Engineering Commons^™

Understanding Changes In Land Use Patterns At A Parcel Level In Central Florida Counties (Orange, Seminole, Osceola), Youssef Mohamed Abdelaziz Elsebaie

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

In Florida, a state with significant population growth, it is essential to understand how land use change and transportation interact. Understanding these interactions between land use and transport is useful for transportation planners and land use modelers. Hence, in this research, we attempt to quantify the impact of the transportation system on land use and vice-versa. The research, using high-resolution land use data from 2011 to 2019, builds a binary logistic regression model of land use change. The model accounts for various independent variables, including socio-demographic attributes, built environment characteristics, and transportation network variables. The data set covers GIS data …

A Holistic Work System Approach To Creating Flow During Transactional Work, Steven Clapp

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Psychological flow is a positive mental state where one is so fully concentrated in a challenging task that self-consciousness falls away, time seems to stand still, and the reward is the experience of meeting the challenge. Previous research on flow in the workplace has been performed on how to create conditions to promote its occurrence in workers, to describe its attendant individual and organizational benefits, and to measure it through self-reported means and physiologically. Such research has been focused on creative endeavors (such as the arts, sports, medicine, teaching), where individuals have high agency over the execution of activities needed …

Urban Freight Transportation: The Interaction Of Home Deliveries In Cities, Carla A. Tejada

Dissertations and Theses

The movement of freight in urban areas is a key factor in the sustainable development of cities. If managed correctly, it can potentiate economic growth and support urban lifestyles. Nevertheless, the movement of goods in cities is usually in conflict with other urban flows and is generally perceived as having more negative externalities, above all for environmental and social sustainability. While the first focuses on measuring the impact on the environment, the latter focuses on measuring the impacts of business decisions on people. The main goal of this dissertation is to study the relationship that urban goods movements, mainly residential …

Classifying Sidewalk Materials Using Multi-Modal Data, Jiawei Liu

Dissertations and Theses

Navigating safely and independently presents considerable challenges for people who are blind or have low vision (BLV), as it requires a comprehensive understanding of their neighborhood environment. Our user study reveals that materials and objects on sidewalks play a crucial role in navigation tasks. Unfortunately, current methods for assessing sidewalk materials are suboptimal, often relying on labor-intensive and expensive manual assessments that fail to capture the full range of sidewalk features critical to individuals with BLV.

In response to this problem, this master’s thesis investigates deep learning approaches specifically designed for the classification of multi-modal sidewalk materials. The proposed framework …

Process Optimization And Characterization Of P-Type Copper Indium Oxide And Copper Chromium Oxide Transparent Conducting Thin Films And Its Applications, Fnu Sreeram Sundaresh

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Transparent conducting oxides (TCO) are a unique class of compounds that combine the properties of being optically transparent but at the same time are electrically conductive. TCOs are used in a variety of applications such as transparent contacts for solar cells, electrochromic windows, low-e windows, optoelectronic devices, light-emitting diodes, optical displays, UV sensors, defrosting windows, etc. By controlling doping and by adjusting the donor/acceptor levels, the conductivity of TCOs can be tuned from insulating via semiconducting to conducting. Various properties of TCOs such as optical transparency, bandgap, and electrical conductivity can be controlled using the aforementioned process. This concept paved …

Inkjet-Printed Reseroir Computing Network For In Situ Sensor Predictions, Steven D. Gardner

All ETDs from UAB

The technological achievements made with silicon-based transistors have led to nearly all the computing seen today, complete with benefits such as maximized operating speeds, parallel/tensor processing, minimized power overhead, etc. The silicon electronics industry is foundational to scientific progression with its profound impact on modeling, simulations, and fast/reliable computing. However, silicon-based transistors have evolved to meet their physical limitations and have saturated fields of innovation. New fields in computing outside of silicon-based methods have emerged as exotic materials enter the research domain. The suite of super-performing materials like Graphene, Carbon Nanotubes, and Molybdenum Disulfide have chaotic, non-linear behaviors that make …

Unveiling The Commuting Experience Of An Urban University Community, Jannatul Adan Joarder

All ETDs from UAB

Conducting a comprehensive commuter survey is a prevalent task that can help to guide traffic operations, planning, designing, and infrastructure development decision. It is one of the best approaches to comprehending commuters’ attitudes and preferences and the present commuting practices. The commuting behavior of the commuters at and around a university campus varies from that of residential or commercial areas as the university often serves a diverse community of transportation users such as students, faculty, and staff who serve the university or receive services from the university in a variety of ways. The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) is …

Impacts Of Transportation Network Companies On Urban Congestion In A Medium-Sized City, Furat Shakir Salman

All ETDs from UAB

The rise of ride-hailing and on-demand transportation services offered by Transportation Network Companies (TNCs) (such as Uber and Lyft) has been one of the key factors contributing to the growth of shared mobility services in recent years. The presence of contradictory findings on the impacts of TNCs necessitates the undertaking of an investigation into the shifts in mode choice that occur in the context of TNC services and their impacts on urban congestion. As a result of difficulties in gathering TNCs field data, it is still not possible to fully assess the impact of these services on urban congestion. Moreover, …

Development And Evaluation Of A Nanomatrix Coated Stent Using A Vascular Sheet With Atherosclerosis Model, Xixi Zhang

All ETDs from UAB

While cardiovascular stent technology has considerable advances, there are hurdles to overcome due to the dysfunctional stented arteries which fail to maintain vascular homeostasis. Current stent designs ignored the significance of promoting functional artery healing (pro-healing). Therefore, we developed a pro-healing nanomatrix coating for stent. Previous studies investigated its effect on individual vascular cell type. In natural artery, there are multiple vascular cell types that strongly affect stent performance. Thus, an in vitro vascular double-layer (VDL) system was used to observe stent effects on different vascular cell types. And the pro-healing ability and mechanism of the nanomatrix coated stent were …

Analytical Methods Using Cardiac Mri To Assess Systolic And Diastolic Ventricular Function, Muhammad Rifqi Aufan

All ETDs from UAB

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has proven invaluable for clinical and research investigations due to its minimal invasiveness and excellent measurement precision and reproducibility. In particular, Cardiac MRI (CMR) is a powerful tool for evaluating anatomical and functional properties of the left ventricle (LV). In this study, two aspects of CMR applications of the LV are investigated: 1) assessment of diastolic function by quantifying LV stiffness index and related properties as a representation of intrinsic myocardium properties in patients with diastolic dysfunction and 2) evaluation of systolic function by relating myocardial strain and LV geometrical configuration with ejection fraction (EF). The …

Synthesis, Characterization, And Evaluation Of A Bionanomatrix And Antibiotic-Releasing Liposomes On Osseointegration, Vascularization, Inflammation, And Antibacterial Efficacy, Benjamin Kade Estep

All ETDs from UAB

Percutaneous osseointegrated prostheses (POP) implants combat the multitude of issues and limitations of contemporary prosthetic sockets/limbs, including range of motion, comfort/fit, irritation, gait, and osseoproprioception. However, POP implants lack long-term clinical success; specifically, several risks exist at the bone-implant interface, including superficial/deep infections, inflammation, poor vascularization, and inadequate osseointegration, resulting in implant loosening over time and ultimately removal of the implant. The goal of this thesis is to evaluate a multifunctional, nitric oxide-releasing bionanomatrix incorporated with antibiotic-releasing liposomes on osseointegration, inflammation, vascularization/angiogenesis, and bacterial infection. We successfully synthesized the bionanomatrix, and the antibiotic-releasing liposomes readily encapsulated the antibiotics. The antibiotic-releasing …

The Development Of Computational Models For Melting-Solidification Applications Using The Volume-Of-Fluid Method, Brendon Cavainolo

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Fluids-related issues in the Aerospace industry are often multiphase in scope. Numerical modeling, such as computational fluid dynamics, is used to describe these problems, as they are difficult or impossible to describe analytically. This research uses computational fluid dynamics to describe multiphase problems related to melting-solidification and particle impingement. Firstly, a numerical model was established that uses the Volume-of-Fluid method to resolve a melting/solidifying particle. This model was verified against experiments and simplified analytical models, and a mesh independence study was done to ensure the results were independent of the mesh sizing. Next, the model was applied to two separate …

Time-Specific Safety Performance Functions For Different Advanced Traffic Management Strategies, Jingwan Fu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Time-specific Safety Performance Functions (SPFs) were proposed to achieve accurate and dynamic crash frequency predictions and bridge the gap between annual crash frequency prediction and real-time crash likelihood prediction. This research proposed time-specific SPFs considering the temporal variation in crashes and traffic characteristics. Firstly, the developed time-specific SPFs that include different ATM strategies (i.e., HOV, merge, diverge and reversible lanes segments) were investigated in this study. The results indicate that the traffic turbulence during specific hours would relate to crash occurrence. Further, the variables that represent the speed and occupancy differences between the HOV lanes/reversible lanes and general-purpose lanes were …

Nanostructured Alloy Thin Film Fabrication And Application For Zinc-Air Battery And Lithium-Ion Battery, Guanzhi Wang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

The depletion of unsustainable fossil fuels and growing environmental issues have given rise to scientific challenges and research interests in the development of renewable energy technologies to meet the rising global energy demand. Electrochemical energy storage and conversion technologies (ESCTs), such as lithium-ion batteries, metal-air batteries, supercapacitors, and fuel cells, etc., offer a clean and sustainable strategy for utilizing energy. As the core components, the electrode materials, including anodes, cathodes, and catalysts, play a direct decisive role in the device's performance in practical application. Therefore, the development of high-performance and low-cost electrode materials is critical for the success of these …

Bioinspired Redox Active Pyrogallol For Aqueous Ion Separations, Matt Libby

Honors Theses and Capstones

No abstract provided.

Fundraiser, Yasmeen Begum

All Capstone Projects

We are thinking of creating a website that allows individuals to raise money for a variety of occasions, including life milestones like graduations and celebrations as well as difficult situations like accidents and diseases. Users must create an account in order to request money from website subscribers since many of them will assist those in need. The site has to be pushed more on social media platforms such Advertisement Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook Pages so that our website may reach more people online. Admin will handle the users and campaigns and receive a fee of 10% for each transaction.

To …

Diseño Conceptual De La Recuperación De Galactooligosacáridos (Gos) De Hidrolizados Enzimáticos Por Adsorción Con Carbón Activado, Juan Sebastián Delgado Burgos, Julián Felipe Duque Romero

Ingeniería de Alimentos

Los galactooligosacáridos (GOS) son un tipo de oligosacáridos prebióticos compuestos por unidades de galactosa y glucosa, que tienen propiedades benéficas para la salud intestinal y usualmente son utilizados en la formulación de alimentos funcionales. Estos compuestos se obtienen por medio de la transgalactosilación de lactosa presente en el lactosuero (un subproducto de la industria láctea que representa una problemática ambiental) que resulta en una mezcla de GOS con otros carbohidratos residuales que reducen su pureza, sus propiedades funcionales y su valor económico. En la actualidad, la separación de GOS mediante procesos de adsorción con carbón activado es uno de los …

On The Pursuit Of Developer Happiness: Webcam-Based Eye Tracking And Affect Recognition In The Ide, Tamsin Rogers

Honors Theses

Recent research highlights the viability of webcam-based eye tracking as a low-cost alternative to dedicated remote eye trackers. Simultaneously, research shows the importance of understanding emotions of software developers, where it was found that emotions have significant effects on productivity, code quality, and team dynamics. In this paper, we present our work towards an integrated eye-tracking and affect recognition tool for use during software development. This combined approach could enhance our understanding of software development by combining information about the code developers are looking at, along with the emotions they experience. The presented tool utilizes an unmodified webcam to capture …

Exploration Of Robotics Need In The Medical Field And Robotic Arm Operation Via Glove Control, Aditi Vijayvergia

Master’s Theses

This thesis project is an exercise in getting hands-on experience in redesigning and modifying a robotic system. It also involves understanding the current need for robotic applications in hospital settings. To achieve the above, a thorough literature review of the current state of robotics in a hospital setting was conducted. Moreover, a number of interviews with medical care professionals were completed. Three main themes were obtained from the literature review and five main themes were obtained from the interviews which will be presented in this thesis report. The next phase of the project involved redesigning a system that is composed …

Application Of Big Data Technology, Text Classification, And Azure Machine Learning For Financial Risk Management Using Data Science Methodology, Oluwaseyi A. Ijogun

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Data science plays a crucial role in enabling organizations to optimize data-driven opportunities within financial risk management. It involves identifying, assessing, and mitigating risks, ultimately safeguarding investments, reducing uncertainty, ensuring regulatory compliance, enhancing decision-making, and fostering long-term sustainability. This thesis explores three facets of Data Science projects: enhancing customer understanding, fraud prevention, and predictive analysis, with the goal of improving existing tools and enabling more informed decision-making. The first project examined leveraged big data technologies, such as Hadoop and Spark, to enhance financial risk management by accurately predicting loan defaulters and their repayment likelihood. In the second project, we investigated …

Accessing The Relative Sustainability Of Point-Of-Use Water Disinfection Technologies Through Costs And Environmental Impacts, Bright C. Elijah

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

According to the World Health Organization, 785 million people lack access to basic drinking water facilities, and 144 million people rely on surface water which is prone to microbial contamination. Point-of-use (POU) water disinfection technologies can be adopted to help address these issues by treating water at the household level; however, navigating various POU disinfection technologies for a given water source or location can be difficult. While numerous conventional POU technologies exist (e.g., boiling water, POU chlorination), new emerging POU technologies (e.g., using novel materials or advanced processes) have been coined by developers to be lower cost with higher treatment …

Owasp Zap Vs Snort For Sqli Vulnerability Scanning, Christopher Kalaani

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Web applications are important to protect from threats that will compromise sensitive information. Web vulnerability scanners are a prominent tool for this purpose, as they can be utilized to find vulnerabilities in a web application to be rectified. Two popular open-source tools were compared head-to-head, OWASP ZAP and Snort. The performance metrics evaluated were SQLi attacks detected, false positives, false negatives, processing time, and memory usage. OWASP ZAP yielded fewer false positives and had less processing time. Snort used significantly fewer memory resources. The internal workings of ZAP’s Active Scan feature and Snort’s implementation of the Boyer-Moore and Aho-Corasick algorithms …

Nondestructive Evaluation Of Structural Defects In Concrete Slabs, Ehsanul Kabir

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Nondestructive testing (NDT) is a reliable method for determining the structural integrity of new and old construction and understanding the condition of structural defects. It is widely acknowledged that the interpretation of nondestructive evaluation (NDE) has a significant impact on the reliability and consistency of this technology. However, NDT data acquisition remains subjective and heavily dependent on the operator’s knowledge and expertise. As a result, there are still issues to be resolved regarding the imaging and diagnostic procedures for NDT-based concrete inspection. NDT methods such as ground penetrating radar (GPR), and impact-echo (IE), have been extensively used to inspect concrete …

Predictions Of The Dynamic Complex Modulus Of Non-Conventional Asphalt Concrete Using Machine Learning Techniques, Annie Benson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The complex dynamic modulus (|E*|) is a characterization property that defines the stiffness of an asphalt mixture. The dynamic modulus can be found through lab testing or predictions. Since lab testing can be time-consuming and expensive, the prediction method can be used as an alternative method. While a statistical method has been traditionally used for the |E*| prediction such as the Witczak’s predictive equations, machine learning (ML) is recently emerging as an alternative way that |E*| predictions can be made. This research attempted to predict the |E*| using several ML techniques including linear regression, support vector machines (SVM), decision trees, …

Design And Fabrication Of A High-Performance Heat Exchanger Using An Optimized Three-Dimensional Surface Structure Through Additive Manufacturing, Seth T. Waters

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A heat exchanger is a device used to transfer thermal energy between two intertwining fluid pathways. In this study, the design of a novel heat exchanger is proposed using functional gradient double gyroid structure. The complex internal geometries of the gyroid structure significantly increases the surface area to volume ratio, and potentially could expressively improve efficiency of the heat transfer. The proposed idea provides a new approach for the design of a high-efficiency heat exchanger. In order to fabricate the complex structured heat exchanger system additive manufacturing is adapted instead of traditionally subtractive manufacturing techniques or casting. The prototypes of …

Mitigation Of Aeroacoustic Noise Of A Fixed Wing Using Passive Flow Control, Cameron L. Perry

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

As the world becomes more environmentally conscious, noise pollution is of increasing concern. In this study, shallow dimples are applied to a NACA 0012 airfoil at multiple angles of attack (AoA) with the intent of reducing aeroacoustic noise emissions. Both Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) and Large Eddy Simulation (LES) models are used for aerodynamic and aeroacoustic investigations, respectively, at a fixed Reynolds number of 4.8 x 10⁵. Altering the dimple depth to diameter ratio (d/D) from 2.5% to 15% is first investigated, with a d/D of 5% or lower resulting in the least aerodynamic impact. The transition from …

Computational And Experimental Investigation Of Mass Reduced Aircraft Wing Ribs, Charles R. Fricks Iii

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study seeks to develop and evaluate a novel design of mass reduced aircraft wing ribs through the topology optimization method. For comparison, the same examination is performed on ribs with normal internal geometry. The wing rib design is based on that of the Gulfstream G650 transonic jet. The rib was divided into three segments for analysis based around the positions of the two spars. Only the center section of the rib (that being between the forward and aft spars) is mass optimized, while the leading and trailing edges of the ribs (outside the spars) will be kept solid for …

Improving The Performance, Energy Efficiency And Security Of Gpus, Xin Wang

Theses and Dissertations

The work in this dissertation achieves to enhance the performance, energy-efficiency, and security of the GPUs. We noticed that, as the demand of hardware resources keeps rising in GPUs, the energy consumption becomes unaffordable and places barriers for further performance boost. To resolve this issue, we have proposed several novel GPU micro-architectures that are able to assist the GPUs to execute in an energy-efficient manner. They also provide the potential for further performance enhancement in GPUs. Firstly, we proposed a GPU register packing scheme that stores multiple narrow-width operands to a single register to save register file resources. The unoccupied …

Computational Modeling Of Temporal Eeg Responses To Cyclic Binary Visual Stimulus Patterns, Connor M. Delaney

Theses and Dissertations

The human visual system serves as the basis for many modern computer vision and machine learning approaches. While detailed biophysical models of certain aspects of the visual system exist, little work has been done to develop an end-to-end model from the visual stimulus to the signals generated at the visual cortex measured via the scalp electroencephalogram (EEG). The creation of such a model would not only provide a better understanding of the visual processing pathways but would also facilitate the design and evaluation of more robust visual stimuli for brain-computer interfaces (BCIs). A novel experiment was designed and conducted where …

Synthesis And Application Of Redox-Active Covalent Organic Frameworks In Rechargeable Batteries, Mohammad K. Shehab

Theses and Dissertations

Synthesis and Application of Redox-Active Covalent Organic Frameworks in Rechargeable Batteries

Mohammad K. Shehab

Department of Chemistry, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia 23284, United States

Abstract

In recent years, lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) have been considered the dominant energy storage devices for portable electronics and electric vehicles due to their high energy density, low self-discharge rate, and long cycle life. In LIBs, the traditional positive electrodes employed are mainly derived from metal-containing inorganic compounds composed of cobalt, iron, nickel, or manganese (LiCoO₂, LiMn₂O₄, and LiFePO₄) coupled with graphite as the negative electrode. Despite …