Engineering Commons^™

Change In Air Cargo Revenue Before Vs During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Ali Abushal, Timothy R. Buchal, Ethan Noto, Brooke Wheeler, Vivek Sharma

Aeronautics Student Publications

This study aimed to investigate the changes in revenue experienced by cargo airlines before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. To gather the necessary data, information was sourced from the Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) databases and the websites of the specific airlines. The findings of this study revealed significant shifts in revenue for cargo airlines during the pandemic. Some airlines experienced an unexpected rise in revenue, challenging our previous understanding of the industry dynamics. These findings highlighted the importance of conducting a comprehensive analysis that includes a larger view of the aviation sector.

The COVID-19 pandemic had a profound impact …

Learning Through Screens During Covid-19 Crisis: Foresee Tomorrow's Education By Analyzing Yesterday's Setbacks And Barriers, Hanen Kooli-Chaabane, Antoine Lanthony, Nicolas Peyret

Research Papers

This paper aims to enrich the state of the art on engineering and management learning and education by shedding light on the barriers encountered during the COVID-19 crisis due to the imposed digital transformation. Our research question is: what were the barriers encountered in remote and hybrid learning during pandemic experiences and what lessons can be drawn for higher education in the context of Problem-Based Learning (PBL)? This paper aims to enrich the debate on how digitalization impacted the learning and teaching experience in teaching modules traditionally achieved face-to-face.

Changes In First-Year Engineering Students' Performance In Mathematics And Engineering Subjects At Different Stages Of Distance Learning, Szabolcs Berezvai, Ákos Köpeczi-Bócz, Bence Sipos, Brigitta Szilágyi

Research Papers

Covid pandemic was unprecedented in modern education but is not expected to be unique, therefore increased attention should be paid to accurately analyse its effects on education. Calculus is an important undergraduate mathematics course in engineering programmes, which gives the foundation for engineering subjects like mechanics or electronics. Unfortunately, recent experiences show that the performance of students admitting after the pandemic has deteriorated dramatically in recent years. This research aims to analyse the changes in performance and attitudes of first-year students in the aftermath of the pandemic. In our research, we investigated the performance and learning habits of three groups …

A Possible Solution To Avoid The Consequences Of The Covid-19 Pandemic And Reduce Dropout In Calculus Education, Brigitta Szilágyi, Csaba Szabó, Anna Koós, Bence Sipos

Research Papers

The effects of the COVID-19 are likely to stay in education for a long time to come. First year students of 2022 have completed the last two years of their high school education, which are the most important for further studies, during the worst period of the pandemic. Compared to previous years, far fewer students were able to meet the requirements of Calculus 1. Although there was a wide range of support material (interactive online interface, films, notes, elaborate calculation exercises) available to the students, they were not able to catch up and progress independently, regardless.

The calculus course consists …

Perception Of Crisis Management, Service Quality, And Loyalty Programs On Airline Travel Intention: What Roles Do Fear Of Covid-19 And Risk Attitude Play?, Sohel M. Imroz, Tamilla Curtis, Scott C. Ambrose

Publications

This research investigates the antecedents of airline travel intention, including the effects of crisis management, service quality perceptions, and loyalty programs, along with the fear of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and risk attitude among individuals from different parts of the world during the peak of the pandemic. Its main objective is to assess how these variables impact passenger airline travel intention. Partial least squares structural equation modeling was used to assess the measurement model and test the hypothesized relationships on the sample of 944 travelers. Results indicated strong positive associations between fear of COVID-19, risk-averse attitudes, and service quality with respect …

Development Of A Covid-19 Vulnerability Index (Cvi) For The Counties And Residents Of New Jersey, Usa., Remo Disalvatore, Sarah K Bauer, Jeong Eun Ahn, Kauser Jahan

Henry M. Rowan College of Engineering Faculty Scholarship

The coronavirus disease 2019, or COVID-19, has impacted countless aspects of everyday life since it was declared a global pandemic by the World Health Organization in March of 2020. From societal to economic impacts, COVID-19 and its variants will leave a lasting impact on our society and the world. During the height of the pandemic, it became increasingly evident that indices, such as the Center for Disease Control's (CDC) Social Vulnerability Index (SVI), were instrumental in predicting vulnerabilities within a community. The CDC's SVI provides important estimates on which communities will be more susceptible to 'hazard events' by compiling a …

Covid-19 Pandemic Lockdown Modulation Of Physico-Chemical Parameters Of Surface Water, Karamana River Basin, Southwest India: A Weighted Arithmetic Index And Geostatistical Perspective, S. P. Prasood, M. V. Mukesh, K. S. Sajinkumar, K. P. Thrivikramji

Michigan Tech Publications, Part 2

The coronavirus disease or COVID-19 pandemic continues imposing restrictions on the human population from full-scale normal/routine activities all over the world. This study primarily spotlights the consequences of the COVID-19-pandemic-lockdown on physicochemical parameters of water (samples) of the Karamana river system (KRS) during the pre-monsoons (or January) of 2021 and 2022, using the Weighted Arithmetic Index method and Geostatistical analysis (ArcMap 10.2). Even though the Karamana river supported the water needs of the people during the past several decades, the quality of water deteriorated due to the rising population and consequent anthropogenic activities. Hence, it is imperative to evaluate the …

Using Thermal Remote Sensing To Quantify Impact Of Traffic On Urban Heat Islands During Covid, My-Thu Tran, Bo Yang

Mineta Transportation Institute

A three-month lockdown in the U.S. at the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020 greatly reduced the traffic volume in many cities, especially large metropolitan areas such as the San Francisco Bay Area. This research explores the impact of transportation on climate change by using remote sensing technology and statistical analysis during the COVID-19 lockdown. Using thermal satellite data, this research measures the intensity of the urban heat island, the main driver for climate change during the urbanization process. The research team acquired morning and afternoon MODIS data in the same periods in 2019 before the pandemic and 2020 …

Utilizing The System Engineering Trade Study Analysis Method To Analyze Patient Aeromedical Evacuation, Sara Shaghaghi, Jeremy M. Slagley, Michael E. Miller, Gaiven Varshney

Faculty Publications

The US Air Force has gone through many aeromedical patient isolation transport system designs. The first designs were developed in response to the Ebola outbreak in 2014 and, more recently, the COVID-19 pandemic. The trade study analysis part of the system engineering design method was used to analyze the historic and current aeromedical patient contamination control transport systems. A trade study is a process that evaluates alternatives based upon various “-ilities”, such as reconfigurability, flexibility, durability, cost, and more, and performs a systematic analysis to aid designers in producing a ‘good’ design alternative given the large set of possible solutions. …

‘Being Able To Work Has Kept Our Life Fairly Constant:’ Reconciling Social Practice Models To Assess The Impact Of (Infra)Structural Inequities On Household Wellbeing During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Sonya Ahamed, Chelsea Schelly, Kristin Floress, William Lytle, Holly Caggiano, Cara L. Cuite, Charles Wallace, Ryan Cook, Rebekah Jarvis, Rachael Shwom, David Watkins

Michigan Tech Publications, Part 2

Social practice theory offers a multidisciplinary perspective on the relationship between infrastructure and wellbeing. One prominent model in practice theory frames systems of provision as the rules, resources, and structures that enable the organization of social practices, encompassing both material and immaterial aspects of infrastructures. A second well-known model frames social practices in terms of their constituent elements: meanings, materials, and competences. Reconciling these two models, we argue that household capacity to respond to shifting systems of provision to maintain wellbeing is profoundly tied to the dynamics of privilege and inequity. To examine these dynamics, we propose a new analytical …

How A Higher Education Aviation Faculty Perceived The Challenges Of An Online Emergency Transition During The Covid-19 Pandemic And Identifies Recommendations For Future Emergency Online Transitions, Victor Miguel Fraticelli Rivera

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this case study is to discover the perceived challenges and identify future recommendations for emergency online learning transition as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic at a major aeronautical higher education institution in the southeast region of the United States. For this study, emergency online learning transition is defined as the period in which higher education faculty members were required to pivot to an online methodology in response to a global pandemic in the spring and fall academic semesters of 2020. The theories guiding this study are the theory of planned behavior (TPB) by Icek Ajzen and …

Know An Emotion By The Company It Keeps: Word Embeddings From Reddit/Coronavirus, Alejandro García-Rudolph, David Sanchez-Pinsach, Dietmar Frey, Eloy Opisso, Katryna Cisek, John Kelleher

Articles

Social media is a crucial communication tool (e.g., with 430 million monthly active users in online forums such as Reddit), being an objective of Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques. One of them (word embeddings) is based on the quotation, “You shall know a word by the company it keeps,” highlighting the importance of context in NLP. Meanwhile, “Context is everything in Emotion Research.” Therefore, we aimed to train a model (W2V) for generating word associations (also known as embeddings) using a popular Coronavirus Reddit forum, validate them using public evidence and apply them to the discovery of context for specific …

Assessing The Impact Of Contact Tracing With An Agent-Based Model For Simulating The Spread Of Covid-19: The Irish Experience, Elizabeth Hunter, Sudipta Saha, Jwenish Kumawat, Ciara Carroll, John Kelleher, Claire Buckley, Conor Mcaloon, Patricia Kearney, Michelle Gilbert, Greg Martin

Articles

Contact tracing is an important tool in managing infectious disease outbreaks and Ireland used a comprehensive contact tracing program to slow the spread of COVID-19. Although the benefits of contact tracing seem obvious, it is difficult to estimate the actual impact contact tracing has on an outbreak because it is hard to separate the effects of contact tracing from other behavioural changes or interventions. To understand the impact contact tracing had in Ireland, we used an agent-based model that is designed to simulate the spread of COVID-19 through Ireland. The model uses real contact tracing data from the first year …

An Xai Approach For Covid-19 Detection Using Transfer Learning With X-Ray Images, Salih Sarp, Ferhat Ozgur Catak, Murat Kuzlu, Umit Cali, Huseyin Kusetogullari, Yanxiao Zhao, Gungor Ates, Ozgur Guler

Engineering Technology Faculty Publications

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has continued to cause severe challenges during this unprecedented time, affecting every part of daily life in terms of health, economics, and social development. There is an increasing demand for chest X-ray (CXR) scans, as pneumonia is the primary and vital complication of COVID-19. CXR is widely used as a screening tool for lung-related diseases due to its simple and relatively inexpensive application. However, these scans require expert radiologists to interpret the results for clinical decisions, i.e., diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis. The digitalization of various sectors, including healthcare, has accelerated during the pandemic, with the use …

The Relationship Between Ventilation Rates In Schools And The Indoor Airborne Transmission Potential Of Covid-19, Seamus Harrington, Mark Mulville, Spyros Stravoravdis

Articles

The requirement for natural ventilation strategies in classrooms to perform in respect to both their inherent and adaptive capacity is necessary to mitigate the risk of transmission associated with infectious airborne pathogens such as COVID-19. This paper assesses the performance of ten classrooms considering (a) the designed versus actual ventilation capacity; (b) the probability of airborne disease transmission by unit time resulting from calculated ventilation rates and (c) the reduction of transmission risk associated with mask wearing by all occupants.

Monitored air changes per hour (ACH) range from 0.26–1.7, demonstrating that none of the classrooms meet designed ventilation rate whilst …

Metal-Organic Framework-Based Biosensing Platforms For The Sensitive Determination Of Trace Elements And Heavy Metals: A Comprehensive Review, Hessamaddin Sohrabi, Shahin Ghasemzadeh, Sama Shakib, Mir Reza Majidi, Amir Razmjou, Yeojoon Yoon, Alireza Khataee

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Heavy metals in food and water sources are potentially harmful to humans. Determination of these pollutants is critical for improving safety. Effective recognition systems are a contemporary challenge; several novel technologies for the quick, easy, selective, and sensitive determination of these compounds are in demand. Metal-organic framework (MOF)-based sensors and biosensors have crucial applications in identifying these potentially harmful substances. Here, we review electrochemical and optical biosensors for in situ sensing that are sensitive and cost effective, with a simple protocol and wide linear range. Despite the abundance of articles in this field, we assessed and checked out various basic …

Preparing Undergraduates For The Post-Pandemic Workplace: Teams Of Education And Engineering Students Teach Engineering Virtually, Kristie S. Gutierrez, Jennifer Kidd, Min J. Lee, Krishnanand Kaipa, Orlando Ayala

Teaching & Learning Faculty Publications

When schools and universities across the world transitioned online due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Ed+gineering, a National Science Foundation (NSF) project that partners engineering and education undergraduates to design and deliver engineering lessons to elementary students, also had to shift its hands-on lessons to a virtual format. Through the lens of social cognitive theory (SCT), this study investigates engineering and education students’ experiences during the shift to online instruction to understand how they perceived its influence on their learning. As a result of modifying their lessons for online delivery, students reported learning professional skills, including skills for teaching online and …

An Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome Drug Development Collaboration Stimulated By The Virginia Drug Discovery Consortium, John S. Lazo, Ruben M.L. Colunga-Biancatelli, Pavel A. Solopov, John D. Catravas

Bioelectrics Publications

The genesis of most older medicinal agents has generally been empirical. During the past one and a half centuries, at least in the Western countries, discovering and developing drugs has been primarily the domain of pharmaceutical companies largely built upon concepts emerging from organic chemistry. Public sector funding for the discovery of new therapeutics has more recently stimulated local, national, and international groups to band together and focus on new human disease targets and novel treatment approaches. This Perspective describes one contemporary example of a newly formed collaboration that was simulated by a regional drug discovery consortium. University of Virginia, …

Implications Of Cyberbiosecurity In Advanced Agriculture, Simone Stephen, Keitavius Alexander, Lucas Potter, Xavier-Lewis Palmer

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

The world is currently undergoing a rapid digital transformation sometimes referred to as the fourth industrial revolution. During this transformation, it is increasingly clear that many scientific fields are not prepared for this change. One specific area is agriculture. As the sector which creates global food supply, this critical infrastructure requires detailed assessment and research via newly developed technologies (Millett et al, 2019; Peccoud et al, 2018) . Despite its fundamental significance to modern civilization, many aspects of industrial agriculture have not yet adapted to the digital world. This is evident in the many vulnerabilities currently present within agricultural systems, …

Prophylaxis And Remediation For Future Pandemic Pathogens-(Lessons From A Post-Covid World), Mark E. Obrenovich, Moncef B. Tayahi, Caryn L. Heidt, Steven N. Emancipator

Michigan Tech Publications

Since influenza and coronaviruses are currently deadly and emerging threats worldwide, better treatment, remediation and prevention options are needed. In that regard, a basic understanding of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)-CoV-2/COVID-19 () and other viral pathogen mechanisms of transmission are expected. Unfortunately, unprecedented, and growing distrust of vaccines and even masks or personal protective equipment (PPE) in the United States and elsewhere presents itself as an added challenge. We postulate that development of improved and highly effective prophylactic measures, together with new life-saving therapies that do inhibit or otherwise treat infection of SARS-CoV-2, influenza and other viral pathogens, could be …

Recombinant Human Plasma Gelsolin Reverses Increased Permeability Of The Blood-Brain Barrier Induced By The Spike Protein Of The Sars-Cov-2 Virus., Łukasz Suprewicz, Kiet A Tran, Ewelina Piktel, Krzysztof Fiedoruk, Paul A Janmey, Peter Galie, Robert Bucki

Henry M. Rowan College of Engineering Faculty Scholarship

BACKGROUND: Plasma gelsolin (pGSN) is an important part of the blood actin buffer that prevents negative consequences of possible F-actin deposition in the microcirculation and has various functions during host immune response. Recent reports reveal that severe COVID-19 correlates with reduced levels of pGSN. Therefore, using an in vitro system, we investigated whether pGSN could attenuate increased permeability of the blood-brain barrier (BBB) during its exposure to the portion of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein containing the receptor binding domain (S1 subunit).

MATERIALS AND METHODS: Two- and three-dimensional models of the human BBB were constructed using the human cerebral microvascular endothelial …

The Smithvent Experience And A Framework For Collaborative Distributed Design And Fabrication, Susannah Howe, Eleanor C. Ory, Devin Carroll, Sarah Chu, Kalifa Clarke, Beatrix Dalton, Claire Dudek, Adrienne Horne, Nicholas Howe, Sangye Kazi, Astrid Landeau, Dan Lin, Phoebe Degroot, Emily Dixon, Farida Sabry, Alex Widstrand

Engineering: Faculty Publications

This paper addresses the collaborative journey of the SmithVent team, a 30-person distributed group of volunteers, who designed, fabricated, and tested a simplified and cost-efficient ventilator over a three-month period, and won the CoVent19 Challenge in July 2020. The paper first presents the SmithVent experience through a co-constructed narrative that describes the team’s approaches to collaborative distributed design and fabrication. The paper next reviews frameworks from five theoretical lenses and then details the process of extracting, synthesizing, and organizing relevant factors to create a new and emergent framework reflective of the SmithVent experience. Lastly, the paper discusses educational implications of …

Population Health Metrics During The Early Stages Of The Covid-19 Pandemic: Correlative Pilot Study, Marie A. Severson, David A. Cassada, Victor C. Huber, Daniel D. Snow, Lisa M. Mcfadden

Nebraska Water Center: Faculty Publications

Background: COVID-19 has caused nearly 1 million deaths in the United States, not to mention job losses, business and school closures, stay-at-home orders, and mask mandates. Many people have suffered increased anxiety and depression since the pandemic began. Not only have mental health symptoms become more prevalent, but alcohol consumption has also increased during this time. Helplines offer important insight into both physical and mental wellness of a population by offering immediate, anonymous, cheap, and accessible resources for health and substance use disorders (SUD) that was unobstructed by many of the mandates of the pandemic. Further, the pandemic also …

Controlling Sars Related Illnesses In The Indoor Environment Using Hvac Ventilation Techniques, Natalie Mansson

Construction Management Theses

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought on a need for better ventilation systems due to the deadly spreading of the SARS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 illness through the air. As the positivity rate increases sharply, this study is pertinent in the fight against the virus. The implementation of MERV filters and ventilation rates while also understanding respiratory droplets and how they move through the air is an important part of understanding airborne transmission. Much research has been done on MERV filtration and respiratory droplets and their traveling methods in the air, and this research aims to find the commonalities between prior research, and …

Electrochemical Biosensing And Deep Learning-Based Approaches In The Diagnosis Of Covid-19: A Review, Omer Sadak, Ferhat Sadak, Ozal Yildirim, Nicole M. Iverson, Rizwan Qureshi, Muhammed Talo, Chui Ping Ooi, U. Rajendra Acharya, Sundaram Gunasekaran, Tanvir Alam

Department of Biological Systems Engineering: Papers and Publications

COVID-19 caused by the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 virus taking a huge toll on global health and caused life-threatening medical complications and elevated mortality rates, especially among older adults and people with existing morbidity. Current evidence suggests that the virus spreads primarily through respiratory droplets emitted by infected persons when breathing, coughing, sneezing, or speaking. These droplets can reach another person through their mouth, nose, or eyes, resulting in infection. The "gold standard'' for clinical diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 is the laboratory-based nucleic acid amplification test, which includes the reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) test on nasopharyngeal swab samples. The main concerns …

Trade-Off Characterization Between Social And Environmental Impacts Using Agent-Based Models And Life-Cycle Assessment, Joseph C. Leichty, Christopher S. Mabey, Christopher A. Mattson, John L. Salmon, Jason Weaver

Faculty Publications

Meeting the UN’s sustainable development goals requires designers and engineers to solve multi-objective optimization problems involving trade-offs between social, environmental, and economic impacts. This paper presents an approach for designers and engineers to quantify the social and environmental impacts of a product at a population-level and then perform a trade-off analysis between those impacts. In the approach, designers and engineers define the attributes of the product as well as the materials and processes used in the product’s life cycle. Agent-Based Modeling (ABM) tools that have been developed to model the social impacts of products are combined with Life- Cycle Assessment …

Validating And Testing An Agent-Based Model For The Spread Of Covid-19 In Ireland, Elizabeth Hunter, John D. Kelleher

Articles

Agent-based models can be used to better understand the impacts of lifting restrictions or implementing interventions during a pandemic. However, agent-based models are computationally expensive, and running a model of a large population can result in a simulation taking too long to run for the model to be a useful analysis tool during a public health crisis. To reduce computing time and power while running a detailed agent-based model for the spread of COVID-19 in the Republic of Ireland, we introduce a scaling factor that equates 1 agent to 100 people in the population. We present the results from model …

Covid-19 And Traffic Safety: Exploring Exposure, Crash Frequency And Severity, And Roadway And Network Design, Nicholas N. Ferenchak Ph.D

Data

Early COVID-19 lockdowns in the first half of 2020 largely kept people at home, thereby reducing motor vehicle traffic levels. Theoretically, reduced traffic exposure should have resulted in reduced motor vehicle crashes. However, a variety of factors may have complicated this relationship. In order to better understand the impact of COVID-19 lockdowns on traffic safety outcomes, we explore fatalities, injuries, and total crashes before and during the lockdowns on both the national and state levels. We provide descriptive statistics and create negative binomial regressions exploring the role of vehicle, user, and built environment factors on traffic safety outcomes. Findings suggest …

Covid-19 And Traffic Safety: Exploring Exposure, Crash Frequency And Severity, And Roadway And Network Design, Nicholas N. Ferenchak Ph.D

Publications

Early COVID-19 lockdowns in the first half of 2020 largely kept people at home, thereby reducing motor vehicle traffic levels. Theoretically, reduced traffic exposure should have resulted in reduced motor vehicle crashes. However, a variety of factors may have complicated this relationship. In order to better understand the impact of COVID-19 lockdowns on traffic safety outcomes, we explore fatalities, injuries, and total crashes before and during the lockdowns on both the national and state levels. We provide descriptive statistics and create negative binomial regressions exploring the role of vehicle, user, and built environment factors on traffic safety outcomes. Findings suggest …

What Do Undergraduate Engineering Students At The Onset Of Emergency Hybrid Learning During Covid-19 Say About Peer Mentorship?, Darcie Christensen, Idalis Villanueva

Integrated Engineering Department Publications

This complete research paper addresses the perceptions of undergraduate engineering students during the onset of the worldwide pandemic (COVID-19) in an engineering college at a western institution of the United States. Specifically, these students were asked about their perceived needs around peer mentorship amidst pivoting between hybrid and in-person learning at the onset of COVID-19.

Mentorship is defined as the interaction between two individuals whose goal is to help one another in psychosocial matters, support personal and professional growth, and provide career guidance. Generally, there are two main types of mentorships recognized: traditional and peer. Traditional mentorship involves a mentor …