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Full-Text Articles in Engineering

Query Processing In Location-Based Services, Fuyu Liu Jan 2010

Query Processing In Location-Based Services, Fuyu Liu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

With the advances in wireless communication technology and advanced positioning systems, a variety of Location-Based Services (LBS) become available to the public. Mobile users can issue location-based queries to probe their surrounding environments. One important type of query in LBS is moving monitoring queries over mobile objects. Due to the high frequency in location updates and the expensive cost of continuous query processing, server computation capacity and wireless communication bandwidth are the two limiting factors for large-scale deployment of moving object database systems. To address both of the scalability factors, distributed computing has been considered. These schemes enable moving objects …


Perceived Service Quality's Impact On Behavioral Intentions In The Timeshare Industry, Leonard Pollar Ii Jan 2010

Perceived Service Quality's Impact On Behavioral Intentions In The Timeshare Industry, Leonard Pollar Ii

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study created a model using factor analysis and structural equation modeling to investigate the relationship of service quality, word-of-mouth recommendation and price sensitivity of individuals who experienced a timeshare mini vacation at a branded timeshare resort. The constructs of service quality were developed by creating a survey tool. A total of 4,797 surveys were electronically sent resulting in a total of 1,275 of the individuals surveyed who met the criteria of staying at a branded hotel or resort during their mini vacation. Six different variables were created from the ordinal level questions on the survey: Resort Accommodations, Sales Gallery, …


Extreme Ultraviolet Spectral Streak Camera, John Michael Szilagyi Jan 2010

Extreme Ultraviolet Spectral Streak Camera, John Michael Szilagyi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The recent development of extreme ultraviolet (EUV) sources has increased the need for diagnostic tools, and has opened up a previously limited portion of the spectrum. With ultrafast laser systems and spectroscopy moving into shorter timescales and wavelengths, the need for nanosecond scale imaging of EUV is increasing. EUV’s high absorption has limited the number of imaging options due to the many atomic resonances in this spectrum. Currently EUV is imaged with photodiodes and X-ray CCDs. However photodiodes are limited in that they can only resolve intensity with respect to time and X-ray CCDs are limited to temporal resolution in …


A Taxonomy Of Lean Six Sigma Success Factors For Service Organizations, Reza N. Hajikordestani Jan 2010

A Taxonomy Of Lean Six Sigma Success Factors For Service Organizations, Reza N. Hajikordestani

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Six Sigma is a business improvement strategy that aims to improve process performance using a structured methodology that identifies and removes the causes of defects in manufacturing and business processes, while implementing the lean concepts attempts to remove wasteful activities from those processes. In practice, the Six Sigma strategy and the Lean philosophy are combined and often viewed as one integrated philosophy, where the philosophy of Lean Six Sigma simultaneously removes wasteful activities from a process and reduces the variability of that process. This thesis research reviews the concepts and implementation of Lean thinking, Six Sigma strategy, and the integrated …


Thermally-Induced Motion Of Droplets On A Thin Liquid Layer And Its Application To Droplet Manipulation Platforms, Ehsan Yakhshi-Tafti Jan 2010

Thermally-Induced Motion Of Droplets On A Thin Liquid Layer And Its Application To Droplet Manipulation Platforms, Ehsan Yakhshi-Tafti

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In the recent years, there has been a growing interest in droplet-based (digital) microfluidic systems due to their ability to handle multiple discrete samples in a self-contained configuration compared to continuous flow systems. Various methods for droplet manipulation are currently available based on hydrodynamic, electrostatic, chemical, photonic and thermal interactions. High speed, controlled response and minimal thermal loading with least contamination are required in practical applications, especially in chemistry and biology. Although, thermal actuation of droplets has been recognized as an attractive choice due to a wide range of thermomechanical properties that can be exploited, the previous studies yielded limited …


Mobility And Safety Evaluation Of Integrated Dynamic Merge And Speed Control Strategies In Work Zones, Syed Muhammad Zaidi Jan 2010

Mobility And Safety Evaluation Of Integrated Dynamic Merge And Speed Control Strategies In Work Zones, Syed Muhammad Zaidi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In recent years, there has been a considerable increase in the amount of construction work on the U.S. national highways. Most of the work undertaken is the reconstruction and rehabilitation of the existing transportation networks. Work zones in the United States are likely to increase in number, duration and length due to emphasis on repair and highway reconstruction as a significant portion of all federal-aid highway funds are now geared toward highway rehabilitation. The challenge of mobility is particularly acute in work zone areas as road repair and construction intensifies traffic issues and concentrates them in specific locations and at …


A Robust Wireless Mesh Access Environment For Mobile Video Users, Fei Xie Jan 2010

A Robust Wireless Mesh Access Environment For Mobile Video Users, Fei Xie

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The rapid advances in networking technology have enabled large-scale deployments of online video streaming services in today's Internet. In particular, wireless Internet access technology has been one of the most transforming and empowering technologies in recent years. We have witnessed a dramatic increase in the number of mobile users who access online video services through wireless access networks, such as wireless mesh networks and 3G cellular networks. Unlike in wired environment, using a dedicated stream for each video service request is very expensive for wireless networks. This simple strategy also has limited scalability when popular content is demanded by a …


Design Of A Wideband Dual-Polarized Cavity Backed Slot Antenna, Rajesh Paryani Jan 2010

Design Of A Wideband Dual-Polarized Cavity Backed Slot Antenna, Rajesh Paryani

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A new technique for designing wideband dual-polarized cavity-backed slot antennas is presented. The structure is in the form of a double-resonant, dual-polarized slot antenna backed by a shallow substrate integrated cavity with a depth of approximately one tenth the free space wavelength. The presence of the cavity behind the slot enhances the antenna's directivity and reduces the possibility of surface wave propagation in the antenna substrate when the element is used in an array environment. Moreover, the dual-polarized nature of this radiating element may be exploited to synthesize any desired polarization (vertical, horizontal, RHCP, or LHCP). The double-resonant behavior observed …


High Heat Flux Spray Cooling With Ammonia On Enhanced Surfaces, Huseyin Bostanci Jan 2010

High Heat Flux Spray Cooling With Ammonia On Enhanced Surfaces, Huseyin Bostanci

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Many critical applications today, in electronics, optics and aerospace fields, among others, demand advanced thermal management solutions for the acquisition of high heat loads they generate in order to operate reliably and efficiently. Current competing technologies for this challenging task include several single and two phase cooling options. When these cooling schemes are compared based on the high heat flux removal (100-1000 W/cm2) and isothermal operation (within several oC across the cooled device) aspects, as well as system mass, volume and power consumption, spray cooling appears to be the best choice. The current study focused on high heat flux spray …


Tunable Infrared Metamaterials, David Shelton Jan 2010

Tunable Infrared Metamaterials, David Shelton

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Metamaterials are engineered periodic composites that have unique refractive-index characteristics not available in natural materials. They have been demonstrated over a large portion of the electromagnetic spectrum, from visible to radiofrequency. For applications in the infrared, the structure of metamaterials is generally defined using electron-beam lithography. At these frequencies, the loss and dispersion of any metal included in the composite are of particular significance. In this regard, we investigate deviations from the Drude model due to the anomalous skin effect. For comparison with theoretical predictions, the optical properties of several different metals are measured, both at room temperature and at …


A Model Integrated Meshless Solver (Mims) For Fluid Flow And Heat Transfer, Salvadore Gerace Jan 2010

A Model Integrated Meshless Solver (Mims) For Fluid Flow And Heat Transfer, Salvadore Gerace

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Numerical methods for solving partial differential equations are commonplace in the engineering community and their popularity can be attributed to the rapid performance improvement of modern workstations and desktop computers. The ubiquity of computer technology has allowed all areas of engineering to have access to detailed thermal, stress, and fluid flow analysis packages capable of performing complex studies of current and future designs. The rapid pace of computer development, however, has begun to outstrip efforts to reduce analysis overhead. As such, most commercially available software packages are now limited by the human effort required to prepare, develop, and initialize the …


An Interval Based Approach To Model Input Uncertainty In Discrete-Event Simulation, Ola Batarseh Jan 2010

An Interval Based Approach To Model Input Uncertainty In Discrete-Event Simulation, Ola Batarseh

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The objective of this research is to increase the robustness of discrete-event simulation (DES) when input uncertainties associated models and parameters are present. Input uncertainties in simulation have different sources, including lack of data, conflicting information and beliefs, lack of introspection, measurement errors, and lack of information about dependency. A reliable solution is obtained from a simulation mechanism that accounts for these uncertainty components in simulation. An interval-based simulation (IBS) mechanism based on imprecise probabilities is proposed, where the statistical distribution parameters in simulation are intervals instead of precise real numbers. This approach incorporates variability and uncertainty in systems. In …


Impact Of Hurricanes On Structures - A Performance Based Engineering View, Vijay Mishra Jan 2010

Impact Of Hurricanes On Structures - A Performance Based Engineering View, Vijay Mishra

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The magnitude of damage caused to the United States (US) coast due to hurricanes has increased significantly in the last decade. During the period 2004-2005, the US experienced seven of the costliest hurricanes in the country's history (NWS TPC-5, 2007) leading to an estimated loss of ~ $158 billion. The present method for predicting hurricane losses, HAZUS (HAZard US), is solely based on hurricane hazard and damage caused to building envelopes only and not to structural systems (Vickery et al., 2006). This method does not take into account an intermediate step that allows for better damage estimates, which is structural …


The Pdf Of Irradiance For A Free-Space Optical Communications Channel: A Physics Based Model, David Wayne Jan 2010

The Pdf Of Irradiance For A Free-Space Optical Communications Channel: A Physics Based Model, David Wayne

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

An accurate PDF of irradiance for a FSO channel is important when designing a laser radar, active laser imaging, or a communications system to operate over the channel. Parameters such as detector threshold level, probability of detection, mean fade time, number of fades, BER, and SNR are derived from the PDF and determine the design constraints of the receiver, transmitter, and corresponding electronics. Current PDF models of irradiance, such as the Gamma-Gamma, do not fully capture the effect of aperture averaging; a reduction in scintillation as the diameter of the collecting optic is increased. The Gamma-Gamma PDF of irradiance is …


Processing, Optimization And Characterization Of Fire Retardant Polymer Nanocomposites, Jinfeng Zhuge Jan 2010

Processing, Optimization And Characterization Of Fire Retardant Polymer Nanocomposites, Jinfeng Zhuge

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Fiber reinforced polymeric composites (FRPC) have superior physical and mechanical properties, such as high specific strength, light weight, and good fatigue and corrosion resistance. They have become competitive engineering materials to replace conventional metallic materials in many important sectors of industry such as aircraft, naval constructions, ships, buildings, transportation, electrical and electronics components, and offshore structures. However, since FRPC contain polymer matrix, the polymer composites and their structures are combustible. FRPC will degrade, decompose, and sometimes yield toxic gases at high temperature or subject to fire conditions. The objective of this study is to design and optimize fire retardant nanopaper …


On The Use Of Polyurethane Matrix Carbon Fiber Composites For Strengthening Concrete Structures, Zachary Haber Jan 2010

On The Use Of Polyurethane Matrix Carbon Fiber Composites For Strengthening Concrete Structures, Zachary Haber

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Fiber-reinforced polymer (FRP) composite materials have effectively been used in numerous reinforced concrete civil infrastructure strengthening projects. Although a significant body of knowledge has been established for epoxy matrix carbon FRPs and epoxy adhesives, there is still a need to investigate other matrices and adhesive types. One such matrix/adhesive type yet to be heavily researched for infrastructure application is polyurethane. This thesis investigates use of polyurethane matrix carbon fiber composites for strengthening reinforced concrete civil infrastructure. Investigations on mirco- and macro-mechanical composite performance, strengthened member flexural performance, and bond durability under environmental conditioning will be presented. Results indicate that polyurethane …


Hurricane Wind Speed And Rain Rate Measurements Using The Airborne Hurricane Imaging Radiometer (Hirad), Ruba Amarin Jan 2010

Hurricane Wind Speed And Rain Rate Measurements Using The Airborne Hurricane Imaging Radiometer (Hirad), Ruba Amarin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation presents results for an end-to-end computer simulation of a new airborne microwave remote sensor, the Hurricane Imaging Radiometer, HIRAD, which will provide improved hurricane surveillance. The emphasis of this research is the retrieval of hurricane-force wind speeds in the presence of intense rain and over long atmospheric slant path lengths that are encountered across its wide swath. Brightness temperature (Tb) simulations are performed using a forward microwave radiative transfer model (RTM) that includes an ocean surface emissivity model at high wind speeds developed especially for HIRAD high incidence angle measurements and a rain model for the hurricane environment. …


Conventional And Zvt Synchronous Buck Converter Design, Analysis, And Measurement, Mark Cory Jan 2010

Conventional And Zvt Synchronous Buck Converter Design, Analysis, And Measurement, Mark Cory

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The role played by power converting circuits is extremely important to almost any electronic system built today. Circuits that use converters of any type depend on power that is consistent in form and reliable in order to properly function. In addition, today's demands require more efficient use of energy, from large stationary systems such as power plants all the way down to small mobile devices such as laptops and cell phones. This places a need to reduce any losses to a minimum. The power conversion circuitry in a system is a very good place to reduce a large amount of …


Probing The Nanoscale Interaction Forces And Elastic Properties Of Organic And Inorganic Materials Using Force-Distance (F-D) Spectroscopy, Abhilash Vincent Jan 2010

Probing The Nanoscale Interaction Forces And Elastic Properties Of Organic And Inorganic Materials Using Force-Distance (F-D) Spectroscopy, Abhilash Vincent

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Due to their therapeutic applications such as radical scavenging, MRI contrast imaging, Photoluminescence imaging, drug delivery, etc., nanoparticles (NPs) have a significant importance in bio-nanotechnology. The reason that prevents the utilizing NPs for drug delivery in medical field is mostly due to their biocompatibility issues (incompatibility can lead to toxicity and cell death). Changes in the surface conditions of NPs often lead to NP cytotoxicity. Investigating the role of NP surface properties (surface charges and surface chemistry) on their interactions with biomolecules (Cells, protein and DNA) could enhance the current understanding of NP cytotoxicity. Hence, it is highly beneficial to …


Long Cavity Quantum Dot Laser Diode And Monolithic Passively Mode-Locked Operation, K Shavitranuruk Jan 2010

Long Cavity Quantum Dot Laser Diode And Monolithic Passively Mode-Locked Operation, K Shavitranuruk

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Advantage of the single QD active layer is its potential for very low threshold current density, which in turn can produce low internal optical loss. The low threshold current density and low internal loss thus enable a significant increase in laser diode cavity length. Because of the importance of the threshold current density in heatsinking, future technology of broad-area monolithic laser diodes can be implemented. The dissertation describes the development and the unique characteristics of single QD active layer laser with long cavity. The data are presented on single layer QD laser diodes that reach threshold current densities values of …


A Governance Reference Model For Service-Oriented Architecture-Based Common Data Initialization A Case Study Of Military Simulation Federation Systems, Jeremy Thomas Lanman Jan 2010

A Governance Reference Model For Service-Oriented Architecture-Based Common Data Initialization A Case Study Of Military Simulation Federation Systems, Jeremy Thomas Lanman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Military simulation and command and control federations have become large, complex distributed systems that integrate with a variety of legacy and current simulations, and real command and control systems locally as well as globally. As these systems continue to become increasingly more complex so does the data that initializes them. This increased complexity has introduced a major problem in data initialization coordination which has been handled by many organizations in various ways. Serviceoriented architecture (SOA) solutions have been introduced to promote easier data interoperability through the use of standards-based reusable services and common infrastructure. However, current SOA-based solutions do not …


Markerless Tracking Using Polar Correlation Of Camera Optical Flow, Prince Gupta Jan 2010

Markerless Tracking Using Polar Correlation Of Camera Optical Flow, Prince Gupta

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

We present a novel, real-time, markerless vision-based tracking system, employing a rigid orthogonal configuration of two pairs of opposing cameras. Our system uses optical flow over sparse features to overcome the limitation of vision-based systems that require markers or a pre-loaded model of the physical environment. We show how opposing cameras enable cancellation of common components of optical flow leading to an efficient tracking algorithm that captures five degrees of freedom including direction of translation and angular velocity. Experiments comparing our device with an electromagnetic tracker show that its average tracking accuracy is 80% over 185 frames, and it is …


Characterization Of Aluminum Doped Zinc Oxide Thin Films For Photovoltaic Applications, Bojanna P. Shantheyanda Jan 2010

Characterization Of Aluminum Doped Zinc Oxide Thin Films For Photovoltaic Applications, Bojanna P. Shantheyanda

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Growing demand for clean source of energy in the recent years has increased the manufacture of solar cells for converting sun energy directly into electricity. Research has been carried out around the world to make a cheaper and more efficient solar cell technology by employing new architectural designs and developing new materials to serve as light absorbers and charge carriers. Aluminum doped Zinc Oxide thin film, a Transparent conductive Oxides (TCO) is used as a window material in the solar cell these days. Its increased stability in the reduced ambient, less expensive and more abundance make it popular among the …


Design Of Silicon Controlled Rectifers Sic] For Robust Electrostatic Discharge Protection Applications, Zhiwei Liu Jan 2010

Design Of Silicon Controlled Rectifers Sic] For Robust Electrostatic Discharge Protection Applications, Zhiwei Liu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Electrostatic Discharge (ESD) phenomenon happens everywhere in our daily life. And it can occurs through the whole lifespan of an Integrated Circuit (IC), from the early wafer fabrication process, extending to assembly operation, and finally ending at the user‟s site. It has been reported that up to 35% of total IC field failures are ESD-induced, with estimated annual costs to the IC industry running to several billion dollars. The most straightforward way to avoid the ICs suffering from the threatening of ESD damages is to develop on-chip ESD protection circuits which can afford a robust, low-impedance bypassing path to divert …


Effects Of Flight Factors On Pilot Performance, Workload, And Stress At Final Approach To Landing Phase Of Flight, Kyongsun Lee Jan 2010

Effects Of Flight Factors On Pilot Performance, Workload, And Stress At Final Approach To Landing Phase Of Flight, Kyongsun Lee

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Since human errors are one of the major causes of flight accidents, the design and operation of the modern aircraft system deals with them seriously. Particularly, the pilot workload on aviation causes human errors. Whenever new procedures are introduced and operated, the aircraft capabilities have been checked in every aspect. However, there has been little study on the impact of the new procedures such as LDLP, SCDA, SATS, and Steep Angle approach on the pilot performance, workload, and stress. In this study, different methods have been tried to understand the relationship between new procedures and the pilots in terms of …


Phoneme-Based Video Indexing Using Phonetic Disparity Search, Carlos Leon Barth Jan 2010

Phoneme-Based Video Indexing Using Phonetic Disparity Search, Carlos Leon Barth

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation presents and evaluates a method to the video indexing problem by investigating a categorization method that transcribes audio content through Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) combined with Dynamic Contextualization (DC), Phonetic Disparity Search (PDS) and Metaphone indexation. The suggested approach applies genome pattern matching algorithms with computational summarization to build a database infrastructure that provides an indexed summary of the original audio content. PDS complements the contextual phoneme indexing approach by optimizing topic seek performance and accuracy in large video content structures. A prototype was established to translate news broadcast video into text and phonemes automatically by using ASR …


Modeling And Simulation Of Soft Bodies, Jaruwan Mesit Jan 2010

Modeling And Simulation Of Soft Bodies, Jaruwan Mesit

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

As graphics and simulations become more realistic, techniques for approximating soft body objects, that is, non-solid objects such as liquids, gases, and cloth, are becoming increasingly common. The proposed generalized soft body method encompasses some specific cases of other existing models enabling simulation of a variety of soft body materials by parameter adjustment. This research presents a general method of soft body model and simulation in which parameters for body control, surface deformation, volume control, and gravitation, can be adjusted to simulate different types of soft bodies. In this method, the soft body mesh structure maintains configuration among surface points …


Power Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor Field-Effect Transistor With Strained Silicon And Silicon Germanium Channel, Shan Sun Jan 2010

Power Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor Field-Effect Transistor With Strained Silicon And Silicon Germanium Channel, Shan Sun

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

With the development of modern electronics, the demand for high quality power supplies has become more urgent than ever. For power MOSFETs, maintaining the trend of reducing on-state resistance (conduction loss) without sacrificing switching performance is a severe challenge. In this work, our research is focused on implementing strained silicon and silicon germanium in power MOFETs to enhance carrier mobility, thus achieving the goal of reducing specific on-state resistance. We propose an N-channel super-lattice trench MOSFET, a P-channel sidewall channel trench MOSFET and P-Channel LDMOS with strained Si/SiGe channels. A set of fabrication processes highly compatible with conventional Si technology …


The Next Generation Botnet Attacks And Defenses, Ping Wang Jan 2010

The Next Generation Botnet Attacks And Defenses, Ping Wang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A "botnet" is a network of compromised computers (bots) that are controlled by an attacker (botmasters). Botnets are one of the most serious threats to today’s Internet; they are the root cause of many current Internet attacks, such as email spam, distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks , click fraud, etc. There have been many researches on how to detect, monitor, and defend against botnets that have appeared and their attack techniques. However, it is equally important for us to investigate possible attack techniques that could be used by the next generation botnets, and develop effective defense techniques accordingly in …


Computational Hurricane Hazard Analysis A Performance Based Engineering View, Christopher Michael Vanek Jan 2010

Computational Hurricane Hazard Analysis A Performance Based Engineering View, Christopher Michael Vanek

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Widespread structural damage to critical facilities such as levees, buildings, dams and bridges during hurricanes has exemplified the need to consider multiple hazards associated with hurricanes as well as the potential for unacceptable levels of performance even if failure is not observed. These inadequate standards warrant the use of more accurate methods to describe the anticipated structural response, and damage for extreme events often termed performance based engineering (PBE). Therefore PBE was extended into the field of hurricane engineering in this study. Application of performance-based principles involves collection of the numerous hazards data from sources such as historical records, laboratory …