Digital Commons Network^™

A Fault-Tolerant P-Q Decoupled Control Scheme For Static Synchronous Series Compensator, Wei Qiao, Ganesh K. Venayagamoorthy, Ronald G. Harley

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Control of nonlinear devices in power systems relies on the availability and the quality of sensor measurements. Measurements can be corrupted or interrupted due to sensor failure, broken or bad connections, bad communication, or malfunction of some hardware or software (referred to as missing sensor measurements in this paper). This paper proposes a fault-tolerant control scheme (FTCS) for a static synchronous series compensator (SSSC). This FTCS consists of a sensor evaluation and (missing sensor) restoration scheme (SERS) cascaded with a P-Q decoupled control scheme (PQDC). It is able to provide effective control to the SSSC when single or multiple crucial …

Ac/Dc Power Systems With Applications In Future Human Habitat On Lunar And Mars Bases, Badrul H. Chowdhury, Sabbir A. Hossain, James T. Lawrence, Sushant Barave

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

As NASA readies itself for new space exploration initiatives starting with a human return to the Moon by the year 2020 eventually leading to human exploration of Mars, the requirements for a safe, efficient and comprehensive power system to support the exploration missions as well human habitat will become important issues to consider. Certain issues dealing with electric power generation and distribution on board Mars-bound vehicles and those on Lunar and Martian surfaces are described. The requirements for lightweight power generation dictates the use of a high frequency ac machine. Preliminary results of investigating the design of a permanent magnet …

Adaptive Distributed Fair Scheduling And Its Implementation In Wireless Sensor Networks, Maciej Jan Zawodniok, Jagannathan Sarangapani, Steve Eugene Watkins, James W. Fonda

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

A novel adaptive and distributed fair scheduling (ADFS) scheme for wireless sensor networks is shown through hardware implementation. In contrast to simulation, hardware evaluation provides valuable feedback to protocol and hardware development process. The proposed protocol focuses on quality-of-service (QoS) issues to address flow prioritization. Thus, when nodes access a shared channel, the proposed ADFS allocates the channel bandwidth proportionally to the weight, or priority, of the packet flows. Moreover, ADFS allows for dynamic allocation of network resources with little added overhead. Weights are initially assigned using user specified QoS criteria. These weights are subsequently updated as a function of …

Newfound Religion: Mothers, God, And Infanticide, Susan Ayres

Faculty Scholarship

This essay focuses on cultural constructions of infanticide and psychosis, especially cases in which the mother heard delusional commands to kill her children. Part I examines the background of the Yates, Laney, and Diaz cases. Part II explores whether these mothers can be seen paradoxically as feminist subjects of empowerment rather than as victims. This essay argues that psychotic mothers have been disempowered and silenced, so their acts cannot be seen as subversive feminist gestures. Part III, however, arguest that the legal trials of Laney and Diaz demonstrate a possible subversion through trial strategy. These two trials more fully told …

Hardrock Homesteads: Free Access And The General Mining Law Of 1872, Andrew P. Morriss, Roger E. Meiners, Andrew Dorchak

Faculty Scholarship

Most discussions of the US General Mining Law of 1872 begin with the premise that the statute is an outdated relic of 19th-century attitudes towards resources and should be replaced with a modern system of royalties, permits and concessions. In contrast, this article argues that the statute provides institutional mechanisms that resolve incentive problems created by government ownership of mineral resources. Instead of calling for radical change in US mining laws, the authors hold up the free access principle of the General Mining Law of 1872 as a model for privatisation of assets whose value is unknown.

Disinfection Of Swine Wastewater Using Chlorine, Ultraviolet Light And Ozone, John J. Macauley, Zhimin Qiang, Rao Y. Surampalli, Melanie R. Mormile, Craig D. Adams

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Veterinary antibiotics are widely used at concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) to prevent disease and promote growth of livestock. However, the majority of antibiotics are excreted from animals in urine, feces, and manure. Consequently, the lagoons used to store these wastes can act as reservoirs of antibiotics and antibiotic-resistant bacteria. There is currently no regulation or control of these systems to prevent the spread of these bacteria and their genes for antibiotic resistance into other environments. This study was conducted to determine the disinfection potential of chlorine, ultraviolet light and ozone against swine lagoon bacteria. Results indicate that a chlorine …

Hybrid Committee Classifier For A Computerized Colonic Polyp Detection System, Jiang Li, Jianhua Yao, Nicholas Petrick, Ronald M. Summers, Amy K. Hara, Joseph M. Reinhardt (Ed.), Josien P.W. Pluim (Ed.)

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

We present a hybrid committee classifier for computer-aided detection (CAD) of colonic polyps in CT colonography (CTC). The classifier involved an ensemble of support vector machines (SVM) and neural networks (NN) for classification, a progressive search algorithm for selecting a set of features used by the SVMs and a floating search algorithm for selecting features used by the NNs. A total of 102 quantitative features were calculated for each polyp candidate found by a prototype CAD system. 3 features were selected for each of 7 SVM classifiers which were then combined to form a committee of SVMs classifier. Similarly, features …

Decentralized Power Control With Implementation For Rfid Networks, Kainan Cha, Anil Ramachandran, David Pommerenke, Jagannathan Sarangapani

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In radio frequency identification (RFID) systems, the detection range and read rates will suffer from interference among high power reading devices. This problem grows severely and degrades system performance in dense RFID networks. In this paper, we investigate a suite of feasible power control schemes to ensure overall coverage area of the system while maintaining a desired read rate. The power control scheme and MAC protocol dynamically adjusts the RFID reader power output in response to the interference level seen locally during tag reading for an acceptable signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). We present novel distributed adaptive power control (DAPC) and probabilistic …

Development And Implementation Of Optimized Energy-Delay Sub-Network Routing Protocol For Wireless Sensor Networks, Maciej Jan Zawodniok, Jagannathan Sarangapani, Steve Eugene Watkins, James W. Fonda

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The development and implementation of the optimized energy-delay sub-network routing (OEDSR) protocol for wireless sensor networks (WSN) is presented. This ondemand routing protocol minimizes a novel link cost factor which is defined using available energy, end-to-end (E2E) delay and distance from a node to the base station (BS), along with clustering, to effectively route information to the BS. Initially, the nodes are either in idle or sleep mode, but once an event is detected, the nodes near the event become active and start forming sub-networks. Formation of the inactive network into a sub-network saves energy because only a portion of …

Distributed Power Control For Cellular Networks In The Presence Of Channel Uncertainties, Maciej Jan Zawodniok, Q. Shang, Jagannathan Sarangapani

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In this paper, a novel distributed power control (DPC) scheme for cellular network in the presence of radio channel uncertainties such as path loss, shadowing, and Rayleigh fading is presented. Since these uncertainties can attenuate the received signal strength and can cause variations in the received Signal-to-Interference ratio (SIR), a new DPC scheme, which can estimate the slowly varying channel uncertainty, is proposed so that a target SIR at the receiver can be maintained. Further, the standard assumption of a constant interference during a link's power update used in other works in the literature is relaxed. A CDMA-based cellular network …

Rf-Generated Ambient-Afterglow Plasma, Shariff Shakir, Bijan Pashaie, Shirshak K. Dhali

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Atmospheric pressure plasmas have gained importance due to their potential application in polymer surface treatment, surface cleaning of metals, thin film deposition, and destruction of biological hazards. In this paper a radio-frequency driven atmospheric pressure afterglow plasma source in argon and helium is discussed. The light intensity measurement shows that the radio-frequency discharge is continuous in time unlike the intermittent nature of a low frequency dielectric-barrier discharge. The discharge, under ambient conditions, can be generated in argon, helium, and nitrogen. Spectroscopic measurements show that metastables are capable of producing oxygen atoms and other excited species. The argon afterglow, in particular, …

The Effects Of Cyber Courses On Southside Virginia Community College Student's Grade Point Averages, Kelley A. Barnes

OTS Master's Level Projects & Papers

To guide this problem, the following research hypothesis was established: 1. There will be no significant difference in students' grade point averages at Southside Virginia Community College when they are enrolled in classroom or cyber courses.

The Relationship Between Dress And Socio-Economics, Tiffany A. Machado

OTS Master's Level Projects & Papers

The objectives of this study were established to guide an answer to this problem: 1. Identify the socio-economic status of students that attend Old Dominion University; 2.Measure the opinion of Old Dominion University's students toward their selection of attire; 3. Project the relationship between socio-economic status and favored dress.

The Effectiveness Of Hands-On Activities Compared To Paper And Pencil Activities When Teaching Reading To First Through Fifth Grade Students, Nigel Daniels

OTS Master's Level Projects & Papers

To answer this problem the following hypothesis was established: There will be a difference in students' achievement levels in elementary reading when determining which is more effective teaching style, using hands-on activities to teach reading or using paper and pencil work to teach reading. The hands-on activity will be the more effective method and the students will prove this by increases in their progress levels.

A Comparative Study Of The Effectiveness Of Distance Learning In Opticianry Education, Kristi Ostrom

OTS Master's Level Projects & Papers

To guide this study, the following hypothesis was established: 1. Within the members of the National Federation of Opticianry Schools that offer associate degree distance education programs via the internet for opticianry, there will be no difference in the number of students who will successfully complete their state licensure examinations.

Independent Practice For Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists In The Rural Setting, Amber L. Phillips

Theses and Dissertations

Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists (CRNAs) are competent in delivering cost-effective, quality anesthesia care. Therefore, rural communities rely on CRNAs to provide anesthesia care in their facilities. With the shortage of CRNAs and anesthesiologists recruiting anesthesia providers to the rural communities has become a major issue. Without anesthesia services many rural facilities are unable to provide their community members with procedures that require anesthesia monitoring.

Rural communities, unlike urban, are unable to recruit CRNAs using financial incentives. This project will provide CRNAs information needed to practice independently in the rural setting. The sole anesthesia providers in many rural medical facilities are …

Nutritional Quality Of Lunches At A Seventh-Day Adventist School, M. Justine Markert

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine if what the 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade children (n=36) at Central Valley Christian Academy (CVCA) were eating for lunch followed the beliefs of the Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) church and if lunches brought from home (LFH) provided more nutritional quality than combination lunches.

This study showed that LFH (n=26) provided more overall nutrients for the students when compared with school-provided entrée lunches (n=1) and combination lunches (n=9). When comparing LFH with combination lunches, LFH met more of the nutritional requirements based on the Recommended Dietary Intake (RDI) and the Dietary Guidelines for …

Beliefs About Parenting And How It Affects A Child's Education, Korin Crandall Quinn

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

The researcher studied the cultural trends of a group of at-risk mothers who reside within Kent County, the majority of whom live in Grand Rapids, Michigan. The null hypothesis states: Environmental and cultural beliefs do not affect generational parenting beliefs or risk factors within the Kent County and Grand Rapids area. Cultural factors and four areas of the mothers’ lives were studied: (a) number of parents within the household, (b) parental levels of education, (c) socioeconomic status, and (d) occurrence ratio of low birth weight.

Mothers (n=37) responded to questionnaires; 24 were interviewed in person; 13 completed questionnaire forms on …

Surface Analysis Of A Black Coating From Little Lost River, Reshmi Perumplavil

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

A black coating of unknown origin obscures the pictographs in Little Lost River Cave, Idaho. We utilized x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) to characterize the outermost surface of the black coating to understand how it was formed. Carbon and oxygen predominated in the XP spectra, whereas nitrogen was detected at varying levels in different samples. High-resolution carbon 1s XP spectra showed that carbon was present in at least three different forms: hydrocarbon C, carbonyl C, and carbonate C/ amide C. The N 1s peak was observed at ~399-400 eV binding energy, which is usually attributed to aromatic or amide N. The …

Religious Orientation And Flow, Scott Robert Brown

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

This study explored the nature and extent of relationships between religious orientations, religious orthodoxy, and flow, which is an experience akin to “being in the zone” in sports. The three religious orientations examined were intrinsic religiosity, which involves shaping one’s life around religious beliefs and practices; extrinsic religiosity, which involves trying to gain rewards, such as social status, from religious participation; and quest, which involves seeking religious meaning as opposed to accepting traditional doctrines. Data analyses indicated that high scorers on extrinsic religiosity tended to have less intense flow experiences and that they tended to experience flow more often during …

Senior Women Leaders In Higher Education Overcoming Barriers To Success, Nan-Chi Tiao

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to obtain a deeper understanding of what it takes for women to succeed as cabinet-level higher education administrators. The findings not only offer a wealth of strategies for career success and for overcoming professional and personal challenges, but also shed new light on critical factors that affect women’ experiences at work.

This qualitative, phenomenological study was based primarily on confidential interviews with nine senior women leaders. Two informants are presidents, six are vice presidents, and one serves as a senior executive officer of their universities. Before assuming their current posts, they worked in a …

Dietary Lysine:Calorie Ratios And Their Influence On Nitrogen Metabolism And Digestibility In Moderately Obese Mature Dogs, Trista Reeder

University of Kentucky Master's Theses

This experiment was conducted to determine if changing the amount of ideal aminoacids (meaning the amount of amino acids necessary to supply all the animal's needswithout excesses or deficiencies of any single amino acid), in relation to caloric intakewill change nitrogen metabolism and weight loss in obese mature dogs. Informationprovided by this experiment can be used to formulate canine diets emphasizing weightloss in older animals.Six moderately obese mature female crossbred hounds were fed diets varying in theirratio of lysine:calories (Lysine % : Mcal ME/g) (2.2, 3.0, and 3.8) in a 3 x 3 replicatedLatin square design. Increasing the lysine:calorie of …

Nutritional Approach To Mineral Over-Supplementation In Grow-Finish Pigs: Organic Trace Minerals And Phosphorus Body Accretion, Aitor Balfagón-Romeo

University of Kentucky Master's Theses

The initial study herein assessed mineral digestibility in situations when reducedamounts of inorganic and organic (proteinates) trace minerals (TM) were fed in finishingpigs, and their long-term effects on body mineral status. The second study was aslaughter-investigation that tested the impact of lean growth potential on phosphorusbody accretion from 30 to 110 kg.Organic TM exhibited neither improvement in digestibility nor in total retention;fecal excretion responded quantitatively to mineral intake independently of the source.Contents of copper in kidney and zinc in liver were higher for pigs fed the organic form.Phosphorus content was linearly related to live weight, empty body weight, andnitrogen content. …

Neural Network-Based Output Feedback Controller For Lean Operation Of Spark Ignition Engines, Brian C. Kaul, Jagannathan Sarangapani, J. A. Drallmeier, Jonathan B. Vance, Pingan He

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Spark ignition (SI) engines running at very lean conditions demonstrate significant nonlinear behavior by exhibiting cycle-to-cycle dispersion of heat release even though such operation can significantly reduce NOx emissions and improve fuel efficiency by as much as 5-10%. A suite of neural network (NN) controller without and with reinforcement learning employing output feedback has shown ability to reduce the nonlinear cyclic dispersion observed under lean operating conditions. The neural network controllers consists of three NN: a) A NN observer to estimate the states of the engine such as total fuel and air; b) a second NN for generating virtual input; …

Neuro Control Of Nonlinear Discrete Time Systems With Deadzone And Input Constraints, Pingan He, Wenzhi Gao, Jagannathan Sarangapani

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

A neural network (NN) controller in discrete time is designed to deliver a desired tracking performance for a class of uncertain nonlinear systems with unknown deadzones and magnitude constraints on the input. The NN controller consists of two NNs: the first NN for compensating the unknown deadzones; and the second NN for compensating the uncertain nonlinear system dynamics. The magnitude constraints on the input are modeled as saturation nonlinearities and they are dealt with in the Lyapunov-based controller design. The uniformly ultimate boundedness (UUB) of the closed-loop tracking errors and the neural network weights estimation errors is demonstrated via Lyapunov …

Novel Sum-Of-Sinusoids Simulation Models For Rayleigh And Rician Fading Channels, Chengshan Xiao, Y. Rosa Zheng, N. C. Beaulieu

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The statistical properties of Clarke's fading model with a finite number of sinusoids are analyzed, and an improved reference model is proposed for the simulation of Rayleigh fading channels. A novel statistical simulation model for Rician fading channels is examined. The new Rician fading simulation model employs a zero-mean stochastic sinusoid as the specular (line-of-sight) component, in contrast to existing Rician fading simulators that utilize a non-zero deterministic specular component. The statistical properties of the proposed Rician fading simulation model are analyzed in detail. It is shown that the probability density function of the Rician fading phase is not only …

On Discrete-Time Modeling Of Time-Varying Wssus Fading Channels, Christian Sgraja, Chengshan Xiao

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In this paper, we consider the serial concatenation of linear time-varying (LTV) systems and its impact on the discrete-time modeling of wide-sense stationary uncorrelated scattering (WSSUS) fading channels. By deriving an expression for the composite impulse response of the overall concatenated system, we find that unlike the time-invariant case, the concatenation of LTV systems is not commutative, i. e., the order of arrangement affects the overall impulse response. This has significant impact when a digital transmission over a time-varying fading channel, which is an LTV channel, is represented by an equivalent discrete-time model that incorporates both transmitter and receiver filters. …

Dynamics Of An Atmospheric Pressure Plasma Plume Generated By Submicrosecond Voltage Pulses, Xinpei Lu, Mounir Laroussi

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Nonequilibrium plasmas driven by submicrosecond high voltage pulses have been proven to produce high-energy electrons, which in turn lead to enhanced ionization and excitations. Here, we describe a device capable of launching a cold plasma plume in the surrounding air. This device, "the plasma pencil," is driven by few hundred nanosecond wide pulses at repetition rates of a few kilohertz. Correlation between current-voltage characteristics and fast photography shows that the plasma plume is in fact a small bulletlike volume of plasma traveling at unusually high velocities. A model based on photoionization is used to explain the propagation kinetics of the …

Electron Bernstein Wave Simulations And Comparison To Preliminary Nstx Emission Data, Josef Preinhaelter, Jakub Urban, Pavol Pavlo, Gary Taylor, Steffi Diem, Linda L. Vahala, George Vahala

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Simulations indicate that during flattop current discharges the optimal angles for the aiming of the National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX) antennae are quite rugged and basically independent of time. The time development of electron Bernstein wave emission (EBWE) at particular frequencies as well as the frequency spectrum of EBWE as would be seen by the recently installed NSTX antennae are computed. The simulation of EBWE at low frequencies (e.g., 16 GHz) agrees well with the recent preliminary EBWE measurements on NSTX. At high frequencies, the sensitivity of EBWE to magnetic field variations is understood by considering the Doppler broadened electron …

Power System Control With An Embedded Neural Network In Hybrid System Modeling, Seung-Mook Baek, Jung-Wook Park, Ganesh K. Venayagamoorthy

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The output limits of the power system stabilizer (PSS) can improve the system damping performance immediately following a large disturbance. Due to non-smooth nonlinearities from the saturation limits, these values cannot be determined by the conventional tuning methods based on linear analysis. Only ad hoc tuning procedures can been used. A feedforward neural network (FFNN) (with a structure of multilayer perceptron neural network) is applied to identify the dynamics of an objective function formed by the states, and thereafter to compute the gradients required in the nonlinear parameter optimization. Moreover, its derivative information is used to replace that obtained from …