Engineering Commons^™

Characterization Of Mechanical Ventilation Systems In New Us Homes: What Types Of Systems Are Out There And Are They Functioning As Intended?, Florida Solar Energy Center, Eric Martin

FSEC Energy Research Center®

As the airtightness of homes improves to meet energy efficiency goals, it becomes more important for mechanical ventilation systems to help maintain a comfortable and healthy indoor air environment. ASHRAE Standard 62.2 provides national guidance for mechanical ventilation system design and installation, however adoption of those guidelines into local building codes has occurred at different rates. Once provisions for mechanical ventilation are adopted in a local code, are mechanical ventilation systems properly designed, installed, commissioned and operated according to code or above-code program requirements? This paper presents results from field studies that include characterization of whole house mechanical ventilation (WHMV) …

Measured Energy And Moisture Performance Impacts From Vented And Unvented Attic With Insulation On Top Of Ceiling In The Hot Humid Climate Zone, Florida Solar Energy Center, Charles Withers, Jr.

FSEC Energy Research Center®

Sealing attic vents helps decrease house air leakage and may reduce some moisture issues in attics in hot humid climates. new code-approved unvented attics can use different types of insulation materials, however, there are specific requirements that vary by materials used and climate zone. These requirements may be complex and may increase construction and operational energy costs.

This paper was published in the 2020 ACEEE Summer Study on Energy Efficiency in Buildings.

Research Review On Mixed-Criticality Scheduling, Hattan Althebeiti

Recent Advances in Real-Time Systems

No abstract provided.

The Aesthetics Of Multicoding Esolangs, Daniel J. Temkin

Electronic Literature Organization Conference 2020

In the influential 2005 paper "A Box, Darkly," Michael Mateas and Nick Montfort introduced the idea of multicoding: when one text holds multiple meanings, depending on context. Examples include polyglots, programs that can run successfully in two different languages, as well as sentences that can be read in French or English. Esoteric programming has a history of explicit multicoding languages. The best known are Piet, whose programs are images, and commands are the change in color from one pixel to the next; Shakespeare, with code written as plays, and Chef, whose programs are recipes that work in the kitchen. While …

Non Infinite Stories: How Digital Allow To Create Infinite Reconformations Of A Text?, David Núñez

Electronic Literature Organization Conference 2020

Last year I presented at ELO, in Ireland, the Artistic piece "Bastard" a digital fiction that combine a fragmented novel to create 10x149 differents texts and optimized in 4 billions coherent stories with narrative structures. In Orlando we want to explain how the system works, theory and functioning, and invited all the members to produce they personal "infinite" fiction.

Non Infinite Stories is an electronic publishing house that creates a dynamic hyperliterature system to give each reader a unique book by using a digital combinatorial processes, specific narrative rules and optimization of fragmented works in chapters of short narrative blocks, …

Fsec Energy Research Center Strategic Plan (2020-2025) Executive Summary, Florida Solar Energy Center, James Fenton

FSEC Energy Research Center®

The Florida Legislature created the Florida Solar Energy Center (FSEC) in 1975 to support the growth and development of renewable energy. The year 2025 will mark the half-century mark for FSEC's service as the statewide energy research and education institute. In preparation for the next 50 years of dynamic energy developments, the FSEC Energy Research Center is undertaking a strategic planning and rebranding process.

Human-Machine Communication: Complete Volume. Volume 1

Human-Machine Communication

This is the complete volume of HMC Volume 1.

Sharing Stress With A Robot: What Would A Robot Say?, Honson Y. Ling, Elin A. Björling

Human-Machine Communication

With the prevalence of mental health problems today, designing human-robot interaction for mental health intervention is not only possible, but critical. The current experiment examined how three types of robot disclosure (emotional, technical, and by-proxy) affect robot perception and human disclosure behavior during a stress-sharing activity. Emotional robot disclosure resulted in the lowest robot perceived safety. Post-hoc analysis revealed that increased perceived stress predicted reduced human disclosure, user satisfaction, robot likability, and future robot use. Negative attitudes toward robots also predicted reduced intention for future robot use. This work informs on the possible design of robot disclosure, as well as …

The Robot Privacy Paradox: Understanding How Privacy Concerns Shape Intentions To Use Social Robots, Christoph Lutz, Aurelia Tamò-Larrieux

Human-Machine Communication

Conceptual research on robots and privacy has increased but we lack empirical evidence about the prevalence, antecedents, and outcomes of different privacy concerns about social robots. To fill this gap, we present a survey, testing a variety of antecedents from trust, technology adoption, and robotics scholarship. Respondents are most concerned about data protection on the manufacturer side, followed by social privacy concerns and physical concerns. Using structural equation modeling, we find a privacy paradox, where the perceived benefits of social robots override privacy concerns.

Building A Stronger Casa: Extending The Computers Are Social Actors Paradigm, Andrew Gambino, Jesse Fox, Rabindra A. Ratan

Human-Machine Communication

The computers are social actors framework (CASA), derived from the media equation, explains how people communicate with media and machines demonstrating social potential. Many studies have challenged CASA, yet it has not been revised. We argue that CASA needs to be expanded because people have changed, technologies have changed, and the way people interact with technologies has changed. We discuss the implications of these changes and propose an extension of CASA. Whereas CASA suggests humans mindlessly apply human-human social scripts to interactions with media agents, we argue that humans may develop and apply human-media social scripts to these interactions. Our …

Me And My Robot Smiled At One Another: The Process Of Socially Enacted Communicative Affordance In Human-Machine Communication, Carmina Rodríguez-Hidalgo

Human-Machine Communication

The term affordance has been inconsistently applied both in robotics and communication. While the robotics perspective is mostly object-based, the communication science view is commonly user-based. In an attempt to bring the two perspectives together, this theoretical paper argues that social robots present new social communicative affordances emerging from a two-way relational process. I first explicate conceptual approaches of affordance in robotics and communication. Second, a model of enacted communicative affordance in the context of Human-Machine Communication (HMC) is presented. Third and last, I explain how a pivotal social robot characteristic—embodiment—plays a key role in the process of social communicative …

Ontological Boundaries Between Humans And Computers And The Implications For Human-Machine Communication, Andrea L. Guzman

Human-Machine Communication

In human-machine communication, people interact with a communication partner that is of a different ontological nature from themselves. This study examines how people conceptualize ontological differences between humans and computers and the implications of these differences for human-machine communication. Findings based on data from qualitative interviews with 73 U.S. adults regarding disembodied artificial intelligence (AI) technologies (voice-based AI assistants, automated-writing software) show that people differentiate between humans and computers based on origin of being, degree of autonomy, status as tool/tool-user, level of intelligence, emotional capabilities, and inherent flaws. In addition, these ontological boundaries are becoming increasingly blurred as technologies emulate …

Toward An Agent-Agnostic Transmission Model: Synthesizing Anthropocentric And Technocentric Paradigms In Communication, Jaime Banks, Maartje M. A. De Graaf

Human-Machine Communication

Technological and social evolutions have prompted operational, phenomenological, and ontological shifts in communication processes. These shifts, we argue, trigger the need to regard human and machine roles in communication processes in a more egalitarian fashion. Integrating anthropocentric and technocentric perspectives on communication, we propose an agent-agnostic framework for human-machine communication. This framework rejects exclusive assignment of communicative roles (sender, message, channel, receiver) to traditionally held agents and instead focuses on evaluating agents according to their functions as a means for considering what roles are held in communication processes. As a first step in advancing this agent-agnostic perspective, this theoretical paper …

Side-By-Side Testing Of Solaire Solar Ac, Florida Solar Energy Center, John Sherwin

FSEC Energy Research Center®

The FSEC Energy Research Center performed a series of side-by-side tests to compare a heat pump system with a SolAire thermal collector against one without. The tests were performed in three phases: 1) baseline operation, 2) heat pump system operating with SolAire collector using collector manufacturer's wiring specifications, and 3) heat pump system operating with SolAire collector using Daiken/OEM wiring specifications. Each phase represented 5 full days of continuous operation during August of 2018 in Cocoa, Florida. Phase 1 baseline testing demonstrated that the two Daiken heat pump systems and test houses performed similarly and there were no differences between …

Assessing 3d Printability Of Bioinks, Nicole Ramirez

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The field of tissue engineering (TE) is continuously improving through the use of additive manufacturing techniques (AM) such as three-dimensional (3D) bioprinting. The 3D bioprinter has significantly gained attention in the TE field because it is more efficient than regenerative medicine and is readily available as opposed to organ transplants. Working like a conventional 3D printer, the 3D bioprinter is able to dispense material layer by layer from the bottom up with the printing head able to move in the X, Y, and Z direction. This movement allows for the fabrication of structures with complex geometries. In this study, the …

A Generalized Low Order Model For Vortex Shedding From A Tandem Cylinder Arrangement Using Delay Coupled Van Der Pol Oscillators, Michael Soroka

Honors Undergraduate Theses

A generalized low order model (LOM) for the fluctuating lift coefficient caused by vortex shedding from a tandem cylinder pair is proposed to expand upon models from previous authors. This model could provide a reduced computational time method for collecting qualitative and quantitive data from a tandem shedding pair. A delay coupled system with sufficient bifurcation characteristics is developed to account for the different flow regimes (extended-body, reattachment, and co-shedding) which occur as cylinder spacing is varied. Coefficient and parameter fitting is performed to fit experimental data. Finally, results and physical interpretations of the interactions in the model are discussed. …

Energy-Efficient Signal Conversion And In-Memory Computing Using Emerging Spin-Based Devices, Soheil Salehi Mobarakeh

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

New approaches are sought to maximize the signal sensing and reconstruction performance of Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices while reducing their dynamic and leakage energy consumption. Recently, Compressive Sensing (CS) has been proposed as a technique aimed at reducing the number of samples taken per frame to decrease energy, storage, and data transmission overheads. CS can be used to sample spectrally-sparse wide-band signals close to the information rate rather than the Nyquist rate, which can alleviate the high cost of hardware performing sampling in low-duty IoT applications. In my dissertation, I am focusing mainly on the adaptive signal acquisition and conversion circuits …

Ultra-Low Power Circuits And Architectures For Neuromorphic Computing Accelerators With Emerging Tfets And Rerams, Jie Lin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Neuromorphic computing using post-CMOS technologies is gaining increasing popularity due to its promising potential to resolve the power constraints in Von-Neumann machine and its similarity to the operation of the real human brain. To design the ultra-low voltage and ultra-low power analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) for the neuromorphic computing systems, we explore advantages of tunnel field effect transistor (TFET) analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) on energy efficiency and temperature stability. A fully-differential SAR ADC is designed using 20 nm TFET technology with doubled input swing and controlled comparator input common-mode voltage. To further increase the resolution of the ADC, we design an energy …

Characterization Of Left Ventricular Volumes And Ejection Fraction In Patients With A Left Ventricular Assist Device, Viswajith Siruvallur Vasudevan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

In the treatment of heart patients, as a bridge to recovery, the challenge currently in using a continuous-flow left ventricular assist device (LVAD), is to provide a method to monitor the recovery of the heart. This dissertation addresses the hypothesis that continuous monitoring of the ejection fraction of a patient implanted with an LVAD should be to examine the progress of the patient without the need for excessive in vivo measurements. Also, the ejection fraction can be used to provide a control mechanism for the pump depending on the requirements of each patient. In this dissertation, the left ventricle, in …

Statistical And Stochastic Learning Algorithms For Distributed And Intelligent Systems, Jiang Bian

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

In the big data era, statistical and stochastic learning for distributed and intelligent systems focuses on enhancing and improving the robustness of learning models that have become pervasive and are being deployed for decision-making in real-life applications including general classification, prediction, and sparse sensing. The growing prospect of statistical learning approaches such as Linear Discriminant Analysis and distributed Learning being used (e.g., community sensing) has raised concerns around the robustness of algorithm design. Recent work on anomalies detection has shown that such Learning models can also succumb to the so-called 'edge-cases' where the real-life operational situation presents data that are …

Cell Encapsulation In Microfluidic Channels, Mohammad Nooranidoost

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Droplet Microfluidics can be utilized to control the production of single droplets and double emulsions in biomedical application. This dissertation analyzes the droplet formation in hydrophobic and hydrophilic microchannels, encapsulation of cells in flow-focusing channels, and deformation of cell-laden droplets in constricted microcapillaries. The formation of droplets is studied in hydrophobic and hydrophilic channels in order to investigate the role of contact angle on flow structures and droplet generation patterns. In the hydrophobic case, stable and well-structured droplet and slug generation is achieved. However, the flow structure in the hydrophilic case significantly depends on contact angles of the walls. A …

Classical Engineering Systems Provide Behavioral Analog For Ephemeral Insect And Plant Biomechanics, Nicholas Smith

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

In this dissertation we consider ephemeral behaviors of two small-scale living systems, mosquitoes and citrus fruit reservoirs. While these two systems share few obvious commonalities, they both express life events that are complex and conclude within approximately 50 milliseconds. We utilize high-speed videography, between 1,000-16,000 fps, to detail how complex behavior can be modeled as classical engineering systems. Beginning with the larger organism we assessed the landing and takeoff behavior of Aedes aegypti mosquitoes to ascertain the secrets of their covert interaction with humans. At takeoff, mosquitoes decrease pushing contact time with substrates of low friction through a modified takeoff …

Parametric Investigation And Optimization For Inconel 718 Nickel-Based Superalloy In Laser Powder Bed Fusion, Thinh Huynh

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Excellent weldability and high temperature stability make Inconel 718 (IN718) one of the most desired alloys to be produced by additive manufacturing (AM). Within the flourishing field of AM technology, laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) is a popular prospective candidate capable of fabricating complex and near net-shape engineering components that traditional manufacturing methods cannot accomplish. In this study, the effects of processing parameters on the relative density and microstructure was investigated. Gas atomized IN718 powders were used to fabricate cuboidal specimens via LPBF for metallographic characterization. The specimens were printed with independently varied laser power (125 - 350 W), laser …

Inertial Orbit Estimation Using Multiple Space Based Observers: A New Measurement Model, James Hippelheuser

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Presented within this work is a new method for inertial orbit estimation of an object, either known or unknown, adaptable to a network of low-cost observation satellites. The observation satellites would only require a monocular camera for line of sight measurements. Using the line of sight measurements of each observer, a pair of orthogonal geometric planes that intersect both the observation satellite and the target are created. The intersection of the two planes in the inertial frame defines the new measurement model that is implemented with multiple observation nodes. Total system observability is analyzed and the instantaneous (per node) observability …

Operability And Wave Characterization Of Hydrogen And Oxygen Fed Rotating Detonation Rocket Engine, Robert Burke

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Recently, novel experimental evidence of continuous rotating detonations for gaseous H2/O2 propellants with a rotating detonation rocket engine (RDRE) was attained on the 3-inch Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL) Distribution A RDRE, with the fuel and oxidizer injectors modified for H2/O2 gas propellants. Evident in previous experiments, detonation instabilities arising from upstream deflagration, from recirculation zones, and from insufficient gas mixing challenged resolution of detonation wave behavior from back-end imaging with the available optical equipment. Images were often over-illuminated from both the high amount of deflagration in the plume and the higher density of detonation waves in the annulus coupled …

Evaluating The Performance And Impacts Of Seawater Regeneration In An Anion Exchange Process, Daniel Whalen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

This research investigated the use of seawater regeneration for anion exchange (AIX) processes. Seawater and salt-supplemented seawater regeneration of chloride-form anion resin were evaluated in regard to (1) operational performance efficiency of sulfate and natural organic matter removal, (2) competing exchange of bromide during regeneration, and (3) brominated disinfection by-product (DBP) formation due to bromide leakage. The first component involved bench-scale research that revealed that seawater-based regeneration led to bromide leakage that could be mitigated to an average of 1.82 mg/L using 1% salt-supplemented seawater, and 1.25 mg/L using 3% salt-supplemented seawater. Conceptual cost comparisons revealed that the use of …

Piezospectroscopic Sensing Systems - Multi-Scale And In-Situ Sensing Technology For Structural Integrity, Remelisa Esteves

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

The aerospace industry relies on nondestructive evaluation (NDE) to ensure aircraft safety and will benefit from methods that allow for early damage detection. Photoluminescence piezospectroscopy (PS) has demonstrated stress and damage sensing of substrates when coupled with alpha-alumina nanoparticles in a polymer matrix applied as a sensor coating. Alpha phase alumina exhibits photoluminescent spectral emission lines (R-lines) that shift due to changes in the stress state of the alumina. The coatings' capability for sensing early subsurface damage suggests the potential for implementing stress sensing paint for integrity monitoring of aircraft structures. To achieve a viable stress sensing coating that can …

Application Of Reliability Centered Maintenance In Railway Tracks, Sarita Rattanakunuprakarn

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Rail transport has played a significant role for a long time in the U.S. history. As other alternative transport modes have been developed, rail transport has increasingly faced more challenges to stay competitive. While heavy use of the rail, shortened service life and the need to meet consumer expectations have placed challenges, maintenance has become an integral part of the railway industry to assure efficacy and reliability of rail transportation. For this reason, there is a constant need to improve maintenance for a number of purposes, such as safety, quality, capacity, reliability, availability, punctuality, etc. In addition, optimizing maintenance strategy …

Chemically Stabilized Oil-In-Water Emulsion Separation Using A Custom Aquaporin-Based Polyethersulfone (Pes) Forward Osmosis Membrane System, Annmarie Ricchino

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

The stability of oil-in-water emulsions is enhanced by the presence of surfactants in the water, thereby increasing difficulty of remediation. In this study, mineral oil and a standard bilge mix (SBM) were used as model oils for forward osmosis (FO) performance evaluation and two different high-concentration feed solutions (FS) were tested: 10,000 and 100,000 ppm oil/surfactant (9:1 Oil/Surfactant, wt %). It was hypothesized that the charge-charge interactions between the surfactant portion of the micelles and the membrane would play an important role in membrane fouling. Therefore, the effects of both an anionic surfactant (sodium dodecyl sulfate [SDS]) and a nonionic …

Mobile Health Technology To Enhance Healthcare Service Delivery In Developing Nations (Saudi Arabia), Nawaf Khan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Saudi Arabia is among the countries that have very high prevalence rates of diabetes and hypertension, with prevalence rates of almost 18% and 25%, respectively. The majority of patients with diabetes and hypertension fail to manage their diseases and to show up for their follow up appointments. Mhealth technology is among the interventions that have been recently adopted to overcome these issues and improve the quality of healthcare services. This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of a mobile phone application named diabetes and hypertension application (DHA Tracking) to promote adherence for patients with diabetes and hypertension in Mecca, Saudi …