Digital Commons Network^™

Tools For Anti-Microbial Peptide Editable Database, Sunandha Sharma Acharya

Open Access Master's Theses

The goal of this thesis is to create tools for Anti-Microbial Peptide Database AMPed, developed by Professor Lenore Martin’s microbial peptide research group at University of Rhode Island. The database is for Researchers and Biologists, as they will be the main users. To develop a functioning and efficient database there should be tools that are relevant to the users of the database. In our case, the primary users are biologists, needing to calculate specific results or to visualize their data. The tools that are developed as a part for this thesis are the MIC (Minimal Inhibitory Concentration) and MLC (Minimal …

Implementation Of Moving Magnet Actuation In Very Low Frequency Acoustic Transduction, Brenton Wallin

Open Access Master's Theses

Measuring the performance of hydrophones in submarine and surface ship towed arrays at low frequencies in the Leesburg test facility (Okahumpka, FL) is achieved using ambient noise as a calibration source. The preferred method of calibration that relies on a known, repeatable sound source is not implemented because the equipment capable of generating sound at such low frequencies does not currently exist.

This project examines the feasibility of implementing a moving magnet actuator (MMA) as the motor force in a very low frequency (VLF) underwater acoustic projector. MMAs have the potential to advance low frequency projector technology by providing large …

Visual Detection And Tracking Methods For E. Superba (Antarctic Krill), Regina R. Yopak

Open Access Master's Theses

Antarctic krill are a keystone species of the Southern Ocean. They have been well documented over large spatial scales but generally not quantfiably at the scale of single individuals in the open water column. It is important to study how individuals behave in their natural environment in order to further understand how they interact within dense krill aggregations. Using a pair of calibrated grayscale stereo cameras mounted on a towed instrument sled, krill were imaged in situ at 10Hz in the bays along the western Antarctic Peninsula during austral winter 2013. Krill were identified and tracked through the images …

Development Of A Locally Adapted Deterioration Model For Bridges In The State Of Rhode Island, Usa, Alric Fruehauf

Open Access Master's Theses

“One in nine of the nation’s bridges are rated as structurally deficient” and Rhode Island is not an exception – 56.5% of the state’s bridges are either structurally deficient or functionally obsolete [1]. Bridge Management Systems use prediction models to forecast the need of maintenance for bridges. Since those systems are based on general assumptions, it is of great interest to develop a locally adapted deterioration model to make those forecasts.

In this study, a Markov Chain based deterioration Model has been developed. It is based on condition ratings provided through the National Bridge Inventory. Additionally to the development of …

Assessment Of Activity Of Bacteria In Integrated Fixed Film Activated Sludge, Hannes Behrmann

Open Access Master's Theses

In this study, the feasibility of a manometric batch test method to measure biological activity of Integrated Fixed Film Activated Sludge (IFAS) microbial aerobic and anaerobic communities was investigated. Additionally, the substrate consumption ratio, the N₂O emissions from the biological activity of the different microbial populations and the inhibitory effect of stormwater pollutants on the activity and N₂O production were investigated as well.

The obtained results from the aerobic tests showed qualitative correspondence with trends described in the literature, but differed greatly in quantitative terms (1 to 2 orders of magnitude). The anoxic test did not …

Modeling Sediment Transport Around Artificial Reefs In Southern Rhode Island, Scott J. Hayward

Open Access Master's Theses

This document contains two papers which address threats by tropical and extratropical systems in the northeastern United States. A suite of numerical models are used to assess waves, storm surge and coastal erosion during extreme storms.

Modeling Waves and Sediment Transport Around Artificial Reefs: Simulation of the Impact of Multi-purpose Reefs on Dune Erosion in Southern Rhode Island Barrier Beaches

The objective of this study is to set up a suite of numerical models capable of simulating the impacts of storms on coastal flooding and erosion, and use it to assess performance of mitigation measures. Three numerical models were used …

Bubble Modeling By Mixed Casual-Noncausal Autoregressive Processes, Anton Lobach

Open Access Master's Theses

Some financial time series exhibit short periods of explosive local trends followed by an abrupt decline. Such trends can be a result of speculative bubble phenomena. A bubble is formed when investors' future profits expectations influence the present market value of securities. Mixed causal-noncausal autoregressive processes (MAR) are able to better capture such behavior in comparison to standard causal ARIMA models. In the first part of this work we propose an alternative distribution (Voigt) to model the disturbances in the MAR processes. The Voigt, a convolution of Gaussian and Cauchy distributions, is used in atomic and molecular spectroscopy, and is …

Segmental Movement Compensations In Patients With Transtibial Amputation Identified Using Angular Momentum Separation, Brecca M. M. Gaffney

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Patients with unilateral dysvascular transtibial amputation (TTA) adopt movement compensations that are required to maintain balance and achieve ambulation in the absence of ankle plantar flexion, and result in increased and asymmetric joint loading patterns. As a result, this population is at an increased risk of overuse injuries, such as low back pain (LBP). Clinical gait analysis is used to guide diagnostics in movement retraining following amputation, and is performed using instrumented (research based) or observational analyses (clinically based). However, instrumented analyses are currently impractical in most clinical settings due to expense and computational limitations. This dissertation presents the use …

Does Increased Access To The Arts In High Schools In The Los Angeles Unified School District Affect Graduation Rates?, Elizabeth K. Gile

Scripps Senior Theses

Determining whether the arts are beneficial to a student’s education is a widely, and hotly debated topic every year in the United States, with many studies published each year demonstrating the impact that the arts have on various educational outcomes, from increased test scores to higher graduation rates. This paper examines previous research on the efficacy of incentives and how students’ participation in extracurricular activities, from sports to the arts, could impact graduation rates. It also develops a model for analyzing the present value of a high school education to a student using a discounted present value analysis and conducts …

Fiduciary Duties Of Corporate Directors In Uncertain Times, Ellen J. Odoner, Stephen A. Radin, Lyuba A. Goltser, Andrew E. Blumberg

Ira M. Millstein Center for Global Markets and Corporate Ownership

Directors addressing new political uncertainties, a host of heightened challenges and asserted “best practices” from many sources may understandably ask whether their fiduciary duties have changed as well. This paper synthesizes the latest decisions of the Delaware courts on the standards of conduct for directors and the standards by which their conduct is reviewed. While directors should expect uncertainty to be a fact of corporate life for the foreseeable future, this paper emphasizes that neither the fiduciary duties of directors nor the protections afforded them have changed. Disinterested and independent directors acting in good faith continue to have broad protections …

Development Of Disaster Management In Turkey: From 1999 Kocaeli Earthquake To 2011 Van Earthquake, Mert Tolon, Kağan Cenk Mızrak

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications

The natural disasters that have occurred in Turkey are categorized as % 61 earthquakes, followed by landslides, floods, rock falls, fires and storms. Between the years of 1903 and 2000, there have been nearly 150 earthquakes in Turkey which led to damage and this is a challenge for Turkey. The management and plans of these natural disasters in Turkey were first developed in 1959. In 1999, with the magnitude of 7.4, The Kocaeli and Duzce earthquakes affected a region of Turkey that constitutes % 23 of the country’s population. After that, in 2000 necessary laws have been prepared and enacted. …

Cmos Approach To Compressed-Domain Image Acquisition, Javad Ghasemi, Manish Bhattarai, Glauco R.C. Fiorante, Payman Zarkesh-Ha, Sanjay Krishna, Majeed M. Hayat

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

A hardware implementation of a real-time compressed-domain image acquisition system is demonstrated. The system performs front-end computational imaging, whereby the inner product between an image and an arbitrarily-specified mask is implemented in silicon. The acquisition system is based on an intelligent readout integrated circuit (iROIC) that is capable of providing independent bias voltages to individual detectors, which enables implementation of spatial multiplication with any prescribed mask through a bias-controlled response-modulation mechanism. The modulated pixels are summed up in the image grabber to generate the compressed samples, namely aperture-coded coefficients, of an image. A rigorous bias-selection algorithm is presented to the …

Detection Theory For Accurate And Non-Invasive Skin Cancer Diagnosis Using Dynamic Thermal Imaging, Sebastian E. Godoy, Majeed M. Hayat, David A. Ramirez, Stephen A. Myers, R. Steven Padilla, Sanjay Krishna

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

Skin cancer is the most common cancer in the United States with over 3.5M annual cases. Presently, visual inspection by a dermatologist has good sensitivity (> 90%) but poor specificity (< 10%), especially for melanoma, which leads to a high number of unnecessary biopsies. Here we use dynamic thermal imaging (DTI) to demonstrate a rapid, accurate and non-invasive imaging system for detection of skin cancer. In DTI, the lesion is cooled down and the thermal recovery is recorded using infrared imaging. The thermal recovery curves of the suspected lesions are then utilized in the context of continuous-time detection theory in order to define an optimal statistical decision rule such that the sensitivity of the algorithm is guaranteed to be at a maximum for every prescribed false-alarm probability. The proposed methodology was tested in a pilot study including 140 human subjects demonstrating a sensitivity in excess of 99% for a prescribed specificity in excess of 99% for detection of skin cancer. To the best of our knowledge, this is the highest reported accuracy for any non-invasive skin cancer diagnosis method.

Electric Ion Dispersion As A New Type Of Mass Spectrometer, Michael R. Lindstrom, Iain Moyles, Kevin Ryczko

School of Mathematical & Statistical Sciences Faculty Publications

At the 2014 Fields-MPrime Industrial Problem Solving Workshop, PerkinElmer presented a design problem for mass spectrometry. Traditionally, mass spectrometry is done via three methods: using magnetic fields to deflect charged particles whereby different masses bend differently; using a time-of-flight procedure where particles of different mass arrive at different times at a target; and using an electric quadrupole that filters out all masses except for one very narrow band. The challenge posed in the problem was to come up with a new design for mass spectrometry that did not involve magnetic fields and where mass fractions could be measured in an …

An Introduction To Ricci Flow For Two-Dimensional Manifolds, Paul Bracken

School of Mathematical & Statistical Sciences Faculty Publications

The study of diferentiable manifolds is a deep an extensive area of mathematics. A technique such as the study of the Ricci flow turns out to be a very useful tool in this regard. This flow is an evolution of a Riemannian metric driven by a parabolic type of partial differential equation. It has attracted great interest recently due to its important achievements in geometry such as Perelman's proof of the geometrization conjecture and Brendle-Schoen's proof of the differentiable sphere theorem. It is the purpose here to give a comprehensive introduction to the Ricci flow on manifolds of dimension two …

Using Technology To Determine Factorability Or Non-Factorability Of Quadratic Algebraic Trinomials, John E. T. Bernard, Olga Ramirez, Cristina Villalobos

School of Mathematical & Statistical Sciences Faculty Publications

This paper is aimed for mathematics educators who teach algebra, more specifically, the factoring of quadratic algebraic expressions, and who want to enhance student learning of this topic using technology in conjunction with the Middle Term Splitting Method (Donnell, 2010; MTSM 2016a; MTSM 2016b). We will use technology-based algebra and geometry connections to help determine factorability or nonfactorability of quadratic algebraic trinomials over the integers, over the real numbers, and over the complex numbers, both with clarity, certainty and with understanding by using two equations, one derived from the coefficients of the outer terms and the other from the middle …

An Intrinsic Characterization Of Bonnet Surfaces Based On A Closed Differential Ideal, Paul Bracken

School of Mathematical & Statistical Sciences Faculty Publications

The structure equations for a two-dimensional manifold are introduced and two results based on the Codazzi equations pertinent to the study of isometric surfaces are obtained from them. Important theorems pertaining to isometric surfaces are stated and a theorem due to Bonnet is obtained. A transformation for the connection forms is developed. It is proved that the angle of deformation must be harmonic, and that the differentials of many of the important variables generate a closed differential ideal. This implies that a coordinate system exists in which many of the variables satisfy particular ordinary differential equations, and these results can …

H2−H∞ Control Of Continuous-Time Nonlinear Systems Using The State-Dependent Riccati Equation Approach, Xin Wang, Edwin E. Yaz, Susan C. Schneider, Yvonne I. Yaz

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

This paper presents a novel state-dependent Riccati equation (SDRE) control approach with the purpose of providing a more effective control design framework for continuous-time nonlinear systems to achieve a mixed nonlinear quadratic regulator and H∞ control performance criteria. By solving the generalized SDRE, the optimal control solution is found to achieve mixed performance objectives guaranteeing nonlinear quadratic optimality with inherent stability property in combination with H∞ type of disturbance reduction. An efficient computational algorithm is given to find the solution to the SDRE. The efficacy of the proposed technique is used to design the control system for inverted …

H2−H∞ Control Of Discrete-Time Nonlinear Systems Using The State-Dependent Riccati Equation Approach, Xin Wang, Edwin E. Yaz, Susan C. Schneider, Yvonne I. Yaz

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

A novel H₂−H_∞ State-dependent Riccati equation control approach is presented for providing a generalized control framework to discrete-time nonlinear system. By solving a generalized Riccati equation at each time step, the nonlinear state feedback control solution is found to satisfy mixed performance criteria guaranteeing quadratic optimality with inherent stability property in combination with H∞ type of disturbance attenuation. Two numerical techniques to compute the solution of the resulting Riccati equation are presented: The first one is based on finding the steady-state solution of the difference equation at every step and the second one is based on finding …

Towards A Continuous Assessment Of Cognitive Workload For Smartphone Multitasking Users, Angel Jimenez-Molina, Hernan Lira

H-Workload 2017: Models and Applications (Works in Progress)

The intermeshing of Smartphone interactions and daily activities depletes the availability of cognitive resources. This excessive demand may lead to several undesirable cognitive states, which can be avoided by continuously assessing the user cognitive workload. Recently, many attempts have emerged to assess this workload by using psycho physiological signals. This paper provides evidence that it is possible to train models that accurately identify in short time windows such cognitive workload by processing heart rate and blood oxygen saturation signals. This assessment could be applied in Smartphone notification delivery, interface adaptations or cognitive capabilities evaluation.

Human Performance Modelling In Manufacturing: Mental Workload And Task Complexity, Maria Chiara Leva, Lorenzo Comberti, Micaela Demichela, Rebecca Duane

H-Workload 2017: Models and Applications (Works in Progress)

No abstract provided.

A Workload-Centered Perspective On Reduced Crew Operations In Commercial Aviation, Daniela Schmid

H-Workload 2017: Models and Applications (Works in Progress)

Mental workload of a pilot, in short workload, depends on various characteristics of different accumulated tasks on the flight deck. Exogenous task demands and endogenous supply of attentional or information processing resources determine workload [1]. Performance is expect to drop if the demand exceeds the available resources of the pilot. Expertise and experience modulate the endogenous sup- ply of resources like perceiving, updating memory, planing, making a decision, and executing and processing a response. Subsequently, workload manifests in performance variables, subjective experience, and physiological parameters [2]. This is how we can summarize workload very brie y to introduce a model …

Moving Between Automated And Manual Driving: Mental Workload And Performance Implications, Totsapon Butmee, Terry C. Lansdown

H-Workload 2017: Models and Applications (Works in Progress)

Automated driving has been predicted to take-over from manual vehicle control in the near future. The driver’s role may then change from active operator to passive observer. Such technology offers the tantalising promise of improving driving safety. However, many studies have presented findings suggesting potentially adverse effects from automated driving systems, e.g., reduced situation awareness. Mental workload is also a key issue of concern for researchers in this area. Excessive mental workload has repeatedly been shown to be associated with degraded driving performance. Previously, most traffic psychology studies on mental workload have focused the manual driving task. However, a shift …

Reducing Peak Workload In The Cockpit: A Human In The Loop Simulation Evaluating New Runway Selection Tool, Tanja Bos, Rolf Zon, Wilfred Rouwhorst

H-Workload 2017: Models and Applications (Works in Progress)

In efforts to increase safety and reduce peak workload situations in the cockpit, a tool with a different interaction style was developed for use in case of a runway change instructed by Air Traffic Control during approach. In an experiment a workload comparison was made between the new tool and the conventional cockpit. Workload was measured by means of a self-rating after each experiment run, as well as eye blink frequency during each run. Results show that the self-rated workload decreases with the new tool for one of the two crew members and the blink frequency suggests a workload decrease …

Smart Workload Balancing, Ferdinand Coster

H-Workload 2017: Models and Applications (Works in Progress)

The cognitive workload of operators working with automated systems should neither be too high nor too low. A static level of automation is unable to cope with systems that produce large fluctuations in cognitive workload, therefore a method for adaptive automation is proposed that could balance workload by intelligently choosing what to automate and when. To this end the concept of the Cognitive Workload Value factor is introduced, which takes into account both workload and situation awareness. This initial work introduces a possible framework for categorizing and using different workload and situation awareness measures.

Managing Operator Mental Workload With Standards Based Decision Support, Maurice Wilkins

H-Workload 2017: Models and Applications (Works in Progress)

H-Workload 2017: The first international symposium on human mental workload, Dublin Institute of Technology, Dublin, Ireland, June 28-30.

Facing Human Workload: The Resilient Ego: A Psychoanalytic Point Of View, Glauco Maria Genga, Maria Gabriella Pediconii

H-Workload 2017: Models and Applications (Works in Progress)

The paper aims to show new connections among Human Factors, Human Workload and Resilience. We intend: 1) to highlight the role of subject in facing the human workload, inflected as demanding tasks and emergency situations; 2) to show how psychoanalysis can provide novel insights, not only into human errors, but also into human resilience. They have a common denominator, at least in part: the role of subjective contributions even in demanding situations. Human workload includes a work for satisfaction. We recall also the case study of US Airways Flight 1549 water landing (the so called “Miracle on the Hudson”), which …

System Identification Of Motion Artifact: Noise In Eeg Headsets From Locomotion, Kaela Shea, James Tung

H-Workload 2017: Models and Applications (Works in Progress)

Fall prevention for geriatric populations is a growing concern among clinicians and researchers due to severe risk of morbidity and loss of independence. Emerging evidence has demonstrated that mental workload while walking influences gait stability and the risk for falling. Electroencephalography (EEG) presents a potential method to provide objective measures of mental workload, particularly during daily activities. Noise introduced to the EEG signal during motion, however, is restrictive. The study presented in the following paper isolates EEG signal noise attained from gait for a commercially accessible EEG system, the "Emotiv" Time and spectral system identification techniques were applied to model …

Online Measuring Of Available Resources, Enrique Munoz-De-Escalona, José Juan Canas

H-Workload 2017: Models and Applications (Works in Progress)

This paper present a proposal for measuring available mental resources during the accomplishment of a task. Our proposal consists in measuring emotions provoked by perceived self-efficacy in the execution of the task. Self-efficacy is one of the most important factors that affect the resources that a person puts at the disposal of the execution of the task. When a person perceives that he/she is not being effective he/she will activate more resources to improve his performance. This self-efficacy will be reflected in the emotions that the person experiences. A good efficacy will provoke positive emotions and a bad efficacy negative …

A Validated Description Of How Crew Manage Flight Operations For Two-Pilot And Reduced Crew Operations, Nick Mcdonnell, Alison Kay, Margaret Ryan, Rabea Morrison, Rolf Zon

H-Workload 2017: Models and Applications (Works in Progress)

This research provides a rich validated description of how crew manage workload for both two-pilot and reduced crew operations. It outlines flight operations modelling, operational narratives, requirements and scenarios validated with expert advisers from the EU-FP7 ACROSS Project. The crew are considered to be the managers of the operation who receive integrated technical support to help them manage flight operations across of three configurations i.e. 1) standard two-crew configuration, 2) reduced crew under normal operations 3) reduced-crew under non-normal operations developed within the FP7 EU-funded ACROSS (Advanced Cockpit for the Reduction Of Stress and Workload) project.