Engineering Commons^™

A Covert Encryption Method For Applications In Electronic Data Interchange, Jonathan Blackledge, Dmitry Dubovitskiy

Articles

A principal weakness of all encryption systems is that the output data can be ‘seen’ to be encrypted. In other words, encrypted data provides a ‘flag’ on the potential value of the information that has been encrypted. In this paper, we provide a new approach to ‘hiding’ encrypted data in a digital image.

In conventional (symmetric) encryption, the plaintext is usually represented as a binary stream and encrypted using an XOR type operation with a binary cipher. The algorithm used is ideally designed to: (i) generate a maximum entropy cipher so that there is no bias with regard to any …

Optimal Tracking Control Of Affine Nonlinear Discrete-Time Systems With Unknown Internal Dynamics, Travis Dierks, Sarangapani Jagannathan

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In this paper, direct dynamic programming techniques are utilized to solve the Hamilton Jacobi-Bellman equation forward-in-time for the optimal tracking control of general affine nonlinear discrete-time systems using online approximators (OLA's). the proposed approach, referred as adaptive dynamic programming (ADP), is utilized to solve the infinite horizon optimal tracking control of affine nonlinear discrete-time systems in the presence of unknown internal dynamics and a known control coefficient matrix. the design is implemented using OLA's to realize the optimal feedback control signal and the associated cost function. the feedforward portion of the control input is derived and approximated using an additional …

Influence Of Magnesium Nitrate On The Corrosion Performance Of Sol-Gel Coated Aa2024-T3 Aluminium Alloy, Rajath Varma, Brendan Duffy, John Cassidy

Articles

Traditional anti-corrosion technology has relied heavily on using reducible metal species, predominantly hexavalent chromium (Cr(VI)), for protecting reactive metal alloys such as aluminium which is extensively used in the aerospace sector. However, the impending changes in the use of Cr(VI) in Europe and the United States have forced aerospace manufacturers to examine alternative materials for protecting aluminium. One of the most promising alternatives being investigated are organosilane based sol-gels containing anticorrosion additives. In this work the anti-corrosion properties of magnesium (II) nitrate (Mg(NO3)2) as a inhibitor was investigated at different concentrations (0.1% - 1.0 wt %) in a methyltriethoxysilane (MTEOS) …

Integrated Resource Allocation And Scheduling In Bidirectional Flow Shop With Multi-Machine And Cos Constraints, Hoong Chuin Lau, Zhengyi Zhao, Shuzhi Sam Ge

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

An integer programming (IP) model is proposed for integrated resource allocation and operation scheduling for a multiple job-agents system. Each agent handles a specific job-list in a bidirectional flowshop. For the individual agent scheduling problem, a formulation is proposed in continuous time domain and compared with an IP formulation in discrete time domain. Of particular interest is the formulation of the machine utilization function-- both in continuous time and discrete time. Fast heuristic methods are proposed with the relaxation of the machine capacity. For the integrated resource allocation and scheduling problem, a linear programming relaxation approach is applied to solve …

Risk Indexes For Draft Ccl3 Chemicals, J. Alan Roberson, Matthew Lueders, Craig Adams, Jeffrey S. Rosen

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

To supplement the processes used for developing the draft third Contaminant Candidate List (CCL3) and better inform decisions made by the US Environmental Protection Agency on future CCLs, the authors offer an evaluation tool for efficiently synthesizing, visualizing, and organizing data for effective comparisons among contaminants. Graphical presentations of health effects-occurrence indexes were developed for more than 300 chemical contaminants, including those on the draft CCL3. a risk indexes framework was then used to elucidate the extent of available data, the data quality, and the underlying uncertainties for occurrence and toxicity. Choosing the appropriate contaminant for regulation is a complex …

An Improved Upfc Control For Oscillation Damping, Jagannathan Sarangapani, Mariesa Crow, Jianjun Guo

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This paper proposes a new control approach for a unified power flow controller (UPFC) for power system oscillation damping. This control is simple to implement, yet is valid over a wide range of operating conditions. It is also effective in the presence of multiple modes of oscillation. The proposed control is implemented in several test systems and is compared against a traditional PI control.

Modelling Situation Awareness For Context‐Aware Decision Support, Yu-Hong Feng, Teck-Hou Teng, Ah-Hwee Tan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Situation awareness modelling is popularly used in the command and control domain for situation assessment and decision support. However, situation models in real-world applications are typically complex and not easy to use. This paper presents a Context-aware Decision Support (CaDS) system, which consists of a situation model for shared situation awareness modelling and a group of entity agents, one for each individual user, for focused and customized decision support. By incorporating a rule-based inference engine, the entity agents provide functions including event classification, action recommendation, and proactive decision making. The implementation and the performance of the proposed system are demonstrated …

Multicast Encryption Infrastructure For Security In Sensor Networks, Richard R. Brooks, Brijesh Pillai, Matthew Pirretti, Michele C. Weigle

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Designing secure sensor networks is difficult. We propose an approach that uses multicast communications and requires fewer encryptions than pairwise communications. The network is partitioned into multicast regions; each region is managed by a sensor node chosen to act as a keyserver. The keyservers solicit nodes in their neighborhood to join the local multicast tree. The keyserver generates a binary tree of keys to maintain communication within the multicast region using a shared key. Our approach supports a distributed key agreement protocol that identifies the compromised keys and supports membership changes with minimum system overhead. We evaluate the overhead of …

Electronic And Structural Properties Of Molybdenum Thin Films As Determined By Real Time Spectroscopic Ellipsometry, J. D. Walker, H. Khatri, V. Ranjan, Jian Li, R. W. Collins, S. Marsillac

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Walker, J.D., Khatri, H., Ranjan, V., Li, J., Collins, R.W., & Marsillac, S. (2009). Electronic and structural properties of molybdenum thin films as determined by real-time spectroscopic ellipsometry. Applied Physics Letters, 94(14). doi: 10.1063/1.3117222

Quantum Algorithm For Bose-Einstein Condensate Quantum Fluid Dynamics: Twisting Of Filamentary Vortex Solitons Demarcated By Fast Poincare Recursion, Jeffrey Yepez, George Vahala, Linda L. Vahala

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

The dynamics of vortex solitons is studied in a BEC superfluid. A quantum lattice-gas algorithm (measurementbased quantum computation) is employed to examine the dynamical behavior vortex soliton solutions of the Gross-Pitaevskii equation (ø⁴ interaction nonlinear Schroedinger equation). Quantum turbulence is studied in large grid numerical simulations: Kolmogorov spectrum associated with a Richardson energy cascade occurs on large flow scales. At intermediate scales, a new k^-6 power law emerges, due to vortex filamentary reconnections associated with Kelvin wave instabilities (vortex twisting) coupling to sound modes and the exchange of intermediate vortex rings. Finally, at very small spatial scales a …

Dynamic Adaptation Of Joint Transmission Power And Contention Window In Vanet, Danda B. Rawat, Gongjun Yan, Dimitrie C. Popescu, Michele C. Weigle, Stephan Olariu

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

In this paper, we propose an algorithm for joint adaptation of transmission power and contention window to improve the performance of vehicular network in a cross layer approach. The high mobility of vehicles in vehicular communication results in the change in topology of the Vehicular Ad-hoc Network (VANET) dynamically, and the communication link between two vehicles might remain active only for short duration of time. In order for VANET to make a connection for long time and to mitigate adverse effects due to high and fixed transmission power, the proposed algorithm adapts transmission power dynamically based on estimated local traffic …

Seasonal Adaptation Of Vegetation Color In Satellite Images For Flight Simulations, Yuzhong Shen, Jiang Li, Vamsi Mantena, Srinivas Jakkula

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Automatic vegetation identification plays an important role in many applications including remote sensing and high performance flight simulations. This paper proposes a novel method that identifies vegetative areas in satellite images and then alters vegetation color to simulate seasonal changes based on training image pairs. The proposed method first generates a vegetation map for pixels corresponding to vegetative areas, using ISODATA clustering and vegetation classification. The ISODATA algorithm determines the number of clusters automatically. We then apply morphological operations to the clustered images to smooth the boundaries between clusters and to fill holes inside clusters. Six features are then computed …

Parameter Optimization For Image Denoising Based On Block Matching And 3d Collaborative Filtering, Ramu Pedada, Emin Kugu, Jiang Li, Zhanfeng Yue, Yuzhong Shen, Josien P.W. Pluim (Ed.), Benoit M. Dawant (Ed.)

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Clinical MRI images are generally corrupted by random noise during acquisition with blurred subtle structure features. Many denoising methods have been proposed to remove noise from corrupted images at the expense of distorted structure features. Therefore, there is always compromise between removing noise and preserving structure information for denoising methods. For a specific denoising method, it is crucial to tune it so that the best tradeoff can be obtained. In this paper, we define several cost functions to assess the quality of noise removal and that of structure information preserved in the denoised image. Strength Pareto Evolutionary Algorithm 2 (SPEA2) …

Invited Article: Data Analysis Of The Floating Potential Measurement Unit Aboard The International Space Station, Aroh Barjatya, Charles M. Swenson, Donald C. Thompson, Kenneth H. Wright

Publications

We present data from the Floating Potential Measurement Unit (FPMU) that is deployed on the starboard truss of the International Space Station. The FPMU is a suite of instruments capable of redundant measurements of various plasma parameters. The instrument suite consists of a floating potential probe, a wide-sweeping spherical Langmuir probe, a narrow-sweeping cylindrical Langmuir probe, and a plasma impedance probe. This paper gives a brief overview of the instrumentation and the received data quality, and then presents the algorithm used to reduce I-V curves to plasma parameters. Several hours of data are presented from August 5, 2006 and March …

Interconnections Of Nonlinear Systems Driven By L₂-Itô Stochastic Processes, Luis A. Duffaut Espinosa

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Fliess operators have been an object of study in connection with nonlinear systems acting on deterministic inputs since the early 1970's. They describe a broad class of nonlinear input-output maps using a type of functional series expansion, but in most applications, a system's inputs have noise components. In such circumstances, new mathematical machinery is needed to properly describe the input-output map via the Chen-Fliess algebraic formalism. In this dissertation, a class of L₂-Itô stochastic processes is introduced specifically for this purpose. Then, an extension of the Fliess operator theory is presented and sufficient conditions are given under which …

Precise Measurement Of The Neutron Magnetic Form Factor Gnm In The Few-Gev² Region, Clas Collaboration, J. Lachniet, H. Bagdasaryan, S. Bültmann, N. Kalantarians, G. E. Dodge, T. A. Forest, G. Gavalian, C. E. Hyde-Wright, A. Klien, S. E. Kuhn, M. R. Niroula, R. A. Niyazov, L. M. Qin, L. B. Weinstein, J. Zhang

Physics Faculty Publications

The neutron elastic magnetic form factor was extracted from quasielastic electron scattering on deuterium over the range Q² = 1.0–4.8  GeV² with the CLAS detector at Jefferson Lab. High precision was achieved with a ratio technique and a simultaneous in situ calibration of the neutron detection efficiency. Neutrons were detected with electromagnetic calorimeters and time-of-flight scintillators at two beam energies. The dipole parametrization gives a good description of the data

A Subspace Projection Methodology For Nonlinear Manifold Based Face Recognition, Praveen Sankaran

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

A novel feature extraction method that utilizes nonlinear mapping from the original data space to the feature space is presented in this dissertation. Feature extraction methods aim to find compact representations of data that are easy to classify. Measurements with similar values are grouped to same category, while those with differing values are deemed to be of separate categories. For most practical systems, the meaningful features of a pattern class lie in a low dimensional nonlinear constraint region (manifold) within the high dimensional data space. A learning algorithm to model this nonlinear region and to project patterns to this feature …

Supporting Protocols For Structuring And Intelligent Information Dissemination In Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks, Filip Cuckov

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The goal of this dissertation is the presentation of supporting protocols for structuring and intelligent data dissemination in vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs). The protocols are intended to first introduce a structure in VANETs, and thus promote the spatial reuse of network resources. Segmenting a flat VANET in multiple cluster structures allows for more efficient use of the available bandwidth, which can effectively increase the capacity of the network. The cluster structures can also improve the scalability of the underlying communication protocols. The structuring and maintenance of the network introduces additional overhead. The aim is to provide a mechanism for …

High-Performance Broadcast And Multicast Protocols For Multi-Radio Multi-Channel Wireless Mesh Networks, Jun Wang

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Recently, wireless mesh networks (WMNs) have attracted much attention. A vast amount of unicast, multicast and broadcast protocols has been developed for WMNs or mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs). First of all, broadcast and multicast in wireless networks are fundamentally different from the way in which wired networks function due to the well-known wireless broadcast/multicast advantage. Moreover, most broadcast and multicast protocols in wireless networks assume a single-radio single-channel and single-rate network model, or a generalized physical model, which does not take into account the impact of interference. This dissertation focuses on high-performance broadcast and multicast protocols designed for multi-radio …

3d Reconstruction Using Multi-View Imaging System, Conglin Huang

University of Kentucky Master's Theses

This thesis presents a new system that reconstructs the 3D representation of dental casts. To maintain the integrity of the 3D representation, a standard model is built to cover the blind spots that the camera cannot reach. The standard model is obtained by scanning a real human mouth model with a laser scanner. Then the model is simplified by an algorithm which is based on iterative contraction of vertex pairs. The simplified standard model uses a local parametrization method to obtain the curvature information. The system uses a digital camera and a square tube mirror in front of the camera …

A Protocol Suite For Wireless Personal Area Networks, Karl E. Persson

University of Kentucky Doctoral Dissertations

A Wireless Personal Area Network (WPAN) is an ad hoc network that consists of devices that surround an individual or an object. Bluetooth^® technology is especially suitable for formation of WPANs due to the pervasiveness of devices with Bluetooth^® chipsets, its operation in the unlicensed Industrial, Scientific, Medical (ISM) frequency band, and its interference resilience. Bluetooth^® technology has great potential to become the de facto standard for communication between heterogeneous devices in WPANs.

The piconet, which is the basic Bluetooth^® networking unit, utilizes a Master/Slave (MS) configuration that permits only a single master and up to …

Analytical Modeling Of A Large Local Area Network - Part I: Internet Traffic Characterization, Mathew Luhanga

Tanzania Journal of Engineering and Technology (TJET)

The goal of both IP network operators and the end users is to get the highest performance from the system for a given cost. This makes Performance a key criterion in the design, procurement, and use of computer and communication systems. In order to address problems associated with performance degradation of operational communications systems, over the last decade, traffic engineering techniques have emerged in an attempt to optimize communication systems’ performance and ensure more efficient use of their resources. One of these techniques is analytical modeling. Analytic performance models are an excellent tool for quickly evaluating the performance of operational …

Quad General Tree Drawing Algorithm And General Trees Characterization: Towards An Environment For The Experimental Study On General Tree Drawing Algorithms, Chu Yao

Theses and Dissertations

Information visualization produces (interactive) visual representations of abstract data to reinforce human cognition and perception; thus enabling the viewer to gain knowledge about the internal structure of the data and causal relationships in it. The visualization of information hierarchies is concerned with the presentation of abstract hierarchical information about relationships between various entities. It has many applications in diverse domains such as software engineering, information systems, biology, and chemistry. Information hierarchies are typically modeled by an abstract tree, where vertices are entities and edges represent relationships between entities. The aim of visualizing tree drawings is to automatically produce drawings of …

Integrated Remote Sensing And Gis Techniques For Groundwater Exploration In Semi-Arid Region: A Case Of Karamoja Region – Uganda, Lubang Nobert

Tanzania Journal of Engineering and Technology (TJET)

Groundwater is a precious resource that covers wide geographical extent. Proper evaluation is required in order to ensure prudent use of groundwater resources. The current groundwater assessment in Karamoja region, as in many parts of the world, uses Apparent Resistivity and Vertical Electrical Sounding, which has limited coverage to some localized usually predetermined areas. Comprehensive groundwater development program needs a wide area coverage and large volume of multidisciplinary data. In the present study, an integrated remote sensing and GIS based methodology is developed and tested for the evaluation of groundwater resources of Karamoja Sub Region, Northeastern Uganda. The components of …

Identification Of Unbalanced Forces And Foundation Parameters Of Rotating Machines From Vibration Measurements, Nalitolela G

Tanzania Journal of Engineering and Technology (TJET)

A technique is described to use measured vibration data of a rotating machine and its foundation to identify unbalanced forces, stiffness and damping parameters of the mountings, and the parameters of the foundation. It is based on an idealisation treating the rotor, the machine structure and the foundation as rigid masses supported by springs and dampers. Operational vibration data of the machine and its foundation before and after the rotating unbalanced forces are perturbed by adding unbalanced mass to the rotor are used in the identification procedure. Once the parameters are identified, dynamic forces transmitted to the foundation can be …

Design And Development Of A Prototype For A Web-Based Interface For Online Material For Tanzanian Youth, Mjema A.M

Tanzania Journal of Engineering and Technology (TJET)

A prototype of a web-based interface for an online database was developed to be used by youth organizations in Dar-es-Salaam. A participatory approach involving secondary students in the identification of user interface requirements, in designing and testing the prototype was used. A questionnaire was designed and manned in seven secondary schools in Dar-es-Salaam to estimate the Internet usage. Interviews were conducted to countercheck the questionnaire responses. The interview and the questionnaire helped to come up with a set of user requirements for the web-based interface of an online information search. From the specifications of the user requirements the author was …

The Multivariate Statistical Analysis Of Abiotic Parameters Of The Lake Tanganyika Sub Catchment, Hudson Nkotagu

Tanzania Journal of Engineering and Technology (TJET)

Results from multivariate statistical analysis of abiotic parameters conducted during the dry season at 20 accessible sites on 8 rivers, 2 lakes and a dam covering the Lake Tanganyika sub catchment are discussed. Standard methods were used to determine the levels of abiotic parameters from water samples. Physical parameters including DO, EC, Eh, turbidity, temperature, pH and secchi transparency were measured in situ while chlorophyll a was determined in the laboratory. Nutrients such as NO3-, SiO2, PO4 3- and Fe2+ were determined along with HCO3-. Factor analysis resulted in four factors including increased primary productivity, redox conditions, dissolution, and reduction …

An Equation For Estimating The (R) Usle Slope Steepness Factors, Mathew Mulemgera

Tanzania Journal of Engineering and Technology (TJET)

Abstract Currently three equations are used for calculating slope steepness factor for the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE); one for slopes less than nine percent, the second for slopes equal or greater than nine percent, and the third equation that has been proposed for use in China for slopes equal or greater than 17 %. The three equations have linear relationships between slope steepness factor, S and the sine of the slope angle, θ. The three equations under predict the factor, S when used on slope steepness beyond the data sets used to develop them. In addressing this problem …

Grey Measurement Based On Rough Set Granule Calculations, Jian Liu, Zhili Huang, Shunxiang Wu, Ruiyi Chen

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This paper put the Rough set methodology based on the information table disposal to expand the dual (binary) relations described by the neighborhood system. To make full use of logic operations including AND operation by-bit, XOR operation by-bit and NOR operation by-bit, gains the certain and uncertain information among the various decision-making factors. The use of knowledge related with Grey system theory, establishes their mathematical model for decision making and data mining, according to the principle of the priority of certain information in decision-making and the ambiguity degree from small to big. At last, a new method for data mining …

2008 Fall Engr333 Project Final Report, 2008 Fall Engr333

ENGR 333

The Calvin College Engineering 333 class of 2008 was challenged with the question, “What would it take to implement an energy efficiency fund at Calvin?” Before addressing this question, another had to be asked: “What is an energy efficiency fund?” An energy efficiency fund is a revolving fund which takes seed money from donations, tuition, or grants and invests it into projects that save energy. Energy cost savings from the projects are routed back to the fund to help it grow and enable it to finance future projects. In order to begin this, the senior engineering students began organizing and …