Engineering Commons^™

Numerical Simulation Of Contaminated Sediment Transport In The Upper Columbia Slough System, Binghong Wu

Dissertations and Theses

An integrated modeling system has been developed to simulate sediment and contaminated sediment transport in the Upper Columbia Slough System during the Flood of 1996. The modeling system consists of a hydrodynamic model, a sediment transport model, and a contaminant transport model. The hydrodynamic model predicts the Slough flow dynamics and sediment transporting power; the sediment transport model predicts flow-induced sediment transport; and the contaminant transport model predicts the migration of contaminated sediments in the Slough system.

The Upper Columbia Slough modeling system is characterized by its recognition of the complex interplay of Slough hydrology, hydrodynamics, sediment transport, contaminant transport. …

A Telescopic Approach To Modeling Leachate Dynamics And Migration At The St. Johns Landfill, Portland, Oregon, Thomas Stephen Lowry

Dissertations and Theses

The St. Johns Landfill is a 225-acre site that lies near the confluence of the Columbia and Willamette Rivers, in the North Portland Industrial District of Portland, Oregon. A slough system surrounds the landfill on three sides with the fourth side adjacent to a shallow lake. The landfill first opened in 1930 when it was operated as an open dump. It operated as an open dump until 1969 when it was converted to a sanitary landfill, employing daily cover and compaction. The landfill was closed in 1991.

The landfill sits directly on top of a thick layer of silty overbank …

A Simplified Approach To Reduce Blocking And Ringing Artifacts In Transform-Coded Images, Jianping Hu

Dissertations and Theses

Presently Block-based Discrete Cosine Transform (BDCT) image coding techniques are widely used in image and video compression applications such as JPEG and MPEG. At a moderate bit rate, BDCT is usually a quite satisfactory solution to most of practical coding applications. However, for high rate compression it produces noticeable blocking and ringing artifacts in the decompressed image. It has been an active research area for a decade for reducing these artifacts. In this thesis, a novel post-processing algorithm is proposed to remove the blocking and ringing artifacts at low bit rate. It is non-iterative and uses both spatial and transform …

Complexity Theory And Systems Theory, Martin Zwick

Complex Systems Faculty Publications and Presentations

I use the label, “complexity theory,” for the research program which studies nonlinear dynamics, “complexity,” “complex adaptive systems,” “artificial life,” etc., and whose intellectual Mecca in the United States is the Santa Fe Institute. I use the label, “systems theory,” for the research program which crystallized after World War II under the names of “general systems theory” and “cybernetics,” and which subsumed such postwar scientific developments as information theory, game theory, feedback control theory, and the beginnings of computer science and artificial intelligence. The central thesis of this paper is that complexity theory is a continuation and revitalization of systems …

Physical Media Independence: System Support For Dynamically Available Network Interfaces, Jon Inouye, Jim Binkley, Jonathan Walpole

Computer Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Advances in hardware technology has fueled the proliferation of dynamically configurable network interface cards. This empowers mobile laptop users to select the most appropriate interface for their current environment. Unfortunately, the majority of system software remains "customized" for a particular network configuration, and assumes many network characteristics remain invariant over the runtime of the software. Physical Media Independence (PMI) is the concept of making assumptions about a particular device explicit, detecting events which invalidate these assumptions, and recovering once events are detected. This paper presents a model supporting PMI. Based on device availablilty, the model identifies implicit device-related assumptions made …

Selecting The "Best" Using Data Envelopment Analysis, Timothy R. Anderson, Akin Uslu

Engineering and Technology Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

One of the most important strengths of Data Envelopment Analysis, (DEA), is that it allows almost complete freedom in the way that each decision making unit, (DMU), evaluates itself relative to its peers. This tends to result in many DMUs receiving a high efficiency score. Particularly when DEA is applied in a decision making context, it may be desirable to select a single option rather than determining the set of efficient alternatives in ranking efficient DMU or to Assist selecting a "best" DMU. Several extensions to DEA have been proposed and used. This paper examines, compares, and integrates a variety …

An Introduction To Data Envelopment Analysis In Technology Management, Keith Hollingsworth, Timothy R. Anderson

Engineering and Technology Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Productivity is a major source of competitive advantage but improving productivity requires analysis and productivity is getting more difficult to measure as economies become more knowledge, service, and innovation intensive. In this paper, we will provide an introduction to a powerful productivity analysis tool, Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). DEA is a flexible tool originally created in the 1970s for examining the relative efficiency of non-profit institutions. Researchers have found many more applications and created numerous extensions to DEA. This paper provides an introduction to DEA, a summary of some of the most important modeling variations, and examples of applications relevant …

Incentives, Information, And Winner's Curse In Construction Industry Bidding, Gerald H. Williams, Timothy R. Anderson

Engineering and Technology Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper investigates the relationship between incentives, information and winner's curse in the bidding for construction industry contracts. The approach uses both simple Monte Carlo simulations and bidding experiments to show the effects of changing levels of information (in terms of variance) and incentive (in terms of risk share) on the winner's curse.

Data Envelopment Analysis With Integral Targets, Gunter P. Sharp, Timothy R. Anderson

Engineering and Technology Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) inherently assumes that the feasible targets for inputs and outputs are continuous. This paper develops and illustrates extensions to DEA that allow for integer valued inputs and outputs. It is found that DEA?s implicit assumption of continuous targets can be significant in certain applications.

A New Measure Of Baseball Batters Using Dea, Timothy R. Anderson, Gunter P. Sharp

Engineering and Technology Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) is used to create an alternative to traditional batting statistics called the Composite Batter Index (CBI). Advantages of CBI over traditional statistics include the fact that players are judged on the basis of what they accomplish relative to other players and that it automatically accounts for changing conditions of the game that raise or lower batting statistics. Historical results are examined to show how the industry of baseball batting has matured and potential uses of CBI are discussed. The application of baseball suggests that random variation may have an effect on CBI. We investigated this effect …

Simulating Migration Of Contaminated Sediments In The Lower Columbia Slough System, Min Chen

Dissertations and Theses

Recent screening-level risk assessment of Slough sediments initiated by the City of Portland identified five contaminated areas in the Slough as posing the greatest potentially significant risks to human health. These five areas were recommended for accelerated remedial action.

But one question remains, does the sediment contamination at these hot spots change over time in response to the changing Slough hydrodynamics? Specifically, will the contamination move or spread even before remedial action is taken? Will they still be there by the time when potential remedial action is taken? Will any new hot spots be created in response to nonuniform transient …

New Objective Classification System For Nuclear Opacification, Donald D. Duncan, O. B. Shukla, Sheila West, Oliver D. Schein

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

We have developed an autonomous objective classification scheme for degree of nuclear opacification. The algorithm was developed by using a series of color 35-mm slides acquired with a Topcon photo slit-lamp microscope and use of standard camera settings. The photographs were digitized, and first, and second-order gray-level statistics were extracted from within circular regions of the nucleus. Classifications of severity were performed by using these features as input to a neural network. Training versus classification performance was tested by using photographs of different eyes, and test/retest classification reproducibility was evaluated by using paired photographs of the same eyes. We demonstrate …

New Approaches To Column Compatibility Checking And Column-Based Input/Output Encoding For Curtis Decompositions Of Completely Or Incompletely Specified Switching Functions, Michael A. Burns

Dissertations and Theses

Cube calculus is an algebraic model used to process boolean functions. Cube calculus operations are widely used in logic optimization, logic synthesis, image processing and recognition, machine learning, and other applications which require massive logic operations.

The cube calculus operations can be carried out on general-purpose computers. Since these operations can involve several levels of nested loops, this approach has poor performance.

A cube calculus machine which has a special data path designed to speed up cube calculus operations is presented in this thesis. This c-qbe calculus machine can execute cube calculus operations 10 to 25 times faster than the …

Equalization Of A Non-Linear Phase Of A Low-Pass Filter, Rabih Khodor

Dissertations and Theses

In practice, an IIR filter can distort the information content of the signal because of its inherent non-linear phase characteristics introduced through the design of the filter. If the the receiver of the signal is the human ear, e.g., when a speech or music signal is to be processed, phase distortion is quite tolerable. But, in other applications it can be rejected as phase characteristics is required to be fairly linear. Applications of this type include data transmission, where the signal is to be interpreted by digital hardware, and image processing, where the signal is used to reconstruct an image …

An Asic Power Analysis System For Digital Cmos Design, Du Van Nguyen

Dissertations and Theses

Consumers demand for products with ever-increasing functionality, performance, and longer battery life is making low power a critical factor in most system designs. Lower-power designs are less expensive to produce, more reliable, and cost less to operate - factors which create a real competitive advantage. As a result, ASIC designers are demanding better ways to analyze the power of their designs.

In this thesis, an ASIC Power Analysis System (APAS) is developed. APAS is an interactive simulation-based power analysis tool. Using a non-intrusive design technique, APAS can dynamically "snap on" to an existing simulation environment. APAS currently supports three ASIC …

The Multiple Pool Migrating Worker Paradigm : A Distributed System Framework And Model, Cynthia Ann Stanley

Dissertations and Theses

A network of workstations (NOW) can provide an inexpensive and effective distributed processing platform. The purpose of this thesis is two-fold, providing a methodology for distributed computing on a NOW first, and providing a model to predict and monitor performance second. The Multiple Pool-Migrating Worker (MPMW) paradigm uses multiple job pools to divide up tasks and migrating workers to balance the work load. The MPMW paradigm is a quick and efficient way of implementing problems using distributed processing without extensive knowledge of parallel programming. A model describing the MPMW paradigm is developed using queuing theory and Mean Value Analysis techniques. …

A Specialization Toolkit To Increase The Diversity Of Operating Systems, Calton Pu, Andrew P. Black, Crispin Cowan, Jonathan Walpole, Charles Consel

Computer Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Virus and worm attacks that exploit system implementation details can be countered with a diversified set of implementations. Furthermore, immune systems show that attacks from previously unknown organisms require effective dynamic response. In the Synthetix project, we have been developing a specialization toolkit to improve the performance of operating system kernels. The toolkit helps programmers generate and manage diverse specialized implementations of software modules. The Tempo-C specializer tool generates different versions for both compile-time and run-time specialization. We are now adapting the toolkit to improve operating system survivability against implementations attacks.

Analysis And Optimization Of A Banyan Based Atm Switch By Simulations, Syed Sohel Hussain

Dissertations and Theses

Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) is proposed technology to create a broadband (high speed) packet switching network capable of transporting wide variety of services including voice, video and data in an integrated manner. The main concern in designing the switching fabrics used in this technology are speed, throughput, delay and variance of delay. We analyze the performance by simulations of ATM switch based on Banyan network in the uniform traffic condition.

We compare the analytical results obtained from three-state model Yan and Jenq to the simulation results. Based on observation of simulation results, we propose non-blocking first stage (NBFS) to increase …

Demodulation Of Narrowband Radio Frequency Signals By Aliasing Sampling, Chun-Ching Lin

Dissertations and Theses

The objective of this thesis is to study the demodulation of narrowband radio frequency signals by aliasing sampling in order to reduce the sampling rate. The spectrum can be recreated at the lower frequency position by aliasing sampling. However, if the sampling rate is deviated from the desired one, error will occur. The sensitivity to the frequency error of aliasing sampling is studied.

One main reason of the deviation of the sampling rate is the frequency drifting of the local oscillator. Being able to compensate the oscillator drifting errors inexpensively, automatic frequency control (AFC) loops are important at receivers. Two …

Multimedia Applications Require Adaptive Cpu Scheduling, Veronica Baiceanu, Crispin Cowan, Dylan Mcnamee, Calton Pu, Jonathan Walpole

Computer Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

CPU scheduling and admission testing for multimedia applications have been extensively studied, and various solutions have been proposed using assorted simplifying assumptions. However, we believe that the complexity and dynamic behavior of multimedia applications and systems make static solutions hard to apply in real-world situations. We are analyzing the difficulties that arise when applying the rate-monotonic (RM) scheduling algorithm and the corresponding admission tests for CPU management, in the context of real multimedia applications running on real systems. RM requires statically predictable, periodic workloads, and while multimedia applications appear to be periodic, in practice they exhibit numerous variabilities in workload. …

Generalized Beam Matrices. Iii. Application To Diffraction Analysis, Lee W. Casperson, Anthony A. Tovar

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

In analogy with Huygen’s wavelets a new method based on Gaussian beamlets is used to develop a conventional diffraction integral formalism for paraxial optical systems representable by complex 2×2 ABCD Gaussian beam matrices. This method, along with a new phase parameter transformation, is then used to produce a new diffraction integral for studying the propagation of light beams with arbitrary spatial profiles through much more general misaligned complex optical systems representable by 3×3 ABCDGH beam matrices.

Adaptive Color Correlation Of Knots In Wood Images And Weighted-Value Product Selection Methods In A Machine Vision System, John Robert Goulding

Dissertations and Theses

The biggest obstacle to robust color image processing of wood is in developing a color model that represents all possible defect colors. When the color model is too general or too specific, defect recognition fails because too many or too few non-defect pixels match the model, respectively. Because a color image of wood contains far more clear and clear-grain colored pixels than grain-knot and knot colored pixels, it is beneficial to first statistically identify and remove the clear and clear-grain colors and to use the accumulated data to simultaneously enhance and normalize the remaining grainknot and knot colored pixels. This …

Design Of A Second-Order Filter Using The GM-C Technique, Girish Chandrasekaran

Dissertations and Theses

This thesis deals with the design, layout, fabrication, testing and characterization of a second-order filter (biquad) using the transconductance-C (g_m-C) technique. The biquad was designed to realize the four filter functions - lowpass, highpass, bandpass and notch - by appropriate choice of input and output terminals and element values. The tunable range of frequencies for the biquad was designed to be 18-59MHz. The quality factor of the biquad was designed to be tunable from approximately 1/3 to 3. The filter was designed in LEVEL2 SPICE, laid out using MAGIC, and the circuit was fabricated using MOSIS's …

Design And Implementation Of A Model For Authoring And Presenting Interactive Multimedia Documents, Vibha Mukul Nayyar

Dissertations and Theses

Multimedia technology enables direct manipulation of multiple media such as text, image, audio, and video, all integrated into one entity - the multimedia document. Interactive multimedia documents integrate text, images and continuous media such as audio and video, treat them as objects to be presented for a certain duration, and allow users to interact with the presentation. Authoring and presenting interactive multimedia documents imposes new requirements on document representation. We designed the interactive timeline model (ITM) for authoring and presenting interactive multimedia documents. We implemented the model and created a playback tool using the scripting language Tcl.

ITM uses an …

Scattering Properties Of Dense Media From Monte Carlo Simulations With Application To Active Remote Sensing Of Snow, Lisa M. Zurk, L. Tsang, Dale P. Winebrenner

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Monte Carlo simulations are used to derive the phase matrix, effective permittivity, and scattering coefficient for a random medium consisting of densely packed spheres up to 5000 in number. The results include correlated scattering and coherent wave interaction among the scatterers. The Monte Carlo simulations are based on a multiple-scattering formulation of the Foldy-Lax equations. It is shown that the derived phase matrix is in good agreement with dense media radiative transfer theory for copolarized scattering. The depolarization, however, can be substantially larger than conventional theory. Two methods are used to analyze the behavior of the coherent wave to obtain …

Drug Delivery With Microsecond Laser Pulses Into Gelatin, Hanqun Shangguan, Lee W. Casperson, Alan Shearin, Kenton W. Gregory, Scott A. Prahl

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Photo acoustic drug delivery is a technique for localized drug delivery by laser-induced hydrodynamic pressure following cavitation bubble expansion and collapse. Photoacoustic drug delivery was investigated on gelatin-based thrombus models with planar and cylindrical geometries by use of one microsecond laser pulses. Solutions of a hydrophobic dye in mineral oil permitted monitoring of delivered colored oil into clear gelatin-based thrombus models. Cavitation bubble development and photoacoustic drug delivery were visualized with flash photography. This study demonstrated that cavitation is the governing mechanism for photoacoustic drug delivery, and the deepest penetration of colored oil in gels followed the bubble collapse. Spatial …

Circuit Implementation Of A High-Speed Continuous-Time Current-Mode Field Programmable Analog Array (Fpaa), Osama K. Shana'a

Dissertations and Theses

The growing interest in programmable analog circuits has led to the development of Field Programmable Analog Arrays (FPAAs). An FPAA consists of: 1) a programmable cell that can be reconfigured to perform several analog functions. 2) an architecture that interconnects a number of copies of the programmable cell.

In this thesis, the full monolithic circuit implementation of the analog part of the programmable cell is presented. Chapter I gives an introduction to the idea of FPAA and introduces the FPAA architecture and the cell block diagram. Chapter II deals with the design and verification of a differential current-mode four-quadrant multiplier. …

Layout Synthesis For Datapath Designs, Naveen Buddi

Dissertations and Theses

As datapath chips such as microprocessors and digital signal processors become more complex, efficient CAD tools that preserve the regularity of datapath designs and result in small layout area are required. The standard-cell placement techniques ignore the regularity of datapath designs and hence give inefficient layouts. This has necessitated the development of new techniques for datapath module placement.

We developed a layout synthesis tool DataPathLAYOUT, for the bit-slice datapath logic designed using standard-cell libraries. We developed fast and area efficient heuristics for placing the cells in a bit-slice such that the regularity of datapath circuits is preserved and the number …

Efficient Buffer Allocation Scheme For Bursty Traffic In Atm Networks Using Fast Reservation Protocol, Nikhil Mukund Deshpande

Dissertations and Theses

One of the major problems in the realization of ATM is traffic management, in particular, the resource allocation for an efficient network. Many approaches to the bandwidth management problems [2] and buffer management problems have been proposed. Boyer [10] suggested a "Fast Bandwidth Reservation" protocol, while Turner [2] applied the same technique to the buffer allocation for the bursty traffic. In this thesis, we extend Turner's scheme in order to make it more efficient with respect to buffer allocation. We define a new parameter "Reduction Factor'', which has the potential of saving a significant amount of buffer space in a …

Nonlinearities In The Base Emitter Junction Of Heterojunction Bipolar Transistors, Oliver Woywode

Dissertations and Theses

The nonlinear behaviour of the base emitter junction in HBTs is investigated. Nonlinearities cause troublesome distortion and intermodulation of signals and raise the bit error rate. They are therefore a key issue in microwave communication systems. Hewlett-Packard's Microwave Design System (MDS) software package has been used to simulate these phenomena. The simulation results are verified by an analytical method called nonlinear current method which is a derivative of the Volterra series approach. With the aid of this method new analytical expressions are derived that provide insight into the subtleties of nonlinear phenomena. These expressions are evaluated by the program MAPLE …