Engineering Commons^™

Acuta Enews May 2011, Vol 40, No. 5

ACUTA Newsletters

ln This lssue

Corinne Hoch Appointed lnterim Executive Director

From the President: Priorities for 2011-2012 ..............Joe Harrington, Boston College

Donations in memory of Jeri Semer

ACUTA: Getting Personal............................ Jeffry Handat, LSU

View 8 Sessions from the Annual Conference at Your Desktop

Why ACUTA Remains Vital

lT's Funny!

lnfo Links ........... .. Randy Hoyes, Univ. of Northern lowa

Annual Dues lnvoices Mailed May 2

The Daily Grind: What's on Your Desk Today? ....., Jeanne Jansenius, Sewanee, University of the South

Board Report........ George Denbow, Univ. of Texas, Austin

Another Great conference, More Terrific Prizes!

Thanks to Exhibiton and Sponsors at Annual …

National Water Footprint Accounts: The Green, Blue And Grey Water Footprint Of Production And Consumption, Volume 2: Appendices, Mesfin Mekonnen, Arjen Y. Hoekstra

Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute: Faculty Publications

Contents

Appendix I. The water footprint of national production (Mm³/yr)

Appendix II. Virtual-water flows related to trade in crop, animal and industrial products, per country (Mm³/yr)

Appendix III. International virtual-water flows per product category (Mm³/yr)

Appendix IV. National water saving related to trade in agricultural and industrial products per country (Mm³/yr)

Appendix V. Global water saving related to trade in agricultural and industrial products, per product (Mm³/yr)

Appendix VI. The average water footprint per ton of commodity per country, weighted based on origin (WF* in m³/ton)

Appendix VII. …

Ultrasonic Methods For The Characterization Of Complex Materials And Material Systems: Polymers, Structured Polymers, Soft Tissue And Bone, Charles Landais

Department of Engineering Mechanics: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Understanding the characteristics and structure of materials is of importance in proper modeling and effective design of many products. Complex materials such as polymers, structured material systems, or biological materials provide a particular challenge to many of the traditional methods for doing this. In this dissertation I study the use of ultrasonic wave techniques to characterize several complex materials. These include plastically deformed and aged polycarbonate (PC), a structured PC plate with water filled cavities, bovine bone, and an elastomer used as a skin simulant. In each case, this work was part of a larger project that studied different aspects …

Exploration Of Spatial Diversity In Multi-Antenna Wireless Communication Systems, Shichuan Ma

Department of Computer Electronics and Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

With increasing demand on wireless internet and personal multimedia, the data rate of wireless communications is expected to increase dramatically. Future wireless networks face challenges of supporting data rates higher than one gigabits per second. Among various technologies, multi-antennas, also known as multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO), are undoubtedly the most promising to enable higher data rates. By employing the extra degrees of freedom in the spatial domain, multi-antenna techniques enhance the wireless communication systems through array gain, spatial diversity, and spatial multiplexing. Although multi-antenna systems have been utilized for more than ten years, a thorough analysis of various aspects of multi-antenna …

Investigation Of The Use Of Multi-Criteria Decision-Making Tools For Management Of An Urbanizing Watershed, Reed C. Colton

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The regulation of non-point pollution sources (e.g. agricultural runoff and stormwater discharges) as mandated by the 1972 Clean Water Act, forced a fundamental paradigm shift from “end of the pipe” pollution control to a watershed management approach. Multiple jurisdictions and often conflicting objectives make it difficult to reach stakeholder consensus and execute watershed management decisions. To facilitate decision making when multiple and/or conflicting objectives exist, Multi-Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) tools were developed for diverse applications, and potentially could be used to facilitate watershed management.

The overall objective of this thesis was to evaluate MCDM tool use to facilitate community-based management of …

Protein Structure-Based Method For Identification Of Horizontal Gene Transfer In Bacteria, Swetha Billa

School of Computing: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Horizontal Gene Transfer is defined as the movement of genetic material from one strain of species to another. Bacteria, being an asexual organism were always believed to transfer genes vertically. But recent studies provide evidence that shows bacteria can also transfer genes horizontally.

HGT plays a major role in evolution and medicine. It is the major contributor in bacterial evolution, enabling species to acquire genes to adapt to the new environments. Bacteria are also believed to develop drug resistance to antibiotics through the phenomenon of HGT. Therefore further study of HGT and its implications is necessary to understand the effects …

Mechanical Properties Of Pecvd Boron Carbide, Dhairyashil Aher

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

To the best of our knowledge, the mechanical properties of PECVD boron carbide (BC) grown using ortho-carborane as a source molecule have never been investigated before. Therefore, this thesis is an attempt to apply the bulge test and the nanoindentation technique for the mechanical characterization of PECVD BC thin films. Mechanical properties such as the Young’s modulus, hardness and residual stress were investigated. The bulge test system using an interferometry technique to measure the deflection of membrane has been designed. Commercially available LPCVD SiN_x membrane windows were used as a substrate to deposit BC films for the bulge test. …

The Effect Of Axial Conduction On Heat Transfer In A Liquid Microchannel Flow, Kevin D. Cole, Barbaros Çetin

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering: Faculty Publications

Analysis is presented for conjugate heat transfer in a parallel-plate microchannel. Axial conduction in the fluid and in the adjacent wall are included. The fluid is a constant property liquid with a fully-developed velocity distribution. The microchannel is heated by a uniform heat flux applied to the outside of the channel wall. The analytic solution is given in the form of integrals by the method of Green’s functions. Quadrature is used to obtain numerical results for the local and average Nusselt number for various flow velocities, heating lengths, wall thicknesses, and wall conductivities. These results have application in the optimal …

Nutrient Runoff Following Manure Application, Chance Thayer

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

A field study was completed to measure the effects of varying flow rate on nutrient transport following the application of varying amounts of beef cattle manure to plots containing either no-residue or a wheat residue cover.  Beef cattle manure was applied and incorporated into the soil in May 2010 to meet zero, one, two, four or eight year corn phosphorus requirements. Simulated rainfall events were applied in June and July 2010. The presence of a crop residue cover significantly increased the transport of dissolved phosphorus, total phosphorus, NO₃-N, NH₄-N, and total nitrogen in runoff but decreased …

Analysis Of Site-Specific Adjustment Applied To On-The-Go Soil Sensing Data For Agronomic Use, Allison K. Jonjak

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Successful variable-rate applications of agricultural inputs such as lime rely on the quality of input data. Systematic grid soil sampling is the most common method used for creating variable rate prescription maps. The insufficient number of point measurements usually obtained using this method has been primarily responsible for the typical inaccuracies seen in lime prescription maps. To increase sampling density, on-the-go sensing technology was developed for the mapping of soil pH and other relevant attributes. In this study, five fields in eastern Nebraska were mapped using both on-thego sensing technology and systematic grid sampling. Ten calibration points per field were …

Supramolecular Nanolayer Reconfiguration After Molecular Intercalation, Alexandre Dhôtel, Hui Li, Lucia Fernandez-Ballester, Laurent Delbreilh, Boulos Youssef, Xiao Cheng Zeng, Li Tan

Department of Engineering Mechanics: Faculty Publications

We examined the structural reconfiguration after intercalating foreign additives, that is, tetramethoxysilane (TMOS), within already formed supramolecular nanolayers of hexadecyltrimethoxysilane (HDTMS). Our experiments indicated that the newly formed interdigitated structure is a thermodynamically more stable configuration. Even after the HDTMS formed initial bilayer-by-bilayer structures, mixing of these aggregates with foreign additives at room temperature can change the original structure to a more compact configuration (i.e., interdigitated). Our MD simulations further revealed that the most favorable organization for this interdigitated stacking appears to be a formation of relatively small domains of HDTMS and TMOS molecules, supporting our proposal of a heterogeneous …

Analysis Of A Monolithic Crystal Plate Acoustic Wave Filter, Huijing He

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering: Faculty Publications

We study thickness–shear and thickness–twist vibrations of a finite, monolithic, AT-cut quartz plate crystal filter with two pairs of electrodes. The equations of anisotropic elasticity are used with the omission of the small elastic constant c56 . An analytical solution is obtained using Fourier series from which the res-onant frequencies, mode shapes, and the vibration confinement due to the electrode inertia are calculated and examined.

Application Of Gis And Geographically Weighted Regression To Evaluate The Spatial Non‐Stationarity Relationships Between Precipitation Vs. Irrigated And Rainfed Maize And Soybean Yields, Vivek Sharma, Ayse Kilic, Isa Kabenge, Suat Irmak

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

Understanding the relationship between the spatial distribution of precipitation and crop yields on large scales (i.e., county, state, regional) while accounting for the spatial non‐stationarity can help managers to better evaluate the long‐term trends in agricultural productivity to make better assessments in food security, policy decisions, resource assessments, land and water resources enhancement, and management decisions. A relatively new technique, geographically weighted regression (GWR), has the ability to account for spatial non‐stationarity with space. While its application is growing in other scientific disciplines (i.e., social sciences), the application of this new technique in agricultural settings has not been practiced. The …

Narrow Grass Hedge Control Of Nutrient Loads Following Variable Manure Applications, John E. Gilley, Lisa M. Durso, Roger Eigenberg, David B. Marx, Brian L. Woodbury

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

The effectiveness of a narrow grass hedge in reducing runoff nutrient loads following manure application was examined in this study. Beef cattle manure was applied to 0.75 m wide by 4.0 m long plots established on an Aksarben silty clay loam located in southeast Nebraska. Manure was added at rates required to meet none or the 1, 2, or 4 year nitrogen requirements for corn. Runoff water quality was measured during three 30 min simulated rainfall events. Manure application rate significantly affected dissolved phosphorus (DP) and total phosphorus (TP) loads in runoff on the plots without a grass hedge. However, …

Characterization Of Potential Health Promoting Lipids In The Co-Products Of De-Flossed Milkweed, Vicki Schlegel, Richard Zbasnik, Tammy Gries, Bo Hyun Lee, Timothy Carr, Ji-Young Lee, Curtis Weller, Susan Cuppett

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

The floss and oil of the common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca L.) seeds are currently used to produce comforters/pillows and skin care products, respectively. As an outcome of these products, copious quantities co-products (pressed seed meal and pod biomass) are disposed of each year despite the presence of potential health benefiting lipids. The objective of this project was to determine the feasibility of developing the lipid fraction from of these co-products for the fast growing dietary human health market. Although certain types of lipids were affected by the extraction solvent used (hexane and diethyl ether) as were overall amounts, analysis …

Ontology For Psychophysiological Dysregulation Of Anger/Aggression, Swathi Vasanthapuram

School of Computing: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The advancement of Information Technology in the last four decades led to the use of computers in medicine. A new area called Medical Informatics has emerged. This area comprises the application of IT to healthcare with the aim of creating tools that help healthcare personnel diagnose and treat patients more accurately and efficiently. IT not only provides tools for storing, integrating, and updating patient information base but also for processing information efficiently. One of such tools is a Clinical Decision Support System. Ontologies are an integral part of clinical decision support systems because they help formalize and integrate domain knowledge. …

Economic Input–Output Life Cycle Assessment Of Water Reuse Strategies In Residential Buildings And Communities, Derek J. Gardels

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The objective of this study was to determine the environmental sustainability and economic feasibility of five water reuse designs using economic input-output life cycle assessments and benefit/cost analyses. These five water reuse designs were evaluated for four regions of the United States including the Northwest (Seattle), Southwest (Scottsdale), Midwest (Omaha), and Southeast (Tampa). The water reuse designs include a greywater reuse system with no treatment for sub-surface landscape irrigation for a single-family residential house (Model 1), an indoor greywater reuse system with treatment for toilet flushing and laundry washing for a single-family residential house (Model 2), a hybrid untreated greywater …

A Framework For Evaluating Sorbent Usage Rate Of Various Sorption Column Cconfigurations With And Without Bypass Blending, Benjamin A. Stewart

Department of Environmental Engineering: Theses and Other Student Research

Sorption systems are a prevalent technology in the field of environmental engineering for treating waters contaminated with organic and/or inorganic compounds.  Examples of such contaminants include taste and odor, hardness, disinfection byproduct precursors, and arsenic.

The primary operating costs for these sorption systems lie in sorbent replacement.  Different column arrangements and the use of bypass blending have the potential to reduce sorbent usage.  Thus, this research aimed to develop a decision framework to assist engineers and practitioners in considering when to apply single columns, parallel columns, and lead-lag series configurations, with and without bypass, based on sorbent usage rate.  This …

The Missouri River, An Alliance For National Designation

United States Army Corps of Engineers, Omaha District

"At one time, most people believed that the only consideration in using this extraordinary resource was technological-what could we do the harness and control the river to maximize its productivity while minimizing the danger of its flooding.  Now we all understand much more clearly that there are limits to our tampering with the river's natural state."

Senator James Abourezk of South Dakota made this observation during his remarks in June 1977 at a presentation of the Army Corps of Engineers Missouri River Umbrella study concerning possible designation of the stretch from Gavins Point Dam to Ponca State Park, Nebraska, as …

Transverse Permeability Of Fibrous Porous Media, Ali Tamayol, Majid Bahrami

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering: Faculty Publications

In this study, the transverse permeability of fibrous porous media is studied both experimentally and theoretically. A scale analysis technique is employed for determining the transverse permeability of various fibrous matrices including square, staggered, and hexagonal arrangements of unidirectionally aligned fibers, as well as simple two-directional mats and simple cubic structures. In the present approach, the permeability is related to the porosity, fiber diameter, and tortuosity of the medium. In addition, the pressure drop in several samples of tube banks of different arrangements and metal foams are measured in the creeping flow regime. The pressure-drop results are then used to …

Understanding User Generated Content Characteristics : A Hot-Event Perspective, Miao Wang, Guodong Li, Jie Feng, Lisong Xu, Byrav Ramamurthy, Wei Li, Xiaohong Guan

School of Computing: Conference and Workshop Papers

Nowadays, millions of Internet users watch and upload a large number of videos on User Generated Content (UGC) sites (e.g., Youtube) everyday. Moreover, online videos about hot events, such as breaking news and Olympic games, attract lots of users. In this paper, we study the characteristics of hot-event videos by collecting video traces of the largest UGC site in China for 28 days. We first empirically study statistical properties of such videos and find that hot-event videos contribute a large number of views, even though the total number of hotevent videos is relatively small. In addition, there exist extremely active …

Using Textual Features To Predict Popular Content On Digg, Paul H. Miller

Department of English: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Over the past few years, collaborative rating sites, such as Netflix, Digg and Stumble, have become increasingly prevalent sites for users to find trending content.  I used various data mining techniques to study Digg, a social news site, to examine the influence of content on popularity.  What influence does content have on popularity, and what influence does content have on users’ decisions?  Overwhelmingly, prior studies have consistently shown that predicting popularity based on content is difficult and maybe even inherently impossible.  The same submission can have multiple outcomes and content neither determines popularity, nor individual user decisions.  My results show …

Economic And Environmental Sustainability Of Using Bio-Fuels For Small Nebraska Greenhouses, David M. Mabie

Department of Environmental Engineering: Theses and Other Student Research

The primary goal of this paper was to increase profitability in Nebraska greenhouses by using biomass fuels for heating instead of propane. Several different fuels were tested, including whole shelled corn, dry distiller’s grains pelletized, wood pellets and blends between each biomass. The main fuel focus was on whole shelled corn. Bomb calorimetry tests were performed on biomass fuels and their respective ashes. Several furnace and heat exchanger efficiency tests were performed, with cost effectiveness analysis for each fuel type. Emissions data was also collected for each fuel on carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, nitrous oxides, sulfuric oxides, and particulate matter. …

Improved Rehabilitation And Exercise Machine / Machine De Reeducation Et D'Exercice Amelioree, Judith M. Burnfield, Adam Taylor, Thad W. Buster, Carla A. Nelson, Yu Shu

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering: Faculty Publications

An improved rehabilitation and exercise machine is provided which allows a person with physical limitations, disabilities or chronic conditions to use the machine in order to rehabilitate their muscles, improve joint flexibility, and enhance cardiovascular fitness. An embodiment of the device includes a framework, a first and second crank arm, a first and second handle bar, a first and second foot pedal, a motor and pulley assembly, a first and second coupler link, and a motor controller with speed knob,

Design And Modeling Of Infrastructure For Residential And Community Water Reuse, Shannon M. Killion

Department of Environmental Engineering: Theses and Other Student Research

Water scarcity and deteriorating water infrastructure are of growing concern in the United States. The conventional methods of treating and transporting potable water and wastewater are being challenged as new technology creates opportunities for water reuse. Instead of simply replacing the current infrastructure for centralized treatment systems, alternatives such as dual distribution and decentralized treatment systems are being investigated as more sustainable alternatives.

Implementing dual distribution systems leads to benefits such as reducing the amount of water treated to potable standards and reducing freshwater withdrawals. A dual distribution system allows the non-potable demands to be shifted from the potable water …

Optimized Delay-Sensitive Multimedia Communications Over Wireless Networks, Haiyan Luo

Department of Computer Electronics and Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Multimedia communication is expected to be the major application of the next-generation wireless networks. However, providing delay-sensitive, loss-tolerant and resource-guzzling multimedia services over the current resource-limited wireless networks is still a very challenging task. In addition to their heterogeneous nature and resource limitation, wireless networks also suffer from channel variations and environmental changes. In this dissertation, we study the optimization techniques for wireless multimedia communications and address the issues from different theoretical and practical perspectives.

To solve the issues resulting from the increasingly heterogeneous wireless networks, we propose a framework for error resilient source coding and distributed application-layer error control, …

Multi-Channel Peer-To-Peer Streaming Systems As Resource Allocation Problems, Miao Wang

School of Computing: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

In the past few years, the Internet has witnessed the success of Peer-to-Peer (P2P) streaming technology, which has attracted millions of users. More recently, commercial P2P streaming systems have begun to support multiple channels and a user in such systems is allowed to watch more than one channel at a time. We refer to such systems as multi-channel P2P streaming systems. In this dissertation, we focus on designing multi-channel P2P streaming systems with the goal of providing optimal streaming quality for all channels, termed as system-wide optimal streaming quality. Specifically, we design the systems from the perspective of how to …

Offline Optimization Of Advance Reservation Of Bandwidth Over Dynamic Circuit Networks, Pragatheeswaran Angu

School of Computing: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

E-science projects require very high-speed and reliable networks to transfer data across various destinations in the world. Dynamic Circuit Network (DCN) is a networking service to make advance reservation of bandwidth between a source and a destination in a network. In this thesis we solve the problem of advance reservation of bandwidth in next-generation wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) networks using a simulation based approach.
We implement a greedy algorithm and a genetic algorithm in parallel, in separate threads. The request for advance reservation is processed by both but the user gets the response only from the greedy algorithm. The genetic algorithm …

Gas Embolic Factors In Cardiovascular Health, Eric L. Cutler

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Gas emboli are a clinical issue often encountered in the space exploration, marine construction, and medical fields.  Individuals involved with these disciplines will often have asympomatic gas emboli circulating throughout their bodies on a regular basis.  A study into the impact of chronic asymptomatic gas emboli on the risk of atherosclerosis in humans is thus presented.  This research utilized a custom built cardiovascular flow simulator and accompanying data acquisition system to experimentally determine the influence of gas emboli under varied circumstances on the mean wall shear stress of a tube in-vitro.  A directly inverse relationship between gas embolus presence in …

Grain Refinement Vs. Crystallographic Texture: Mechanical Anisotropy In A Magnesium Alloy, D. C. Foley, M. Al-Maharbi, K. T. Hartwig, I. Karaman, L. J. Kecskes, S. N. Mathaudhu

United States Army: Publications

A magnesium alloy was subjected to severe plastic deformation via an unconventional equal channel angular extrusion route at decreasing temperatures. This method facilitates incremental grain refinement and enhances formability by activating dynamic recrystallization in the initial steps and suppressing deformation twinning. Compression experiments in three orthogonal directions demonstrated high strength levels in the processed sample, up to 350 MPa in yield and 500 MPa in ultimate strengths. Notable flow stress anisotropy is correlated with the processing texture and microstructure.