Engineering Commons^™

Webinar: Integrating Explicit And Implicit Methods In Travel Behavior Research: A Study Of Driver Attitudes And Bias, Tara Goddard

TREC Webinar Series

Car crashes are still a leading cause of death in the United States, with vulnerable road users like bicyclists and pedestrians being injured or killed at rates that outpace their mode share.

Planners, engineers, and advocates are increasingly adopting Vision Zero and Tactical Urbanism approaches and trying to better understand the underlying causes of dangerous roadway interactions. However, existing research into crash causation has focused on instrumental factors (e.g. intersection type, vehicle speed) while little research has probed the role of attitudes or socio-cognitive mechanisms in interactions between roadway users.

Social psychology suggests that attitudes and social cognitions can play …

Using Fuzzy Cognitive Maps To Model Policy Issues In The Face Of Uncertainty And Limited Data, Brian Gregor

PSU Transportation Seminars

Planners and policymakers are often faced with the need to make decisions about issues for which there is uncertainty and limited data. For example, transportation planners are now faced with the prospect that new transportation technologies such as autonomous vehicles could greatly alter future transportation system needs. Decisions about these types of issues are difficult to reason about and consequently are likely to be ignored or made on the basis of simplistic logic. Although modeling could be helpful, especially for issues involving complex systems, it is rarely used because models usually require large amounts of data and and handle uncertainty …

Utah Water Research Lab Unveils Latest In Unmanned Aerial Vehicles | College Of Engineering, Usu College Of Engineering

College of Engineering News

Researchers at Utah State University last week unveiled their newest platform of unmanned aerial vehicles.

Biological Engineering Professor Presents Inaugural Lecture | College Of Engineering, Usu College Of Engineering

College of Engineering News

Biological Engineering faculty Dr. Anhong Zhou reflected on family and the future of bio-technologies at his inaugural lecture last month where he was honored for his promotion to professor.

Utah State University’S Cee Department Gets Attention From Industry Magazines | College Of Engineering, Usu College Of Engineering

College of Engineering News

Utah State University’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering was mentioned several times recently in the United States Society on Dams (USSD) Newsletter and the Association of State Dam Safety Officials (ASDSO) Annual Report.

National Media Turn To Usu Engineering Professor For Developing Oroville Spillway Situation | College Of Engineering, Usu College Of Engineering

College of Engineering News

Reporters around the world are covering the developing story in Northern California where massive water flows are threatening the integrity of the Oroville Dam’s main and auxiliary spillways.

Uwrl Researchers Develop Genetic Tool To Improve Arsenic Studies | College Of Engineering, Usu College Of Engineering

College of Engineering News

Environmental engineers are making it easier to identify the bacterial species responsible for releasing a form of arsenic that contaminates the water supplies of millions of people worldwide.

The Bridge Newsletter Spring 2017, Missouri University Of Science And Technology

The Bridge Newsletter

-Bayless retires
-Lifesaving flood relief
-Asphalt expert joins S&T
-First Prakash Lecture

Usu Seeks Computer Science Department Head | College Of Engineering, Usu College Of Engineering

College of Engineering News

Utah State University seeks applications for the Head of the Department of Computer Science in the College of Engineering.

Wire Neutralization System, Scott A. Bradley, Jason Wiitanen, Timothy B. Smigowski, John T. Niemeyer, Andrew Culkin

Michigan Tech Patents

A wire neutralizing system for use with a vehicle including a frame adapted to be hitched to a vehicle. At least one wheel supports the frame while a bottom of the wheel rolls over terrain having buried wires. The system also includes a blade movable between a stowed position in which the blade is above the bottom of the wheel and a deployed position in which the blade is below the bottom of the wheel, such that the blade plows through the terrain to disable buried wires when in the deployed position.

Estimating Reliability Indices And Confidence Intervals For Transit And Traffic At The Corridor Level, Travis B. Glick

PSU Transportation Seminars

As congestion worsens, the importance of rigorous methodologies to estimate travel-time reliability increases. Exploiting fine-granularity transit GPS data, this research proposes a novel method to estimate travel-time percentiles and confidence intervals. Novel transit reliability measures based on travel-time percentiles are proposed to identify and rank low-performance hotspots; the proposed reliability measures can be utilized to distinguish peak-hour low performance from whole-day low performance. As a case study, the methodology is applied to a bus transit corridor in Portland, Oregon. Time-space speed profiles, heatmaps, and visualizations are employed to highlight sections and intersections with high travel-time variability and transit low performance. …

Current Efforts To Make Bike Share More Equitable: A Survey Of System Owners And Operators, Steven Howland

PSU Transportation Seminars

The number of public bike share systems has been increasing rapidly across the United States over the past five to ten years. To date most academic research around bike share in the U.S. has focused on the logistics of planning and operationalizing successful systems. Investigations of system users and impacts on the local community are less common, and studies focused on efforts to engage underserved communities in bike share are rarer still. This paper utilizes a survey of representatives from 55 U.S. bike share systems to better understand and document current approaches toward serving low income and minority populations. The …

Webinar: Improving Walkability At Signalized Intersections With Signal Control Strategies, Edward J. Smaglik, Sirisha Murthy Kothuri

TREC Webinar Series

The goal of signal timing at an intersection should be to maximize efficiency for all users. In many jurisdictions, however, traffic signals are timed mostly with the goal of reducing vehicular delay.

Other road users, such as pedestrians, deserve similar focus. In legacy transportation systems, pedestrians experience delays much in excess of those that would be deemed acceptable for a motor vehicle at the same location.

Excessive delay can lead to pedestrian frustration, non-compliance and ultimately decreased safety.

In the North American context, implementation of strategies to address pedestrian service varies greatly across jurisdictions, and there has been limited research …

Dr. James L. Moore Presents Bpe Program Seminar At Usu | College Of Engineering, Usu College Of Engineering

College of Engineering News

Dr. James L. Moore III will visit Utah State University on Jan. 30 as the guest speaker at a seminar on the Broadening Participation in Engineering (BPE) program.

Usu College Of Engineering Development Director Sworn Into Legislature | College Of Engineering, Usu College Of Engineering

College of Engineering News

The Utah State Legislature welcomed several new lawmakers to its ranks on Monday, including Val K. Potter, the executive director of development at Utah State University’s College of Engineering.

Usu Engineering Students Receive Design Award | College Of Engineering, Usu College Of Engineering

College of Engineering News

A team of USU student engineers were awarded a plaque for being the Runner Up at the WEF Student Design Competition at WEFTECH 2016.

Linking Information With Knowledge For Enhanced Learning, Haroon Stephen

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

Learning in classroom needs continuous engagement and triggering of curiosity. A non-stop delivery of information without context becomes “blah-blah-blah”. There is a need to create a link at every step of the way in learning.

The Las Vegas Wash: Student Real-World Site Involvement, Erica S. Tietjen

UNLV Best Teaching Practices Expo

Students from all disciplines (not just Environmental Science) can gain experience with and appreciation of their local natural resources

Select Partner Proterra Makes Debut In Park City | Utah State University Power Electronics Lab, Usu College Of Engineering

College of Engineering News

The Research Center for Sustainable Electrified Transportation (SELECT) is pleased to announce that partner Proterra is established in Park City, Utah.

Avoiding Bus Bunching: From Theory To Practice, Ricardo Giesen

PSU Transportation Seminars

The problem of bus bunching in a high frequency service has been largely studied in the literature.

This phenomenon is produced by three main factors

(i) the variability in travel time between stops; (ii) variations in passenger demand; and (iii) drivers’ heterogeneity.

In order to tackle this phenomenon a wide range of control strategies have been proposed, however, none of them had been successfully implemented on a large transit network with high frequency services.

In this talk, we present a control scheme based on a rolling horizon optimization problem that has been successfully implemented for real-time control of two high …

2012, May - San Luis Obispo County Master Water Report, Volume I Of Iii

San Luis Obispo Public Works Water Reports

A compilation of current and future water resource management activities with in San Luis Obispo County that are organized by Water Planning Areas. The report explores how the activities interrelate, analyzes current and future supplies and demands, and identifies future water management strategies and ways to optimize existing strategies.

2012, May - San Luis Obispo County Master Water Report, Volume Ii Of Iii

San Luis Obispo Public Works Water Reports

A compilation of current and future water resource management activities with in San Luis Obispo County that are organized by Water Planning Areas. The report explores how the activities interrelate, analyzes current and future supplies and demands, and identifies future water management strategies and ways to optimize existing strategies.

2017 Civil And Environmental Engineering Department News, Department Of Civil And Environmental Engineering, Michigan Technological University

Department of Civil, Environmental, and Geospatial Engineering Newsletters

Table of Contents

• Student Awards
• Faculty News
• STEM Outreach
• Department News
• CEE Donor Recognition
• Alumni News

Engineering Research 2017, College Of Engineering, Michigan Technological University

Michigan Tech Engineering Magazine

Table of Contents

• Health
• Engineered Materials
• Sensing & Controls
• Air & Water
• People

Cloud Workflow Automation, William Crump, Eric Darling, Kyle Hagood, Syed Rizvi

Capstone Design Expo Posters

The goal of our project was to develop an application in the cloud which automates complex business tasks. The application allows users to create configurable events consisting of a trigger followed by an action. Triggers are designed for common tasks such as scanning a directory or email inbox for new files. When a new file is detected, the application triggers the execution of an associated action such as sending an email alerting the user of the changes or processing and moving the files. Users are thus able to automate complex tasks by configuring event sequences, leading to an increase …

Amc Native Webrtc Client, Kellan Childers, Michael Dowling, Sherdil Khawaja

Capstone Design Expo Posters

Traditional call center and telecommunication hardware is being replaced by thin, browser-based, cloud enabled web services. Industry standards for web based communication protocols, such as WebRTC, are being established. AMC needed to address this new technology, while maintaining a hybrid approach of server-based capabilities, taking advantage of the web-based communication channel, while broadcasting events to the Contact Canvas Server. Contact Canvas Agent Palette is the editing platform of the AMC adapter for Salesforce.com, allowing agents to communicate with customers through the AMC adapter/ Softphone. Using Agent Palette, the task was to integrate Video Chat using WebRTC into the AMC toolbar. …

Mapcom Self-Service Portal, Kelsey Bullock, Viet Nguyen, Alvenia Weathers

Capstone Design Expo Posters

Mapcom Systems is a software development firm that primarily serves small, rural telecommunications companies. The company is widely recognized for developing M4 Solutions, a visual operations platform that allows service providers to manage their workforce. Our team was tasked with the design and implementation of a self-service portal to be used by the customers of these telecommunications companies. The application would allow customers to easily manage their accounts, including creating and managing trouble tickets, communicating with their assigned technician, and viewing their scheduled appointments. Additionally, it would be offered across three different platforms: Web, Android, and iOS. In order to …

Richmond Mural Tour, Matthew Mcgee, Paul Mcdonald

Capstone Design Expo Posters

In the past years Richmond has been growing in popularity in the world of street art. This popularity is due in part to the many projects that brought in artists from around the world to create beautiful artwork. There is so much art outside in Richmond as a result of these projects, but no great way to navigate the streets of the city in an efficient manner to see all of it. Richmond Mural Tour is a mobile cross-platform application that allows users to explore all of the amazing outdoor artwork around the city.

This application is built on ionic …

Lab-Scale Reproduction Of Siloxane Foam Synthesis, Albert Deangelis, Benjamin Ledoux, Conrad Roos

Capstone Design Expo Posters

Evonik has a synthesis reaction to create siloxane-based foam for sale that they run in their Hopewell plant. They would like to utilize a bench scale reactor system for experimentation on the process. The problem is that the foam created on the lab scale does not show the same properties as the foam created on the plant scale and to run experiments accurately they would have to use the plant reactor, wasting both reactor time and plant resources. Evonik wanted the Senior Design team to find a way of recreating the conditions of the plant reactor on the lab scale …

Hazardous Waste Reduction Continuation, J. Brian Morrell, Alex Alvarez, Adnan Qasem

Capstone Design Expo Posters

A silicone manufacturing process yields two-phase wastewater, of which the aqueous phase flashes at 2°C primarily due to hexamethyldisiloxane (HMDSO). To be classified as non-hazardous and immediately disposable, it must flash above 60°C. Project objectives entailed identifying a method and then designing a prototype for on-site aqueous phase treatment, removing enough HMDSO for non-hazardous disposal. The previous team’s proposal was gravity separation, NaCl extraction, and feeding through an activated carbon packed bed. Extraction proved ineffective, packed bed outlet samples flashed at 52°C, and HMDSO quantification methodology was incorrect. From titration, wastewater was determined to be 3.3 ± 0.2 wt.% aqueous …