Engineering Commons^™

A Study Of Home Builder Advertising For Smart Home Technologies, Jared Don Bingham

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research is to discover if home builders along the Wasatch Front in Utah are advertising smart home technologies. Research was conducted by a review of the display advertisements placed in the Saturday and Sunday editions of The Deseret Morning News/Salt Lake Tribune from March 4, 2006 through April 1, 2006. An internet search for smart home terminology was performed on the web sites of home builders advertising in The Deseret Morning News/Salt Lake Tribune. A review of the display advertisements for the Deseret Morning News/Salt Lake Tribune revealed that home builders are not using that medium …

Random City Generator Technical Report, Brandon Call

Faculty Publications

The Brigham Young University (BYU) Multiple Agent Intelligent Coordination and Control (MAGICC) research lab researchs many aspects of small unmanned air vehicles (UAV). To facilitate this research, students have created a UAV simulator called Aviones. In order to increase the capability of Aviones to simulate an urban environment, the ability to draw buildings, streets and vehicles have been added. This document outlines how cities are created and how a researcher can use them in conjunction with Aviones.

Hillsborough Filter Pilot Project (2006), Stormwater Academy

BMP Trains Research and Publications

A zeolite filter pilot plant was operated over a 216 day period to evaluate its ability to enhance nitrogen removal from stormwater. When operated at a steady filtration rate of 192 gal/ft2 -day, the zeolite filter was highly effective at removing ammonia, producing an effluent ammonia nitrogen concentration of 0.07 mg/L, and removing 93% of ammonia and 32% of total inorganic nitrogen. A variety of non-steady state experiments demonstrated that the zeolite filter performance was superior to a parallel sand filter under the varying conditions that are common to stormwater management systems. A storm event was simulated by applying a …

A Mechanized Horseback Riding Simulator As An Aid To Physical Therapy, Jennifer Lott

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Equine-assisted therapy is a nontraditional form of physical therapy that involves riding horses as a form of rehabilitation. Limited access to these riding programs justifies a need to develop a horseback riding simulator capable of simulating the gaits, bend, and collection of the horse. Research involving the development of horseback riding simulators is limited, but the available research does show promising results in the ability to aid in physical therapy.

A two-dimensional model and simulation was developed using MATLAB. Using the results from the simulation, a horseback riding simulator was designed, fabricated and tested. The physical simulator was capable of …

Study Of Same-Lane And Inter-Lane Gvw Correlation, Colin C. Caprani, Bernard Enright, E. J. O'Brien

Conference papers

Extensive work has been done over the last two decades on the simulation of traffic loading on bridges. The methodology used is to generate a number of years of simulated traffic and to use extreme value statistics to predict more accurately the characteristic loading for a given bridge. The parameters and probability distributions used in the Monte Carlo simulation must be based on observed sample traffic data. Some previous studies have made unsubstantiated assumptions regarding correlation between the Gross Vehicle Weights (GVW) of trucks in the same lane, or between trucks in adjacent, same direction lanes. For this paper, an …

Parallel Operation Of Hybrid Loaded Resonant Converter Using Phase-Shift Control, Taufik, James J. Mullins

Electrical Engineering

This paper presents a phase shifting method to adjust the combined output voltage of two hybrid loaded resonant converters connected in parallel. The method implements a fixed switching frequency and hence it is particularly useful in applications such as medical instrumentation where audible noise is not desirable. The design and analysis of parallel hybrid resonant converters operating in discontinuous conduction mode using the phase shifting method is described. Computer simulation to prove the feasibility of the phase shifting method in the design example is also provided. Analysis of the characteristics of the output voltage produced by phase shifting control along …

A Miniature 5.5 Amp Dc Motor Drive, Taufik, Edwin Tahlman

Electrical Engineering

This paper details the design process and the stages of construction of a 12 V 5.5 A DC motor drive on a very small 1.5 inches by 1.5 inches printed circuit board. The relatively small-size but high power dc motor drive may open door to a wide spectrum of industrial electronic applications. The tiny size was made possible by the latest technology in power electronics for integrated dc motor drive technology and was aimed to improve overall efficiency of the dc motor drive circuit. A laboratory prototype was built and loading tests and measurements were conducted. The results of these …

Economics Of Manure Phosphorus Distribution From Beef Feeding Operations, William F. Kissinger, Raymond E. Massey, Richard K. Koelsch, Galen E. Erickson

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

An economic model was developed to evaluate cost and value of manure distribution. Feedlots ranging in size from 2,500 head to 25,000 head one-time capacities were used as case studies to calculate excretion amounts from cattle fed diets with a range of phosphorus. Diet P and subsequent costs of distributing the manure were used to analyze the corresponding costs of manure distribution, in addition to determining the required available land needed to be in compliance with a nutrient management plan based on utilization of manure P by the crops grown.

The model illustrated when animals are fed diets of increasing …

National Livestock And Poultry Environmental Learning Center, Richard K. Koelsch, Mark Risse, Joe Harrison, Jill Heemstra, Frank Humenik

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

This paper describes a new national initiative to improve the delivery of science-based information to non-research customers. The vision of the Livestock and Poultry Environmental Learning Center is to provide individuals involved in public policy issues, animal production, and delivery of technical services for confined animal systems with on-demand access to the nation’s best science-based resources that is responsive to priority and emerging environmental issues associated with animal agriculture. This paper describes the implementation plans for this project.

Arq Techniques For Mimo Communication Systems, Zhihong Ding

Theses and Dissertations

Multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) communication systems employ multiple antennas at the transmitter and the receiver. Multiple antennas provide capacity gain and/or robust performance over single antenna communications. Traditional automatic-repeat-request (ARQ) techniques developed for single-input single-output (SISO) communication systems have to be modified in order to be employed in MIMO communication systems. In this dissertation, we propose and analysis some ARQ techniques for MIMO communication systems. The basic retransmission protocols of ARQ, stop-and-wait (SW-ARQ), go-back-$N$ (GBN-ARQ), and selective repeat (SR-ARQ), designed for SISO communication systems are generalized for parallel multichannel communication systems. The generalized ARQ protocols seek to improve the channel utilization …

Operational Amplifier Bandwidth Extension Using Negative Capacitance Generation, Adrian P. Genz

Theses and Dissertations

A need for high bandwidth operational amplifiers, or op-amps, exists for certain applications. This need requires research in the area of op-amp bandwidth extension. The proposed method of this thesis uses Negative Capacitance Generation (NCG), which involves using the Miller effect to generate an equivalent negative capacitance at a given node in a circuit, to extend the bandwidth of an op-amp. This is accomplished by first applying NCG to the second stage of an op-amp, in which the op-amp has been compensated using Single Capacitor Miller Compensation (SCMC). Next, the Miller capacitor used to compensate the op-amp can be reduced …

Seu-Induced Persistent Error Propagation In Fpgas, Keith S. Morgan

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis introduces a new way to characterize the dynamic SEU cross section of an FPGA design in terms of its persistent and non-persistent components. An SEU in the persistent cross section results in a permanent interruption of service until reset. An SEU in the non-persistent cross section causes a temporary interruption of service, but in some cases this interruption may be tolerated. Techniques for measuring these cross sections are introduced. These cross sections can be measured and characterized for an arbitrary FPGA design. Furthermore, circuit components in the non-persistent and persistent cross section can statically be determined. Functional error …

Rubble Pile Characterization Model, William P. Schonberg, Jason Baird, Paul Nicholas Worsey, Abdeldjelil Belarbi, Roger A. Laboube, Braden Lusk, R. Flanagan, H. Burleson, Robert S. Woodley, Warren Noll

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Rubble piles created following the collapse of a building in a combat situation can significantly impact mission accomplishment, particularly in the area of movement and maneuver. Rubble characteristics must be known, for example, in order to predict the ability of a vehicle to override the collateral damage from weapon effects in urban areas. Two types of models are developed: a first-order model and a first-principles-based model. In both models, we assume complete rubblization of the building and develop a rubble profile model using the size and composition of the collapsed structure to predict the rubble volume. In both cases, this …

Dielectric Constant Of Particles Determined By Impedance Spectroscopy, Vladimir Petrovsky, Abhishek Manohar, Fatih Dogan

Materials Science and Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Electrical characterization of slurries prepared by mixing dielectric powders with solvents can be used to estimate dielectric properties of the particles. In particular, dielectric constant of the particles can be calculated from effective dielectric constant of the slurry measured at high frequency by using the Lorentz-Lorenz or similar equations based on mixing rules. Unfortunately, this approach leads to high margin of errors in dielectric constant estimation and is very sensitive to any slurry nonidealities such as sedimentation or agglomeration of particles. Impedance spectroscopy techniques are introduced to measure dielectric properties of particles at different frequency ranges. Dielectric constant of strontium …

Droplet On A Fiber: Geometrical Shape And Contact Angle, Xiangfa Wu, Yuris A. Dzenis

Department of Engineering Mechanics: Faculty Publications

This paper is concerned with the geometrical shape, wetting length, and contact angle of a microdroplet on a fiber by using the method free energy variation. The governing equation and relevant boundary conditions of the microdroplet were re-derived based on the free energy variation of the droplet/ fiber system. The geometrical shape of the droplet was determined as the combination of Legendre’s elliptical functions of the first and second kinds, corresponding to the previous results in literature [6]. For contact angle h >15 degree, a novel efficient semi-analytic approach was proposed to extract the contact angle from experimental data. The …

Comparison Of Aisi Specification Methods For Members With Single Intermediate Longitudinal Stiffeners, B. W. Schafer, Heejae Yang

American Iron and Steel Institute (AISI) Specifications, Standards, Manuals and Research Reports (1946 - present)

In the current AISI specification, there are two different methods for calculating the effective widths of longitudinally stiffened elements. The first method “B4.1” applies solely to the element with only one intermediate stiffener, whereas the second method “B5.1” works only for those elements with more than one intermediate stiffener. Both methods are accurate in finding the design moments if used appropriately. Although two methods are developed to handle different cases, for some sections with one intermediate stiffener, the second method also works accurately, giving the same result as the first method does for calculating design moments. For some other sections …

Acuta Enews July 2006, Vol. 35, No. 7

ACUTA Newsletters

In This Issue

Board of Directors for 2006-2007

From ACUTA Headquarters: Member Service Awards............ Jeri A. Semer, CAE, ACUTA Executive Director

ACUTA One-Day Workshop: Making Convergence Work

Tech Talk: Technology Makes PBXs "Open" for Business................... Kevin Tanzillo, Dux PR

lnfo Links Randy Hayes, Univ' of Northern lowa

Board Report............... Riny Ledgerwood, San Diego State Univ., ACUTA Sec./Treasurer

DC Update.............. Jeanne Jansenius, University of the south

Web Tip: Telecom and VolP Listserv FAQ.................. Aaron Fuehrer, ACUTA lnformation Tech. Mgr.

Welcome New Members

ACUTA Online Press Room

Detecting Filled Pauses In Tutorial Dialogs, Gaurav Garg, Nigel Ward

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

As dialog systems become more capable, users tend to talk more spontaneously and less formally. Spontaneous speech includes features which convey information about the user's state. In particular, filled pauses, such as `um' and `uh', can indicate that the user is having trouble, wants more time, wants to hold the floor, or is uncertain. In this paper we present a first study of the acoustic characteristics of filled pauses in tutorial dialogs. We show that in this domain, as in other domains, filled pauses typically have flat pitch and fairly constant energy. We present a simple algorithm based on these …

Query-Based Multicontexts For Knowledge Base Browsing: An Evaluation, Julien Tane, Philipp Cimiano, Pascal Hitzler

Computer Science and Engineering Faculty Publications

In [7], we introduced the query-based multicontext theory, which allows to define a virtual space of views on ontological data. Each view is then materialised as a formal context. While this formal context can be visualised in a usual formal concept analysis framework such as Conexp or ToscanaJ, [7] also briefly described how the approach allowed the creation of a novel navigation framework for knowledge bases. The principle of this navigation is based on supporting the user in defining pertinent views. The purpose of this article is to discuss the benefits of the browsing interface. This discussion is performed, …

Santa Clara Magazine Volume 48 Number 1, Summer 2006, Santa Clara University

Santa Clara Magazine

8 - THE MAN BEHIND THE SOUND by Karen Crocker Snell. As a young music-loving soldier in the final days of World War II, John T. "Jack" Mullin '36 went to investigate a German recording device called a magnetophon. His resulting work in sound profoundly affected the field of recorded audio.

14 - THREE ROOMMATES IN PARIS By John Patrick Donnelly, S.J. It has been 500 years since Francisco Xavier and Pierre Favre were born, and 450 years since the death of Ignatius of Loyola. Quite a lot has happened since 1529 at the University of Paris, when the three …

Changing Maine, 1960-2010: Teaching Guide, Richard Barringer, New England Environmental Finance Center

Maine History & Policy Development

Unlike forty years ago, none of us is now certain what the future holds for Maine – except that it will be different. Maine has been transformed by the events of the recent decades. We have come into a new world, a new time – a new historical era, if you will. This new era, like previous eras in Maine history, will require of us new ways of thinking, new ways of understanding, new ways of organizing ourselves as a community of people, if the values and culture we share and cherish are to endure and flourish.

Design And Development Of Triangular, Spiral, And Fractal Antennas For Radio Frequency Identification Tags, Jeevan K. Vemagiri

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation reports on the design and development of three compact, non-meandered microstrip patch antennas for ultra high frequency (UHF) radio frequency identification (RFID) applications. The monopole antennas considered in this work are an inset-fed triangular antenna, one arm Archimedes spiral antenna and a Half-Sierpinski fractal antenna. These antennas with small length to width ratios (< 2/1), can be the preferred choice, in the tagging of small size consumer end products, over the ubiquitous meandered dipole antenna (length/width > 5/1), which is often the antenna of choice, due to its high gain for UHF RFID applications. The lengths and widths of all three antennas are less than 5.5 cm. Earlier reports of planar antennas for RFID applications in the UHF range have lengths …

Fast Computation Of Exact Ranges Of Symmetric Convex And Concave Functions Under Interval Uncertainty, Gang Xiang

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

Many statistical characteristics y=f(x1,...,xn) are continuous, symmetric, and either concave or convex; examples include population variance V=(1/n)*(x1^2+...+xn^2)-E^2 (where E=(1/n)*(x1+...+xn), Shannon's entropy S=-p1*log(p1)-..-pn*log(pn), and many other characteristics. In practice, often, we often only know the intervals Xi=[xi-,xi+] that contain the (unknown) actual inputs xi. Since different values xi from Xi lead, in general, to different values of f(x1,...,xn), we need to find the range Y={f(x1,...,xn):x1 in X1,...,xn in Xn}, i.e., the maximum and the minimum of f(x1,...,xn) over the box X1 x ... x Xn. It is known that for convex functions, there exists a feasible (polynomial-time) algorithm for computing its …

Rotorcraft Acoustic Noise Estimation And Outlier Detection, Johnny Fu, Xiao-Hua Yu

Electrical Engineering

This paper focuses on the application of artificial neural networks for rotorcraft acoustic data modeling, prediction, and outlier detection. The original data is recorded by microphones mounted inside a wind tunnel at NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, CA. The experimental data is first acquired in the time-domain as a time history measurement; then the sound pressure level (SPL) that represents the acoustic noise in frequency domain is derived from the time history dataset. In this study, neural networks based models are developed in both time domain and frequency domain. Outlier detection is then performed using modified Z-scores for SPL …

Engineering Students' Perceptions Of And Attitudes Towards Cheating, Donald D. Carpenter, Trevor S. Harding, Cynthia J. Finelli, Susan M. Montgomery, Honor J. Passow

Materials Engineering

Academic dishonesty has become a serious problem at institutions of higher learning. This is particularly true in engineering where, according to previous research, engineering undergraduates are among the most likely to cheat in college. To investigate this concern, the authors embarked on a research project whose goal was to develop a better understanding of what students and faculty perceive as cheating and to use this knowledge to help instructors and institutions increase the level of academic integrity among students. The primary instrument for this project was a seven-page survey that was administered to 643 engineering and pre-engineering undergraduates at eleven …

Molecular Modeling Of Proteins And Peptides Related To Cell Attachment In Vivo And In Vitro, Wanhua Zhao

Doctoral Dissertations

Polypeptides constitute half of the dry mass of the cell, they form the bulk of the extracellular matrix (ECM), and they are a common element of extra- and intracellular signaling pathways. There is increasing interest in the development of computational methods in polypeptide and protein engineering on all length scales. This research concerns the development of computational methods for study of polypeptide interactions related to cell attachment in vivo and in vitro.

Polypeptides are inherently biocompatible, and an astronomical range of unique sequences can be designed and realized in massive quantities by modern methods of synthesis and purification. These …

The Effectiveness Of Threshold-Based Scheduling Policies On Boinc Projects, Trilce Estrada, David A. Flores, Michela Taufer, Patricia J. Teller, Andre Kerstens, David P. Anderson

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

Several scientific projects use BOINC (Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing) to perform large-scale simulations using volunteers� computers (workers) across the Internet. In general, the scheduling of tasks in BOINC uses a First-Come-First-Serve policy and no attention is paid to workers� past performance, such as whether they have tended to perform tasks promptly and correctly. In this paper we use SimBA, a discrete-event simulator of BOINC applications, to study new threshold-based scheduling strategies for BOINC projects that use availability and reliability metrics to classify workers and distribute tasks according to this classification. We show that if availability and reliability thresholds …

For Complex Intervals, Exact Range Computation Is Np-Hard Even For Single Use Expressions (Even For The Product), Martine Ceberio, Vladik Kreinovich, Guenter Mayer

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

One of the main problems of interval computations is to compute the range Y of the given function f(x1,...,xn) under interval uncertainty. Interval computations started with the invention of straightforward interval computations, when we simply replace each elementary arithmetic operation in the code for f with the corresponding operation from interval arithmetic. In general, this technique only leads to an enclosure for the desired range, but in the important case of single use expressions (SUE), in which each variable occurs only once, we get the exact range. Thus, for SUE expressions, there exists a feasible (polynomial-time) algorithm for computing the …

Analysis Of Electromagnetic Field In A Switched Reluctance Machine From An Energy Conversion Perspective, Wei Jiang

Electrical Engineering Theses - Archive

With the recent advancement in power electronics and digital signal processors, switched reluctance machine (SRM) attracts more attention in high speed and harsh environment applications due to its rugged and robust structure. Despite considerable progress in the development of power electronics based control of the SRM, relatively small changes in the magnetic design has been observed. A physically insightful analysis of the electromechanical energy conversion process, origins and spatial distribution of electromagnetic field quantities at a microscopic level can shed light on the process of SRM design, which in turn could create new opportunities for substantial improvement of SRM performance …

Comparison Of Sliding Mode And State-Feedback Control Applied To A Partially Treated Actively Constrained Layer Damped (Acld) Beam, Jose J. Rodriguez

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

In this research, a sliding mode control (SMC) was utilized in the control of a partially treated, actively constrained layer damped (ACLD), Timoshenko beam model. The resulting vibration control was compared to the vibration control achieved by a state-feedback linear quadratic regulator (LQR) for several loading conditions. An observer was designed and model order reduction (MOR) was performed to achieve a simplified, efficient, and more controllable finite element system model. As a result of model simplification, modeling errors in the form of unstructured uncertainties were introduced into the system. It was determined that the SMC and LQR achieved similar vibration …