Engineering Commons^™

A Simulation-Based Approach To Risk Assessment And Mitigation In Supply Chain Networks, Mamadou Seck, Ghaith Rabadi, Christian Koestler

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

We present in this paper a simulation-based approach to evaluate the risk associated with supply chain disruptions caused by failures in some supply chains nodes and measure the impact of such disruptions on supply chain key performance measures (KPIs) of interest. The proposed framework enables analysts and managers to repeatedly assess the risk to their supply chains based on various simulated scenarios and identify the most critical nodes whose disruption will have the highest impact on the KPIs of interest. As a result, companies can focus on the most critical supply chain assets and develop targeted mitigation plans that minimize …

Statistical Engineering: A Causal-Stochastic Modeling Research Update, Teddy Steven Cotter

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

In the ASEM-IAC 2012, Cotter (2012) summarized prior works that led to the proposal for statistical engineering, identified the gaps in knowledge that statistical engineering needs to address, explored additional gaps in knowledge not addressed in the prior works, set forth a working definition of and body of knowledge for statistical engineering, and set forth proposals of potential systems contributions the Engineering Management profession could make toward the development of statistical engineering. In 2014, the ASQ Statistics Division, DOT&E, NASA, and IDA co-sponsored a Statistical Engineering Agreement to jointly research development of the discipline of statistical engineering. The statistics community …

Using Computer-Aided Design Software And 3d Printers To Improve Spatial Visualization, Petros Katsioloudis, Millie Jones

STEMPS Faculty Publications

Many articles have been published on the use of 3D printing technology. From prefabricated homes and outdoor structures to human organs, 3D printing technology has found a niche in many fields, but especially education. The education of technology and engineering students has come a long way from traditional instruction using hand drawings. Although drawings may still be a part of a students learning, computer technology has been embraced in this field for several years. With the introduction of AutoCAD technical drawing programs and now 3D printing, learners can use 3D printed models to develop their spatial abilities in technology and …

Vapor Flow Resistance Of Dry Soil Layer To Soil Water Evaporation In Arid Environment: An Overview, Xixi Wang

Civil & Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

Evaporation from bare sandy soils is the core component of the hydrologic cycle in arid environments, where vertical water movement dominates. Although extensive measurement and modeling studies have been conducted and reported in existing literature, the physics of dry soil and its function in evaporation is still a challenging topic with significant remaining issues. Thus, an overview of the previous findings will be very beneficial for identifying further research needs that aim to advance our understanding of the vapor flow resistance (VFR) effect on soil water evaporation as influenced by characteristics of the dry soil layer (DSL) and evaporation zone …

Evaluation Of Static Vs. Dynamic Visualizations For Engineering Technology Students And Implications On Spatial Visualization Ability: A Quasi-Experimental Study, Petros Katsioloudis, Daniel Dickerson, Vukica Jovanovic, Mildred Jones

STEMPS Faculty Publications

The benefit of using static versus dynamic visualizations is a controversial one. Few studies have explored the effectiveness of static visualizations to those of dynamic visualizations, and the current state of the literature remains somewhat unclear. During the last decade there has been a lengthy debate about the opportunities for using animation in learning and instruction. More specifically it has been shown that dynamic visualizations often provide no advantages over static visualizations. If they had shown advantages, it was due to the fact that more information was available in the animated than in the static version. Given this result, the …

Killing Adherent And Nonadherent Cancer Cells With The Plasma Pencil, Mounir Laroussi, Soheila Mohades, Nazir Barekzi

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

The application of low temperature plasmas in biology and medicine may lead to a paradigm shift in the way various diseases can be treated without serious side effects. Low temperature plasmas generated in gas mixtures that contain oxygen or air produce several chemically reactive species that have important biological implications when they interact with eukaryotic or prokaryotic cells. Here, a review of the effects of low temperature plasma generated by the plasma pencil on different cancerous cells is presented. Results indicate that plasma consistently shows a delayed killing effect that is dose dependent. In addition, there is some evidence that …

Addressing New Skills Needed For The Automotive Industry Through A Motorsports Educational Pathway, Vukica M. Jovanovic, Mileta M. Tomovic, Alok K. Verma, Nathan Luetke, Steve Branch

Engineering Technology Faculty Publications

The automotive industry has higher-skilled positions available that need engineers and engineering technologists qualified and capable to work in a high-paced, advanced manufacturing sector. Various educational programs across the country offer programs related to the motorsports area at the Associate of Science level. There are also various articu-lation agreements that enable students to continue their education to the baccalaureate level. These programs try to fill in the gap related to the skills shortage in systems and new design methods and processes. The main strength of such educational pathways is that students, who are trained to work as technicians with an …

Preparing Students For The Advanced Manufacturing Environment Through Robotics, Mechatronics, And Automation Training, Ana M. Djuric, Vukica Jovanovic, Tatiana V. Goris

Engineering Technology Faculty Publications

Automation is one of the key areas for modern manufacturing systems. It requires coordination of different machines to support manufacturing operations in a company. Recent studies show that there is a gap in the STEM workforce preparation in regards to highly automated production environments. Industrial robots have become an essential part of these semi-automated and automated manufacturing systems. Their control and programming requires adequate education and training in robotics theory and applications. Various engineering technology departments offer different courses related to the application of robotics. These courses are a great way to inspire students to learn about science, math, engineering, …

Maximum Screening Fields Of Superconducting Multilayer Structures, Alex Gurevich

Physics Faculty Publications

It is shown that a multilayer comprised of alternating thin superconducting and insulating layers on a thick substrate can fully screen the applied magnetic field exceeding the superheating fields H_sof both the superconducting layers and the substrate, the maximum Meissner field is achieved at an optimum multilayer thickness. For instance, a dirty layer of thickness ~0.1μm at the Nb surface could increase H_s similar or equal to 240 mT of a clean Nb up to H_s similar or equal to 290 mT. Optimized multilayers of Nb₃Sn, NbN, some of the iron pnictides, or alloyed …

Measurements Of Rf Properties Of Thin Film Nb3Sn Superconducting Multilayers Using A Calorimetric Technique, S. Sosa-Guitron, A. Gurevich, J. Delayen, E. Chang Beom, C. Sundahl, G. V. Eremeev

Physics Faculty Publications

Results of RF tests of NB₃SN thin film samples related to the superconducting multilayer coating development are presented. We have investigated thin film samples of Nb₃Sn/Al₂O₃/Nb with Nb₃Sn layer thicknesses of 50 nm and 100 nm using a Surface Impedance Characterization system. These samples were measured in the temperature range 4 K-19 K, where significant screening by Nb₃Sn layers was observed below 16-17 K, consistent with the bulk critical temperature of Nb₃Sn.

Question 1: "Up" — A Fermi Question About Buoyancy; Question 2: Traffic Jams, Larry Weinstein

Physics Faculty Publications

Is it possible for a house to fly by the uplift of balloons, like in the movie "Up"? (written by R. Allart, A. Cazenave, and A. Müller, University of Geneva)

How much total time do Americans spend waiting in traffic each year? What is the total cost of this time?

Uncertainty Estimates And Prediction Interval Development For Internal Strain Gage Balance Calibration Systems, Kenneth G. Toro

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Currently, there is a lack of the use of mathematically rigorous methods to evaluate the performance of multivariate force measurement systems. The specific problem addressed in the research stems from the practical issues faced by test engineers when wind tunnel models with internal strain gage balances are readied for test. Check loads are applied and the question that needs to be answered is whether or not the balance is reading within acceptable limits. These systems tend to be difficult to characterize uncertainty, primarily due to their multivariate nature, but also due to the desire for an estimate on the explanatory …

Wireless Networking For Vehicle To Infrastructure Communication And Automatic Incident Detection, Sarwar Aziz Sha-Mohammad

Computer Science Theses & Dissertations

Vehicular wireless communication has recently generated wide interest in the area of wireless network research. Automatic Incident Detection (AID), which is the recent focus of research direction in Intelligent Transportation System (ITS), aims to increase road safety. These advances in technology enable traffic systems to use data collected from vehicles on the road to detect incidents. We develop an automatic incident detection method that has a significant active road safety application for alerting drivers about incidents and congestion. Our method for detecting traffic incidents in a highway scenario is based on the use of distance and time for changing lanes …

An Agent Based Approach For Simulating Demo Enterprise Models, Mamadou Seck, Joseph Barjis

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Faculty Publications

DEMO (design and engineering methodology for organization) is a theoretically grounded methodology for rigorous enterprise modeling. It provides relevant concepts from a construction perspective. As the methodology gains a wider audience, there is a growing interest in simulating DEMO models. Most attempts to develop a simulation approach for enterprise models in general, and the DEMO methodology in particular, are based on process oriented conceptualizations that are typically implementation in a discrete event paradigm. In this paper, we propose a conceptual framework for the translation of DEMO models into an agent based simulation. We will describe the DEMO methodology in some …

Effects Of Forcing Time Scale On The Simulated Turbulent Flows And Turbulent Collision Statistics Of Inertial Particles, B. Rosa, H. Parishani, O. Ayala, L.-P. Wang

Engineering Technology Faculty Publications

In this paper, we study systematically the effects of forcing time scale in the large-scale stochastic forcing scheme of Eswaran and Pope ["An examination of forcing in direct numerical simulations of turbulence," Comput. Fluids 16, 257 (1988)] on the simulated flow structures and statistics of forced turbulence. Using direct numerical simulations, we find that the forcing time scale affects the flow dissipation rate and flow Reynolds number. Other flow statistics can be predicted using the altered flow dissipation rate and flow Reynolds number, except when the forcing time scale is made unrealistically large to yield a Taylor microscale flow Reynolds …

Comparatively Mapping Genres In Academic And Workplace Engineering Environments, Vukica M. Jovanovic, Megan Mckittrick, Pilar Pazos, Daniel Richards, Julia Romberger

Engineering Technology Faculty Publications

In the Engineering workplace, one must be able to negotiate many genres of writing: he or she must deliver updates, understand technical requirements, weigh project priorities, develop and carry out problem-solving techniques, all while using different forms of technical communication. Engineering work relies on the ability to flexibly transition between a variety of technical writing genres, while also navigating the broad array of technologies required to effectively complete these projects. However, the genres and types of writing present in the workplace do not always reflect the genres and types of writing undergraduate Engineering students complete during coursework. From a Rhetorical …

Integration Of Mechatronics Design Approach Into Teaching Of Modeling Practices, Vukica M. Jovanovic, Tatiana V. Goris, Ana M. Djuric, Petros J. Katsioloudis, Nathan J. Luetke, Moustafa R. Moustafa, Basim Matrood

Engineering Technology Faculty Publications

Engineering design has transformed significantly due to advances in embedded system design and computer technologies. Almost every mechanical design today has some electrical and electronic components. Many products manufactured today contain both electrical and mechanical components and systems. Mechatronics is a design process that is multi-disciplinary in nature and integrates principles of many engineering disciplines including, but not limited to, mechanical engineering and mechanical engineering technology, electrical engineering and electrical engineering technology, and controls engineering. Mechatronic systems can be found in many different places today. These range from computer hard drives and robotic assembly systems, to washing machines, coffee makers, …

Mechatronic Education At The Faculty Of Technical Sciences Novi Sad, Gordana Ostojić, Vukica Jovanović, Drazan Kozak, Zeljko Ivandić, Stevan Stankovski

Engineering Technology Faculty Publications

The emerging engineering field of mechatronics has caught the attention of many engineering professionals, academics and government officials in recent years, nationally and globally. The main reason for this is that many modern products are no longer purely electrical and electronic or mechanical. Moreover, they are integrated multidisciplinary products which are made from subsystems which require engineering knowledge of different disciplines. Hence, increasing number of universities is offering courses, certificates and programs at undergraduate and graduate levels in the area of mechatronics. This paper presents an educational program in mechatronics at the Faculty of Technical Sciences, University of Novi Sad, …

Effects Of Gravity On The Acceleration And Pair Statistics Of Inertial Particles In Homogeneous Isotropic Turbulence, H. Parishani, O. Ayala, B. Rosa, L.-P. Wang, W. W. Grabowski

Engineering Technology Faculty Publications

Within the context of heavy particles suspended in a turbulent airflow, we study the effects of gravity on acceleration statistics and radial relative velocity (RRV) of inertial particles. The turbulent flow is simulated by direct numerical simulation (DNS) on a 256³ grid and the dynamics of O(10⁶) inertial particles by the point-particle approach. For particles/droplets with radius from 10 to 60 µm, we found that the gravity plays an important role in particle acceleration statistics: (a) a peak value of particle acceleration variance appears in both the horizontal and vertical directions at a particle Stokes number …

Application And Histology-Driven Refinement Of Active Contour Models To Functional Region And Nerve Delineation: Towards A Digital Brainstem Atlas, Nimal Patel, Sharmin Sultana, Tanweer Rashid, Dean Krusienski, Michel A. Audette

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

This paper presents a methodology for the digital formatting of a printed atlas of the brainstem and the delineation of cranial nerves from this digital atlas. It also describes on-going work on the 3D resampling and refinement of the 2D functional regions and nerve contours. In MRI-based anatomical modeling for neurosurgery planning and simulation, the complexity of the functional anatomy entails a digital atlas approach, rather than less descriptive voxel or surface-based approaches. However, there is an insufficiency of descriptive digital atlases, in particular of the brainstem. Our approach proceeds from a series of numbered, contour-based sketches coinciding with slices …

What Does It Take To Deliver An Active Hands-On Course?, Steve C. Hsiung, Feng Jao

Engineering Technology Faculty Publications

Distance Education has been implemented widely in different curricula at many institutions; different means have been used to ensure the delivery. This article introduces unique combination of different mechanisms in implementing the active/synchronous distance delivery of hands-on course(s) that is compatible and similar to the face-to-face on-campus course(s).There are three major developmental stages of these online courses - curriculum design, methodologies, and assessment to ensure the effectiveness of distance delivery of technical courses in engineering technology. The processes of curriculum design for the Embedded System Designs are discussed: (a) The development of course and labs modules for hands-on technical courses. …

Bioactive Lipid Coating Of Bone Allografts Direct Engraftment And Fate Determination Of Bone Marrow-Derived Cells In Rat Gfp Chimeras, Anusuya Das, Claire E. Segar, Yihsuan Chu, Tiffany W. Wang, Yon Lin, Chunxi Yang, Roy C. Ogle

School of Medical Diagnostics & Translational Sciences Publications

Bone grafting procedures are performed to treat wounds incurred during wartime trauma, accidents, and tumor resections. Endogenous mechanisms of repair are often insufficient to ensure integration between host and donor bone and subsequent restoration of function. We investigated the role that bone marrow-derived cells play in bone regeneration and sought to increase their contributions by functionalizing bone allografts with bioactive lipid coatings. Polymer-coated allografts were used to locally deliver the immunomodulatory small molecule FTY720 in tibial defects created in rat bone marrow chimeras containing genetically-labeled bone marrow for monitoring cell origin and fate. Donor bone marrow contributed significantly to both …

Can Strategic Risk Management Contribute To Enterprise Risk Management? A Strategic Management Perspective, Phil Bromiley, Devaki Rau, Michael K. Mcshane

Finance Faculty Publications

Within the discipline of enterprise risk management (ERM), strategic risk management (SRM) has become a subject of increasing interest to practitioners and academics. To our knowledge, the term “strategic risk management” first appeared in the management literature in 1985 and 1986 (Jammine, 1985; Figenbaum & Thomas, 1986) and in the academic finance literature in 1990 (Rawls and Smithson, 1990), although early usage of the term did not clearly relate to later conceptions. The phrase has been in use even longer than ERM (Bromiley, McShane, Nair, and Rustambekov, 2014). Even with this longevity, the meaning of the term remains unclear, with …

Sparse Coding Based Dense Feature Representation Model For Hyperspectral Image Classification, Ender Oguslu, Guoqing Zhou, Zezhong Zheng, Khan Iftekharuddin, Jiang Li

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

We present a sparse coding based dense feature representation model (a preliminary version of the paper was presented at the SPIE Remote Sensing Conference, Dresden, Germany, 2013) for hyperspectral image (HSI) classification. The proposed method learns a new representation for each pixel in HSI through the following four steps: sub-band construction, dictionary learning, encoding, and feature selection. The new representation usually has a very high dimensionality requiring a large amount of computational resources. We applied the l₁/l_q regularized multiclass logistic regression technique to reduce the size of the new representation. We integrated the method with a linear …

Adaptive Graph Construction For Isomap Manifold Learning, Loc Tran, Zezhong Zheng, Guoquing Zhou, Jiang Li, Karen O. Egiazarian (Ed.), Sos S. Agaian (Ed.), Atanas P. Gotchev (Ed.)

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Isomap is a classical manifold learning approach that preserves geodesic distance of nonlinear data sets. One of the main drawbacks of this method is that it is susceptible to leaking, where a shortcut appears between normally separated portions of a manifold. We propose an adaptive graph construction approach that is based upon the sparsity property of the ℓ₁ norm. The ℓ₁ enhanced graph construction method replaces k-nearest neighbors in the classical approach. The proposed algorithm is first tested on the data sets from the UCI data base repository which showed that the proposed approach performs better than …

A Comparative Study Of Two Prediction Models For Brain Tumor Progression, Deqi Zhou, Loc Tran, Jihong Wang, Jiang Li, Karen O. Egiazarian (Ed.), Sos S. Agaian (Ed.), Atanas P. Gotchev (Ed.)

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

MR diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) technique together with traditional T1 or T2 weighted MRI scans supplies rich information sources for brain cancer diagnoses. These images form large-scale, high-dimensional data sets. Due to the fact that significant correlations exist among these images, we assume low-dimensional geometry data structures (manifolds) are embedded in the high-dimensional space. Those manifolds might be hidden from radiologists because it is challenging for human experts to interpret high-dimensional data. Identification of the manifold is a critical step for successfully analyzing multimodal MR images.

We have developed various manifold learning algorithms (Tran et al. 2011; Tran et al. …

Plasma Processes And Cancer - Special Topical Cluster Of The 2nd Iwpct Meeting, Masaru Hori, Mounir Laroussi, Kai Masur, Yuzuru Ikehara

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

(First paragraph) Although the emerging multidisciplinary field of plasma medicine has been around for nearly two decades important advances have already taken place that could one day revolutionize healthcare and the way various challenging diseases can be treated.1-3Amongst these advances the effects of low temperature plasma (LTP) on cancer cells in vitro and in vivo stand out.4-13Current cancer treatment modalities, such as chemotherapy and radiation therapy, have serious side effects and tend to lose their benefits to the patients after a while. Therefore, novel and improved therapies that can be used alone …

Use Of Single Stage Model Rockets To Teach Some Engineering Principles And Practices To First Year Engineering And Engineering Technology Students, Hüseyin Sarper, Linda Vahala

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Model rocketry has been called miniature astronautics; a technology in miniature, a hobby, a sport, a technological recreation, an educational tool, and it is all of these things. This paper will describe student projects using model rockets and engines to learn engineering principles for launching rockets and determining the apogee. Model rocketry is a powerful tool for instructors who wish to incorporate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics into a fun, engaging, and challenging activity for first year engineering students. The apogee can be determined using four distinct methods: trigonometry using hand held angle measuring tools, onboard altimeter devices, analytical calculations …

Resilient And Trustworthy Dynamic Data-Driven Application Systems (Dddas) Services For Crisis Management Environments, Youakim Badr, Salim Hariti, Youssif Al-Nashif, Erik Blasch

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Future crisis management systems needresilient and trustworthy infrastructures to quickly develop reliable applications and processes, andensure end-to-end security, trust, and privacy. Due to the multiplicity and diversity of involved actors, volumes of data, and heterogeneity of shared information;crisis management systems tend to be highly vulnerable and subjectto unforeseen incidents. As a result, the dependability of crisis management systems can be at risk. This paper presents a cloud-based resilient and trustworthy infrastructure (known as rDaaS) to quickly develop secure crisis management systems. The rDaaS integrates the Dynamic Data-Driven Application Systems (DDDAS) paradigm into a service-oriented architecture over cloud technology and provides …

The Multimodal Brain Tumor Image Segmentation Benchmark (Brats), Bjoern H. Menze, Andras Jakab, Stefan Bauer, Jayashree Kalpathy-Cramer, Khan M. Iftekharuddin, Syed M.S. Reza

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

In this paper we report the set-up and results of the Multimodal Brain Tumor Image Segmentation Benchmark (BRATS) organized in conjunction with the MICCAI 2012 and 2013 conferences. Twenty state-of-the-art tumor segmentation algorithms were applied to a set of 65 multi-contrast MR scans of low-and high-grade glioma patients-manually annotated by up to four raters-and to 65 comparable scans generated using tumor image simulation software. Quantitative evaluations revealed considerable disagreement between the human raters in segmenting various tumor sub-regions (Dice scores in the range 74%-85%), illustrating the difficulty of this task. We found that different algorithms worked best for different sub-regions …