Digital Commons Network^™

The Impact Of Girl Scout Engineering Experiences On The Identity Development Of Middle Schoolers, Abigail M. Clark, Rachel Kajfez

Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER)

Despite years of recruitment efforts, women remain significantly underrepresented throughout engineering. While research into precollege engineering education has expanded, it has primarily focused on formal learning settings, even though students spend significantly more time outside of the classroom. The COVID-19 pandemic changed everything, including the time spent outside of the classroom in informal environments. Specifically, programs had to evolve to provide online content and at-home activities. Some programs even shut down completely. Within this context, our study sought to understand the impact of one informal engineering learning experience, a Girl Scout engineering badge, which also shifted online due to the …

Amazon Web Services, The Lacanian Unconscious, And Digital Life, Marshall N. Armintor

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

In late 2011, ex-Amazon developer Steve Yegge’s rant about his former company described Amazon’s rapid transformation from an online bookstore to a web-services entity with a ruthlessly unified platform, all guided by the idea that the company’s effort to streamline its internal efficiency could be monetized, and the resultant software products sold through Amazon Web Services. The media consumerism that fed Amazon’s early years funded a surveilling behemoth, one that everyone feared Microsoft would become. As such, AWS has become a manifestation of the internet’s Lacanian unconscious (even providing the services and hosting for Reddit), structured around the optimization of …

Purloined Significance: How Recidivism Algorithms Capture, Transform, And Automate Our Intersubjective Unconscious As Data, Macy Mcdonald

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

Ever since ProPublica published their groundbreaking analysis of Northpointe’s Correctional Offender Management Profiling for Alternative Sanctions Core Risk and Needs Assessment software (COMPAS) in 2016, this web-based decision support system (DSS) has spawned a wide range of critiques and charges of racial bias. COMPAS provides a full suite of decision support applications to the US prison-industrial complex, including algorithmically derived recidivism predictions that increasingly guide parole decisions. The larger conversation surrounding COMPAS raises the question of how we analyze powerful, and yet opaque, data assemblages. In this article, I model an allegorical analysis of data assemblages. I argue the skills …

“Love Thy Social Media!”: Hysteria And The Interpassive Subject, Jack Black

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

According to the 2020 docudrama, The Social Dilemma, our very addiction to “social media” has, today, become encapsulated in the tensions between its facilitation as a mode of interpersonal communication and as an insidious conduit for machine learning, surveillance capitalism and manipulation. Amidst a variety of interviewees – many of whom are former employees of social media companies – the documentary finishes on a unanimous conclusion: something must change. By using the docudrama as a pertinent example of our “social media malaise,” and while remaining aware of the problems and unethical practices encompassing international digital/social media companies, this paper …

Stalking Oneself: The Fantasmatic Intersubjectivity Of Google, Alois Sieben

CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture

This essay reads fictional and non-fictional accounts of digital stalking as signals of larger changes in intersubjectivity itself caused by Google. Most social media platforms trap users in imaginary relations, in which the other is encountered as a complete profile, but Google allows the searcher to locate an absence in the other in the form of a missing search result. As will be shown in an analysis of two contemporary novels whose first-person narrations center around Google-stalking, Caroline Kepnes’s You (2014) and Olivia Sudjic’s Sympathy (2017), Google’s mode of intersubjectivity amounts to an endless tunnel with no light at its …

A New Mechanism For Glymphatic Flow Of Interstitial Fluid In Branched Perivascular Spaces Of The Brain, Charles F. Babbs

Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering Faculty Working Papers

Objective. To explore the biophysics of interstitial tissue fluid flow in the brain, based upon the anatomy and mechanics of the perivascular spaces, in order to better understand how glymphatic flow happens. Methods. The dynamics of fluid flow at cardiac frequencies are investigated in rapidly computable, branched, geometric models of brain tissue at multiple scales. The models are supplied by intermingled trees of penetrating arteries and veins. They include pulsatile changes in intracranial pressure and intravascular pressure, elastic expansion of brain tissue, and nonlinear changes in resistance to flow of cerebrospinal fluid along the axis of the Virchow-Robin space. Resulting …

Serving The Underserved Amid Covid-19: The Case Of A Virtual, Culturally Responsive Summer Engineering Camp, Tonisha B. Lane, Eugenia Vomvoridi-Ivanovic, Leia K. Cain, Selene Willis, Salam Ahmad, Jonathan Gaines

Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER)

The societal disruptions due to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic are well noted, especially in the context of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education. Absent a concerted effort to sustain hands-on learning opportunities in STEM amid the crisis, the consequences of COVID-19 may exacerbate existing inequities and racial disparities among youth of color further stratifying the STEM fields. In the current study, we applied a mixed-method descriptive case study design, using online learning theory and culturally responsive pedagogy as our conceptual framework, to describe how participants experienced this camp, held online due to disruptions of COVID-19, in the southeastern …

Demonstrating Non-Isothermal Vacuum Membrane Air Dehumidification For Efficient Next-Generation Air Conditioning, Andrew J. Fix, Shivam Gupta, James E. Braun, David M. Warsinger

School of Mechanical Engineering Faculty Publications

Vacuum membrane air dehumidification has gained significant interest in recent years as a highly efficient means of air dehumidification. Prior theoretical modeling work by the authors 1 introduced the Active Membrane Energy Exchanger (AMX) concept, which combines active heat exchange and vacuum membrane dehumidification into one non-isothermal system, and found that it could outperform other air conditioning technologies under many conditions. However, no experimental literature exists on combining active heat exchangers and vacuum membrane dehumidification. The goal of the present study is to evaluate the dehumidification (mass transfer) performance of the AMX concept relative to isothermal membrane dehumidification through three …

Exploring Barriers To The Adoption Of Internet Of Things-Based Precision Agriculture Practices, Gaganpreet Singh Hundal, Chad Laux, Dennis R. Buckmaster, Mathias J. Sutton, Michael Langemeier

Faculty Publications

The production of row crops in the Midwestern (Indiana) region of the US has been facing environmental and economic sustainability issues. There has been an increase in trend for the application of fertilizers (nitrogen & phosphorus), farm machinery fuel costs and decreasing labor productivity leading to non-optimized usage of farm inputs. Literature describes how sustainable practices such as profitability (return on investments), operational cost reduction, hazardous waste reduction, delivery performance and overall productivity might be adopted in the context of precision agriculture technologies (variable rate irrigation, variable rate fertilization, cloud-based analytics, and telematics for farm machinery navigation). The literature review …

Adapting A Narrative Curriculum To A Remote Format In The Context Of Socially Distanced Middle School Education Resulting From Covid-19, Jeremiah Pina, Rebecca Mazur, Glenn Ellis, Al Rudnitsky, Beth Mcginnis-Cavanaugh, Sonia Ellis, Isabel Huff, Crystal Ford

Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER)

This paper describes the development of two versions of an NGSS-aligned principles of engineering design unit for use in middle schools. By employing a narrative framework that can help students to connect more deeply with the human contexts and consequences of the engineering design process, our goal was to enhance students’ cognitive and emotional engagement in the learning of engineering design concepts. We first detail the design of an initial version of the unit, titled The Survivorama, which used narrative to enrich a primarily traditional, in-person teaching approach. We then describe the adapted version of the unit, titled the Molasses …

Birs Course: Rna Vaccine Manufacture And Assessment Of Regulatory Documents For Rna Vaccines, Stephen R. Byrn, Nathaniel Milton, Kari L. Clase

BIRS Technical Report Papers

This paper is in three segments: (A) Segment on Vaccine Manufacture; (B) Segment on Ready to Use (RTU) Fluid Path for Compounded Sterile Preparations, mRNA Vaccines, and Phage Therapy, (C) Segment on Competency Framework for Addressing Regulatory Review These segments can be used separately or in combination. Additionally, they can be presented in any order. The time devoted to each segment depends on the depth of the course coverage. These segments are interrelated and describe how to make vaccines, how to manufacture vaccines with a point-of-care system built from ready-to-use parts; and how to regulate vaccines. This is a timely …

Determining Optimal Traffic Opening Time Through Concrete Strength Monitoring: Wireless Sensing, Zhihao Kong, Na Lu

JTRP Technical Reports

Construction and concrete production are time-sensitive and fast-paced; as such, it is crucial to monitor the in-place strength development of concrete structures in real-time. Existing concrete strength testing methods, such as the traditional hydraulic compression method specified by ASTM C 39 and the maturity method specified by ASTM C 1074, are labor-intensive, time consuming, and difficult to implement in the field. INDOT’s previous research (SPR-4210) on the electromechanical impedance (EMI) technique has established its feasibility for monitoring in-situ concrete strength to determine the optimal traffic opening time. However, limitations of the data acquisition and communication systems have significantly hindered the …

Guidelines For Evaluating Safety Using Traffic Encounters: Proactive Crash Estimation On Roadways With Conventional And Autonomous Vehicle Scenarios, Andrew P. Tarko, Mario A. Romero, Vamsi Krishna Bandaru, Xueqian Shi

JTRP Technical Reports

With the expected arrival of autonomous vehicles, and the ever-increasing levels of automation in today’s human driven vehicles, road safety is changing at a rapid pace. This project aimed to address the need for an efficient and rapid method of safety evaluation and countermeasure identification via traffic encounters, specifically traffic conflicts that are considered useful surrogates of crashes. Recent research-delivered methods for estimating crash frequencies based on these events were observed in the field. In this project we developed a method for observing traffic encounters with two LiDAR-based traffic monitoring units, called TScan, which were recently developed in JTRP-funded projects …

Connected Vehicle-Centric Dashboards For Tmc Of The Future, Rahul Suryakant Sakhare, Jairaj Desai, Wyatt Woker, Howell Li, Jijo K. Mathew, Justin Mahlberg, Enrique D. Saldivar-Carranza, Deborah Horton, Darcy M. Bullock

JTRP Technical Reports

The adoption of dashboards and tools into Traffic Management Centers (TMC) has been growing with advancements in connected vehicle (CV) data. These tools are now being utilized—not only for analyzing work zones, severe crashes, winter operations, and traffic signals—but also to provide measures for characterizing overall system mobility, resiliency, and after-action assessments. Previous studies have extended the concepts to include the enhanced trajectory-based CV data into dashboards that aid agencies in assessing and managing roadways. This study presents the extension of these tools that further improve the value and insights provided. It also highlights the evolution of CV data in …

Approach To Problem Solving And Use Of Intuition By Engineering Technology Students, Meher Taleyarkhan, Anne M. Lucietto, Natalie L. F. Hobson, Therese M. Azevedo

School of Engineering Technology Faculty Publications

Engineering technology students often forgo a methodical approach of solving or answering questions on assignments or exams in favor of an intuition-based approach, emphasizing educated guessing (Broberg et al., 2008). Faculty observations have noted these student solutions often provide explanations, usually sans calculations, to support answers the students believe to be reasonable when in reality deviated from the correct answer. An extensive study was developed to assess several distinctions between student intuition and use of cognition in problem solving, as related to a generalized student population. The study was comprised of a survey and interview. The survey utilized two instruments, …

Assessment Of Pipe Fill Heights, Luz María Agudelo Urrego, Chatuphat Savigamin, Devansh Gandhi, Ghadir Haikal, Antonio Bobet

JTRP Technical Reports

The design of buried pipes, in terms of the allowable minimum and maximum cover heights, requires the use of both geotechnical and structural design procedures. The geotechnical procedure focuses on estimating the load on the pipe and the compressibility of the foundation soil. The focus of the structural design is choosing the correct cross-section details of the pipe under consideration. The uncertainties of the input parameters and installation procedures are significant. Because of that, the Load Resistance Factor Design (LRFD) method is considered to be suitable for the design of buried pipes. Furthermore, the interaction between the pipe structure and …

Gis-Based Geotechnical Database For Collaborative Gis, Rameez Ali Raja, Vidushi Toshniwal, Rodrigo Salgado

JTRP Technical Reports

INDOT spends at least 8 million dollars annually on geotechnical site investigations, not including the amounts spent by contractors. The laborious and costly job of data collection in geotechnical practice requires the efficient storing and organizing of this valuable data to develop correlations and trends in spatially varying geotechnical data. INDOT currently uses gINT software for managing geotechnical data and ArcGIS for storing boring logs and geotechnical reports. The INDOT geotechnical office is pursuing means to improve the efficiency of their operations by developing a GIS-based geotechnical database for secure storage, easy retrieval, and flexible sharing of geotechnical data to …

Speed Management On Freeways In Transition Zones Between Rural And Urban Conditions, Raul A. Pineda-Mendez, Xueqian Shi, Andrew P. Tarko, Mario A. Romero

JTRP Technical Reports

Drivers’ noncompliance with the posted speed limit reductions on rural-to-urban freeway transition zones is a recurrent problem in Indiana and other states. Speed-reduction treatments, such as pavement markings and active signing, aim to solve this issue. Optical speed bars, longitudinal speed reduction markings, and speed feedback signs were identified as the most promising speed-reduction treatments for experimental implementation in Indiana. Probe-vehicle-based speed data for 1 year was acquired on selected freeway segments to measure the speed effect. A set of fixed-effects linear regression models were used to estimate the effect of speed-reduction treatments on three key speed behavior characteristics—average speed, …

Applied Ergonomics, Xingzhou Guo, Yunfeng Chen, Jiansong Zhang

JTRP Technical Reports

The ergonomic injuries and solutions have been extensively studied in the construction industry; however, the prevalence of work-related injuries, risky activities, and effective solutions in the transportation industry are not understood. This study aims to explore the prevalence of work-related injuries, risky activities, and potentially ergonomic solutions among transportation workers. The approach to this study included exploration of worker type, injury types, and activities of top concern through historical injury data and an online survey, and proposal and evaluation of ergonomic solutions through onsite observations and field experiments. Results from this study found that back injuries were the most common …

Determining Asphalt Mixture Properties Using Imaging Techniques, Mohammad Ali Notani, Behnam Jahangiri, Reyhaneh Rahbar-Rastegar, John E. Haddock

JTRP Technical Reports

This study introduces imaging technology to determine the bulk specific gravity (G_mb) of compacted asphalt mixture specimens. Using an advanced three-dimensional scanner, a fast, accurate technique for determining compacted asphalt mixture specimen G_mb was developed. The feasibility of this technique was evaluated by testing a collection of asphalt mixtures, including dense-graded and stone mastic asphalt mixtures. The results were compared with those obtained using the currently-specified G_mb measurement methods of AASHTO T166 and CoreLok. The proposed scanning technique was also used for both laboratory-prepared and field-cored specimens to determine its reliability and reproducibility. The study results …

Effectiveness Of Contrast Markings On Roadways And Orange Markings In Work Zones, Michael Williamson, Ping Lin

JTRP Technical Reports

Lane departure crashes are a leading cause of fatalities and injury crashes on roadways. To solve this problem, innovative marking in the form of contrasted white on concrete sections and orange marking in work zones were evaluated for their safety benefits. A highway safety manual approach was taken to evaluate the crash reduction benefits from each marking design. Orange marking in work zones were also evaluated for their speed, lane keeping, and lane choice effects. A survey of drivers was conducted on orange markings to ascertain public opinion, the survey indicated the potential for wide public acceptance of the new …

Indot Research Program Benefit Cost Analysis—Return On Investment For Projects Completed In Fy 2022, Bob Mccullouch

JTRP Technical Reports

To demonstrate the value of research and its implementation, the Governor’s Office initially requested an annual financial analysis of the INDOT Research Program to determine the return on the research investment (ROI). The INDOT Research & Development (R&D) has continued to publish an annual Return on Investment report. The current financial analysis is for research projects that completed in FY 2022. Analyses on previous year’s projects is necessary primarily due to the time it takes some project outcomes to be implemented and verifiable data generated, extending into the following year. Therefore, the FY 2023 analysis is completed research projects in …

Investigating Consistency Among Bridge Inspectors Using Simulated Virtual Reality Testbed, Mohammad Jahanshahi, Shirley J. Dyke, Luis David Fernandez Vasquez, Nikkhil Vijaya Sankar, Yu-Ting Huang

JTRP Technical Reports

The current condition of US infrastructure requires a data-driven, risk-based approach to asset management. In the case of bridges, inspectors in every state visit these structures and collect data, and based on the information they report, state departments evaluate bridge conditions, predict deterioration, and make repair and retrofit decisions. However, the capacity of inspectors for defect detection might vary due to several factors, such as the inspectors’ experience or eyesight, which results in differences when reporting their results. Through the development of a virtual reality (VR)-based testbed, the variability among inspectors in examination and documentation practices in steel and concrete …

Rim-To-Rim Wearables At The Canyon For Health (R2r Watch): Physiological, Cognitive, And Biological Markers Of Performance Decline In An Extreme Environment, Kristin Divis, Robert Abbott, Cathy Branda, Glory Emmanuel-Aviña, Jon Femling, J. Gabriel Huerta, Lucie Jelinková, J. Kyle Jennings, Emily A. Pearce, Daniel Ries, Danielle Sanchez, Austin Silva

Journal of Human Performance in Extreme Environments

Success in extreme environments comes with a cost of subtle performance decrements that if not mitigated properly can lead to lifethreatening consequences. Identification and prediction of performance decline could alleviate deleterious consequences and enhance success in challenging and high-risk operations. The Rim-to-Rim Wearables at the Canyon for Health (R2R WATCH) project was designed to examine the cognitive, physiological, and biological markers of performance decline in the extreme environment of the Grand Canyon Rim-to-Rim (R2R) hike. The study utilized commercial off-the-shelf cognitive and physiological monitoring techniques, along with subjective self-assessments and hematologic measurements to determine subject performance and changes across the …

The Study Of Children With Developmental Language Disorder Beyond English: A Tutorial, Laurence B. Leonard, Mariel L. Schroeder

Purdue Center for Early Learning Faculty and Staff Publications

The main goal of this tutorial is to promote the study of children with developmental language disorder (DLD) across different languages of the world. The cumulative effect of these efforts is likely to be a set of more compelling and comprehensive theories of language learning difficulties and, possibly, of language acquisition in general. Benefits to children and local societies are also likely to accrue. After presenting some of the initial considerations involved in the cross-linguistic study of children with language disorders, we provide examples of the types of questions that might be asked. The examples are informed by our own …

Sources Of Misinterpretation In The Input And Their Implications For Language Intervention With English-Speaking Children, Laurence B. Leonard, Patricia Deevy, Shelley L. Bredin-Oja, Mariel L. Schroeder

Purdue Center for Early Learning Faculty and Staff Publications

Purpose: In English and related languages, many preschool-age children with developmental language disorder (DLD) have difficulties using tense and agreement consistently. In this review article, we discuss two potential input-related sources of this difficulty and offer several possible strategies aimed at circumventing input obstacles. Method: We review a series of studies from English, supplemented by evidence from computational modeling and studies of other languages. Collectively, the studies show that instances of failures to express tense and agreement in DLD resemble portions of larger sentences in everyday input in which tense and agreement marking is appropriately absent. Furthermore, experimental studies show …

Thrown Into The World, Attached To Love: On The Forms Of World-Sharing And Mourning In Heidegger, Ahmet Aktas

Department of Philosophy Student Publications

How can we understand the phenomena of loss and mourning in the Heideggerian framework? There is no established interpretation of Heidegger that gives an elaborate account of the phenomena of loss and mourning, let alone gauges its importance for our understanding and assessment of authentic existence in Heidegger. This paper attempts to do both. First, I give a detailed exposition of Heidegger’s analysis of the phenomena of mourning and loss and show that Heidegger’s analysis of mourning in his early and late work is strikingly in line with his collectivist understanding of Being-with. This demonstrates, contrary to what some of …

Impact Of Lubricant In The Performance Of Variable Speed Heat Pumps Working With R290, Rubén Ossorio, Emilio Navarro-Peris, Riley Barta

School of Mechanical Engineering Faculty Publications

Modulating the speed of the compressors and adapting its capacity to the required load has led to a decrease in the annual energy consumption in many applications. However, in the compressor, having adequate lubrication at low speeds usually implies discharging too much lubricant at higher speeds. Although necessary for compressor operation, lubricating oil acts as a contaminant in the rest of the system. Consequently, manufacturers have to consider the oil circulation rate (OCR), as it limits the speed range of the compressor. In a previous study, a compressor was tested over its speed range (30 – 110 Hz), working with …

Improving Developers' Understanding Of Regex Denial Of Service Tools Through Anti-Patterns And Fix Strategies, Sk Adnan Hassan, Zainab Aamir, Dongyoon Lee, James C. Davis, Francisco Servant

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Regular expressions are used for diverse purposes, including input validation and firewalls. Unfortunately, they can also lead to a security vulnerability called ReDoS (Regular Expression Denial of Service), caused by a super-linear worst-case execution time during regex matching. Due to the severity and prevalence of ReDoS, past work proposed automatic tools to detect and fix regexes. Although these tools were evaluated in automatic experiments, their usability has not yet been studied; usability has not been a focus of prior work. Our insight is that the usability of existing tools to detect and fix regexes will improve if we complement them …

An Empirical Study Of Pre-Trained Model Reuse In The Hugging Face Deep Learning Model Registry, Wenxin Jiang, Nicholas Synovic, Matt Hyatt, Taylor R. Schorlemmer, Rohan Sethi, Yung-Hsiang Lu, George K. Thiruvathukal, James C. Davis

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) are being adopted as components in software systems. Creating and specializing DNNs from scratch has grown increasingly difficult as state-of-the-art architectures grow more complex. Following the path of traditional software engineering, machine learning engineers have begun to reuse large-scale pre-trained models (PTMs) and fine-tune these models for downstream tasks. Prior works have studied reuse practices for traditional software packages to guide software engineers towards better package maintenance and dependency management. We lack a similar foundation of knowledge to guide behaviors in pre-trained model ecosystems.

In this work, we present the first empirical investigation of PTM reuse. …