Engineering Commons^™

Using Wavelet And Template Analysis To Classify Hand Postures In Unsupervised Daily Activities, Soha Hassan Saleh

Theses

This project's goal was to identify determinants that characterize different types of activities an individual do in daily life, knowing the quality of hand function is essential to plan more effective rehabilitation therapies and treatments for upper limb movement disorders. The first part of the project was Jebsen-Taylor study where healthy individuals and individuals with brain injury performed seven activities classified as precision grasp, cylindrical grasp, and palmar grasp while metacarpal joint angles were measured in real time. The data from those seven activities was used to determine parameters that characterize each type of activity and which might be used …

Magnetically Assisted Impaction Mixing Of Nanosize Particles, James V. Scicolone

Theses

Magnetically assisted impaction mixing (MAIM) is a novel dry mixing technique, which can be used to mix nanoparticles. Mixing of nanoparticles is usually conducted in solvent-based mixing techniques. The solvents used in these techniques are usually organic, which can be expensive and harmful to the environment. MAIM creates homogeneous nanoparticle mixtures while eliminating conditioning and drying steps associated with wet mixing techniques. To create the best mixing quality of nanoparticles, MAIM was optimized by studying the effects of magnet-to-sample ratio, time, magnet size, and constituents of the mixture. The results were then compared with other well-known mixing techniques.

To characterize …

The Extraction Of Type 1 Collagen And The Fabrication Of Multi-Filament Embedded Hydrogels For Guided Nerve Regeneration, Mevan Lakmal Siriwardane

Theses

Each year, there are approximately 11,000 new cases of spinal cord injury (SCI) in the United States [2]. There have been some success in pre-clinical studies to induce axonal generation, but the reconnection of axons over large distances remains the greatest challenge. Since the development of nerve conduit to facilitate general axonal regeneration, the primary focus has changed to directing the regeneration of axons while also promoting their outgrowth over very extensive lesions to ensure functional recovery of transected nerves during in vitro experiments by using natural materials such as type I collagen, which is the largest constituent of the …

Lightweight Objective Quality Of Voice Estimation Through Machine Learning, Daniel Riordan

Theses

Communication systems are undergoing constant and rapid innovation, both at the design stage and in the field. This in turn has led to an inereasing need for fast, efficient, portable and economic methods for the testing of these systems. For voice carrying communication systems the quality of the transmitted voice that the system produces is a large factor in the overall performance rating of the system. This measure is known as the ‘Quality of Voice’ (QoV) and can be evaluated either subjectively or objectively.

Speech quality is a complex subjective phenomenon that can be best quantified by subjective testing. A …

Optimization In Multi-Agent Systems : Structures And Procedures, Ingo Stengel

Theses

The main advantage for the use of agent technology is in the capacity of agents to represent the interests of individual entities and to act autonomously on their behalf. In multi-agent systems this involves communication, coordination and negotiation.

The focus of this dissertation is to find ways to optimize multi-agent systems at different levels by taking into consideration their structure and the procedures used. As optimization depends to a large extent on the problem to be solved, group forming scenarios, in which self-interested agents compete to form and join groups, have been selected here for consideration. Optimization issues are discussed …

Preparation And Characterization Of (Gesbte)) Semiconductors For Phase-Change Optical Storage, Hessa Ali Humeid Al-Shamisi

Theses

In the last decade, the phase change optical recording based upon chalcogenide glasses has advanced remarkably at full-scale commercial applications in the form of rewritable compact disks (CD-RWs). The principle of phase-change optical recording is based on a thermally induced reversible transformation between amorphous and crystalline phases. The search for recording materials possessing fast crystallization rate and long data retention has been pursued. Research results have revealed that Ge-Sb-Te compounds exhibit fast crystallization, which has been explained in terms of their single-phase structure.

In the present work, electrical properties of Ge-Sb-Te thin films using Impedance Spectroscopy, Current-Voltage, and Capacitance-Voltage techniques …

Orthogonal Cutting Of Bone, Donal Mccrohan

Theses

The cutting of bone has been undertaken for many centuries. Research in this area is contnually progressing to achieve an efficient cutting action while reducing recovery time and rauma to the patient.

Orthogonal cutting is defined where the cutting edge of the tool is set in a position that is perpendicular to the direction of relative work or tool motion. The failure mechanisms involved in the cutting of bone, their direct relationships to cutting tool geometry and cutting direction for orthogonal cutting are not accurately defined or quantified. A study of the orthogonal cutting behaviour of bone initiated in the …

Sediment Budgets In The Irish Estuarine Environment, Kevin Motherway

Theses

A sediment budget is the quantification of sediment sources and sinks for natural physical systems such as rivers and estuaries.

This thesis has developed estuarine sediment budgets for Cork Harbour, Kinsale Harbour and Youghal Harbour. The thesis includes a literature review of the properties of sediment, river and estuary related sediment transport, sediment management and sediment related legislation and the approaches used to develop a sediment budget for an estuary system.

An extensive study of riverine suspended sediments discharging to the estuaries has been undertaken. Both surface grab samples and depth integrating suspended sediment samples were collected, tested and analysed. …

Mesh Mac Enabling Mesh Networking Over Ieee 802.15.4 Mac Layer, Panneer Selvan Muthukumaran

Theses

Wireless sensor network is a network of sensor nodes that function in a cooperative manner to monitor the changes in the physical environment. Wireless sensor networks are used in environment and habitat monitoring, healthcare applications, building automation, and traffic control to name a few. Typically, wireless sensor node is a low power embedded device which consists of a microcontroller, sensors, wireless transceiver and a battery. These devices are usually distributed in a physical environment which makes it difficult to maintain the network manually.

The IEEE 802.15.4 and Zigbee are considered as standard protocols for wireless sensor networks. The IEEE 802.15.4 …

Management Framework For Hybrid Wireless Networks, Chong Shen

Theses

The objective of the Hybrid Wireless Network with dedicated Relay Nodes (HWN*) architecture is to interface the Base Station (BS) Oriented Mobile Network (BSON) and the 802.fix based Mobile Ad hoc Wireless Network (MANET) so that one system can be utilised as an alternative radio access network for data transmissions, while the incorporation of Relay Nodes (RN) is to extend the communication coverage, optimise medium resource sharing, increase spatial reuse opportunity, stabilise MANET link and create more micro-cells. The HWN* keeps the existing cellular infrastructure and a Mobile Terminal (MT) can borrow radio resources from other cells via secure multi-hop …

Container Management And Monitoring Using Sensor Networks, Daniel Rogóz

Theses

The purpose of this project was to develop a functional prototype of a container management and monitoring system, which allows identification and tracking of shipping containers in a port terminal from the moment they enter a port to when they depart for their final destination.

Such system can significantly reduce the labor and time costs associated with organizational mistakes that can occur when containers are being on/off-loaded, moved and stacked in tiers for transfer to the rail or road network. It can be used to streamline the container transport, optimize the order of container on/off-loading and placement, as well as …

A Meta Analysis Of Critical Success Factors For Computer Technology Projects, Ross A. Baker

Theses

Project managers are continually in pursuit of a magic formula that will deliver a successful project. Companies arc interested in formulas for project success because billions of dollars arc wasted each year, in U.S.A. Information Technology projects alone. through poorly managed or failed projects. Failing projects arc not only bad for the individual project team members, but a failed project's impacts emanate outward to cause companies to decline or die. In addition, the targeted customers who receive inferior products, late products, or no products at all (due to project failures) are significantly impacted as well. Because failed computer technology projects …

Design, Implementation And Evaluation Of A Networking Context Aware Policy Environment, Asanga Dhammika Udugama

Theses

Future mobile networks are anticipated to have support to access heterogeneous access technologies. An important question in such environments is the decisions on when to use what access network. These decisions must take the users and mobile network operators’ perspectives into consideration. The operators usually have a focus of always-best-managed networks while the users have an always-best-connected focus. A key enabler of such environments is the use of policies to perform these handover decisions. These policies, which must be dynamic in nature, should be configurable when the requirements change. Policy decisions are always made based on the current context of …

Precision Coil Inspection, Karol Murphy

Theses

Boston Scientific produces the Guglielmi Detachable Coil in their Cork based facility. These are used in a surgical procedure to eliminate aneurysms. The first step in the process is to form a coil by wrapping a platinum wire around a mandrel. These coils have outer diameters ranging from 190 pm to 520pm. This is called the primary wind and is inspected to find any defects introduced into the coil from the winding process. These defects may be the result of wire defects in the raw material or possibly poor handling by the operators. These primary winds are processed further to …

Elliptic Curve Cryptography Security On Restricted Mobile Devices, Debbie Mccann

Theses

Mobile technologies with limited resources, such as smart phones or PDAs, have increased dramatically in popularity. However, the level of security provided for these technologies has not kept pace with the value of the data that they contain or transmit.

Wireless networks usually provide some security, in the form of encryption. GSM and GPRS use different forms of the A5 algorithm, and Wi-Fi uses WEP or WPA. These encryption algorithms have proven weaknesses and in some cases have been efficiently cracked. To improve the security of wireless networks, stronger encryption algorithms need to be developed. One of the most attractive …

A Distributed Ai Approach For Large-Scale Wlan Design, Alan Mcgibney

Theses

The recent dramatic trend towards always-on-connectivity has driven the need for mobile ubiquitous computing environments with the advent of the Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) seeing a shift from traditional wired networks to wireless networking. A WLAN typically contains a number of access points that allow wireless enabled clients access information and network resources such as the internet without the need for wires, offering flexibility and mobility to the users. Initial wireless networks were convenience based allowing users access to the primary wired network, and involved little planning prior to roll-out. The proliferation of low cost wireless devices combined wdth …

Feasibility Of Utilising Construction And Demolition Waste And Dredge Material As Landflll Liner, John David Riordan

Theses

Construction and demolition (C&D) waste and dredge material are significant bulk waste streams in the Republic of Ireland. This thesis examines the feasibility of combining these waste streams to produce a viable novel geotechnical clay liner for landfill.

This thesis includes a literature review and a detailed study of C&D waste, dredge material and landfill liners in Ireland. The research for this thesis includes a geotechnical laboratory test programme. Samples of C&D waste and dredge material were collected and tested to establish relevant characteristics. In addition, a senes of tests were commissioned on test samples to establish their chemical and …

Treatment Of Aqueous Waste Streams At Eli Lilly - Alternatives To Incineration, Barry Hennessy

Theses

The aim of this project was to investigate the potential to treat liquid waste (secondary) from production processes at Eli Lilly with the emphasis on minimising the volume of waste sent for thermal oxidation. In addition, the project aimed to investigate if the chosen technology was diverse and potentially capable of handling waste streams from different processes. Membrane technology was identified as one of the most suitable technologies and trials were carried out on secondary waste from three production processes. The literature review and practical thrials aswell as assessment of trial results ran from October 2003 to June 2005.

All …

An Investigation On The Corrosion Resistance And Stress Corrosion Cracking Of Ductile Ni-Resist Cast Irons In Desalination Plants., Yahya Abdulla Alzafin

Theses

Two cases of stress corrosion cracking failures of brine pumps casings have been reported. These pumps are installed in two desalination plants located on the coast of Arabian Gulf in UAE. The materials of construction of failed parts are Ni-Resist Ductile Irons (NDI) and the environment is brine, which is concentrated seawater. Two brands of pumps had different lives to total failure; one lived 18 years while the other lasted only 5 years. The failed parts of former pumps were made out of NDI material as per American standard ASTM A439 D2 (designated D material) whereas those of latter pumps …

Using Gis To Optimize The Design And Implementation Of The Rtk Reference Network In Abu Dhabi, Mustafa Abdulla Almusawa

Theses

Several challenging applications and construction works demand real-time measurements for positioning at the centimeter-level accuracy. This positioning accuracy can be obtained by using a Global Positioning System (GPS) roving unit and employing a single reference station (base-station) or through utilizing the service of multiple reference stations forming a Real-Time Kinematics (RTK) Reference Network.

The limitation of the single reference approach is that measurement errors are distance dependent and good accuracy can be only obtained when distances are less than 10 kms. In addition, this method requires a nearby Geodetic Control Point (GCP). Recently, RTK reference networks are widely established in …

Theoretical Framework For Predicting Joint Reaction And Ground Reaction Forces In A Dynamic Pendulum Tree Model Of Human Motion, Peyman Rajai

Theses

Lagrangian dynamics and the method of superfluous coordinates are applied to find ground and joint reaction forces on the human body modeled as a general branched 2-D pendulum tree system with arbitrary segments and arbitrarily distributed point masses. A theoretical framework is established for predicting these constraint forces during human motion and consequently their effects on dynamics, dynamic stability, energy efficiency and the potential of these forces to produce joint injury and/or pain. Applications to human walking are initiated. During idealized phases where there is only single point contact of the stance leg with the ground such as just after …

Route Recovery Schemes For Link And Node Failure And Link Congestion, Ibrahim Takouna

Theses

Link/Node failure occurs frequently causing service disruption in computer networks. Hardware techniques have been developed to protect the network from Link/Node failure. These techniques work in physical layer, therefore their convergence time is very small. On the other hand, many schemes have been proposed to mitigate the failure influence on the network. These schemes work in upper layers such as the network layer. However, hardware solutions faster than other schemes, but they are expensive. Link/Node failure causes all flows which were using the failed link/node are temporarily interrupted till a new path reestablished.

Three recovery algorithms have been proposed that …

Experimental Investigation And Numerical Modeling Of Hybrid Glass/Carbon Frp Section Combined With Concrete Slab, Stephen Craig Raynor

Theses

No abstract provided.

In Vitro Feasibility Testing Of Floating Light-Activated Minroelectrical Stimulators, Ammar Riad Abdo

Theses

One of the major challenges of neural stimulation is the mechanical stress and resulting trauma induced on the implanted electrodes by the constant movement of the interconnects. A potential way of eliminating interconnects is to use floating micro-stimulators that can be activated through optical means. As a method of energy transfer to the micro-stimulator, we propose to use a laser beam at near infrared (NIR) wavelengths.

There are two main objectives in this project to test the feasibility of the main approach; investigate the charge injection capacity of titanium nitride (TiN) and iridium oxide (IrOx) as potential contact materials, and …

Adaptable Videogame Platform For Interactive Upper Extremity Rehabilitation, Sally M. Jensen

Theses

The primary objective of this work is to design a recreational rehabilitation videogame platform for customizing motivating games that interactively encourage purposeful upper extremity gross motor movements. Virtual reality (VR) technology is a popular application for rehabilitation therapies but there is a constant need for more accessible and affordable systems. We have developed a recreational VR game platform can be used as an independent therapy supplement without laboratory equipment and is inexpensive, motivating, and adaptable. The behaviors and interactive features can be easily modified and customized based on players' limitations or progress.

A real-time method of capturing hand movements using …

Automatic Registration And Segmentation Of Abdominal Images And Detection Of Pancreatic Cancer, Girish Kumar Maniprasad

Theses

Localized and detailed analyses of 3D abdominal images obtained through different imaging modalities help greatly in determining the progression of a disease or for postoperative treatment / evaluation. However, such analyses become difficult and sometimes unfeasible due to the effects of patient motion and breathing. This is particularly evident during analysis of the pancreas for cancer, due to its proximity to other intra-abdominal organs. Within subject registration thus becomes imperative for pathological analysis of pancreatic cancer. An intensity-based, global image registration algorithm was developed in the present work, for registration of pancreatic abdominal images. The registration algorithm was automatic and …

Development And Evaluation Of A Simultaneous Multithreading Processor Simulator, Carla Verena S. Nunez

Theses

Modem processors are designed to achieve greater amounts of instruction level parallelism (ILP) and thread level parallelism (TLP). Simultaneous multithreading (SMT) is an architecture that exploits both LLP and TLP. It improves the utilization of the processor resources by allowing multiple independent threads to reside in the pipeline and dynamically scheduling the available resources among the threads.

The first part of this thesis presents the development of a simultaneous multithreading processor simulator. The SMT simulator is derived from SimpleScalar, a superscalar processor simulator widely used in the computer architecture research field. The basic pipeline is expanded to allow multiple threads …

Titanium Nitride As An Electrode Material For High Charge Density Applications, Mustafa Khan Patan

Theses

Present day neural prostheses require electrodes with high current densities. Traditional electrodes are not capable of delivering such high current densities. Titanium nitride as an electrode material and other techniques like reactive ion etching, platinization of titanium were studied in this thesis towards improving charge density of electrodes.

Titanium nitride (TiN) was sputtered in a custom designed pattern of electrodes with silicon as substrate, at a deposition rate of 2 A /sec. Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) analysis of TiN film showed a smooth surface for a film thickness of 1 μm. X-Ray Diffraction (XRD) analysis of the film showed the …

Vibrotactile Sensory Substitution For Post-Stroke Rehabilitation, Carlos X. Rosado

Theses

The aftermath of a stroke leaves people with side effects such as speech and hearing problems, and loss of sensation in one side of their body. Sensory feedback in the hand is used to assess if the individual is using appropriate grip force to hold and use objects; lack of sensory feedback can lead to dropped or damaged objects, and possible hand injury. Existing force biofeedback devices are overly complex and difficult to use in the home. The goal of this project is to provide increased environmental awareness of hand grip force for individuals with reduced hand sensation. Although hand …

Solubility In Supercritical Carbon Dioxide, Syed Asif Abdullah

Theses

The different techniques used for the determination of the solubility of compounds in supercritical carbon dioxide are described. A comparative study is made of the methods used in the measurement of the concentration of benzoic acid and caffeine in supercritical carbon dioxide. The difference in measurement techniques did not have much effect on the solubility data at lower pressures. However, at higher pressures, the solubility data obtained by different techniques began to deviate from each other.

Further, the method used by different researchers in generating the solubility data in supercritical carbon dioxide is also discussed. A number of data sheets …