Digital Commons Network^™

Modeling And Simulation Of Efficient State Information Diffusion In Wireless Ad Hoc Networks, Mengyao Jia, Shaozhu Gu, Junhan Wang, Denghao Wang, Du Xu, Xiaoning Zhang

Journal of System Simulation

Abstract: To solve the problems of significant communication overhead and limited real-time response capability in the traditional flooding-based state diffusion mechanism, an efficient diffusion algorithm based on regional partitioning and information compression was proposed. A multi-dimensional feature clustering method integrating geographic distance and link quality was used to achieve high-cohesion network partitioning through weighted Euclidean distance and the K-means algorithm; a dynamic selection mechanism for representative nodes was designed to conduct comprehensive scoring by combining the link quality and geographic centrality of nodes, realizing the efficient compression and aggregated transmission of regional information. Simulation results indicate that the algorithm significantly …

Trajectory-Aware Dynamic Offloading For High-Mobility Vehicular Edge Systems, Haoran Xu, Zhiqin Huang, Youwu Hu, Zheyi Chen

Journal of System Simulation

Abstract: To address the problems of service interruptions, task failures, and resource waste caused by high mobility of intelligent vehicles (IVs) in vehicular edge computing (VEC), this paper proposes a trajectory-aware dynamic offloading (TADO) framework for high-mobility vehicular edge systems. A lightweight T-pattern trajectory-aware algorithm is designed to efficiently predict the next-hop road side unit (RSU) by mining spatio-temporal patterns from historical trajectories of vehicles, offering a forward-looking reference for offloading decisions. A joint optimization model is constructed, and a service interruption risk factor driven by trajectory prediction is introduced. An improved DRL method is developed. It takes the predicted …

Multi-Auv Pursuit Algorithm With Phased Guidance Based On Maddpg, Sen Zhang, Sihang Shen, Xiaojie Sun, Jingping Shao, Shuaiqiang Guo, Yingjie Deng

Journal of System Simulation

Abstract: To address the problems such as low exploration and sampling efficiency and sparse rewards in the early training stage under the complex target pursuit environment of multiple AUVs based on MADDPG, a phased-guidance curriculum MADDPG (PGC-MADDPG) algorithm was proposed. The pursuit task was divided into two phases, i.e., target tracking and encircling, through curriculum learning. In the target tracking phase, an experience strategy based on the APF method was introduced as a guidance item to provide prior knowledge of the target direction and accelerate the AUV training speed. After entering the encircling phase, the APF guidance item was removed, …

Study On Trajectory Optimization Of Spray Painting Robot Based On Improved Sparrow Search Algorithm, Jie Yang, Zhenkai Xiong, Longyan Wang

Journal of System Simulation

Abstract: To address the challenges posed by the complex working environment to the trajectory planning of the spray painting robot, a multi-strategy integrated sparrow search algorithm (MISSA) was proposed with the dual optimization objectives of time efficiency and motion smoothness. The 3-5-3 polynomial interpolation method was adopted to design the trajectory curve, aiming to ensure continuous angular displacement, angular velocity, and angular acceleration throughout the process. A multidimensional optimization problem with joint constraints was constructed using the total trajectory duration as the performance index. MISSA, which integrates refraction reverse learning, sine-cosine adaptive adjustment, and Cauchy mutation, was utilized to optimize …

Simulation Platform Based On Soc-Fpga Clusters For Cxl-Ethernet Heterogeneous Interconnection, Xu Zhang, Ke Liu, Mingyu Chen

Journal of System Simulation

Abstract: To address the difficulty of balancing simulation speed and topology flexibility when simulating large-scale, CXL-Ethernet heterogeneous interconnect datacenter scenarios with existing CXL simulation platforms, this paper presents CNetSim, a semi-physical simulation platform based on an SoC-FPGA cluster. The platform employs SoC-FPGA hardware to emulate endpoint nodes, leveraging their real processors and memory devices as well as FPGA-implemented CXL. mem protocol to support high-speed execution of standard Linux systems and real distributed applications. Meanwhile, it utilizes the flexible topology configuration capability of software simulation to implement CXL switched networks and inter-rack Ethernet interconnects based on DPDK on simulation servers. Simulation …

Optimization Of Convective Heat Transfer Parameters For Spindles Based On Finite Element Thermal Analysis, Jiali Zhang, Haiping Liu, Qinsheng Jiang, Sina Dang

Journal of System Simulation

Abstract: In view of the low simulation accuracy of existing finite element models for thermal characteristics of spindles caused by ignoring the influences of geometric characteristics of convective surfaces and fluid flow patterns and often adopting constant temperature loading in the setting of convective heat transfer boundary conditions, this paper proposed an optimization method for convective heat transfer parameters of spindles based on finite element thermal analysis. Combined with the geometric shapes and spatial positions of various convective surfaces of the spindle system, the calculation criterion of the convective heat transfer coefficient was determined through dimensional analysis according to the …

Simulation And Optimization Of Task Offloading In Mine Edge Computing For Low-Concurrency Devices, Zhaolu Guo, Qianhui Liu

Journal of System Simulation

Abstract: With the advancement of mine intelligence, task offloading technology has become a core technology of mine edge computing (MEC). For edge computing systems deployed with mine low-concurrency devices (MLCD), a discrete-event simulation model for MEC task offloading oriented to MLCD was constructed to solve the collaborative optimization problem of task processing latency and load balancing of mine edge servers (MES). By dynamically simulating the queuing, transmission, and computation processes of tasks, the objective of minimizing task processing latency was achieved. An improved evolutionary algorithm, ISBT-EA, was proposed, which integrated a task-characteristic-driven initialization strategy and local search operators, enhancing the …

Harnessing Nitrogen Fixing Plants For A Bio-Solar Nitrogen Economy, Taufiq Nawaz, Liping Gu, James Young, Riffat Latif, Mazhar Sher, Lan Xu, Shah Fahad, Ruanbao Zhou

Natural Resource Management Faculty Publications

The fossil fuel–driven chemosynthesis of ammonia for nitrogen fertilizers is a major contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions, releasing approximately 1130 million metric tons (MMT) of CO₂-equivalent annually. In addition, the extensive use of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers (≈108 MMT annually) results in substantial emissions of nitrous oxide (N₂O), while nearly 50% of applied nitrogen is lost through leaching and runoff, leading to widespread nitrate pollution and ecosystem degradation. In contrast, solar-powered biological nitrogen fixation (BNF) by nitrogen-fixing plants offers a sustainable alternative that supports agricultural productivity and healthy ecosystem resilience. BNF by leguminous and non-leguminous plants …

Developing A Body Of Knowledge For Sustainability Engineering Using The Delphi Method: A Work In Progress, Ivan J. Baiges-Valentin, Yewande S. Abraham, Sagata Bhawani, Christopher Papadopoulos, Radhika Barua, Amakoe Gbedemah, Sara Hill, Jorge E. Loyo, Victoria Matthew, Noe Vargas Hernandez

Mechanical Engineering Faculty Publications

Background: As sustainability becomes increasingly important in engineering education and practice, there is a need to formally define Sustainability Engineering as a distinct discipline. Engineering disciplines, such as Civil Engineering, Industrial Engineering, and Environmental Engineering, have established Bodies of Knowledge (BoKs) that delineate the professional and educational expectations of their respective fields. Sustainability Engineering, as a new and evolving field of study, has yet to develop a unified framework that can facilitate curricular coherence, guide the assessment of learning outcomes, and define professional competencies.

Objectives: The goal of this work is to develop an initial version of a Sustainability Engineering …

Advancing Student Success By Implementing Research-Based Challenges In Capstone Design, Eleazar Marquez, Hiram Moya, Jesus Gonzalez

Mechanical Engineering Faculty Publications

In this study, a team of faculty members from The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV), participating in a research collaboration with two National Laboratories, created and implemented a set of capstone projects that aligned with the research demands and expectations of the funding entity. The objective of the collaboration effort between the three entities is to: 1) explore innovative manufacturing techniques that support the national security and scientific missions of the laboratories, and 2) prepare UTRGV students to secure internships and employment in high research areas. The capstone projects were implemented on the senior design curriculum and served …

After A Fire: Considerations For Residential Property Soil Testing And Restoration, Andrew J. Whelton, Todd Thalhamer, Yiming Liu, Sarah Miller, Hua Cai

Resilience to Emergencies and Disasters

No abstract provided.

Reducing Chronic Loneliness Among Lgbtq+ Older Adults In Greater Seattle, Douglas J. Gallup

Selected Social Change Portfolios in Prevention, Intervention, and Consultation

Goal Statement

The goal of this project is to reduce chronic loneliness and social isolation among LGBTQ+ adults age 65 and older in the Greater Seattle area by increasing access to affirming, accessible, and evidence-informed opportunities for meaningful connection.

Significant Findings

LGBTQ+ older adults in Seattle and King County face elevated risks of living alone, social isolation, and limited access to affirming services, while also demonstrating substantial resilience (Fredriksen-Goldsen et al., 2015). A promising approach would combine meaningful activity, social support, practical access assistance, and PEARLS-informed strategies. GenPride is a logical community partner because its programs foster well-being and belonging …

How Utep Built A Teacher Residency At Scale, Erika L. Mein

Policy Briefs

This program brief outlines the core design components of the Miner Teacher Residency, the premier year-long preparation experience for all education majors and post-baccalaureate teacher candidates in the College of Education at the University of Texas at El Paso.  This brief serves as a companion document to “UTEP’s Miner Teacher Residents Boost Student Learning, Serve High-Need Schools, and Stay in Texas Classrooms,” which presents evidence of the positive impact of the residency on student learning outcomes in Texas classrooms.

Comparative Evaluation Of Similarity Metrics For Multi-Vendor Origin–Destination Matrix Comparison: A Case Study Using Data From Three Probe Data Vendors In Arkansas, Sagar Silwal

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The proliferation of commercial probe data vendors has posed both opportunities and challenges for transportation agencies regarding the choice of reliable vehicle probe data for decision making purposes. Probe data is a form of passive mobility data representing a small fraction of the traveling population. Vendors aggregate mobility data from different sources including GPS enabled smartphones, telematics systems, and connected vehicles. They possess unique data collection methodologies, sampling mechanisms, and expansion algorithms which introduce variability in derived traffic performance measures like speed and volume. The overall objective of this work is to assess similarities and differences among probe data vendors …

Jme 4110: E-Bike Power Take-Off Device, Masa Marmarchi, Anna Favaron, Alexis Brutcher, Julie Steiger, Ava Le

Washington University / UMSL Mechanical Engineering Design Project JME 4110

This project focuses on developing a portable power solution that allows an E-bike battery to be used to power small devices during emergency situations. The system is designed to provide a convenient alternative when traditional sources of electricity are unavailable, while remaining safe, practical, and easy to store and use with the E-bike. The final design combines the necessary electrical components with a compact storage solution, allowing the system to be carried with the bike and used when needed.

Jme 4110: Drill-Powered Beach Umbrella Anchor, Matthew Barton, Tanin Ramnath, Marquan Bailey, Zachary Van-Horn, Kaelin Mendoza

Washington University / UMSL Mechanical Engineering Design Project JME 4110

A common and potentially hazardous situation faced by beachgoers is when standard umbrella anchors fail to hold during wind gusts, causing the umbrella to potentially go airborne and injure nearby people. Existing anchors require manual operation, leading to inconsistent grip and no resistance to different wind directions. Our project is a motorized three anchor system that drives augers into the sand to ensure a consistent grip and security against the wind.

Jme 4110: Drill Powered Pressure Washer, Kathryn Keele, Ashley Givance, Reagan Grass, Andrew Ellis, Jacob Thebeau

Washington University / UMSL Mechanical Engineering Design Project JME 4110

This project focuses on developing a drill-powered pressure washer attachment that connects to a standard cordless drill and garden hose. The device uses the drill as its only power source to pressurize water for cleaning applications. This portable design provides a convenient, low-cost alternative to traditional electric or gas-powered pressure washers.

Block Kinematics, Interseismic Coupling And Fault Slip Rates In The Aegean Region From Gps And Earthquake Slip Vector Data: 1. Upper Plate Structures, Konstantinos Chousianitis, Sotiris Sboras, Volkan Özbey, Robert Mccaffrey, Semih Ergintav

Geology Faculty Publications and Presentations

We represent the active deformation of the Aegean region with an elastic‐kinematic block model composed of a finite number of rotating crustal blocks whose boundaries coincide with major active structures. A total of 832 GPS velocities and 146 earthquake slip vectors were inverted to provide estimates of block rotations and interseismic locking on block‐bounding faults so as to best reproduce the observed deformation field. Our regional model allowed us to derive a self‐consistent set of geodetic slip rates for upper plate faults and the Hellenic subduction system, the results of which are presented in a companion paper, and to determine …

Public, Private, Acquired, Alexander I. Platt, Matthew T. Wansley

Articles

For the last quarter-century, IPOs have been declining. SEC officials usually attribute the decline to startups’ choices to stay private. But that explanation is incomplete. As startups grow, they face a three-way choice between going public, staying private, and being acquired, and they have increasingly chosen the third option. In this Essay, we show how securities regulation pushes startups towards acquisitions by increasing the cost of raising capital and accessing liquidity in both public and private markets. We consider how the trend towards acquisitions could reduce competition, innovation, opportunities for diversification, and transparency. And we offer suggestions for how the …

Hsv-1 Us3 Hijacks Conserved Actin Regulatory Complexes To Drive F-Actin Remodeling, Md Imran Hossain, Md Arifuzzaman, Md Mehedi Hasan, Seung Jong Park, Leila Rahimian, Ojasvi Dutta, Vladimir Chouljenko, Harikrishnan Mohan, Reza Ghavimi, Konstantin G. Kousoulas

Computer Science Faculty Research & Creative Works

The herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV-1) US3 is a multifunctional serine/threonine kinase that promotes HSV-1 replication and spread. But its role and the mechanisms by which US3 regulates actin cytoskeletal remodeling remain poorly defined. We combined flow cytometry, confocal microscopy, immunoprecipitation-mass spectrometry (IP-MS), protein complex mapping, and machine learning to characterize US3-mediated F-actin dynamics. Flow cytometry and confocal microscopy showed that wild-type HSV-1 induces significant F-actin remodeling, while the ΔUS3 mutant displays F-actin levels comparable to uninfected cells, identifying US3 as a key regulator. IP-MS identified 47 high-confidence US3 interactors enriched in conserved actin regulatory complexes, including Arp2/3 nucleation machinery, …

An Abundant Lack Of Introspection, Jonathan Adler

Faculty Publications

In this review Jonathan Adler critiques Abundance authors Klein and Thompson's analysis of how regulation is holding back progress in decarbonization, America's housing supply crisis, and innovation. While agreeing with the authors' assessment that regulation policy is hampering efforts in these areas, Adler objects to the book's proposals for improving regulatory bottlenecks, arguing the authors of Abundance refuse to acknowledge the role of market institutions in creating abundant supply or to admit the fault in their assumption that the failures of centralized government decision making can be repaired while maintaining centralized government decision making.

This abstract has been constructed from …

Mab-Dqa: Addressing Query Aspect Importance In Document Question Answering With Multi-Armed Bandits, Yixin Xiang, Yunshan Ma, Xiaoyu Du, Yibing Chen, Yanxin Zhang, Jinhui Tang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Document Question Answering (DQA) involves generating answers from a document based on a user’s query, representing a key task in document understanding. This task requires interpreting visual layouts, which has prompted recent studies to adopt multimodal Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) that processes page images for answer generation. However, in multimodal RAG, visual DQA struggles to utilize a large number of images effectively, as the retrieval stage often retains only a few candidate pages (e.g., Top-4), causing informative but less visually salient content to be overlooked in favor of common yet low-information pages. To address this issue, we propose a Multi-Armed Bandit–based …

Avadclip: Audio-Visual Collaboration For Robust Video Anomaly Detection, Peng Wu, Wanshun Su, Guansong Pang, Yujia Sun, Qingsen Yan, Peng Wang, Yanning Zhang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

With the increasing adoption of video anomaly detection in intelligent surveillance domains, conventional visual-only detection approaches often struggle with information insufficiency and high false-positive rates in complex environments. To address these limitations, we present a novel weakly supervised framework that leverages audio-visual collaboration for robust video anomaly detection. Capitalizing on the exceptional cross-modal representation learning capabilities of Contrastive Language-Image Pretraining (CLIP) across visual, audio, and textual domains, our framework introduces two major innovations: an efficient audio-visual fusion that enables adaptive cross-modal integration through lightweight parametric adaptation while maintaining the frozen CLIP backbone, and a novel audio-visual prompt that dynamically enhances …

Robust Graph Learning On The Web: Challenges, Methods, And Applications, Ao Xiang, Yang Liu, Guansong Pang, Yuanhao Ding, Hezhe Qiao, Dawei Cheng, Qing He

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Graph learning is transforming web intelligence, powering applications from recommender systems to anomaly detection. However, most existing approaches implicitly assume ideal conditions where training and testing data are accurate, complete, and free from manipulation. In reality, web environments rarely exhibit such stability. Dynamic user behavior, incomplete or outdated content, adversarial interference, and sudden distribution shifts can all erode the reliability of even state-of-the-art models, leading to biased or unsafe outcomes. This tutorial provides a comprehensive survey of emerging strategies for robust graph learning on the web. We first present a structured taxonomy of the principal robustness threats specific to web …

Purifai: Detecting And Fixing Search-Induced Distortions In Web-Augmented Llms, Guoqing Wang, Zhao Zhang, Zeyu Sun, Xiaofei Xie, Yizhou Chen, Yanchao Tan, Dan Hao

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

As Large Language Models (LLMs) increasingly serve as interfaces for proprietary data (e.g., enterprise knowledge bases, legal statutes), ensuring their fidelity to trusted internal information is paramount. While integrating real-time web search can enhance model utility, it introduces a critical vulnerability: the ingestion of conflicting, misleading, or hallucinated content from the open web can override the model's adherence to its verified internal knowledge. We define this failure mode as search-induced distortion, a significant risk in high-stakes domains where the internal knowledge base serves as the absolute ground truth.To address this challenge, we present PurifAI, a proactive, model-agnostic, cache-level purification system …

Generation-Augmented Video Corpus Moment Retrieval, Mingjin Kuai, Qianyin Xiao, Juncheng Li, Jin Peng, Lizi Liao, Wei Ji

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Video Corpus Moment Retrieval (VCMR) requires models to efficiently retrieve and precisely locate specific moments relevant to natural language queries within a massive, untrimmed video corpus. However, existing discriminative approaches typically rely on shallow visual-textual feature matching mechanisms, which often struggle to capture fine-grained semantic differences. To address this limitation, we propose Video-GAR, a novel framework that reframes the conventional retrieval task from superficial matching to generative understanding, positing that the capability for query reconstruction evidences deep semantic comprehension. Specifically, Video-GAR orchestrates three synergistic components: To overcome the computational efficiency bottleneck, we construct a Bi-Mamba backbone that leverages the linear …

Bridging Llm Embeddings And Vae Parameters For Disentangled Recommendation, Nhu-Thuat Tran, Hady Wirawan Lauw

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Disentangled recommendation within the Variational Autoencoder (VAE) framework aims to capture multiple user interests. While effective, these VAEs are fundamentally constrained by their reliance on interaction data alone, lacking the rich external semantic knowledge needed to properly structure and separate latent interests. Meanwhile, Large Language Models (LLMs) excel at deriving profound user preference signals from textual data. Prevailing methods for integrating LLMs into recommendation, however, either focus on single-interest modeling or perform a shallow fusion by aligning LLM and VAE representation spaces. Thus, they fail to fundamentally shape the VAE's latent space for multi-interest learning, hindering recommendation performance. To bridge …

Verbalizing Lightgcn: Direct Learning Of Textual Representations From User-Item Interaction Graph Via Llms, Manh-Khanh Ngo Huu, Hady Wirawan Lauw

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In this work, we propose VerbaLightGCN, a novel LLM-based recommendation framework that integrates the semantic understanding of LLMs with user-item interaction modeling. Traditional collaborative filtering (CF) models typically embed user and item IDs into a latent space to capture interaction signals. However, pretrained LLMs cannot natively interpret these learned embeddings. To bridge this gap, VerbaLightGCN adopts a CF-as-text paradigm, in which collaborative signals are encoded in textual form and directly learned from the user–item interaction graph, and are then combined with semantic information to construct user and item profiles that function as latent embeddings. Inspired by LightGCN, our method retains …

Multi-Scale Modeling Method For Intelligent Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Swarm Combat, Yelei Zhu, Shoulin Shen, Jiang Zhu, Chuanhua Wen

Journal of System Simulation

Abstract: Intelligent unmanned aerial vehicle swarm combat exhibits multi-scale characteristics of microlevel tactical autonomy, meso-level resource constraints, and macro-level network collaboration. In view of the problem that a single-scale modeling method is difficult to simultaneously characterize individual decision-making details, resource flow process, and system collaboration mechanism, a multi-scale modeling method integrating multi-agent modeling, system dynamics, and complex network theory was proposed. By designing six formal coupling operators to achieve cross-layer information mapping, a time progression mechanism based on a master-slave clock and hybrid synchronization was established, and a proof of error boundedness was provided. A prototype system was implemented on …

Research On Safety Monitoring System For Digital Twin Fully Mechanized Mining Face In Thin Coal Seams, Ya Liu, Zhaoyun Zhang, Cheng An, Canguang Zheng

Journal of System Simulation

Abstract: To solve the problems of opaque production processes, difficult expression of production information, and high difficulty in real-time model driving and safety monitoring in fully mechanized mining faces of thin coal seams, studying the use of digital twin technology and risk early warning models to solve beyond-visual-range visual production operations and safety monitoring control of the working face has important theoretical and practical value. This paper studied the construction methods of the digital twin system for fully mechanized mining faces in thin coal seams and discussed the construction of high-precision three-dimensional models, the real-time collection and processing conversion of …