Engineering Commons^™

Cyclic Prefix Assisted Block Transmission For Low Complexity Communication System Design, Haibin Huang

Theses

This thesis presents new results on cyclic prefix (CP) assisted block transmission for low complexity communication system design. Two important aspects are studied: the CP based low-complexity schemes for channel equalization and channel estimation.

Specifically, based on the simple frequency domain equalization, a low complexity joint receiver is proposed for CP-CDMA system, which is a special application of block transmission.

And in this work the finite impulse response (FIR) model is used for the unknown communication channels. To identify an unknown FIR channel, a novel channel estimation method is proposed by exploiting the cyclic prefix technique. Compared to a conventional …

Parameter Based Synthesis Of Sign Language, Amanda Irving

Theses

The primary objective of this project is to demonstrate synthesis of signs in American Sign Language with a finite number of parameters. The parameters in this method include 22 key locations, six location modifiers, six orientation indicators, 46 hand shapes, six predefined movements and seven possible end effectors. These parameters can be used in conjunction with a computer script and they maximize precision and versatility while minimizing development time and resources. The parameters for each sign are stored in an individual text file averaging approximately half a kilobyte.

The success of this project is demonstrated using UGS's Jack Software, Version …

A Digital Signature And Watermarking Based Authentication System For Jpeg2000 Images, Rui Jing

Theses

In this thesis, digital signature based authentication system was introduced, which is able to protect JPEG2000 images in different flavors, including fragile authentication and semi-fragile authentication. The fragile authentication is to protect the image at code-stream level, and the semi-fragile is to protect the image at the content level.

The semi-fragile can be further classified into lossy and lossless authentication. With lossless authentication, the original image can be recovered after verification. The lossless authentication and the new image compression standard, JPEG2000 is mainly discussed in this thesis.

Study Of Joint Embedding And Compression On Jpeg Compression Scheme Using Multiple Codebook Data Hiding, Amol Nishikant Sukerkar

Theses

This thesis studies a direct application of multiple codebook data hiding technique in the multimedia applications. It studies the practical implementation of a joint embedding and compression scheme. It presents a study of Type III data embedding technique using multiple codebook design on JPEG-85 compression scheme. The application of the above technique is compared with the Type III data embedding techniques using single codebook design. The comparison is carried out in tenns of the parameters such as mean square error and normalized correlation between the embedded and extracted watermark.

The performance of data hiding rate against the embedding distortion is …

Electrospinning Of Biphasic Biopolymer And Polymer : A Feasibility And Characterization Study, Sherry Hsiu-Ying Wang

Theses

Electrospinning of polymeric materials have been experimented to achieve nanoscaled diameters. The approaches to the current study are to combine a natural material such as collagen with synthetic materials and determine if the interactions between the materials can be used in the electrospinning process. Collagen is a material of choice due to its biocompatibility. When collagen is combined with polymer, Polyethylene Oxide (PEG), the fiber diameters ranged from 150nm to one micron. The fibers produced have shown drastic phase separation. The next study involved using a duel solvent system to electrospin fibers. The polymer of choice is Poly (1-lactic acid) …

Scalable Wide Area Ad-Hoc Networking, Nithin Bose

Theses

The scalability problem of routing algorithms in Mobile Ad-hoc networks (MANET) has conventionally been addressed by introducing hierarchical architectures, clusters, and neighborhood zones. In all of these approaches, some nodes are assigned different routing related roles than others. Examples include cluster heads, virtual backbones and border nodes. The selection of these nodes on a fixed or dynamic basis adds complexity to the routing algorithm, in addition to placing significant demands on mobility and power consumption of these nodes. Furthermore, the scalability achieved with hierarchical architectures or partitions is limited.

This thesis demonstrates that location awareness can greatly aid in MANET …

An Autonomous Router-Based Solution To Detect And Defend Low Rate Ddos Attacks, Karunakar Anantharam

Theses

Internet security was not a concern when the Internet was invented, but we cannot deny this fact anymore. Since all forms of businesses and communications are aligned to the Internet in one form or the other, the security of these assets (both infrastructure and content) is of prime importance. Some of the well known consequences of an attack include gaining access to a network, intellectual property thefts, and denial of service.

This thesis focuses on countering flood-type attacks that result in denial of service to end users. A new classification of this denial of service attacks, known as the low …

Obtaining Optimal Data Length For Fmri Images, Vikram M. Natarajan

Theses

Interest in brain hemodynamics has led to a substantial increase in state of the art research within the field of functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI). FMRI enables research to be conducted on brain mapping in healthy individuals, as well as in patient populations. The need for accurate functional images is required. The primary objective was the development of a method to determine the optimal number of time points required to obtain reliable activation maps. The second phase involved the development of a program, which enabled the conversion of functional magnetic resonance images to a format that the neurosurgeon's scanner could …

Optical Properties Of Sige Nanostructures, Varun Sharma

Theses

In this thesis, Raman Scattering (RS) and photoluminescence (PL) measurements of Ge nanowires (NWs) grown via vapor-liquid-solid (VLS) using chemical vapor deposition silicon substrates consisting of (100) and (111) crystallographic orientations are reported. Ge NWs grown are ~40 nm in diameter, approximately a micrometer in length, and a sharp narrow Raman peak at ~300cm^-1 indicates single crystal quality. An absence of SiGe peak in the Raman spectra indicates that SiGe interdiffusion is insignificant for the NW volume. Low temperature PL-intensity-dependence spectra indicate that the observed emission originates at the Ge NW - Si substrate interface, where SiGe intermixing has …

Ambulatory Measurement Of Body Position, Swetha Vennamaneni

Theses

Ambulatory monitoring is playing an important role in the clinical and research field. In the modem era, physicians are showing much interest in measuring heart rate, blood pressure and many other physical and cardiac conditions and recording electrocardiogram (ECG, a popular technique for diagnosing heart related disease), while the patient is ambulatory. Heart rate, blood pressure and ECG waveform can change because of body position. In the case of the ECG, the changes caused by body position are can change the ST-T segment and also the QRS amplitude. The heart rate and blood pressure changes when there is a change …

Ua3/9/5 Dedication Complex For Engineering & Biological Sciences, Wku President's Office

WKU Administration Documents

Talking points used by WKU president Gary Ransdell at the dedication of the Complex for Engineering & Biological Sciences.

Ua1b1/7 Complex For Engineering & Biological Sciences Dedication, Western Kentucky University

WKU Administration Documents

Program for the Complex for Engineering & Biological Sciences dedication, includes image of the building and floor plans.

An Investigation Of The Heat Affected Zone In Cortical Bone Sawing, Hamid Khalili Parsa, Ger Reilly, Brendan Mccormack, Andrew Macey

Conference Papers

Surgical procedures such as osteotomy and hip replacement involve the cutting of bone with the aid of various manual and powered cutting instruments including manual and powered bone saws. Frictional rubbing between the blade of the saw and the bone results in the generation of localised heating of the cut bone and increased cutting forces (Ark et al, 1997). Overheating in localised areas can cause bone necrosis and have an impact on the rate of healing of the bone post operation and overheating also affects the sharpness life of the blade. A review of the literature indicates that work has …

Smartacking: Improving Tcp Performance From The Receiving End, Daniel K. Blandford, Sally A. Goldman, Sergey Gorinsky, Yan Zhou, Daniel R. Dooly

All Computer Science and Engineering Research

We present smartacking, a technique that improves performance of Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) via adaptive generation of acknowledgments (ACKs) at the receiver. When the bottleneck link is underutilized, the receiver transmits an ACK for each delivered data segment and thereby allows the connection to acquire the available capacity promptly. When the bottleneck link is at its capacity, the smartacking receiver sends ACKs with a lower frequency reducing the control traffic overhead and slowing down the congestion window growth to utilize the network capacity more effectively. To promote quick deployment of the technique, our primary implementation of smartacking modifies only the …

Shear Stress In Smooth Rectangular Open-Channel Flows, Junke Guo, Pierre Y. Julien

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Faculty Publications

The average bed and sidewall shear stresses in smooth rectangular open-channel flows are determined after solving the continuity and momentum equations. The analysis shows that the shear stresses are function of three components: (1) gravitational; (2) secondary flows; and (3) interfacial shear stress. An analytical solution in terms of series expansion is obtained for the case of constant eddy viscosity without secondary currents. In comparison with laboratory measurements, it slightly overestimates the average bed shear stress measurements but underestimates the average sidewall shear stress by 17% when the width–depth ratio becomes large. A second approximation is formulated after introducing two …

Advantageous Goes Ir Results For Ash Mapping At High Latitudes: Cleveland Eruptions 2001, Yingxin Gu, William I. Rose, David J. Schneider, Gregg J. S. Bluth, M. I. Watson

Department of Geological and Mining Engineering and Sciences Publications

The February 2001 eruption of Cleveland Volcano, Alaska allowed for comparisons of volcanic ash detection using two-band thermal infrared (10–12 μm) remote sensing from MODIS, AVHRR, and GOES 10. Results show that high latitude GOES volcanic cloud sensing the range of about 50 to 65°N is significantly enhanced. For the Cleveland volcanic clouds the MODIS and AVHRR data have zenith angles 6–65 degrees and the GOES has zenith angles that are around 70 degrees. The enhancements are explained by distortion in the satellite view of the cloud's lateral extent because the satellite zenith angles result in a “side-looking” aspect and …

Supporting Debates Over Citizen Initiatives, Kishore R. Kattamuri, Marius C. Silaghi

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications

Popular / citizen initiatives provide a way for the inclusion of constitutional or statutory proposals on the ballot (e.g., at an election) if enough signatures are collected in support of the proposal. Once citizens are enabled to digitally sign such initiatives remotely, the next challenge will be to provide support for verified eligible citizens to debate on running initiatives. Intelligent ways of structuring information for easy access and cooperation is a major research interest in computer science, with results like WWW, Semantic Web, Forums, Blogs, Slashdot. We propose here a new interaction paradigm for debates in the setting where participants …

Publicly Verifiable Private Credentials - A Technique For Privately Signing Citizen Initiatives, Kishore R. Kattamuri, Marius C. Silaghi

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications

Besides voting, another way of practicing democracy is by signing popular / citizen initiatives or optional referendums of certain types. We address the problems related to the electronic remote signing of support for referendums and popular initiatives (e-referendums). We propose, publicly verifiable private credentials (PVPCs) , a type of certified pseudonym digital signatures for which one can publicly prove that only eligible users (belonging to a specified group) got them and that no user got two of them. They can be used to sign citizen initiatives. Our technique generates PVPCs that can be publicly proven to belong to an unknown …

Optimization Of Shape, Size, And Topology Design Variables In Trusses With A Genetic Algorithm, Kevin M. Gillman

Theses and Dissertations

Briggs' genetic algorithm was extended in the Gillman algorithm to include shape optimization of trusses. Other contributions include value representation, different member linking, alternate genes, automatic k-factor evaluation for buckling, and the option to prevent overlapping members. The purpose of these contributions was to make optimization using a genetic algorithm more accessible to design engineers. The Gillman algorithm was demonstrated in two original examples as well as an example from a published work. The Gillman algorithm was effective in finding lighter designs.

Probabilistic Liquefaction Triggering Based On The Cone Penetration Test, Robb E.S. Moss, Raymond B. Seed, Robert E. Kayen, Jonathan P. Stewart, Kohji Tokimatsu

Civil and Environmental Engineering

Performance-based earthquake engineering requires a probabilistic treatment of potential failure modes in order to accurately quantify the overall stability of the system. This paper is a summary of the application portions of the probabilistic liquefaction triggering correlations proposed recently proposed by Moss and co-workers. To enable probabilistic treatment of liquefaction triggering, the variables comprising the seismic load and the liquefaction resistance were treated as inherently uncertain. Supporting data from an extensive Cone Penetration Test (CPT)-based liquefaction case history database were used to develop a probabilistic correlation. The methods used to measure the uncertainty of the load and resistance variables, how …

Thermal Analysis Of Gcls At A Municipal Solid Waste Landfill, James L. Hanson, Nazli Yesiller, G. E. Swarbrick

Civil and Environmental Engineering

This study was conducted to determine long-term thermal regime of landfill liner systems using a field temperature monitoring program and numerical analysis of heat transfer. Temperatures in liner systems that contain geosynthetic clay liners (GCLs) were monitored prior and subsequent to waste placement. Data were collected in three cells at a landfill in Midwestern USA for more than five years. The liner system in one of the cells was left exposed (not covered with waste) for a period exceeding one year subsequent to cell construction. The lowest and highest GCL temperatures were .1°C and 35°C, respectively and the localized temperature …

A Mass-Spring-Damper Model Of A Bouncing Ball (Conference Proceeding), Mark L. Nagurka, Shuguang Huang

Mechanical Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

The mechanical properties of a vertically dropped ball, represented by an equivalent mass-spring-damper model, are related to the coefficient of restitution and the time of contact of the ball during one bounce with the impacting surface. In addition, it is shown that the coefficient of restitution and contact time of a single bounce are related to the total number of bounces and the total time elapsing between dropping the ball and the ball coming to rest. For a ball with significant bounce, approximate expressions for model parameters, i.e., stiffness and damping or equivalently natural frequency and damping ratio, are developed. …

Impurity-Assisted Interlayer Exchange Coupling Across A Tunnel Barrier, Mikhail Ye Zhuravlev, Evgeny Y. Tsymbal, A. V. Vedyayev

Materials Research Science and Engineering Center: Faculty Publications

Localized impurity or defect states in the insulating barrier layer separating two ferromagnetic films affect dramatically the interlayer exchange coupling (IEC), making it significantly stronger compared to perfect barriers. We demonstrate that the impurity-assisted IEC becomes antiferromagnetic if the energy of the impurity states matches the Fermi energy and that the coupling strength decreases with temperature. These results explain available experimental data on the IEC across tunnel barriers.

Fractionation Of Cell Mixtures Using Acoustic And Laminar Flow Fields, Manoj Kumar, Donald L. Feke, Joanne M. Belovich

Chemical & Biomedical Engineering Faculty Publications

A fractionation method applicable to different populations of cells in a suspension is reported. The separation was accomplished by subjecting the suspension to a resonant ultrasonic field and a laminar flow field propagating in orthogonal directions within a thin, rectangular chamber. Steady, laminar flow transports the cell suspension along the chamber, while the ultrasonic field causes the suspended cells to migrate to the mid-plane of the chamber at rates related to their size and physical properties. A thin flow splitter positioned near the outlet divides the effluent cell suspension into two product streams, thereby allowing cells that respond faster to …

A Study Of Style Effects On Ocr Errors In The Medline Database, Penny Garrison, Diane Davis, Tim Andersen, Elisa Barney Smith

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

The National Library of Medicine has developed a system for the automatic extraction of data from scanned journal articles to populate the MEDLINE database. Although the 5-engine OCR system used in this process exhibits good performance overall, it does make errors in character recognition that must be corrected in order for the process to achieve the requisite accuracy. The correction process works by feeding words that have characters with less than 100% confidence (as determined automatically by the OCR engine) to a human operator who then must manually verify the word or correct the error. The majority of these errors …

Experimental Investigation Of Oscillatory Flow Pressure And Pressure Drop Through Complex Geometries, Mounir B. Ibrahim, Meng Wang, David Gedeon

Mechanical Engineering Faculty Publications

A series of experiments have been performed to investigate the oscillatory flow pressure and pressure drop through complex geometries. These experiments were conducted at the CSU-SLRE facility which is a horizontally opposed, two-piston, single-acting engine with a split crankshaft driving mechanism. Flow through a rectangular duct, with no insert (obstruction), was studied first. Then four different inserts were examined: Abrupt, Manifold, Diverging Short and Diverging Long. The inserts were mounted in the center of the rectangular duct to represent different type of geometries that could be encountered in Stirling machines. The pressure and pressure drop of the oscillating flow was …

Computer-Simulation-Assisted Lean Manufacturing Training, Luoding Wang

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis assesses the potential of using computer simulation to aid existing lean manufacturing training methods such as lecture and live simulation. An investigation of this possibility was carried out in conjunction with UMEP's Lean 101 class. In the study, two experimental computer simulation models demonstrating the push and pull production scenarios were constructed using ProModel software. Simulation models were equipped with a Visual Basic interface to aid trainees to manipulate the model via ActiveX. Constructed computer simulation was compared with live simulation to answer these research questions: 1. Was computer simulation able to teach additional lean concepts not covered …

Design Concepts And Process Analysis For Transmuter Fuel Manufacturing: Quarterly Progress Report #1, Jamil M. Renno, Georg F. Mauer

Fuels Campaign (TRP)

A Hot Cell robotic assembly: Pick and place dynamic simulation, including feedback control with Matlab, was developed for dispersion fuel manufacture.

The deployment of remote manufacturing of transmuter fuel is a necessity for the transmutation applications. In the reporting period, a virtual hot cell for the manufacturing of dispersion fuel was designed using MSC.visualNastran^©, ProEngineer^© and MATLAB^©. Atypical events were successfully simulated. Relevant physical quantities arising during such events were monitored as well.

Creep Of Granular Ice With And Without Dispersed Particles, Min Song, David M. Cole, Ian Baker

Dartmouth Scholarship

The effects of silt-sized particles (average diameter of 50 m m) on the compressive creep of polycrystalline ice have been studied at stress levels from 0.1 to 1.45MPa and temperatures of –12 8 C and –10 8 C. Dislocation densities during creep have been estimated using a dislocation-based model of anelasticity. The results indicate that at low concentrations (up to 4wt.% % ), particles increase the minimum creep rate. Power-law behavior with an exponent of 3 was observed for both particle-free ice and ice with 1 wt.% % particles when the stress was >0.3 MPa. In contrast, linear behavior was …

Effect Of Silicon Content On The Corrosion Resistance And Radiation-Induced Embrittlement Of Materials For Advanced Heavy Liquid Metal Nuclear Systems: Quarterly Progress Report (August 2004 – October 2004), Ajit K. Roy

Transmutation Sciences Materials (TRP)

The purpose of this collaborative research project involving the University of Nevada Las Vegas (UNLV), Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) and Idaho State University (ISU) is to evaluate the effect of silicon (Si) content on the corrosion behavior and radiation-induced embrittlement of martensitic stainless steels having chemical compositions similar to that of the modified 9Cr-1Mo steel. Recent studies at LANL involving Alloy EP-823 of different Si content have demonstrated that increased Si content in this alloy may enhance the corrosion resistance in molten lead-bismutheutectic (LBE). Since very little data exists in the open literature on the beneficial effect of Si …