Engineering Commons^™

Vulnerability Of Shallow Aquifers Of The Conterminous United States To Nitrate: Assessment Of Methodologies, Karthik Kumarasamy

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Groundwater is an important natural resource for numerous human activities, accounting for more than 50% of the total water used in the United States. Groundwater is vulnerable to contamination by several organic and inorganic pollutants such as nitrate, heavy metals, and pesticides. Assessment of groundwater vulnerability aids in the management and protection of limited groundwater resources.

The focus of this thesis is to (1) statistically compare two groundwater vulnerability assessment models; modified DRASTIC (Acronym for Depth to water, net Recharge, Aquifer media, Soil media, Topography, Impact of vadose zone, and hydraulic Conductivity of aquifer) and ordinal logistic regression for NO …

Rate-Distortion Optimized Vector Spiht For Wavelet Image Coding, Y. Liang, Scott E. Budge

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

In this paper, a novel image coding scheme using rate-distortion optimized vector quantization of wavelet coefficients is presented. A vector set partitioning algorithm is used to locate significant wavelet vectors which are classified into a number of classes based on their energies, thus reducing the complexity of the vector quantization. The set partitioning bits are reused to indicate the vector classification indices to save the bits for coding of the classification overhead. A set of codebooks with different sizes is designed for each class of vectors, and a Lagrangian optimization algorithm is employed to select an optimal codebook for each …

A Handheld Texel Camera For Acquiring Near-Instantaneous 3d Images, B.M. Boldt, Scott E. Budge, R.T. Pack, P.D. Israelsen

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

A Texel camera is a device which synchronously captures depth information via a ladar and digital imagery of the same scene. The ladar and digital camera are co-boresighted to eliminate parallax. This configuration fuses the ladar data to the digital image at the pixel level, eliminating complex post-processing to register the datasets. This paper describes a handheld version of a Texel Camera which can be used to create near-instantaneous 3D imagery. The hardware configuration of the Texel Camera, issues and method associated with ladar/camera calibration, and representative imagery are presented.

Integrated Modeling Of Nitrate Contamination Of Groundwater In Agriculture-Dominated Watersheds, M. Almasri, Jagath J. Kaluarachchi

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

This paper presents and implements a framework for modeling the impact of land use practices and protection alternatives on nitrate pollution of groundwater in agricultural watersheds. The framework utilizes the national land cover database (NLCD) of the United State Geological Survey (USGS) grid and a geographic information system (GIS) to account for the spatial distribution of on-ground nitrogen sources and corresponding loadings. The framework employs a soil nitrogen dynamic model to estimate nitrate leaching to groundwater. These estimates were used in developing a groundwater nitrate fate and transport model. The framework considers both point and non-point sources of nitrogen across …

Urban Particulate Matter Casues Er Stress And The Unfolded Protein Response In Human Lung Cells, T. L. Watterson, B. Hamilton, Randy S. Martin, R. A. Coulombe Jr.

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

Because of its presumed adverse health effects, particulate air pollution (PM) has received growing attention, but the cellular mechanisms by which PM exerts toxicity are not well elucidated. PM has been associated with early mortality from illnesses that share endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress as a mechanism of pathogenesis. In this study, we examined whether PM would induce the unfolded protein response (UPR) which is a cellular response to ER stress. Coarse (PM10) and fine (PM2.5) PM was collected from a single location in Northern Utah's Cache Valley during atmospheric inversions occurring in January 2002 and January 2003. Extracts of PM …

Effects Of Pm2.5 Collected From Cache Valley, Ut On Genes Associated With The Inflammatory Response In Human Lung Cells, T L. Watterson, J. Sorensen, Randy S. Martin, R. A. Coulombe Jr.

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

In January 2004, the normally picturesque Cache Valley in northern Utah made national headlines with the highest PM2.5 levels in the nation. Epidemiological studies linked exposure to particulate air pollution in other locations with stroke and Alzheimer's disease and to early mortality from all causes, cancer, and cardiopulmonary diseases. To determine potential effects of these particles on human health, human bronchial epithelial cells (BEAS-2B) were cultured with PM2.5collected from various locations in the Cache Valley. These particles were slightly cytotoxic, but more potent than NH4NO3, the major chemical component of Cache Valley PM2.5. Gene expression analysis of PM2.5-exposed cells was …

Year Three Annual Report: Activities, Findings And Evaluators' Reports, Ncete Faculty

Reports to NSF

The Center continues to strengthen the research climate across the institutional settings. A number of activities have been directed at this effort: internal funding of small student and faculty research projects; development of an internal funding process for doctoral student research; and presentations by researchers at Center meetings and professional conferences. The internal research program has been successful in providing relatively non-threatening experiences with proposal preparation, review, negotiation, and the conduct of small research projects. Six proposals were funded for exploratory research projects in 2005-06 and five projects were funded in 2006-07. As these projects are completed, findings are shared …

A Validation Procedure For A Ladar System Radiometric Simulation Model, B.C. Leishman, Scott E. Budge, R.T. Pack

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

The USU LadarSIM software package is a ladar system engineering tool that has recently been enhanced to include the modeling of the radiometry of Ladar beam footprints. This paper will discuss our validation of the radiometric model and present a practical approach to future validation work. In order to validate complicated and interrelated factors affecting radiometry, a systematic approach had to be developed. Data for known parameters were first gathered then unknown parameters of the system were determined from simulation test scenarios. This was done in a way to isolate as many unknown variables as possible, then build on the …

A Formal Approach To Specifying And Verifying Spacecraft Behavior, Allan I.S. Mcinnes

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Process algebra can provide spacecraft designers with a mathematical formalism for specifying, understanding, analyzing, and verifying spacecraft system behavior. Although it is standard practice to mathematically model and analyze the subsystems of a spacecraft to ensure that they will function correctly when built, the system-level behavior of the spacecraft is generally understood in much less rigorous terms. This leaves the spacecraft system vulnerable to design errors which may not become apparent until the integration and test phase, when design changes are most expensive. In this dissertation, we develop a formal approach to engineering spacecraft behavior, based on mathematical models of …

Tropospheric Spectrum Estimations Comparing Maximum Likelihood With Expectation Maximization Solutions And Fast Fourier Transforms, Stanley James Wellard

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The FIRST program (Far Infrared Spectroscopy in the Troposphere) was created as an Instrument Incubator Program (IIP) by NASA Langley to demonstrate improved technology readiness levels (TRLs) for two technologies needed in the design of new imaging Fourier transform spectrometers (IFTS). The IIP IFTS was developed at the Space Dynamics Laboratory and flown to an altitude of 103,000 feet on an instrumented NASA balloon payload. The sensor collected approximately 15,000 interferograms during its 6-hour flight.

Fourier transforms (FFT) produced acceptable results except for noise equivalent temperature differences (NETD) that were five times higher than goal and inconclusive transforms at seven …

Application Of The Relevance Vector Machine To Canal Flow Prediction In The Sevier River Basin, John T. Flake

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This work addresses management of the scarce water resource for irrigation in arid regions where significant delays between the time of order and the time of delivery present major difficulties. Motivated by improvements to water management that will be facilitated by an ability to predict water demand, this work employs a data-driven approach to developing canal flow prediction models using the Relevance Vector Machine (RVM), a probabilistic kernel-based learning machine. Beyond the RVM learning process, which establishes the set of relevant vectors from the training data, a search is performed across model attributes including input set, kernel scale parameter, and …

Langmuir Probe Measurements In The Ionosphere, Aroh Barjatya

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Electric probes have been the primary instruments for the in situ investigation of plasma parameters in the Earth’s ionosphere. This dissertation is a compendium of three papers, each dealing with a separate spacecraft that carried one or more instruments based on the electric probe technique.

The first paper presents data from the Sudden Atom Layer sounding rocket that carried an RF Impedance Probe, a DC fixed-bias Langmuir Probe (DCP), and an Electric Field Probe. The combined dataset indicates a case of payload surface charging, the causes of which are investigated within the paper. A generic circuit model is developed to …

A Nationwide Comparison Of Aviation Programs, D. Jason Mcconnell

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Students considering a college education have many different priorities in mind. When considering a career in aviation after graduation, it brings a whole new set of priorities into the picture. When I was searching for a university degree in aviation I had two major concerns: location and quality of the flight school. Cost was also on my list of concerns but more as a restriction than an option. In other words, I was willing to pay more for the schooling provided it did not get so excessive that I could no longer afford to go. Utah State was among three …

Design Of A Low-Power Automatic Wireless Multi-Logger Networking Device, Kelly S. Lewis

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Virtually every industry and discipline (e.g., mining, pharmaceutical, construction, agriculture, reclamation, etc.) is finding applications for wireless data acquisition for monitoring and managing processes and resources. Two sectors, namely agriculture and environmental research, are seeking ways to obtain distributed soil and plant measurements over larger areas like a watershed or large fields rather than a single site of intensive instrumentation (i.e., a weather station). Wireless sensor networks and remote sensing have been explored as a means to satisfy this need. Commercial products are readily available that have remote wireless options to support distributed senor networking. However, these systems have been …

Analysis Of The Day Side Equatorial Anomaly, Jayaprabha Shankar

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Equatorial Ionization Anomaly (EIA) is a region of peak plasma density found at ± 10 ◦ to 20 ◦ magnetic latitudes at F-region altitudes. In 2002, NASA launched the Global Ultra Violet Imager (GUVI), which can observe the EIA at various local times, longitudes, and seasons by the glow of the recombining electrons and ions in the plasma. This thesis presents the observations of the geomagnetic quiet time EIA and its global behavior at all local times using 1356 ˚A radiance data from high altitude GUVI limb scans. Limb data is prepared for analysis using reduction techniques that remove from …

Regulating Waste Discharge With Fuzzy Effluent Limitations For Toxic Pollutants, Tong Yin, David King Stevens

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

Many traditional water quality standards are based on extreme percentiles; often, there is the risk of making wrong decisions with these standards because of high estimation uncertainty. Standards expressed as fuzzy intervals in the form of [trigger, enforcement limitation] make it possible to control the risks for the discharger and the consumer simul taneously. With fuzzy interval compliance, corrective action is initiated when the trigger is exceeded; noncompliance is declared when the en forcement limitation is exceeded. Fuzzy intervals would digest the risks that are inherent when a single enforcement limitation is used to determine compliance; the risks can be …

Production Of Bio-Hydrogen By Mesophilic Anaerobic Fermentation In An Acid-Phase Sequencing Batch Reactor, D. Y. Cheong, C. L. Hansen, David King Stevens

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

The pH and hydraulic retention time (HRT) of an anaerobic sequencing batch reactor (ASBR) were varied to optimize the conversion of carbohydrate-rich synthetic wastewater into bio-hydrogen. A full factorial design using evolutionary operation (EVOP) was used to determine the effect of the factors and to find the optimum condition of each factor required for high hydrogen production rate. Experimental results from 20 runs indicate that a maximum hydrogen production rate of 4,460-5,540 mL/L/day under the volumetric organic loading rate (VOLR) of 75 g-COD/L/day obtained at an observed design point of HRT = 8 h and pH = 5.7. The hydrogen …

Rockport Reservoir Final Environmental Assessment And Finding Of No Significant Impact Pro-06-004, Peter Crookston, U.S. Department Of The Interior, Bureau Of Reclamation

All U.S. Government Documents (Utah Regional Depository)

No abstract provided.

A Numerical Blade Element Approach To Estimating Propeller Flowfields, Doug F. Hunsaker

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Publications

A numerical method is presented as a low computational cost approach to modeling an induced propeller flowfield. This method uses blade element theory coupled with momentum equations to predict the axial and tangential velocities within the slipstream of the propeller, without the small angle approximation assumption common to most propeller models. The approach is of significant importance in the design of tail-sitter vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft, where the propeller slipstream is the primary source of air flow past the wings in some flight conditions. The algorithm is presented, the model is characterized, and the results (including the results …

Features Of Engineering Design In Technology Education, Paul A. Asunda, Roger Hill

Reports of Center Studies

The purpose of this study was to find critical features of engineering design that can be incorporated within technology education learning activities, and develop a rubric for assessing these features. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with three professors actively involved in engineering education. Supporting documents such as engineering design course outlines and rubrics were also examined. Using a phenomenological approach, this study identified the concept of engineering design, key features of the engineering design process, and critical elements that should be assessed in an engineering design activity in the context of technology education. A key product of the study …

Temperature Effect On Tert-Butyl Alcohol (Tba) Biodegradation Kinetics In Hyporheic Zone Soils, M. H. Greenwood, Ronald C. Sims, J. E. Mclean, W. J. Doucette

Biological Engineering Faculty Publications

Background

Remediation of tert-butyl alcohol (TBA) in subsurface waters should be taken into consideration at reformulated gasoline contaminated sites since it is a biodegradation intermediate of methyl tert-butyl ether (MTBE), ethyl tert-butyl ether (ETBE), and tert-butyl formate (TBF). The effect of temperature on TBA biodegradation has not been not been published in the literature.

Methods

Biodegradation of [U ¹⁴C] TBA was determined using hyporheic zone soil microcosms.

Results

First order mineralization rate constants of TBA at 5°C, 15°C and 25°C were 7.84 ± 0.14 × 10^-3, 9.07 ± 0.09 × 10^-3, and 15.3 ± 0.3 …

The Effects Of Charging By Ultraviolet Light On Granular Lunar Simulant In A Microgravity Environment, Sydney J. Chamberlin, Troy Munro, Sarah Isert, Tracy Garin Savage

Reports and Proposals

No abstract provided.

Curricular Value And Instructional Needs For Infusing Engineering Design Into K-12 Technology Education, David K. Gattie, Robert C. Wicklein

Publications

An overarching objective of Technology Education in the U.S. is to improve technological literacy among K-12 students (DeVore, 1964; Savage and Sterry, 1990; International Technology Education Association, 1996, 2000, 2003). This is addressed in part through a focus on end-product technology and the use and importance of various technologies in society (Savage and Sterry, 1990). While such a focus is certainly necessary, it may not be sufficient if the objective is to infuse engineering into the technology education field. Current efforts at the University of Georgia propose adjusting the focus of Technology Education to a defined emphasis on engineering design …

Resources: Student Friendly Modeling Materials, Todd R. Kelley, Jared Berrett

Publications

The article presents cost-effective materials for elementary classrooms that allow students to create models. These materials include card stock, clay, cable or zips ties, fasteners and bolts, and commercially manufactured building kits such as LEGOs, Erector Sets, Tinkertoys and K'Nex. In addition, the author asserts the importance of using such materials in promoting student learning of technology and engineering.

Young Women’S Perceptions Of Technology And Engineering: Factors Influencing Their Participation In Math, Science And Technology?, Leah C. Roue

Reports of Center Studies

The current number of women in technology and engineering only represents a fraction of today’s workforce. Technological innovation depends on our nation’s best and brightest, representing all segments of our diverse society. Sanders (2005), in talking about women in technology and engineering, stated that women’s lack of participation can only be measured in jobs not filled, problems not solved, and technology not created. Research in the area of how young women view technology will provide insights into how to better encourage and prepare them for careers in technology and engineering.

The purpose of this exploratory study was to examine four …

A Multisite Case Study Of Faculty And Teacher Perceptions Of Ncete Professional Development Workshops On Engineering Design Content, Paul A. Asunda

Reports of Center Studies

The purpose of this study was to describe a process of preparing technology education teachers to teach engineering design concepts in the context of technology education. This process was identified through a study of professional development activities that were organized and conducted by technology teacher education partner universities of the National Center for Engineering and Technology Education (NCETE) to prepare middle school and high school technology teachers to infuse engineering design, problem solving, content, and analytical skills into the K-12 curriculum. A collective multisite case study formed the methodology for this study. Data were collected through individual interview sessions that …

Critical Inquiry Into Urban African American Students' Perceptions Of Engineering, Cameron D. Denson, Zanj K. Avery, John W. Schell

Reports of Center Studies

The purpose of this study was to critically examine the perceptions that African- American high school students have towards engineering. A qualitative research design using criterion sampling and snowballing was used to select seven African-American students from urban high schools to participate in the research. Semi-structured interviews were used to collect data from participants attending urban high schools on the east and west coast. Using Critical Race Theory (CRT) as the theoretical framework, the study was able to produce “emergent themes” from collected data. Findings from this study will help researchers understand how African-American students may perceive the field of …

Delivering Core Engineering Concepts To Secondary Level Students, Jenny Daugherty, Yong Zeng, Martin Westrick, Rodney L. Custer, Chris Merrill

Reports of Center Studies

Within primary and secondary school technology education, engineering has been proposed as an avenue to bring about technological literacy (Dearing & Daugherty, 2004; Lewis, 2005).Different initiatives such as curriculum development projects (i.e., Project ProBase and Project Lead The Way) and National Science Foundation funded projects such as the National Center for Engineering and Technology Education (NCETE) have been developed to infuse engineering into primary and secondary education. For example, one key goal of the Technology Teacher Education component of NCETE is to impact the focus and content of the technology education field at the secondary level (National Center for Engineering …

Cognitive Processes Of Students Solving Technical Problems, Todd Kelley, Roger Hill

Reports of Center Studies

The purpose of this study was to better understand cognitive strategies used by high school technology education students who have participated in technology education instruction with an engineering design focus. Specifically, this study evaluated the cognitive strategies of students participating in Project Lead the Way curriculum programs compared with students participating in technology education programs partnering with the National Center for Engineering and Technology Education (NCETE). High school students from these two groups were studied as they worked through an ill-defined problem: moving drinking water in developing countries. The data collected from these protocols was analyzed using a coding process …

Identifying The Essential Aspects And Related Academic Concepts Of An Engineering Design Curriculum In Secondary Technology Education, Cameron Smith, Bob Wicklein

Reports of Center Studies

Technology education is a fi eld of study which seeks to promote technological literacy for all students. Some recent research in the fi eld has focused on integrating content and methodology from engineering design into technology education classes, particularly at the secondary level. This study contributes to the research base in technology education on the subject of incorporating the engineering design process into the technology education curriculum. It addressed the need for the development of a framework for understanding engineering design and the related academic concepts that can be used by professionals in the fi eld of technology education seeking …