Engineering Commons^™

Temporal Optical Activity And Chiral Time-Interfaces [Invited], Shixiong Yin, Yao-Ting Wang, Andrea Alù

Advanced Science Research Center

Time-interfaces, at which the optical properties of a medium undergo abrupt and spatially uniform changes, have attracted surging interest in optics and wave physics. In this work, we study wave scattering at time-interfaces involving chiral media. Dual to spatial interfaces involving chiral media, we show that a propagating wave is split upon a chiral time-interface into two orthogonal circular polarization waves oscillating at different frequencies. We formulate the temporal scattering boundary-value problem at such time-interfaces, and then demonstrate the effect of temporal optical activity through a chiral time-slab. The effect of material dispersion is also analyzed, highlighting interesting opportunities in …

Cloud Container Security’ Next Move, Vishakha Sadhwani

Dissertations and Theses

In the last few years, it is apparent to cybersecurity experts everywhere that the proverbial container tech genie is out of the bottle, and has been widely embraced across multiple organizations. To achieve the flexibility of building and deploying applications anywhere and everywhere, cloud native environments have gained great momentum and made the development lifecycle simpler than ever. However, container environments brings with them a range of cybersecurity issues that includes images, containers, hosts, runtimes, registries, and orchestration platforms, which needs the necessity to focus on investing in securing your container stack.

According to this report[1], released by cloud-native …

Scientists And Activists Work To Save The Planet, Myriam G. Vidal Valero

Capstones

Climate change and human intervention in nature are affecting people, ecosystems and ways of living all over the world. This portfolio of environmental pieces showcases the dire consequences of not addressing these issues, how solutions can be reached and the challenges facing those who try to change things.

A Robust Random Forest Prediction Model For Mother-To-Child Hiv Transmission Based On Individual Medical History, Rebecca Chaula

Tanzania Journal of Engineering and Technology (TJET)

Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) continues to be a leading cause of mortality and reduces manpower throughout the world. HIV transmission from mother to child is still a global challenge in health research. According to UNAIDS, in every 7 girls, 6 are found to be newly infected among adolescents whereby 15-24 years are likely to be living with HIV which is the maternal age and likely to transfer to the child. Machine learning methods have been used to predict HIV/AIDS transmission from mother to child but left behind some important considerations including the use of patient-level information and techniques in balancing …

The Use Of Online Social Media Platforms By Tanzania Journalists To Produce And Disseminate Development News, Elisha Magolanga

Tanzania Journal of Engineering and Technology (TJET)

Advancement in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) are revolutionizing Development Journalism (DJ) into an effective strategy for building competitive economies globally. However, many countries in Africa including Tanzania are slow in tapping potentials of ICT for development journalism. Digital penetration in the form of the Internet and social media are changing the way in which journalists are mobilizing and engaging communities in journalism practises, a key strategy for a competitive digitalised economy. This paper was guided by Development Communication Theory and Diffusion of Innovation Theory to explore the use of online social media by journalists in Tanzania to practice development …

Iot-Based Smart Fishing Gear For Sustainability Of The Tanzania Blue Economy, Abdi Abdalla

Tanzania Journal of Engineering and Technology (TJET)

The fishing industry engages many Tanzanians and is among the leading sectors of Blue Economy in the country. However, fishing practices are small-scale with poor and insufficient number of fishing facilities, hence limiting productivity and efficacy. Studies argue that the low level of technology currently used in the country could possibly be an impeding factor. Specifically, fishers use non interactive gears that cannot instantaneously update status and alert them whenever the gears are ready for collection. In such scenarios, fishers not only waste their time but also scarce resources such as fuel to facilitate trips to and from the fishing …

Investigating The Support For Agility In Developing Government Software Systems: A Case Of Three East African Countries, Leonard Peter Binamungu

Tanzania Journal of Engineering and Technology (TJET)

Agile Software Development Methods support an iterative and incremental way of developing software systems while responding to change by prioritising various aspects at different times. This differs from traditional sequential methods like Waterfall, in which one software development stage has to be completed before starting the next stage. To produce software systems that meet the requirements of their institutions, several governments in Africa have issued standards and guidelines to be followed during the development of government software systems. Such standards and guidelines specify the specific activities and deliverables for each stage of software development. While well-intentioned, such guidelines and standards …

On Blockchain Performance Enhancement: A Systematic Map Of Strategies Used, Anthony Kigombola

Tanzania Journal of Engineering and Technology (TJET)

Blockchain technology is one among the recent innovations in the computing industry. Blockchains have gathered a widespread interest in the industry mainly due to their security promise. Despite the anticipated benefits of Blockchains, there are several limitations which make the technology less suitable in large scale applications such as banking, one being low throughput. Several initiatives to improve the throughput of Blockchains are being tried out both in the academia and the business worlds but no systematic classification of the initiatives and the strategies used has been done. This study explores Blockchain performance improvement initiatives and classify the initiatives by …

Investigating Applications Of Deep Learning For Diagnosis Of Post Traumatic Elbow Disease, Hugh James

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Traumatic events such as dislocation, breaks, and arthritis of musculoskeletal joints can cause the development of post-traumatic joint contracture (PTJC). Clinically, noninvasive techniques such as Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) scans are used to analyze the disease. Such procedures require a patient to sit sedentary for long periods of time and can be expensive as well. Additionally, years of practice and experience are required for clinicians to accurately recognize the diseased anterior capsule region and make an accurate diagnosis. Manual tracing of the anterior capsule is done to help with diagnosis but is subjective and timely. As a result, there is …

Nuclear Power Plant In Las Vegas, Ryan W. Murray

Undergraduate Research Symposium Posters

This research focuses on the impact of a “Nuclear Power Plant in Las Vegas” or ‘NPP in LV’ for short. Nuclear power is clean, has no greenhouse gas emissions, and has a moderate cost of kilowatt hours. Las Vegas, or more specifically Clark County uses Gas power plants to produce a majority of their electricity. My project will show what a nuclear plant could do if built in the city of Las Vegas. What is a Nuclear power plant? The EIA’s definition is “A nuclear power plant uses the heat that a nuclear reactor produces to turn water into steam, …

Towards Structured Planning And Learning At The State Fisheries Agency Scale, Caleb A. Aldridge

Theses and Dissertations

Inland recreational fisheries has grown philosophically and scientifically to consider economic and sociopolitical aspects (non-biological) in addition to the biological. However, integrating biological and non-biological aspects of inland fisheries has been challenging. Thus, an opportunity exists to develop approaches and tools which operationalize planning and decision-making processes which include biological and non-biological aspects of a fishery. This dissertation expands the idea that a core set of goals and objectives is shared among and within inland fisheries agencies; that many routine operations of inland fisheries managers can be regimented or standardized; and the novel concept that current information and operations can …

A Call For Research: Ethical Dilemmas Of Autonomous Vehicle Manufacturers, Remy Harwood

Cybersecurity Undergraduate Research Showcase

While autonomous vehicles accounted for about 31.4 million vehicles on the road in 2019 (Placek). They have continued to flood the market and have a projected growth to 58 million in just 8 years from now (Placek) As well as a market cap in the billions of dollars. Even the comparatively new AV company Tesla has over 3 times the market cap value of the leading non AV brand Toyota (Market Cap) who are also working toward AVs as well, like their level 2 teammate driver assistance. Following Moore’s Law, as technology continues to improve, their social impact and ethical …

Ethical Concerns In Self-Driving Cars, Victoria Shand

Cybersecurity Undergraduate Research Showcase

Automobiles have been in existence since 1672 and only went up from there. Self-driving cars are a fantastic piece of technology; they can self-park, laser ranger finder, and near vision; they can map the road in advance, understand road signs, and, in some cases, handle certain variables on the road.

When talking about any form of technology, the possibilities are endless technology is a continuously evolving idea. When discussing self-driving cars, they have some fantastic and encouraging benefits and ideas. Some ideas would be that vehicles could communicate with each other, we could eliminate the need for traffic lights, and …

Performance Analysis: Using The Northern Sea Route As An Alternative To Traditional Routes, Liangkun Xu, Qing Yu

Journal of Marine Science and Technology–Taiwan

The grounding accident of M/V EVER GIVEN in the Suez Canal causes a catastrophic loss on shipping companies. Alternatively, previous studies have presented encouraging findings of the remarkable benefits of time and cost saving in the Northern sea route (NSR) due to extend the ice-free time and shorten the distance. Ships using the NSR could shorten as much as 40% of the sailing distance from China (Shanghai) to Europe (Rotterdam) compared with the traditional route via the Suez Canal. This paper investigates the economic potential of using the NSR as a cost-effective route in comparison with Suez Canal Route (SCR) …

Numerical And Approximate Analytic Solutions Of Second- Order Nonlinear Boundary Value Problems, Chein-Shan Liu, Jian-Hung Shen, Yung-Wei Chen

Journal of Marine Science and Technology–Taiwan

The shooting method consists of guessing unknown initial values, transforming a second-order nonlinear boundary value problem (BVP) to an initial value problem and integrating it to obtain the values at the right end to match the specified boundary condition, which acts as a target equation. In the shooting method, the key issue is accurately solving the target equation to obtain highly precise initial values. Due to the implicit and nonlinear property, we develop a generalized derivative-free Newton method (GDFNM) to solve the target equation, which offers very accurate initial values. Numerical examples are examined to show that the shooting method …

Optimization Of Circular Silencers Internally Hybridized With Multiple Reverse Chambers Using The Ga Method, Min-Chie Chiu, Ying-Chun Chang, Tian-Syung Lan, Ho-Sheng Chen

Journal of Marine Science and Technology–Taiwan

A noise abatement method using an eigen function in conjunction with an optimizer (Genetic Algorithm) under a space-constrain situation is proposed in this study concerning a high order wave propagation effect. An eigen function is used to describe an acoustical field and shorten the acoustical model in a four-pole transfer matrix form. The system’s four-pole matrix estimates the Transmission Loss (TL) for the silencers by multiplying individual four-pole matrices.

Additionally, a case study of an air compressor’s broadband noise elimination is introduced. Three types of circular reverse silencers (silencers A-C) internally hybridized with multiple straight chambers are adopted to efficiently …

Numerical Investigation Of The Uncertainty Of Typhoon Wave Parameters Retrieval Using Hf Radar, Toan Duy Dao, Hwa Chien

Journal of Marine Science and Technology–Taiwan

The aim of this study was to identify the sources of uncertainties of typhoon wave field monitoring using HF radar and to quantitatively assess the bias of the wave parameters, such as significant wave height and mean period, retrieved under various conditions. The strategy was to apply a purely numerical simulation of the Doppler-range spectra and then compare the estimation results to the target. For the quantitative investigation, a numerical test-bed was established. The test-bed was used to simulate the Doppler spectra based on Barrick’s (1972) theory by using the input of the directional wave spectra. The typhoon wave spectra …

A Fused Data Based Real-Time Collision Warning System For Ferries In The Yangtze River, Xiaojia Liu, Ke Zhang, Han Xue, Yingtang Li

Journal of Marine Science and Technology–Taiwan

The risks for ferries in the Yangtze River are relatively high, as they frequently cross the main traffic flows, leading to more intersections with other upwards and downwards ships. Although some studies have developed many models to assess collision risks in the Yangtze River, collision warning studies on ferries are scant. Meanwhile, most of the current collision studies evaluate risk based on AIS data, which are incapable of providing real-time ship information as they are discrete-time series data. In this work, fused data combining radar and AIS data are applied in a real-time ship collision warning model to assess the …

Experimental Study Of The Effect Of A Solid Wing Conveyor On Marine Debris Collection, Erik Sugianto, Jeng-Horng Chen

Journal of Marine Science and Technology–Taiwan

Marine debris is a global problem that has not been resolved. This has encouraged the emergence of marine debris cleaning technologies, one of which is a conveyor ship. However, how effective conveyors are in collecting waste has not been studied. In this paper, experimental research on conveyors as marine debris collectors is investigated. The capability of catamarans with or without solid wing conveyors to collect marine debris is explored. Three kinds of marine debris collection models are used: no-wing conveyor, a 12.5-cm-long wing conveyor, and an 18.75-cm-long wing conveyor. Artificial marine debris (AMD) is spread on the water surface in …

Solving Nonlinear Boundary Value Problems With Nonlinear Integral Boundary Conditions By Local And Nonlocal Boundary Shape Functions Methods, Chein-Shan Liu, Yung-Wei Chen, Jian-Hung Shen

Journal of Marine Science and Technology–Taiwan

The paper considers the second-order nonlinear boundary value problem (NBVP), which is equipped with nonlinear integral boundary conditions (BCs). Two novel iterative algorithms are developed to overcome the difficulty of NBVP with double nonlinearities involved. In the first iterative algorithm, two nonlocal shape functions incorporating the linear integral terms are derived, and a nonlocal boundary shape function (NBSF) is formulated to assist the solution. Let the solution be the NBSF so that the NBVP can be exactly transformed into an initial value problem. The new variable is a free function in the NBSF, and its initial values are given. For …

Enhanced Neurologic Concept Recognition Using A Named Entity Recognition Model Based On Transformers, Sima Azizi, Daniel B. Hier, Donald C. Wunsch

Chemistry Faculty Research & Creative Works

Although Deep Learning Has Been Applied to the Recognition of Diseases and Drugs in Electronic Health Records and the Biomedical Literature, Relatively Little Study Has Been Devoted to the Utility of Deep Learning for the Recognition of Signs and Symptoms. the Recognition of Signs and Symptoms is Critical to the Success of Deep Phenotyping and Precision Medicine. We Have Developed a Named Entity Recognition Model that Uses Deep Learning to Identify Text Spans Containing Neurological Signs and Symptoms and Then Maps These Text Spans to the Clinical Concepts of a Neuro-Ontology. We Compared a Model based on Convolutional Neural Networks …

2022 Fall Engr333 Project Section A Final Report, Dat Cao, Sam Hoover, Sawyer Masselink, Ian Vanderkooi, Matthew Carlson, Jacob Heeres, Anthony Nykamp, Jacob Wyngarden, Nate Anderson, Anna Giboney, Gia Mien Le, Jonathan Washburn, Jess Camp, Aubree Peters, Alin Stoica, Drew Stoneburner, Claire Sheppard, Alayna Spiering, Reid Veneman, James Viel

ENGR 333

Calvin University has committed to being carbon neutral by 2057. This entails removing all the natural gas consumption for heating, converting to electrical heating options, and then making carbon free electricity. This project looked into four different options: air source heat pumps, ground source heat pumps, renewable natural gas, and the efficiency of current equipment. Each option was examined throughout the course of the semester to determine feasibility of each solution, and which ones would be best to implement. As a class, section A decided ground source heat pumps along with thermostatic valves and the implementation of double pane windows …

A Brief Review Of Dns, Root Servers, Vulnerabilities And Decentralization, Mallory Runyan

Cybersecurity Undergraduate Research Showcase

Since the 1980’s and creation of the World Wide Web, Internet utilization is a common and arguably, necessary, part of daily life. The internet is young and still relatively new, but as of 2016, 3.4 billion people were online, and that number has since grown [1]. This is a significant number, but as such a common part of daily life, how elements of the internet or its infrastructure work is complex. The world would very likely be thrown into dark ages if DNS or any other significant aspect of the internet's infrastructure were to succumb to an attack. The Colonial …

Resilience Monitoring For Multi-Filter All-Source Navigation Framework With Assurance, Jonathon S. Gipson, Robert C. Leishman

Faculty Publications

The Autonomous and Resilient Management of All-source Sensors (ARMAS) framework monitors residual-space test statistics across unique sensor-exclusion banks of filters (known as subfilters) to provide a resilient, fault-resistant all-source navigation architecture with assurance. A critical assumption of this architecture, demonstrated in this paper, is fully overlapping state observability across all subfilters. All-source sensors, particularly those that only provide partial state information (altimeters, TDoA, AOB, etc.), do not intrinsically meet this requirement. This paper presents a novel method to monitor real-time overlapping position state observability and introduces an observability bank within the ARMAS framework, known as stable observability monitoring (SOM). SOM …

Actively Guided Cansats For Assisting Localization And Mapping In Unstructured And Unknown Environments, Cary Chun, M. Hassan Tanveer

Symposium of Student Scholars

When navigating in unknown and unstructured environments, Unmanned Arial Vehicles (UAVs) can struggle when attempting to preform Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) operations. Particularly challenging circumstance arise when an UAV may need to land or otherwise navigate through treacherous environments. As the primary UAV may be too large and unwieldly to safely investigate in these types of situations, this research effort proposes the use of actively guided CanSats for assisting in localization and mapping of unstructured environments. A complex UAV could carry multiple of these SLAM capable CanSats, and when additional mapping and localization capabilities where required, the CanSat would …

Six-Dimensional Single-Molecule Imaging With Isotropic Resolution Using A Multi-View Reflector Microscope, Oumeng Zhang, Zijian Guo, Yuanyuan He, Tingting Wu, Michael D. Vahey, Matthew D. Lew

Electrical & Systems Engineering Publications and Presentations

Imaging of both the positions and orientations of single fluorophores, termed single-molecule orientation-localization microscopy, is a powerful tool for the study of biochemical processes. However, the limited photon budget associated with single-molecule fluorescence makes high-dimensional imaging with isotropic, nanoscale spatial resolution a formidable challenge. Here we realize a radially and azimuthally polarized multi-view reflector (raMVR) microscope for the imaging of the three-dimensional (3D) positions and 3D orientations of single molecules, with precisions of 10.9 nm and 2.0° over a 1.5-μm depth range. The raMVR microscope achieves 6D super-resolution imaging of Nile red molecules transiently bound to lipid-coated spheres, accurately resolving …

2022 - The Third Annual Fall Symposium Of Student Scholars

Symposium of Student Scholars Program Books

The full program book from the Fall 2022 Symposium of Student Scholars, held on November 17, 2022. Includes abstracts from the presentations and posters.

An Empirical Study On The Classification Of Python Language Features Using Eye-Tracking, Jigyasa Chauhan

School of Computing: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Python, currently one of the most popular programming languages, is an object-
oriented language that also provides language feature support for other programming
paradigms, such as functional and procedural. It is not currently understood how
support for multiple paradigms affects the ability of developers to comprehend that
code. Understanding the predominant paradigm in code, and how developers classify
the predominant paradigm, can benefit future research in program comprehension as
the paradigm may factor into how people comprehend that code. Other researchers
may want to look at how the paradigms in the code interact with various code smells.
To investigate how …

Earlier Snowmelt May Lead To Late Season Declines In Plant Productivity And Carbon Sequestration In Arctic Tundra Ecosystems, Donatella Zona, Peter M. Lafleur, Koen Hufkens, Barbara Bailey, Beniamino Gioli, George Burba, Jordan P. Goodrich, Anna K. Liljedahl, Eugénie S. Euskirchen, Jennifer D. Watts, Mary Farina, John S. Kimball, Martin Heimann, Mathias Göckede, Martijn Pallandt, Torben R. Christensen, Mikhail Mastepanov, Efrén López-Blanco, Marcin Jackowicz-Korczynski, Albertus J. Dolman, Luca Belelli Marchesini, Roisin Commane, Steven C. Wofsy, Charles E. Miller, David A. Lipson, Josh Hashemi, Kyle A. Arndt, Lars Kutzbach, David Holl, Julia Boike, Christian Wille, Torsten Sachs, Aram Kalhori, Xia Song

Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute: Faculty Publications

Arctic warming is affecting snow cover and soil hydrology, with consequences for carbon sequestration in tundra ecosystems. The scarcity of observations in the Arctic has limited our understanding of the impact of covarying environmental drivers on the carbon balance of tundra ecosystems. In this study, we address some of these uncertainties through a novel record of 119 site-years of summer data from eddy covariance towers representing dominant tundra vegetation types located on continuous permafrost in the Arctic. Here we found that earlier snowmelt was associated with more tundra net CO2 sequestration and higher gross primary productivity (GPP) only in June …

2022 Fall Engr333 Poster, Section B, Nicholas Paternoster, Nick Grossman, Jared Ruba, Zac Runhaar, Caleb Styf, Anne Ghata, Micah Lee, Thomas Noble, Liam Austin, Kai Barboza, Mark Bekhet, Jordan Tuter, Jacob Tanis, Sara Vansolkema, Aidan Bakker, Ben Casey, Sarah Maccarthy, Elise Miera, Christine Vanoyen

ENGR 333

• “What would it take to eliminate Calvin's natural gas-related net CO2 emissions?”
• Former Calvin President Michael Le Roy signed the President’s Climate Commitment on Dec 6, 2017
• Pledged carbon neutrality by 2057
• Results so far have been mixed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but gains have come from: Improved lighting efficiency, Reduced enrollment, Renewable electricity is already being tackled through partnerships with companies like Sun FundED.