Engineering Commons^™

Improving Pediatric Cardiology Consultation Methods By Introducing Digital Interactive 3-D Heart Models: A Proof Of Concept Study, Adam Verigan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of a pediatric cardiology consultation is to inform, or educate, the patient and family of all aspects surrounding a certain congenital heart defect. Consultation education methods and materials may include verbal descriptions, two-dimensional (2-D) heart diagrams, and take-home pamphlets. Because the human heart is a complex three-dimensional (3-D) object, the problem lies within the clarity to which these methods are performed by the doctors and understood by the patients and families. Therefore, during a consultation the cardiologist must a) possess the ability to describe a defect visually as well as verbally and b) ensure that the patient and …

Gate Level Dynamic Energy Estimation In Asynchronous Circuits Using Petri Nets, Ryan Mabry

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis introduces a new methodology for energy estimation in asynchronous circuits. Unlike existing probabilistic methods, this is the first simulative work for energy estimation in all types of asynchronous circuits.

The new simulative methodology is based on Petri net modeling. A real delay model is incorporated to capture both gate delays and interconnect delays. The switching activity at each gate is captured to measure the average dynamic energy consumed per request/acknowledge handshaking pair. The new type of Petri net is called Hierarchical Colored Asynchronous Hardware Petri net (HCAHPN). The HCAHPN is able to capture the temporal and spatial correlations …

Evaluation Of Unknown Foundations, Ronald W. Florkowski

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In recent years, bridge foundations have been in the spotlight throughout the nation. Bridges built over running water are susceptible to erosion or scour around their foundations. The reduction in load capacity to piers and abutments pose a safety risk to highway motorists. It has become necessary for engineers to examine and monitor these "scour critical" bridges. The difficulty arises with subsurface foundations of which very little is known about their construction. Hence, the methods applied to analyzing "Unknown Foundations" have become a necessary topic of research.

This thesis explores a method to determine foundation lengths. Similar to Sonic Echo …

Alumina Nanofluid For Spray Cooling Heat Transfer Enhancement, Aditya Bansal

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Nanofluids have been demonstrated to be promising for heat transfer enhancement in forced convection and boiling applications. The addition of carbon, copper, and other high-thermal-conductivity material nanoparticles to water, oil, ethylene glycol, and other fluids has been determined to increase the thermal conductivities of these fluids. The increased effective thermal conductivities of these fluids enhance their abilities to dissipate heat in such applications. The use of nanofluids for spray cooling is an extension of the application of nanofluids for enhancement of heat dissipation.

In this investigation, experiments were performed to determine the level of heat transfer enhancement with the addition …

A Compositional Approach To Asynchronous Design Verification With Automated State Space Reduction, Jared Ahrens

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Model checking is the most effective means of verifying the correctness of asynchronous designs, and state space exploration is central to model checking. Although model checking can achieve very high verification coverage, the high degree of concurrency in asynchronous designs often leads to state explosion during state space exploration. To inhibit this explosion, our approach builds on the ideas of compositional verification. In our approach, a design modeled in a high level description is partitioned into a set of parallel components. Before state space exploration, each component is paired with an over-approximated environment to decouple it from the rest of …