Engineering Commons^™

Evaluation Of Autonomous Robotic Milling Methodology For Natural Tooth-Shaped Implants Based On Sko Optimization, Yongki Yoon

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Robotic surgery is one of the most demanding and challenging applications in the field of automatic control. One of the conventional surgeries, the dental implantation, is the standard methodology to place the artificial tooth root composed of titanium material into the upper or lower jawbone. During the dental implant surgery, mechanical removal of the bone material is the most critical procedure because it may affect the patient's safety including damage to the mandibular canal nerve and/or piercing the maxillary sinus. With this problem, even though short term survival rates are greater than 95%, long term success rate of the surgery …

Kinematic Analysis Of Gesture In Aphasia, Haroon Osmanzada

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Individuals who have experienced a left hemispheric stroke often develop aphasia, which results in a loss of effective verbal communication and reliance on gesturing to communicate. In this study we combined these two aspects of aphasic word retrieval difficulties and gesturing with three-dimensional kinematics. The purposes of this study were: 1) to develop a preliminary database of upper extremity movements for two common gestures used in gestural facilitation of naming (GES) training, slicing and hammering, in participants who experienced a left-hemisphere stroke and compare them to age-matched healthy controls, and 2) to perform a case study consisting of a single …

Multidentate Resorcinarene Surfactants For The Phase Transfer Of Metal Nanoparticles And Nanodiamonds: Applications In Catalysis And Diamond Film Growth, Vara Prasad Sheela

Chemistry & Biochemistry Theses & Dissertations

One main objective of the present work is to functionalize cuboctahedral platinum nanoparticles with various multidentate resorcinarene surfactants and study their influence in determining their catalytic activity. We hypothesized that catalytically active and recyclable catalysts can be achieved by incomplete yet strong passivation of the nanoparticle surfaces by using multidentate resorcinarene surfactants. We have developed phase transfer protocols for functionalizing cuboctahedral platinum nanoparticles with resorcinarene thiol or amine. Fluorescence assay confirmed that both these nanoparticles contained almost comparable unpassivated metal area. The activity of such phase transferred nanoparticles was tested in the catalytic hydrogenation of allyl alcohol. The conversion of …

Using Decision-Making Techniques In Support Of Simulation Training Transfer Selections, Jane Taylor Bachman

Computational Modeling & Simulation Engineering Theses & Dissertations

A general methodological approach for determining the selection of military training simulations with respect to military training requirements has not been developed. This thesis undertakes a literature review, which indicated that there was a need for a multi-criteria decision making model to assist acquisition and/or training planners in making training selection decisions. The Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) Model was selected from a multi-criteria decision-making model candidate list for evaluation of its efficacy in selecting military training simulations based upon the military training requirements. Four separate trainee populations, Alpha, Beta, Charlie, and Delta, were evaluated. Results from the Alpha study case …

An Extensible Framework For Creating Personal Archives Of Web Resources Requiring Authentication, Matthew Ryan Kelly

Computer Science Theses & Dissertations

The key factors for the success of the World Wide Web are its large size and the lack of a centralized control over its contents. In recent years, many advances have been made in preserving web content but much of this content (namely, social media content) was not archived, or still to this day is not being archived,for various reasons. Tools built to accomplish this frequently break because of the dynamic structure of social media websites. Because many social media websites exhibit a commonality in hierarchy of the content, it would be worthwhile to setup a means to reference this …

Modeling, Identification, Validation And Control Of A Hybrid Maglev Ball System, Ahmed Elhussein E. Mekky

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Theses & Dissertations

In this thesis, the electrodynamics of a single axis hybrid electromagnetic suspension Maglev system was modeled and validated by applying it to a single axis hybrid maglev ball experiment. By exploring its linearized model, it was shown that the single axis hybrid Maglev ball has inherently unstable dynamics. Three control scenarios were explored based on the linearized model; (1) Proportional, Deferential (PD) control, (2) Proportional, Deferential, Integral (PID) and (3) PID controller with pre-filtering. This thesis has shown that a PID controller with a pre-filtering technique can stabilize such a system and provide a well-controlled response.

A parametric system identification …

Incorporating Memory And Learning Mechanisms Into Meta-Raps, Arif Arin

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Due to the rapid increase of dimensions and complexity of real life problems, it has become more difficult to find optimal solutions using only exact mathematical methods. The need to find near-optimal solutions in an acceptable amount of time is a challenge when developing more sophisticated approaches. A proper answer to this challenge can be through the implementation of metaheuristic approaches. However, a more powerful answer might be reached by incorporating intelligence into metaheuristics.

Meta-RaPS (Metaheuristic for Randomized Priority Search) is a metaheuristic that creates high quality solutions for discrete optimization problems. It is proposed that incorporating memory and learning …

Establishing Relationships Between Risk Management And Knowledge Transfer, Garrett S. Haltiwanger

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Risk management (RM) and Knowledge management (KM) have mostly been treated as separate management philosophies. Risk management is a widely taught topic in academia and is practiced in industry. Knowledge management is being taught at increasingly more colleges and many companies are discovering a need for managing knowledge. This dissertation shows that some research has been conducted to apply the principles of knowledge management in establishing risk management plans. To a lesser extent there has been research conducted to apply the philosophies of risk management to identifying knowledge gaps and maintaining corporate knowledge. Both risk management and knowledge management are …

Probabilistic Resilience Quantification And Visualization Building Performance To Hurricane Wind Speeds, Berna Eren Tokgoz

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Natural and man made disasters are unpredictable and unavoidable in today's world. Their frequency of occurrence and damages keep increasing. Due to the efforts to reduce negative consequences from such disasters, the concept of resilience has gained so much popularity in disaster management area especially after disasters like the September 11 attacks and Hurricane Katrina. Complex systems of today are under operational risks because of increasing threats and their high level of vulnerability. Hence, such systems need to adapt the concept of resilience for continuous operations. Resilience is a proactive concept which should incorporate both pre-event (preparedness and mitigation) and …

The Influence Of Non-Equilibrium Pressure On Rotating Flows, Irfan Rashid Zardadkhan

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Theses & Dissertations

This study was undertaken to investigate the influence of pressure relaxation on steady, incompressible flows with strong streamline curvature. In the early part of this dissertation research, the significance of non-equilibrium pressure forces in controlling the structure of a steady, two dimensional axial vortex was demonstrated. In order to extend the study of pressure relaxation influences on more complex rotating flows, this dissertation has examined other rotating flow features that can be associated with hurricanes, tornadoes and dust devils. To model these flows, modified boundary layer equations were developed for a fluid column rotating near a solid plane including the …

Visualizing Digital Collections At Archive-It, Kalpesh Padia

Computer Science Theses & Dissertations

Archive-It, a subscription service from the Internet Archive, allows users to create,maintain, and view digital collections of web resources. The current interface of Archive-It is largely text-based, supporting drill-down navigation using lists of URIs.While this interface provides good searching capabilities, it is not efficient for browsing. In the absence of keywords, a user has to spend large amount of time trying to locate a web page of interest. In order to provide a better visual experience to the user, we have studied the underlying characteristics of Archive-It collections and implemented six different visualizations (treemap, time cloud, bubble chart, image plot, …

Dynamic Model Of Sailors Descending A Navy Ship Ladder, Jonathan Coulter

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Knee moments are greater in individuals who climb Navy ship ladders than in people climbing stairs. Because it is known that people who climb stairs frequently are at greater risk for osteoarthritis and that people in the Navy report higher incidences of knee pain, it was hypothesized that the internal joint reaction forces during the sailor's descent of a ship ladder would be greater than internal joint reaction forces of gait and stair climbing. Dimensions of a commonly used Navy ship ladder were collected and a replica was constructed. The replica was instrumented to collect 3D kinematics and kinetics during …

A Design Of Experiments Approach To Visor Drag Reduction On Heavy Vehicles Using Wind Tunnel Testing, Adam Golembeski

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Drag reduction on a scale wind tunnel model of a tractor and partial trailer was used as a case study to investigate the use of Designed Experiments. Specifically, the drag reduction benefits of replacing a tractor sunvisor with an airfoil shaped sunvisor were investigated. The airfoil-shaped sunvisor was theorized to generate thrust in the direction of travel thus reducing the net drag force. The drag force was measured using a load cell integrated into the tractor-trailer model. The experimental factors were the angle of attack, the horizontal position relative to the surface of the tractor body, the yaw angle and …

Demand Responsive Signal Control Strategy (Drsc) Incorporating Queue Length Information In Real-Time Signal Control, Rahul Rajbhara

Civil & Environmental Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Most of the existing vehicle detection systems, namely inductive loops, video cameras etc. are incapable of measuring the queue lengths at signalized intersections. However, with the advent of modern technology, newer detection methods such as probe vehicles equipped with wireless communications (Connected Vehicles), particularly under the Vehicle Infrastructure Integration [52), and radar detection currently provide this capability [53). This thesis presents a Demand Responsive Signal Control Strategy (termed as DRSC) for an isolated signalized intersection. The control strategy incorporates real-time queue length information (obtained from probe vehicles) into the signal control logic. Demand based maximum green time for each upcoming/new …

Response Surface Optimization Of Electron Beam Freeform Fabrication Depositions Using Design Of Experiments, Patricia A. Quigley

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The Electron Beam Freeform Fabrication (EBF³ ) System is a material depositing, layer additive technique that produces three dimensional (3D) parts out of a wide range of metals in high vacuum, using an electron beam and wire feedstock. Screening deposition trials on a titanium alloy, Ti-6Al-4V, at the National Aeronautics Space Administration (NASA) revealed selective vaporization of the aluminum content of linear prototypes when subjected to chemical analysis. In this study, the aluminum content, bead height and bead width output responses were analyzed from a systematic study of the effects that the interactions of the EBF³ processing parameters …

Development And Validation Methodology Of The Nuss Procedure Surgical Planner, Krzysztof J. Rechowicz

Computational Modeling & Simulation Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Pectus excavatum (PE) is a congenital chest wall deformity which is characterized, in most cases, by a deep depression of the sternum. A minimally invasive technique for the repair of PE (MIRPE), often referred to as the Nuss procedure, has been proven to be more advantageous than many other PE treatment techniques. The Nuss procedure consists of placement of a metal bar(s) underneath the sternum, thereby forcibly changing the geometry of the ribcage. Because of the prevalence of PE and the popularity of the Nuss procedure, the demand to perform this surgery is greater than ever. Therefore, a Nuss procedure …

Real-Time Virtual Pathology Using Signal Analysis And Synthesis, Dennis L. Bergin

Computational Modeling & Simulation Engineering Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation discusses the modeling and simulation (M& S) research in the area of real-time virtual pathology using signal analysis and synthesis. The goal of this research is to contribute to the research in the M&S area of generating simulated outputs of medical diagnostics tools to supplement training of medical students with human patient role players.

To become clinically competent physicians, medical students must become skilled in the areas of doctor-patient communication, eliciting the patient's history, and performing the physical exam. The use of Standardized Patients (SPs), individuals trained to realistically portray patients, has become common practice. SPs provide the …

Analysis Of Bar Deformation Under Sternum Forces During Surgical Correction Of Pectus Excavatum In Children, Rohit N. Nikam

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Pectus excavatum (PE) also known as sunken or funnel chest is the most common chest wall deformity and affects 1 in every 1,000 children. In PE patients, the middle lower portion of the sternum is depressed producing concave appearance of the anterior part of the chest wall. This problem can be corrected with minimally invasive surgery developed by Dr. Donald Nuss in 1986. A specially made steel bar is implanted to lift the sternum to its normal position. This technique has been modified several times to improve safety and effectiveness of the bar placement and removal. One of the significant …

Dynamics Of Non-Thermal Plasma Jets Under Variable Pressure, Mehmet Arda Akman

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Non-thermal plasma (NTP) jets driven by short DC pulses have attracted the attention of researchers within the past decade due to their promising bio-medical applications in the fields of wound healing, cancer treatment and sterilization. The ability to operate at atmospheric pressure, room temperature and simple device configuration has greatly contributed to their appeal and adoption in the plasma science community. However, the mechanisms that sustain the plasma generation and propagation in ambient air are currently a topic of debate. For instance, what appears as a continuous stream of a plasma plume extending outwards from a plasma device into the …

Synthesis Of A Superlattice Structure Of Alternating Layers Of Antimony Telluride And Bismuth Telluride By Atomic Layer Deposition For Thermoelectric Applications, David Nminibapiel

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Alloys composed of bismuth, antimony and telluride compounds exhibit very high figure of merit ZT values at relatively low temperatures, making them exceptional thermoelectric materials. Advancement in thermoelectric devices and applications hinges on increasing ZT, which is a ratio of the thermoelectric power factor to the thermal conductivity. One of the proposed avenues to achieving this goal is the use of low dimensional structures such as quantum wells, quantum dots, superlattices (SL) and nanolaminates to affect heat transport. SL structures can effectively confine charge carriers as well as scatter phonons which contribute significantly to thermal conductivity. In this thesis, the …

Application Of Chebyshev Formalism To Identify Nonlinear Magnetic Field Components In Beam Transport System, Michael Spata

Physics Theses & Dissertations

An experiment was conducted at Jefferson Lab's Continuous Electron Beam Accelerator Facility to develop a beam-based technique for characterizing the extent of the nonlinearity of the magnetic fields of a beam transport system. Horizontally and vertically oriented pairs of air-core kicker magnets were simultaneously driven at two different frequencies to provide a time-dependent transverse modulation of the beam orbit relative to the unperturbed reference orbit. Fourier decomposition of the position data at eight different points along the beamline was then used to measure the amplitude of these frequencies. For a purely linear transport system one expects to find solely the …

Towards Managing And Understanding The Risk Of Underwater Terrorism, Richard J. Gay

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation proposes a methodology to manage and understand the risk of underwater terrorism to critical infrastructures utilizing the parameters of the risk equation. Current methods frequently rely on statistical methods, which suffer from a lack of appropriate historical data to produce distributions and do not integrate epistemic uncertainty. Other methods rely on locating subject matter experts who can provide judgment and then undertaking an associated validation of these judgments.

Using experimentation, data from unclassified successful, or near successful, underwater attacks are analyzed and instantiated as a network graph with the key characteristics of the risk of terrorism represented as …

Diamond This Film Patterning Technique Using Selective Nucleation Growth, Characterization And Application, Weican Xiao

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Diamond is the hardest bulk material with the highest thermal conductivity. It is also an excellent wide band gap material; hence, diamond is suitable for electronic, mechanical and biological applications. Unfortunately, natural diamond is prohibitively expensive for most technological applications. Polycrystalline diamond, with properties close to those of natural diamond, has been synthesized since the 1950s. Among many methods employed for diamond thin film synthesis, chemical vapor deposition (CVD) using microwave plasma (MW) is quite popular for several reasons. Well-confined plasma that does not touch the reaction chamber walls can be produced directly on the substrate. Hence, contamination in the …

Proceedings, Msvscc 2012, Old Dominion University, Department Of Modeling, Simulation & Visualization Engineering, Old Dominion University, Virginia Modeling, Analysis & Simulation Center

Modeling, Simulation and Visualization Student Capstone Conference

Proceedings of the 6th Annual Modeling, Simulation & Visualization Student Capstone Conference held on April 19, 2012 at VMASC in Suffolk, Virginia.

Section Abstracts: Biomedical And General Engineering

Virginia Journal of Science

Abstracts of the Biomedical and General Engineering Section for the 90th Annual Meeting of the Virginia Academy of Science, May 23-25, 2012, Norfolk State University, Norfolk, Virginia.

Section Abstracts: Aeronautical And Aerospace Sciences

Virginia Journal of Science

Abstracts of the Aeronautical and Aerospace Sciences Section for the 90th Annual Meeting of the Virginia Academy of Science, May 23-25, 2015. Norfolk State University, Norfolk, Virginia.

Evaluation Of Hydraulic Conductivity Of Non Aqueous Phase Liquids In Partially Saturated Soils, Chijioke Ekeleme Akamiro

Civil & Environmental Engineering Theses & Dissertations

This study seeks to investigate a problem of predicting the hydraulic conductivity of NAPLs in partially saturated soils and to relate the hydraulic conductivity to basic soil parameters that are either easy to determine or are in wide use. To evaluate hydraulic conductivity in partially saturated soils, previous researchers have focused on flow geometry, soil and chemical properties, etc. used in CHEMFLO program by Nofziger et al., (1989) and saturation equations by such authors as Van Genutchen (1980) and Brooks and Corey (1964). Among those, the soil-water characteristic curve (SWCC) is the most widely used constitutive relations for unsaturated soils …

Static And Impact Load Response Of Reinforced Concrete Beams And Slabs With Nsm-Cfrp Retrofitting, Nakul Ramanna-Sanjeevaiah

Civil & Environmental Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The use of Near-Surface Mounted Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymer (NSM-CFRP) reinforcement such as carbon FRP strips holds a high potential for increasing the flexural strength of reinforced concrete members. In comparison to externally bonded CFRP laminates, NSM-CFRP reinforcement approach has several advantages. The main advantages include increased stiffness and strength, better bonding, the possibility of anchoring the reinforcement into adjacent members, and minimal installation time. Thus, the structural engineers worldwide are developing a considerable interest in practical applications of the NSM-CFRP reinforcement technique. A considerable amount of research is still needed in order to fully benefit from this method not …

Exploring The Components Of Dynamic Modeling Techniques, Charles Daniel Turnitsa

Computational Modeling & Simulation Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Upon defining the terms modeling and simulation, it becomes apparent that there is a wide variety of different models, using different techniques, appropriate for different levels of representation for any one system to be modeled. Selecting an appropriate conceptual modeling technique from those available is an open question for the practitioner. Existing methods for describing techniques do not capture enough information about the expressive potential of those techniques such that an appropriate selection decision can be made. A formal method to describe conceptual modeling techniques that captures enough about the technique to distinguish it from others is identified as a …

Smart Sensing And Performance Analysis For Cognitive Radio Networks, Yanxiao Zhao

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Static spectrum access policy has resulted in spectrum scarcity as well as low spectrum utility in today's wireless communications. To utilize the limited spectrum more efficiently, cognitive radio networks have been considered a promising paradigm for future network. Due to the unique features of cognitive radio technology, cognitive radio networks not only raise new challenges, but also bring several fundamental problems back to the focus of researchers. So far, a number of problems in cognitive radio networks have remained unsolved over the past decade. The work presented in this dissertation attempts to fill some of the gaps in the research …