Engineering Commons^™

A Roadmap To Safe And Reliable Engineered Biological Nano-Communication Networks, Justin W. Firestone

School of Computing: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Synthetic biology has the potential to benefit society with novel applications that can improve soil quality, produce biofuels, grow customized biological tissue, and perform intelligent drug delivery, among many other possibilities. Engineers are creating techniques to program living cells, inserting new logic, and leveraging cell-to-cell communication, which result in changes to a cell's core functionality. Using these techniques, we can now create synthetic biological organisms (SBOs) with entirely new (potentially unseen) behaviors, which, similar to silicon devices, can sense, actuate, perform computation, and interconnect with other networks at the nanoscale level. SBOs are programmable evolving entities, and can be likened …

15th Annual Undergraduate Student Symposium, Farquhar Honors College

Undergraduate Student Symposium

The Undergraduate Student Symposium, sponsored by the Farquhar Honors College, presents student projects through presentations, papers, films, and poster displays. The event serves as a “showcase” demonstrating the outstanding scholarship of undergraduate students at NSU. The symposium is open to undergraduate students from all disciplines. Projects cover areas of student scholarship ranging from the experimental and the applied to the computational, theoretical, artistic, and literary. They are taken from class assignments and independent projects. Project presentations can represent any stage in a concept’s evolution, from proposal and literature review to fully completed and realized scholarly work. As in past symposia, …

Wright State University's Celebration Of Research, Scholarship And Creative Activities Book Of Abstracts From Friday, April 15, 2016, Wright State University Office Of Undergraduate Research And Stemm Activities

Celebration of Undergraduate & Graduate Research, Scholarship, and Creative Activities Materials

The student abstract booklet is a compilation of abstracts from students' oral and poster presentations at Wright State University's Annual Celebration of Research, Scholarship and Creative Activities on April 15, 2016.

Estimating The Probability Of Vegetation To Be Groundwater Dependent Based On The Evaluation Of Tree Models, Isabel C. Pérez Hoyos, Nir Y. Krakauer, Reza Khanbilvardi

Publications and Research

Groundwater Dependent Ecosystems (GDEs) are increasingly threatened by humans’ rising demand for water resources. Consequently, it is imperative to identify the location of GDEs to protect them. This paper develops a methodology to identify the probability of an ecosystem to be groundwater dependent. Probabilities are obtained by modeling the relationship between the known locations of GDEs and factors influencing groundwater dependence, namely water table depth and climatic aridity index. Probabilities are derived for the state of Nevada, USA, using modeled water table depth and aridity index values obtained from the Global Aridity database. The model selected results from the performance …

Processing And Interpretation Of Three-Component Vertical Seismic Profile Data, Ross Sea, Antarctica, Meltem Akan

Graduate Theses & Non-Theses

The Antarctic Geological Drilling Program (ANDRILL) AND-2A drill hole was drilled, cored and logged in southern McMurdo Sound (SMS) in the western Ross Sea, Antarctica during the austral summer of 2007. A single near-offset, over-sea ice vertical seismic profile (VSP) was collected in the AND-2A drill hole as a part of the logging program. The source for VSP data collection was a Generator Injector (GI) air-gun which was suspended by a cable through a hole made in the sea ice. The reason for selecting a GI air gun was the minimization of the bubble pulse effects which are prevalent in …

Low-Temperature Artificial Maturation Studies Of Type Ii And Type Iii Kerogens: Implications For Biogenic Gas Production, Albert Willy Nguena Kamga

Chemistry & Biochemistry Theses & Dissertations

Ancient organic matter (OM) in shales and coals, known mainly as Type II and Type III OM are known to produce both biogenic, thermogenic gas and oil. In this dissertation, mild artificial maturation, via closed system pyrolysis, is employed to determine the thermal reactivity of Type II and Type III OM beyond diagenesis. We select three Type II kerogens: i) Type II kerogen isolated from recent cores (3.3 Ma, Ro = 0.28) recovered from an upwelling basin in Namibia, Africa referred to as ODP Sediment, ii) Type II-S isolated from sediments (150 Ma, Ro = 0.38) recovered from an outcrop …

A Review Of Advances In The Identification And Characterization Of Groundwater Dependent Ecosystems Using Geospatial Technologies, Isabel C. Pérez Hoyos, Nir Y. Krakauer, Reza Khanbilvardi, Roy A. Armstrong

Publications and Research

Groundwater Dependent Ecosystem (GDE) protection is increasingly being recognized as essential for the sustainable management and allocation of water resources. GDE services are crucial for human well-being and for a variety of flora and fauna. However, the conservation of GDEs is only possible if knowledge about their location and extent is available. Several studies have focused on the identification of GDEs at specific locations using ground-based measurements. However, recent progress in remote sensing technologies and their integration with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) has provided alternative ways to map GDEs at a much larger spatial extent. This paper presents a review …

A Logistic Regression And Markov Chain Model For The Prediction Of Nation-State Violent Conflicts And Transitions, Nicholas Shallcross

Theses and Dissertations

Using open source data, this research formulates and constructs a suite of statistical models that predict future transitions into and out of violent conflict and forecasts the regional and global incidences of violent conflict over a ten-year time horizon. A total of thirty predictor variables are tested and evaluated for inclusion in twelve conditional logistic regression models, which calculate the probability that a nation will transition from its current conflict state, either In Conflict or Not in Conflict, to a new state in the following year. These probabilities are then used to construct a series of nation-specific Markov chain models …

Sefo: A Package For Generating Probabilistic Forecasts From Nmme Predictive Ensembles, Nir Krakauer

Publications and Research

Long-range weather forecasts based on output from ensembles of computer simulations are attracting increasing interest. A variety of methods have been proposed to convert the ensemble outputs to calibrated probabilistic forecasts. The package presented here (SeFo, for Seasonal Forecasting) implements a number of methods for producing forecasts of monthly surface air temperature anomalies up to 9 months in advance using output from the North American Multi-Model Ensemble (NMME). The package contains modules for downloading and reading past observations and ensemble output; producing forecast probability distributions; and verifying and calibrating a user-determined subset of methods using arbitrary past periods. By changing …

A New Architecture For Application-Aware Cognitive Multihop Wireless Networks, Trenton Evans, Kossivi Tossou, Feng Ye, Zhihui Shu, Yi Qian, Yaoqing Yang, Hamid Sharif

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

In this article, we propose a new architecture for AC-MWN. Cognitive radio is a technique to adaptively use the spectrum so that the resource can be used more efficiently in a low-cost way. A multihop wireless network can be deployed quickly and flexibly without fixed infrastructure. In our proposed new architecture, we study backbone routing schemes with network cognition, and a routing scheme with network coding and spectrum adaptation. A testbed is implemented to test the proposed schemes for AC-MWN. In addition to basic measurements, we implement a video streaming application based on the proposed AC-MWN architecture using cognitive radios. …

Ua66 Ogden College Of Science & Engineering Newsletter, Cheryl Stevens, Dean

Ogden College of Science & Engineering Publications

No abstract provided.

A Cyber Forensics Needs Analysis Survey: Revisiting The Domain's Needs A Decade Later, Vikram S. Harichandran, Frank Breitinger, Ibrahim Baggili, Andrew Marrington

Electrical & Computer Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications

The number of successful cyber attacks continues to increase, threatening financial and personal security worldwide. Cyber/digital forensics is undergoing a paradigm shift in which evidence is frequently massive in size, demands live acquisition, and may be insufficient to convict a criminal residing in another legal jurisdiction. This paper presents the findings of the first broad needs analysis survey in cyber forensics in nearly a decade, aimed at obtaining an updated consensus of professional attitudes in order to optimize resource allocation and to prioritize problems and possible solutions more efficiently. Results from the 99 respondents gave compelling testimony that the following …

Towards Improved Estimates Of Upper Ocean Energetics, Alexander Grant Wineteer

Master's Theses

The energy exchanged between the atmosphere and the ocean is an important parameter in understanding the Earth’s climate. One way of quantifying this energy exchange is through the use of “wind work,” or the work done on the ocean by the wind. Since wind work is calculated according to the interaction between ocean surface currents and surface wind stress, a number of surface current decompositions can be used to decompose wind work calculations. In this research, geostrophic, ageostrophic, Ekman, and total current decompositions are all used to calculate wind work. Geostrophic currents are formed by the balance of surface pressure …

Four Billion People Facing Severe Water Scarcity, Mesfin Mekonnen, Arjen Y. Hoekstra

Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute: Faculty Publications

Freshwater scarcity is increasingly perceived as a global systemic risk. Previous global water scarcity assessments, measuring water scarcity annually, have underestimated experienced water scarcity by failing to capture the sea- sonal fluctuations in water consumption and availability. We assess blue water scarcity globally at a high spatial resolution on a monthly basis. We find that two-thirds of the global population (4.0 billion people) live under conditions of severe water scarcity at least 1 month of the year. Nearly half of those people live in India and China. Half a billion people in the world face severe water scarcity all year …

Long-Term Trend Analysis Of Precipitation And Air Temperature For Kentucky, United States, Somsubhra Chattopadhyay, Dwayne R. Edwards

Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering Faculty Publications

Variation in quantities such as precipitation and temperature is often assessed by detecting and characterizing trends in available meteorological data. The objective of this study was to determine the long-term trends in annual precipitation and mean annual air temperature for the state of Kentucky. Non-parametric statistical tests were applied to homogenized and (as needed) pre-whitened annual series of precipitation and mean air temperature during 1950–2010. Significant trends in annual precipitation were detected (both positive, averaging 4.1 mm/year) for only two of the 60 precipitation-homogenous weather stations (Calloway and Carlisle counties in rural western Kentucky). Only three of the 42 temperature-homogenous …

Early Afternoon Concurrent Panel Sessions: Commercial Space Industry Snapshot: Presentation: Small Catapult-Assisted Horizontal-Launch Reusable Rbcc Ssto Spaceplane For Economical Short-Duration Leo Access, Nihad E. Daidzic,

Aviation / Aeronautics / Aerospace International Research Conference

This article discusses the conceptual design, flight trajectory calculations, and utilization of the possible future horizontally-launched reusable Single-Stage-to-Orbit (SSTO) spaceplane for small payload short-duration manned/unmanned access to Low-Earth-Orbit (LEO). The 10,000 lb spaceplane would use 5,000 ft catapult-assist horizontal-launch facility and conduct powered approach and landing on conventional horizontal paved runways following the gliding atmospheric re-entry. To increase the economy of operation, the launch facility located at high elevations (4,000+ ft) equatorial region is required, such as, the plateaus in Kenya and Tanzania in Africa and/or Ecuador in South America. A 500-lb payload, including pilot-commander, is envisioned. The propulsion cycle …

Jainism And Nonviolence: From Mahavira To Modern Times, Lana E. Sims

The Downtown Review: An Interdisciplinary Journal Written and Peer-Reviewed by Mandel Honors College Students at Cleveland State University

The research contained in this paper focuses on the religion of Jainism, its main principle of ahimsa, or nonviolence, and how that philosophy has evolved over the years, eventually inspiring today’s nonviolent movements. First, a look will be taken at the origin of Jainism, with a brief explanation of its most important principles and beliefs. Then, ahimsa is explained as it has been traditionally perceived by Jains. The recent evolution of the meaning of ahimsa and its impact on modern nonviolence movements is discussed, with a focus on the influence of second-generation Jains in the United States on the …

Methane Emissions As Energy Reservoir: Context, Scope, Causes And Mitigation Strategies, Xiaoli Chai, David J. Tonjes, Devinder Mahajan

Technology & Society Faculty Publications

Methane (CH4) is now considered a bridge fuel between present fossil (carbon) economy and desired renewables and this energy molecule is projected to play an important role in the global energy mix well beyond 2035. The atmospheric warming potential of CH4 is 28-36 times, when averaged over a 100-year period, that of carbon dioxide (CO2) and this necessitates a close scrutiny of global CH4 emissions inventory. As the second most abundant greenhouse gas (GHG), the annual global CH4 emissions were 645 million metric tons (MMT), accounting for 14.3% of the global anthropogenic GHG emissions. Of this, five key anthropogenic sources: …

A Compact To Revitalise Large-Scale Irrigation Systems Using A Leadership-Partnership-Ownership 'Theory Of Change', Bruce Lankford, Ian Makin, Nathanial Matthews, Peter G. Mccornick, Andrew Noble, Tushaar Shah

Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute: Faculty Publications

In countries with transitional economies such as those found in South Asia, large-scale irrigation systems (LSIS) with a history of public ownership account for about 115 million ha (Mha) or approximately 45% of their total area under irrigation. In terms of the global area of irrigation (320 Mha) for all countries, LSIS are estimated at 130 Mha or 40% of irrigated land. These systems can potentially deliver significant local, regional, and global benefits in terms of food, water and energy security, employment, economic growth, and ecosystem services. For example, primary crop production is conservatively valued at about US$355 billion. However, …

Demonstration And Evaluation Of Dual Purpose Chicken “Potchefstroom Koekoek” Packages At Areka Areas, Snnpr, Ethiopia, Aman Getiso, Melese Yilma, Mesfin Mekonnen, Addisu Jimma, Mebratu Asrat, Asrat Tera, Endrias Dako

Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute: Faculty Publications

The demonstration was conducted in Wolaita zone, Boloso Sore district at Areka and around Areka areas. Participants (farmers) were selected purposively on the basis of willingness to construct poultry house; to cover all the associated package costs and record the required was selected. Survival of chicks during the first 8 weeks of brooding using hay-box at the farmers management condition was 79.8% (359 were survived out 450). On average about 93.1% of the chicken were survived to the laying age while mortality reduced from 20.2% to 6.9%. The average age at first egg-laying recorded at each farmers was 142 days …

Anthropogenic Nitrogen And Phosphorus Emissions And Related Grey Water Footprints Caused By Eu-271s Crop Production And Consumption, Mesfin Mekonnen, Stephan Lutter, Aldo Martinez

Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute: Faculty Publications

Water is a prerequisite for life on our planet. Due to climate change and pollution, water availability for agricultural production, industry and households is increasingly put at risk. With agriculture being the largest water user as well as polluter worldwide, we estimate anthropogenic nitrogen and phosphorus emissions to fresh water related to global crop production at a spatial resolution level of 5 by 5 arc min and calculate the grey water footprints (GWF) related to EU-271s crop production. A multiregional input-output model is used to trace the the GWF embodied in the final consumption of crop products by the EU-27. …

Drivers Of Food Wastage And Their Implications For Sustainable Policy Development, Krista L. Thyberg, David J. Tonjes

Technology & Society Faculty Publications

There has been growing interest in establishing food waste prevention and recovery programs throughout the world. The drive to target food waste stems from increasing concerns about resource conservation, food security, food waste’s environmental and economic costs, and a general trend in the waste management industry to transition to more sustainable practices. Here the drivers of residential, institutional, and commercial food waste generation in developed countries, particularly in the U.S., are explored. The impacts of food system modernization on food waste generation are examined, particularly impacts related to food system industrialization, urbanization, globalization, and economic growth. Socio-demographic, cultural, political, and …

Bytewise Approximate Matching: The Good, The Bad, And The Unknown, Vikram S. Harichandran, Frank Breitinger, Ibrahim Baggili

Electrical & Computer Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications

Hash functions are established and well-known in digital forensics, where they are commonly used for proving integrity and file identification (i.e., hash all files on a seized device and compare the fingerprints against a reference database). However, with respect to the latter operation, an active adversary can easily overcome this approach because traditional hashes are designed to be sensitive to altering an input; output will significantly change if a single bit is flipped. Therefore, researchers developed approximate matching, which is a rather new, less prominent area but was conceived as a more robust counterpart to traditional hashing. Since the conception …

Detecting And Tracing Slow Attacks On Mobile Phone User Service, Brian Cusack, Zhuang Tian

Australian Digital Forensics Conference

The lower bandwidth of mobile devices has until recently filtered the range of attacks on the Internet. However, recent research shows that DOS and DDOS attacks, worms and viruses, and a whole range of social engineering attacks are impacting on broadband smartphone users. In our research we have developed a metric-based system to detect the traditional slow attacks that can be effective using limited resources, and then employed combinations of Internet trace back techniques to identify sources of attacks. Our research question asked: What defence mechanisms are effective? We critically evaluate the available literature to appraise the current state of …

The Proceedings Of 14th Australian Digital Forensics Conference, 5-6 December 2016, Edith Cowan University, Perth, Australia, Craig Valli

Australian Digital Forensics Conference

Conference Foreword

This is the fifth year that the Australian Digital Forensics Conference has been held under the banner of the Security Research Institute, which is in part due to the success of the security conference program at ECU. As with previous years, the conference continues to see a quality papers with a number from local and international authors. 11 papers were submitted and following a double blind peer review process, 8 were accepted for final presentation and publication. Conferences such as these are simply not possible without willing volunteers who follow through with the commitment they have initially made, …

Impacts Of Artisanal And Large Scale Gold Mining On Tropical Rivers In West Africa: A Case Study From The Brong Ahafo Region Of Ghana, Karunia F. Macdonald

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Mining communities in more than 70 developing countries, mostly in the tropical regions, still practise artisanal and small scale gold mining (ASGM). ASGM commonly operates along rivers and streams for easy access to process water and as receptacles for mine water discharges. A largely unregulated industry, ASGM employs rudimentary mining and processing methods including the use of mercury amalgamation, and is often found near to larger scale and modern mining (LSM) operations.

The substantial use of mercury by ASGM has drawn the attention of agencies and researchers but so has its persistent economic role in providing much needed rural employment. …

An Efficient Hybrid Eye Detection Method, Mingxin Yu, Yingzi Lin, Xiangzhou Wang

Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

Eye detection is the most important and critical task of diverse applications such as face detection and recognition. However, most eye detection methods do not fully consider detection robustness to people with glasses, illumination variation, head pose change, and eye occlusions. This paper proposes an efficient hybrid eye detection method based on a gray intensity variance filter (VF) and support vector machines (SVMs). Firstly, the VF is used for eliminating most of noneye region images to keep less candidate eye regions. Then accurate two eye regions are determined easily through the trained SVM classifier. Moreover, this paper provides an assessment …

Open Source Software Adoption Evaluation Through Feature Level Sentiment Analysis Using Twitter Data, Muhammad Touseef Ikram, Naveed Anwer Butt, Muhammad Tanvir Afzal

Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

Adopting open source software from the Internet, developers often encounter the problem of accessing the quality of candidate software. To efficiently adopt the system they need a sort of quality guarantee regarding software resources. To assist the developer in software adoption evaluation we have proposed a software adoption assessment approach based on user comments. In our proposed approach, we first collected the textual reviews regarding the software resource, assigned the sentiment polarity (positive or negative) to each comment, extracted the adoption aspect which the comment talks about, and then based on the adoption aspects of the software generated an aggregated …

Energy Savings Potential In Air Conditioners And Chiller Systems, Durmuş Kaya, Hisham Alidrisi

Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

In the current paper we quantified and evaluated the energy saving potential in air conditioners and chiller systems. We also showed how to reduce the cost of air conditioners and chiller systems in existing facilities on the basis of payback periods. Among the measures investigated were: 1) installing higher efficiency air conditioners, 2) installing higher efficiency chillers, 3) duty cycling air conditioning units, and 4) utilizing existing economizers on air conditioning units. For each method, examples were provided from Arizona, USA. In these examples, the amount of saved energy, the financial evaluation of this energy, and the investment cost and …

Ship-Radiated Noise Feature Extraction Using Multiple Kernel Graph Embedding And Auditory Model, Xinzhou Xu, Xinwei Luo, Chen Wu, Li Zhao

Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

No abstract provided.