Engineering Commons^™

Mediterranean Engineering Schools' Network (Rmei), Zile Soilihi

Enhancement of the Global Perspective for Engineering Students by Providing an International Experience

No abstract provided.

Global Engineering Education Through Joint Degree Programs, Ali Asghar Mirarefi

Enhancement of the Global Perspective for Engineering Students by Providing an International Experience

No abstract provided.

Spacecraft Design & Operations & Other Things, Robert J. Twiggs

Robert "Bob" Twiggs STEM Education Collection

A PowerPoint Presentation created by Professor Bob Twiggs titled "Spacecraft Design & Operations & Other Things" from April 4, 2003.

Assessing Classification Confidence Using A Weighted Exponential Based Technique With The Learn++ Incremental Learning Algorithm, Jeffrey T. Byorick

Theses and Dissertations

Pattern recognition problems span a broad range of applications, where each application has its own tolerance on classification error. The varying levels of risk associated with many pattern recognition applications indicate the need for a versatile algorithm with the ability to measure its own reliability. In this work, the supervised incremental learning algorithm Learn++ [1, 2], which exploits the synergistic power of an ensemble of classifiers, is further developed to add the capability of assessing its own confidence. Estimation of the true generalization performance of the classifier as well as the confidences on classification of individual data instances is investigated …

Chemigation And Fertigation Basics For California, Charles M. Burt

BioResource and Agricultural Engineering

Chemigation is the application of any chemical through an irrigation system. Examples of chemicals include insecticides, fungicides, fertilizers, water amendments, soil amendments, and compounds used to reduce plugging of drip emitters. Proper chemigation reduces energy consumption (less fertilizer, chemicals, and tractor travel) and improves crop quality and yields.

Fertigation accounts for the majority of chemigation. The sophistication of fertigation knowledge and practices is at about the same level as drip/microirrigation was in the mid-1970s. A lot of equipment and chemicals exist, and many farmers use fertigation, but only a relatively small percentage of those farmers are sophisticated users.

Acuta Enews April 2003, Vol. 32, No. 4

ACUTA Newsletters

In This Issue

ACUTA Ruth A. Michalecki Leadership Award

Quantum Encryption........................ Jeanne Jansenius, Univ. of the South

New Toot Turns Students into Technicians....................... Carol Everett Oliver, Everett Comm.

Lead Us Not lnto Network Complication............................. Kevin Tanzillo, Dux Public Relations

Expanded Eligibility for .EDU Domains

Cell Phone Numbers May Soon Be Available via 411 Directory Assistance

ACUTA Board Report........................ John Bradley, Rensselaer Polytechnic institute

DC Update............................. Whitney Johnson, Retired, Northern Michigan Univ.

Progress Report on Telephone Number Database.............................Jeri Semer, CAE, Executive Director

Welcome New Members

Wide Angle Achromatic Prism Beam Steering For Infrared Countermeasures Applications, Bradley D. Duncan, Philip J. Bos, Vassili Sergan

Electro-Optics and Photonics Faculty Publications

The design and analysis of achromatic doublet prisms for use in laser beam steering is presented. The geometric relationships describing the maximum steering angle are given, as are discussions of first- and second-order dispersion reduction. Infrared (IR) material alternatives and optimum IR material characteristics for wide-angle achromatic prism beam steering are also investigated. Sixteen materials in 120 different combinations have been examined to date. For midwave IR applications it is shown that the minimum dispersion currently achievable across the full 2 to 5 μm spectrum is 1.7816 mrad at an average maximum steering angle of 45 deg. This is accomplished …

Detecting Cracks In Thin Plates By Using Lamb Wave Scanning: Geometric Approach, Roberto A. Osegueda, Vladik Kreinovich, Enrique Roldan, Rodrigo Mares

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

A crack in a thin plate reflects ultrasonic waves; therefore, it is reasonable to determine the location of the crack by measuring the reflected waves. The problem of locating the crack can be reformulated in purely geometric terms. Previously, time-consuming iterative numerical methods were used to solve the resulting geometric problem. In this paper, we show that explicit (and fast to compute) formulas can be used instead.

Complex Low-Pass Filters, Peter Kiss, Vladimir I. Prodanov, Jack Glas

Electrical Engineering

Zero-if transceivers suffer from the imbalance of the I and Q paths. By using a complex low-pass filter topology instead of a conventional pair of real low-pass filters, this imperfection can be reduced. Both analytical and numerical analysis show that the proposed technique is significantly more robust to circuit imperfections than the traditional architecture.

Statistics Of Single-Degree-Of-Freedom Estimate Of Displacement For Pushover Analysis Of Buildings, Anil K. Chopra, Rakesh K. Goel, Chatpan Chintanapakdee

Civil and Environmental Engineering

Investigated is the basic premise that the roof displacement of a multistory building can be determined from the deformation of a single-degree-of-freedom (SDF) system. The responses of both systems are determined rigorously by nonlinear response history analysis, without introducing any of the approximations underlying the simplified methods for estimating the deformation of a SDF system (see, e.g., FEMA-273 or ATC-40 guidelines). The statistics of the SDF system estimate of roof displacement are presented for a variety of generic frames and six SAC buildings subjected to ground motion ensembles. Data obtained for generic frames indicate that the first ‘‘mode’’ SDF system …

Santa Clara Magazine, Volume 44 Number 4, Spring 2003, Santa Clara University

Santa Clara Magazine

8 - DREAMS REFLECT OUR WAKING WORLD By Kelly Bulkeley. A teacher of religious studies at SCU argues that dreams are much more than just personal - they reflect larger issues in culture, politics, and society.

12 - SCHOOL WORK By Jean Merl. High school students in South Central L.A. are gaining valuable job skills while they help pay for their private education. And SCU alumni are helping to make it all work.

18 - BELIEVING IN HEALTH By Thomas G. Plante. Research shows that religion may be good for your health, but that does not mean that doctors will …

Probabilities, Intervals, What Next? Optimization Problems Related To Extension Interval Computations To Situations With Partial Information About Probabilities, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

When we have only interval ranges [xi-,xi+] of sample values x1,...,xn, what is the interval [V-,V+] of possible values for the variance V of these values? We prove that the problem of computing the upper bound V+ is NP-hard. We provide a feasible (quadratic time) algorithm for computing the exact lower bound V- on the variance of interval data. We also provide feasible algorithms that computes V+ under reasonable easily verifiable conditions, in particular, in case interval uncertainty is introduced to maintain privacy in a statistical database.

We also extend the main formulas of interval arithmetic for different arithmetic operations …

The Airline Quality Rating 2003, Brent D. Bowen, Dean Headley, Uno Aviation Institute

Faculty Books and Monographs

UNOAI Report 03-1

The Airline Quality Rating (AQR) was developed and first announced in early 1991 as an objective method of comparing airline quality on combined multiple performance criteria. This current report, the Airline Quality Rating 2003, reflects monthly Airline Quality Rating scores for 2002. AQR scores for the calendar year 2002 are based on 15 elements that focus on airline performance areas important to air travel consumers.

The Airline Quality Rating 2003 is a summary of month-by-month quality ratings for the 10 largest U.S. airlines operating during 2002. Using the Airline Quality Rating system of weighted averages and monthly …

32nd Conference On Senior Engineering Design, College Of Engineering And Applied Sciences

Senior Engineering Design Conference

The 32nd Conference on Senior Engineering Design Projects You are invited to attend the thirty second Conference on Senior Engineering Design Projects. The conference will be held from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday, April 15, 2003 at the Bernhard Center on the campus of Western Michigan University. The College of Engineering and Applied Sciences sponsors the conference to showcase the work of its graduating seniors, who are required to complete a capstone project that puts into practice what they have learned. Many of the projects are sponsored by business and industry.

An Experimental Investigation Of The Differences In Subjective Pilot Workload Across Simulated And Real Flight Conditions, Todd V. Denning

Master's Theses - Daytona Beach

An investigation was undertaken to determine the difference in workload between simulated and real flight conditions. The results from the Modified Cooper-Harper and NASA-TLX did not show significance, however, the theoretical implications from the NASA-TLX subscales were of interest. As this is the first study comparing these two environments utilizing subjective workload measures, more research needs to take place in order to provide reliable and valid findings.

Traffic Control At Stop Sign Approaches, Kenneth R. Agent

Kentucky Transportation Center Research Report

The objectives of this report were to: a) determine the number of crashes in Kentucky involving a driver disregarding a stop sign and the locations where these occur, b) determine the characteristics of these crashes, c) investigate loca tions with a large number of this type of crash, and d) make recommendations to reduce the probability of a driver disregarding a stop sign. The majority of the analyses involved a review and analysis of crashes where a stop sign was listed as the traffic control and “disregarding the tra ffic control” was listed as a contributing factor. Intersections having a …

Denoising Using Higher-Order Statistics, Samuel Peter Kozaitis, Sunghee Kim

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications

We used a higher-order correlation-based method for signal denoising. In our approach, we determined which wavelet coefficients contained mostly noise, or signal, based on higher-order statistics. Because the higher that second-order moments of the Gaussian probability function are zero, the third-order correlation coefficient will not have a statistical contribution from Gaussian noise. We obtained results for both 1-D signals and images. In all cases, our approach showed improved results when compared to a more popular denoising method.

Development Of A Force And Airspeed Data Acquisition System For The Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University 30x40 In. Subsonic Wind Tunnel, Toon Hong Foo

Master's Theses - Daytona Beach

The very first objective of performing most experiments is collecting numerical data. Values can be read from instruments or gauges by eye and recorded by hand. However, in certain experiments the amount of data collected may become so large that a human alone can not observe and record the data fast enough. This is where a data acquisition system comes into play. A data acquisition system is a network of devices that collects data from instruments and outputs it to hard copies or storage devices. A data acquisition system can also control instruments to take the data at the exact …

Residual Compressive Strength Prediction Of Carbon/Epoxy Laminates Subjected To Low Velocity Impact Damage, Christopher D. Hess

Master's Theses - Daytona Beach

Low energy impact damage to a composite structure is difficult to detect and can have profound effects on compressive strengths. Low energy impact damage is sometimes termed as barely visible impact damage (BVID). Detecting BVID is only possible by implementing nondestructive testing (NDT) techniques. Depending upon the support conditions, material system, laminate thickness, lay-up orientation, and impactor geometry, velocity, and hardness, the types of damage associated with BVID include delaminations, longitudinal and transverse matrix cracks, and in some cases, fiber breaks. Material properties such as the strengths of the matrix, fibers, fiber/matrix interface, and more important for BVID, ply interface …

Gender Differences In Preference For Learning Environment Among Aviation Education Students, Eric M. Moyer

Master's Theses - Daytona Beach

This study investigated whether differences existed between sex, male and female, for the preference of three different syllabi describing three different learning environments. Learning environments consisted of collaborative, and individual, with the individual sub-divided into competitive, and individual while co-varying participants for credit hours. 264 surveys were administered to students in freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior classes in order to collect preference, and demographic data. The surveys were presented as three fictional syllabi differing only in class grading format, and a paragraph on the instructional philosophy of the professor. Instructional philosophies described the proposed environment of the class by enforcing …

Extending Productivity Research Frontiers: Dea Resource Of Datasets And Errata, Timothy R. Anderson, Paul Rouse, Rafael Borja, Ivan Patricio Hernandez, Fabricio Tobar, Liono Setiowijoso

Engineering and Technology Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Website databases provide the opportunity to fundamentally change the way research and knowledge are advanced and disseminated. This paper describes a website, http://www.etm.pdx.edu/dea/dataset/, focused on Data Envelopment Analysis and DEA researchers.

Nebraska Blueprint - Spring 2003

Nebraska Blueprint (Student Publication)

Table of Contents:

Editorial: Get involved with the Nebraska Blueprint; Importance of Academic Honesty
Dean's Letter: Integrate engineering into life
Nebraska Blueprint at the ECMA awards: And they said engineers couldn't write...
Achievement: Good News from Construction Management
Nuts and Bolts
Back Page: Construction Systems holds successful internship fair
A Fond Farewell by Adam Holmberg
Reaching Them (While They're Young) by Roxane Gay
A Sense of Place by Roxane Gay
Keeping You Between the Lines by Tom Pryor
Othmer Toys by Thomas Cudd
As Young As You Feel by Thomas Cudd

Effects Of Diabetes And Aging On Posture And Acceleration Thresholds During Lateral Translations, Samantha Jean Richerson

Doctoral Dissertations

Research objectives. One source of falls in the elderly may be an inability to sufficiently adjust to transient postural perturbations or slips. Identifying useful predictors of fall potential, as well as factors that affect the ability of an individual to detect a movement of the standing support surface may provide insight into postural stability and methods to increase stability in elders. To do this, acceleration thresholds to short, precise, lateral platform translations and the resultant psychophysical responses of adults with early Type 2 diabetes to age-matched controls and young adults were measured.

Methods. Using an innovative SLIP-FALLS platform, …

Understanding Wavelet Analysis And Filters For Engineering Applications, Chethan Bangalore Parameswariah

Doctoral Dissertations

Wavelets are signal-processing tools that have been of interest due to their characteristics and properties. Clear understanding of wavelets and their properties are a key to successful applications. Many theoretical and application-oriented papers have been written. Yet the choice of a right wavelet for a given application is an ongoing quest that has not been satisfactorily answered. This research has successfully identified certain issues, and an effort has been made to provide an understanding of wavelets by studying the wavelet filters in terms of their pole-zero and magnitude-phase characteristics. The magnitude characteristics of these filters have flat responses in both …

Design And Fabrication Of A Microscale Joule -Thomson Refrigerator, Lionel Gamini Hewavitharana

Doctoral Dissertations

A simple thermodynamic, heat transfer, and fluid flow model was developed for microscale Joule-Thomson refrigerators (JT devices). For a given geometry, the model predicted that the cooling capacity of the refrigerator increased with the inlet refrigerant pressure. The effectiveness of the JT device also increased with the inlet pressure, and the heat exchanger channel length. At a constant inlet pressure, the effectiveness, and the refrigeration capacity of a given JT device increased as the aspect ratio of heat exchanger channels was increased. For nitrogen refrigerant, the model predicted that it was possible to obtain approximately 250 mW of refrigeration capacity …

Harvesting, Drying, And Storing Grain Sorghum, Samuel G. Mcneill, Michael D. Montross

Agricultural Engineering Extension Publications

Grain sorghum (milo) has been successfully produced in many areas of Kentucky and can be grown in alternating years with soybeans to replace corn in a crop rotation cycle. For most of the past 20 years, it has ranked fourth in production of all grain crops grown in the state and was valued at $1.16 and $1.53 million in 1999 and 2000, respectively. Rotating milo with soybeans can help control soybean cyst nematodes and other pests that suppress yield. It can provide higher yields than corn in dry years, especially on sandy soils. The feed/energy value of milo is similar …

Parallel Computation Of The Topological Skeleton Of Vector Fields, Thomas Wischgoll, Gerik Scheuermann

Computer Science and Engineering Faculty Publications

Vector fields occur in many of the problems in science and engineering. In combustion processes, for instance, vector fields describe the flow of the gas. This process can be enhanced using vector field visualization techniques. Also, wind tunnel experiments can be analyzed. An example is the design of an air wing. The wing can be optimized to create a smoother flow around it.

To analyze such kind of datasets topological methods that clearly show the whole structure of the vector field in one picture are a very good tool. During the last years, many extensions were proposed for this method. …

Investigation Into The Ultrasound Setting Of Glass Ionomer Cements. Part I. Postulated Modalities, Mark R. Towler, C. M. Crowley, R. G. Hill

Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Fuji IX glass is a low phosphate, low soda containing glass which has strontia incorporated as a radio-pacifier. This glass material was analyzed during exposure to different durations of ultrasound in an attempt to determine how the glass phase reacts. Cross sections of Fuji IX cement, set both conventionally and by ultrasound, were subsequently compared by microscopy. The resultant data were analyzed in detail.

The Effects Of Intense Submicrosecond Electrical Pulses On Cells, Jingdong Deng, Karl H. Schoenbach, E. Stephen Buescher, Pamela S. Hair, Paula M. Fox, Stephen J. Beebe

Bioelectrics Publications

A simple electrical model for living cells predicts an increasing probability for electric field interactions with intracellular substructures of both prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells when the electric pulse duration is reduced into the submicrosecond range. The validity of this hypothesis was verified experimentally by applying electrical pulses (durations 100 μs– 60 ns, electric field intensities 3–150 kV/cm) to Jurkat cells suspended in physiologic buffer containing propidium iodide. Effects on Jurkat cells were assessed by means of temporally resolved fluorescence and light microscopy. For the longest applied pulses, immediate uptake of propidium iodide occurred consistent with electroporation as the cause of …

The Effectiveness Of Monitor-Based Augmented Reality Paradigms For Learning Space-Related Technical Tasks, Christopher Michael Opalenik

Master's Theses - Daytona Beach

Currently today there are many types of media that can help individuals learn and excel in the on going effort to acquire knowledge for a specific trait or function in a workplace, laboratory, or learning facility. Technology has advanced in the fields of transportation, information gathering, and education. The need for better recall of information is in demand in a wide variety of areas. Augmented reality (AR) is a technology that may help meet this demand. AR is a hybrid of reality and virtual reality (VR) that uses the three-dimensional location viewed through a video or optical see-through media to …