, Olivia Mcdermott Dr, Antony Jiju

International Conference on Lean Six Sigma

1. Purpose -This paper aims to present the results of a qualitative research interview study on the utilization and importance of Lean Six Sigma methods in the Healthcare sector in COVID-19 and in pandemics in general.
2. Design/methodology/approach -a qualitative interview approach was utilised by interviewing leading Lean Six Sigma academics and practitioners who are expert in and have experience in Lean Six Sigma.
3. Findings – Lean Six Sigma methods are proven and can be utilised in pandemic situations to improve efficiency and resilience in the healthcare system and readiness for pandemics.
4. Research limitations/implications - One limitation of this research was that …

Adaptive Network Slicing In Fog Ran For Iot With Heterogeneous Latency And Computing Requirements: A Deep Reinforcement Learning Approach, Almuthanna Nassar

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In view of the recent advances in Internet of Things (IoT) devices and the emerging new breed of smart city applications and intelligent vehicular systems driven by artificial intelligence, fog radio access network (F-RAN) has been recently introduced for the next generation wireless communications. The capability of F-RAN has emerged to overcome the latency limitations of cloud-RAN (C-RAN) and assure the quality-of-service (QoS) requirements of the ultra-reliable-low-latency-communication (URLLC) for IoT applications. To this end, fog nodes (FNs) are equipped with computing, signal processing and storage capabilities to extend the inherent operations and services of the cloud to the edge. However, …

Advanced Research And Development Of Face Masks And Respirators Pre And Post The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (Covid-19) Pandemic: A Critical Review, Ebuka A. Ogbuoji, Amr M. Zaky, Isabel C. Escobar

Chemical and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, in 2020, has accelerated the need for personal protective equipment (PPE) masks as one of the methods to reduce and/or eliminate transmission of the coronavirus across communities. Despite the availability of different coronavirus vaccines, it is still recommended by the Center of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), World Health Organization (WHO), and local authorities to apply public safety measures including maintaining social distancing and wearing face masks. This includes individuals who have been fully vaccinated. Remarkable increase in scientific studies, along with manufacturing-related research and development investigations, have been performed in an attempt to …

Flying Free: A Research Overview Of Deep Learning In Drone Navigation Autonomy, Thomas Lee, Susan Mckeever, Jane Courtney

Articles

With the rise of Deep Learning approaches in computer vision applications, significant strides have been made towards vehicular autonomy. Research activity in autonomous drone navigation has increased rapidly in the past five years, and drones are moving fast towards the ultimate goal of near-complete autonomy. However, while much work in the area focuses on specific tasks in drone navigation, the contribution to the overall goal of autonomy is often not assessed, and a comprehensive overview is needed. In this work, a taxonomy of drone navigation autonomy is established by mapping the definitions of vehicular autonomy levels, as defined by the …

The Impact Of Vision Zero Initiatives On Road User Safety In New York City, Alex C. Phares, Md Amdad Hossen, Kakan Dey

Mountaineer Undergraduate Research Review

Despite modern vehicles, improved transportation infrastructure, and advanced traffic signals, more than 36,000 Americans die from traffic crashes every year1. With the goal of reducing traffic fatalities to zero, New York City (NYC) adopted Vision Zero (VZ) initiatives in 2014 and has deployed 23 categories of countermeasures, ranging from road improvements to training and community outreach programs2. In this research, trend analysis and hypothesis tests were done on NYC traffic fatality data for three main categories of roadway users: motorists, cyclists, and pedestrians, to evaluate the success of the VZ initiatives. It was found that annual fatalities of both motorist …

Strengthening Access To Communications Policy & Regulatory Guidelines For Satellite Services, David Hartshorn

Online Journal of Space Communication

This work is designed to help bridge the "Regulatory Divide" that continues to thwart end users' efforts to obtain affordable communications. From tele-medicine to distance learning to rural telecenters to disaster recovery to enterprise networks, the satellite industry is offering not only telecommunications solutions for the "have nots", but also the regulatory tools to enable the public sector to fulfill their policy objectives.

Current Development: The Digital Divide - An Appalachian Ohio Perspective, John C. Hoag

Online Journal of Space Communication

The objective of this paper is to assess the role of satellite communication with respect to the Digital Divide in the United States. A secondary objective is to review the capabilities, capacity, and availability of current solutions in light of potential applications in other markets and situations.

This paper contains a review of the Digital Divide in general with additional attention to local Ohio developments and the use of satellite broadband Internet service. We then discuss different satellite-based solutions for residential and commercial Internet access.

Analysis Of Truck Weight Limit Regulations, P. Gayle Marks, Jon Wilcoxson, Bryan Gibson, Chris Van Dyke, Jennifer Walton, Doug Kreis

Kentucky Transportation Center Research Report

In the United States vehicle weight limits are set by laws and regulations enacted at the state and federal levels. On interstates the maximum allowable gross vehicle weight is 80,000 lbs. States use different rules for permitting overdimensional and overweight (OD/OW) vehicles, and most have carve outs that exempt specific commodities from standard weight limits. This results in a complex legal and regulatory landscape that enforcement personnel can find difficult to negotiate. This report discusses strategies that can be adopted in the state of Kentucky to improve enforcement and mitigate infrastructure damage caused by OD/OW loads. After presenting a thorough …

Towards Enabling Unmanned Aerial Vehicles As A Service For Heterogeneous Applications, Farid Nait-Abdesselam, Ahmad Alsharoa, Mohamed Y. Selim, Daji Qiao, Ahmed E. Kamal

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The increasing use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in various commercial applications, such as precision agriculture and aerial remote sensing, is fast contributing to a significant growth in the UAV market. Also, it is crucial to provide continuous coverage after failures of wireless network components or additional bandwidth in high traffic situations. By introducing the concept of UAVs as a service (UaaS), we propose a novel framework, dubbed D3S, consisting of four phases: Demand, decision, deployment, and service. The main objective of this framework is to provide a realistic and streamlined approach to support the implementation of the UaaS paradigm. …

A Game-Theoretic Framework To Regulate Freeriding In Inter-Provider Spectrum Sharing, Mostafizur Rahman, Murat Yuksel, Thomas Quint

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Primary-secondary spectrum sharing is limited in terms of design space, and may not be sufficient to meet the ever-increasing demand of connectivity and high signal quality. The next step to increase spectrum sharing efficiency is to design markets where sharing takes place among primary providers rather than leaving it to the limited case where the primary licensee is idle. Attaining contractual spectrum sharing among primary providers, a.k.a. co-primary or inter-provider sharing, involves additional costs for the users, e.g., roaming fee. Co-primary spectrum sharing without additional charge to the users poses two major challenges: a) regulatory approaches must be introduced to …