Engineering Commons^™

Procedure To Quantify Biofilm Activity In Carriers Used In Wastewater Treatment Systems, James Bolton, Archana Tummala, Chirag Kapadia, Manoj Dandamudi, Joanne M. Belovich

Chemical & Biomedical Engineering Faculty Publications

A procedure is presented for evaluating and comparing the biological activity of biofilms attached to various biofilm carriers by measurement of the glucose consumption rate. This technique allows for the economical design and selection of small particulate biofilm carriers that will maximize substrate removal when used in industrial-scale fluidized bioreactors. Methods for ensuring reproducible results are described. To support the glucose consumption rate findings, biofilm dry weights were obtained at the conclusion of activity rate experiments, and scanning electron micrographs were taken to evaluate the presence of biofilm and to view surface characteristics. Fourteen different biofilm carriers were evaluated ranging …

Best Management Practices Used By Kytc For On-Site Erosion Control, David L. Allen, Sudhir Palle

Kentucky Transportation Center Research Report

New erosion control procedures (ECP) have recently been implemented by the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KYTC). Previously, consultants and designers developed the ECP as a part of the design plans. In many cases these did not work in the field. The new procedures allow construction personnel to develop and implement their own ECPs on site.

This study conducted a survey of construction personnel in the KYTC to determine their level of familiarity with the new ECPs and to determine any issues that may have developed with the new procedures. The results of the survey concluded that most KYTC construction personnel were …

Oxidized Derivatives Of Ω-3 Fatty Acids: Identification Of Ipf 3Α-Vi In Human Urine, John A. Lawson, Seongjin Kim, William S. Powell, Garret Gerald A. Fitzgerald, Joshua Rokach

Chemistry and Chemical Engineering Faculty Publications

Isoprostanes (iPs) are prostaglandin-like molecules derived from autoxidation of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs). Urinary iP levels have been used as indices of in vivo lipid peroxidation. Thus far, it has only been possible to measure iPs derived from arachidonic acid in urine, because levels of iPs/neuroprostanes (nPs) derived from ω3-PUFAs have been found to be below detection limits of available assays. Because of the interest in ω3-PUFA dietary supplementation, we developed specific methods to measure nPF4α-VI and iPF3α-VI [derived from 4,7,10,13,16,19-docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and 5,8,11,14,17-eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA)] using a combination of chemical synthesis, gas chromatography/mass spectrometry (GC/MS), andliquid chromatography tandem …

Hydrologic Properties Of Pervious Concrete, Joe D. Luck, Stephen R. Workman, Stephen F. Higgins, Mark S. Coyne

Plant and Soil Sciences Faculty Publications

Pervious concrete is concrete made by eliminating most or all of the fine aggregate (sand) in the concrete mix, which allows interconnected void spaces to be formed in the hardened product. These interconnected void spaces allow the concrete to transmit water at relatively high rates. The main objective of this project was to conduct research on the potential application of pervious concrete in agricultural settings, specifically for use in animal feed lots, manure storage pads, animal manure and bedding compost facilities, or floor systems in animal buildings. Laboratory tests were conducted on replicated samples of pervious concrete formed from two …

Two In Vivo Surgical Approaches For Lumbar Corpectomy Using Allograft And A Metallic Implant: A Controlled Clinical And Biomechanical Study, Philbert Huang, Munish C. Gupta, Nesrin Sarigul-Klijn, Scott Hazelwood

Biomedical Engineering

Background context: Both bone graft and metallic implants have been used in combination with the necessary anterior rod or plate instrumentation to fill the voids left by vertebral body removal, with the ultimate goal of restoring stability. One type of device that has recently been introduced is an expandable titanium telescoping cage that is designed to be used as a strut implant to fill corpectomy defects. The use of these devices has met varying success. Acceptance by surgeons and spine biomechanicians has been limited by clinical failure with subsequent loss of reduction and increase in kyphosis. In order to further …

Cancellation Predictive Control For Three-Phase Pwm Rectifiers Under Harmonic And Unbalanced Input Conditions, Peng Xiao, Keith Corzine, Ganesh K. Venayagamoorthy

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This paper presents an intuitive and simple-to-implement control scheme to improve the performance of three-phase boost-type PWM rectifiers under harmonic and unbalanced input conditions. Unlike most other control strategies, the proposed method does not need to extract either the harmonic or the negative-sequence components in the supply voltages and currents. A near-synchronous reference frame is used to determine the positive-sequence fundamental-frequency component in the input voltages. Utilizing only the extracted component, the DC-link voltage control and power factor control are implemented independently to determine the phase angle and magnitude of the PWM reference voltage. The commanded rectifier voltage adjustments are …

Capillary-Driven Flows Along Rounded Interior Corners, Yongkang Chen, Mark M. Weislogel, Cory L. Nardin

Mechanical and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

The problem of low-gravity isothermal capillary flow along interior corners that are rounded is revisited analytically in this work. By careful selection of geometric length scales and through the introduction of a new geometric scaling parameter Tc, the Navier–Stokes equation is reduced to a convenient∼O(1) form for both analytic and numeric solutions for all values of corner half-angle α and corner roundedness ratio λ for perfectly wetting fluids. The scaling and analysis of the problem captures much of the intricate geometric dependence of the viscous resistance and significantly reduces the reliance on numerical data compared with several previous solution methods …

Models And Algorithms To Determine Cerebral Activation Using Near Infrared Spectroscopy, Monica Suresh Allen

Electrical Engineering Dissertations - Archive

The specific aims of this dissertation were to develop: (1) Correlations between experimental protocols and oxygenated, deoxygenated, and total hemoglobin concentrations in the brain (2) Mathematical models to associate blood flow and oxygen consumption rate of the activated brain regions with measured hemodynamic changes (3) A phantom that models brain vasculature compliance to validate developed mathematical models in a controlled setup. The primary imaging modality used in the experimentation phase of this research was near infrared spectroscopy. Previously published multimodality measurements were also used to validate the mathematical models. The single compartment Windkessel model was extended to describe flow-volume dynamics …

A Novel Seven-Level Shunt Active Filter For High-Power Drive Systems, Xiao Peng, Keith Corzine, Ganesh K. Venayagamoorthy

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In high-power adjustable speed motor drives, such as those used in electric ship propulsion systems, active filters provide a viable solution to mitigating harmonic related issues caused by diode or thyristor rectifier front-ends. To handle the large compensation currents and provide better thermal management, two or more paralleled semiconductor switching devices are often used. In this paper, a novel topology is proposed where two active filter inverters are connected with tapped reactors to share the compensation currents. The proposed active filter topology can also produce seven voltage levels, which significantly reduces the switching current ripple and the size of ripple …

Crumb Rubber In Performance-Graded Asphalt Binder, Wayne Jensen, Magdy Abdelrahman

Nebraska Department of Transportation: Research Reports

No abstract provided.

On One-Dimensional Self-Assembly Of Surfactant-Coated Nanoparticles, Jee-Ching Wang, Partho Neogi, Daniel Forciniti

Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Nanometer-sized metal and semiconductor particles possess novel properties. To fully realize their potential, these nanoparticles need to be fabricated into ordered arrays or predesigned structures. A promising nanoparticle fabrication method is coupled surface passivation and self-assembly of surfactant-coated nanoparticles. Due to the empirical procedure and partially satisfactory results, this method still represents a major challenge to date and its refinement can benefit from fundamental understanding. Existing evidences suggest that the self-assembly of surfactant-coated nanoparticles is induced by surfactant-modified interparticle interactions and follows an intrinsic road map such that short one-dimensional (1D) chain arrays of nanoparticles occur first as a stable …

Detection And Identification Of Vehicles Based On Their Unintended Electromagnetic Emissions, Xiaopeng Dong, Haixiao Weng, Daryl G. Beetner, Todd H. Hubing, Donald C. Wunsch, Michael Noll, Huseyin Goksu, Benjamin Moss

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

When running, vehicles with internal combustion engines radiate electromagnetic emissions that are characteristic of the vehicle. Emissions depend on the electronics, harness wiring, body type, and many other features. Since emissions are unique to each vehicle, these may be used for identification purposes. This paper investigates a procedure for detecting and identifying vehicles based on their RF emissions. Parameters like the average magnitude or standard deviation of magnitude within a frequency band were extracted from measured emission data. These parameters were used as inputs to an artificial neural network (ANN) that was trained to identify the vehicle that produced the …

Dynamic Programming-Based Energy-Efficient Rate Adaptation For Wireless Ad Hoc Networks, Maciej Jan Zawodniok, Jagannathan Sarangapani

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Resource constraints require that ad hoc wireless networks are energy efficient during transmission and rate adaptation. In this paper we propose a novel cross-layer energy-efficient rate adaptation scheme that employs dynamic programming (DP) principle to analytically select the modulation scheme online. The scheme uses channel state information from the physical layer and congestion information from the scheduling layer to select a modulation rate. This online selection maximizes throughput while saving energy and preventing congestion. The simulation results indicate that an increase in throughput by 96% and energy-efficiency by 131% is observed when compared to the Receiver Based AutoRate (RBAR) protocol.

Synchronous Reference Frame Based Active Filter Current Reference Generation Using Neural Networks, Joy Mazumdar, Ronald G. Harley, Ganesh K. Venayagamoorthy

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The increased use of nonlinear devices in industry has resulted in direct increase of harmonic distortion in the industrial power system in recent years. The significant harmonics are almost always 5th, 7th, 11th and the 13th with the 5th harmonic being the largest in most instances. Active filter systems have been proposed to mitigate harmonic currents of the industrial loads. The most important requirement for any active filter is the precise detection of the individual harmonic component's amplitude and phase. Fourier transform based techniques provide an excellent method for individual harmonic isolation, but it requires a minimum of two cycles …

Weak-Group Unitary Space-Time Codes, Adam Panagos, Kurt Louis Kosbar, Asif Iqbal Mohammad

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

We propose a construction technique for unitary space-time codes that use Givens rotation matrices. These constellations have a desirable weak group property that leads to reduced construction and decoding complexity. The newly constructed constellations have the best known diversity product and diversity sum for a wide range of constellation sizes and number of transmit antennas.

Securing The Aodv Protocol Using Specification-Based Intrusion Detection, Hoda Mamdouh Hassan

Archived Theses and Dissertations

[Abstract not provided]

Bs News

Building Services Engineering

No abstract provided.

Study Of Viscoelastic Effect On The Frequency Shift Of Microcantilever Chemical Sensors (Journal Article), Uttara Sampath, Stephen M. Heinrich, Fabien Josse, Frederic Lochon, Isabelle Dufour, Dominique Rebiere

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

Microcantilevers coated with a chemically sensitive layer are increasingly being used in chemical detection systems. The sensitive coating, often a polymer, absorbs specific molecules, which can be detected by monitoring the shift in the mechanical resonant frequency. Usually. the frequency shift resulting from molecular absorption is interpreted as a mass loading effect. However, mass loading is not the only effect that has an impact on the frequency shift; the viscoelastic properties of the sensitive coating also are affected by the sorption process. Sorption-induced modulus changes are typically difficult to characterize. However, it is known that the sorption of analyte molecules …

Robust Controllability In Temporal Constraint Networks Under Uncertainty, Hoong Chuin Lau, Jia Li, Roland H. C. Yap

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Temporal constraint networks are embedded in many planning and scheduling problems. In dynamic problems, a fundamental challenge is to decide whether such a network can be executed as uncertainty is revealed over time. Very little work in this domain has been done in the probabilistic context. In this paper, we propose a Temporal Constraint Network (TCN) model where durations of uncertain activities are represented by random variables. We wish to know whether such a network is robust controllable, i.e. can be executed dynamically within a given failure probability, and if so, how one might find a feasible schedule as the …

Seasonal Variation In The Stable Isotopic Composition Of Precipitation In The Tropical Montane Forests Of Monteverde, Costa Rica, Amy L. Rhodes, Andrew J. Guswa, Silvia E. Newell

Engineering: Faculty Publications

Climate and land use change may diminish orographic clouds over tropical montane forests, stressing biota and water resources during dry seasons. From 2003 to 2005 we measured the stable isotopic composition of precipitation and throughfall in Monteverde, Costa Rica, to distinguish convective, wet season rainfall associated with the Intertropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) from dry season, orographic rain produced by northeasterly trade winds. While event-to-event fluctuations of δ18O and δ2H are high, monthly samples reveal a seasonal signal that may be used to trace water through the hydrologic cycle. Deuterium excess indicates that water evaporated from land is an important flux …

Developing Institutional Faculty Communities To Review And Assess Sotl Work, Paul Savory, Amy Nelson Burnett, Amy M. Goodburn

Department of Industrial and Management Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

This workshop explores theoretical questions and practical strategies for how to develop faculty peer reviewers for SOTL work. After reading a set of faculty case-study files that include varying forms of SOTL work, participants will engage in guided discussion about reviewing and assessing such work and about developing faculty communities equipped to do such work. Presenter(s) also will seek feedback on guidelines that they have developed for external reviewers of SOTL work. Many teaching efforts have focused primarily on engaging faculty to participate in SOTL initiatives, with little attention to creating mechanisms for evaluating and assessing the work resulting from …

Multi-User Uwb-Ir Systems With Interleaved Coding-Modulation On Multipath Fading Channels, Michal M. Pietrzyk, Keni Popovski, Tadeusz Wysocki, Beata J. Wysocki, Jos H. Weber

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Faculty Publications (to 2015)

Interleaved coding-modulation (ICM) is a recently proposed method for ultra-wideband impulse radio (UWBIR) systems. ICM exploits the concept of chip interleaving, allowing to alleviate the problem of inter-symbol and inter-pulse interference commonly present in high data rate UWB-IR systems. In this paper, we extend previous work on ICM to scarcely populated multi-user scenarios. We propose a design of a deterministic chip interleaver based on time-hopping hyperbolic congruence sequences. We also review the main parameters of the random and hyperbolic interleavers. Our results indicate that the proposed type of interleaver yields similar performance to random interleavers but with the advantage of …

Incorporation Of Polyethylene Glycol Into Self-Assembled Monolayers Enhances Substrate-Mediated Gene Delivery By Nonspecifically- Bound Complexes, Angela K. Pannier, Lonnie D Shea

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Presentations and White Papers

Developing systems capable of controlled and efficient gene transfer is a fundamental goal of biotechnology, with applications including functional genomics, gene therapy, and tissue engineering. Substrate-mediated delivery, also termed solid phase delivery, describes the immobilization of DNA, complexed with nonviral vectors, to a biomaterial or substrate through specific or nonspecific interactions. Cells cultured on the substrate are exposed to elevated DNA concentrations within the local microenvironment, which enhances transfection. We investigated transfection resulting from DNA complexes immobilized to a substrate through specific interactions introduced through complementary functional groups on the vector and surface or through nonspecific interactions. Self-assembled monolayers (SAMs) …

Idaho Pend Oreille River Model: Model Development And Calibration, Robert Leslie Annear, Chris Berger, Scott A. Wells

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

The objectives of this project were to:

• Develop a hydrodynamic and temperature model of Pend Oreille River using CE-QUAL-W2 Version 3.2

• Calibrate the CE-QUAL-W2 model to field data collected during 2004 and 2005 using the following water quality variables:

• flow, water surface elevation, and velocity
• temperature o dissolved oxygen
• nutrients (NO3-N+NO2-N, NH4-N, PO4-P)
• algae – chlorophyll a
• BOD5 and dissolved organic matter and particulate organic matter compartments (both labile and refractory) for the organic matter cycling with algae
• periphyton

The model chosen for development was CE-QUAL-W2 Version 3.2 (Cole and Wells, 2004). This is a two-dimensional unsteady hydrodynamic …

Pend Oreille River, Box Canyon Model: Model Development And Calibration, Robert Leslie Annear, Chris Berger, Scott A. Wells

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

The purpose of this study was to improve the existing Version 3.0 application of CE-QUAL-W2 of the Pend Oreille River between Box Canyon Dam and Albeni Falls Dam by performing the tasks outlined above. In addition, the use of field data from 2004 as an additional calibration year would improve the confidence in the model’s predictive ability for temperature. The model simulations were run from January 1st to December 31st in each of the 3 years of model simulation: 1997, 1998 and 2004.

The model chosen for development is CE-QUAL-W2 Version 3.5 (Cole and Wells, 2006). This is a twodimensional …

Predicting U.S. Jet Fighter Aircraft Introductions From 1944 To 1982: A Dogfight Between Regression And Tfdea, Lane Inman, Timothy R. Anderson, Robert R. Harmon

Engineering and Technology Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Since its inception in 2001, technology forecasting using data envelopment analysis (TFDEA) has been used with a number of applications. This paper presents a formal comparison of TFDEA to a previously published application from Technological Forecasting and Social Change by Joseph Martino. Using the data and Martino’s multiple regression model, we compare results obtained from TFDEA to those previously published. Both techniques predict the first flights of fighter jets introduced between 1960 and 1982 by using the first flights of aircraft introduced between 1944 and 1960. TFDEA was found to better predict the first flight dates than the forecast using …

Modeling Local Interest Points For Semantic Detection And Video Search At Trecvid 2006, Yu-Gang Jiang, Xiaoyong Wei, Chong-Wah Ngo, Hung-Khoon Tan, Wanlei Zhao, Xiao Wu

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Local interest points (LIPs) and their features have been shown to obtain surprisingly good results in object detection and recognition. Its effectiveness and scalability, however, have not been seriously addressed in large-scale multimedia database, for instance TRECVID benchmark. The goal of our works is to investigate the role and performance of LIPs, when coupling with multi-modality features, for high-level feature extraction and automatic video search.

One-Class-At-A-Time Removal Sequence Planning Method For Multiclass Classification Problems, Chieh-Neng Young, Chen-Wen Yen, Yi-Hua Pao, Mark L. Nagurka

Mechanical Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

Using dynamic programming, this work develops a one-class-at-a-time removal sequence planning method to decompose a multiclass classification problem into a series of two-class problems. Compared with previous decomposition methods, the approach has the following distinct features. First, under the one-class-at-a-time framework, the approach guarantees the optimality of the decomposition. Second, for a K-class problem, the number of binary classifiers required by the method is only K-1. Third, to achieve higher classification accuracy, the approach can easily be adapted to form a committee machine. A drawback of the approach is that its computational burden increases rapidly with the number of classes. …

Time-Varying Mimo Channels: Measurement, Analysis, And Modeling, Michael A. Jensen, Jon W. Wallace

Faculty Publications

communication nodes is analyzed. A wide-band 8 times 8 sounder is employed to measure the response of indoor and outdoor channels at 2.55 and 5.2 GHz. The rate of channel temporal variation is then quantified in terms of information theoretic metrics that indicate the loss in channel quality as transmit and receive channel state information becomes increasingly outdated. Finally, these metrics are used to investigate the ability of two different modeling strategies-a random matrix model and a physical time-varying cluster model-to capture the channel temporal variation.

Anisotropic High Aspect Ratio Etch Development For Fluorinated Polymers With Stress Relief Technique, S. Kim, Gregory P. Nordin, N. Rahmanian

Faculty Publications

The authors have developed an anisotropic, high aspect ratio (18:1) etch for perfluorocyclobutyl (PFCB) polymers with trenches as narrow as 800 nm using a CO/O2 etch chemistry in an inductively coupled plasma reactive ion etcher. Anisotropy is achieved by carbon sidewall passivation. The motivation for this etch development is to use the air trenches as very compact waveguide splitters [S. Kim et al., Opt. Eng. 45, 054602 (2006)] The authors report a new trench widening mechanism due to tensile stress of the PFCB films and a method of avoiding this widening through the use of additional stress relief trenches on …