Engineering Commons^™

Accessible Interactive Campus Mapping System For Syracuse University/Suny-Esf, Aaron C. Knight

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

This written component of my Capstone Thesis in Computer Science covers the conceptualization and realization, and the process in between those stages, of my project, the Syracuse University Accessible Interactive Campus Map system. The system in its present state is launched at http://map.syr.edu. This project creates a usable and useful map and directions system for the Syracuse University and SUNY-ESF communities, which have long suffered without any properly oriented or fully functional map, much less an online one of any use. What this project also does is turn the Syracuse University Accessibility Map, produced by the Office of Disability Services …

Low-Complexity Iterative Detection Techniques For Slow-Frequency-Hop Spread-Spectrum Communications With Reed-Solomon Coding., Harish Ramchandran

All Dissertations

Slow-frequency-hop (SFH) spread-spectrum communications provide a high level of robustness in packet-radio networks for both military and commercial applications. The use of a Reed-Solomon (R-S) code has proven to be a good choice for use in a SFH system for countering the critical channel impairments of partial-band fading and partial-band interference. In particular, it is effective when reliability information of dwell intervals and individual code symbols can be obtained and errors-and-erasures decoding (EE) can be employed at the receiver.
In this dissertation, we consider high-data-rate SFH communications for which the channel in each frequency slot is frequency selective, manifesting itself …

Effectiveness Of Green Roof Stormwater Treatment Systems Irrigated With Recycled Green Roof Filtrate To Achieve Pollutant Removal With Peak And Volume Reduction In Florida, Martin Wanielista, Michael Hardin

BMP Trains Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Autotrophic Denitrification Of Groundwater In A Granular Sulfur-Packed Up-Flow Reactor, Shih-Hui Pan

Civil Engineering Dissertations - Archive

Autotrophic denitrification is an effective treatment technique for nitrate removal from groundwater. Six basic elements are required for the growth of autotrophic denitrifiers: (1) electron donor, (2) electron acceptor, (3) active bacteria, (4) anoxic/anaerobic environment, (5) micronutrients, and (6) optimum pH and temperature. In this research, granular sulfur is an electron donor; nitrate is an electron acceptor; anoxic and anaerobic environment was maintained in the reactor, and micronutrients were added; pH was controlled between 6 and 9, and temperature was maintained at the room temperature (20 + 2 oC). Batch reactor and continuous up-flow reactor experiments were carried out to …

Factors Affecting The Spread Of A Bioterrorist Agent Through A Building, William Cantrell

Mechanical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Bioterrorism has become a concern for Americans since the 2001 anthrax letters. Many studies have been done regarding the possibilities of biological attacks since, and most deal with possibilities of large scale attacks. However, there is reason to believe that small scale attacks are more likely. Even though studies have been done revolving around the postal system and the spread of bioagents through mail, few if any studies have looked at an attack on a single building. One particular method of attacking a building would be simply releasing an aerosoled contaminant in the building. This purpose of this project is …

Models Of Semi-Systematic Visual Search, Sourav Das

All Dissertations

Visual search is an important aspect of many examination and monitoring tasks. As a result, visual search performance has been the topic of many empirical investigations. These investigations have reported that individual search performance depends on subject factors such as search behavior, which has motivated the development of models of visual search that incorporate this behavior. Search behavior ranges from random to strictly systematic; variation in behavior is commonly assumed to be caused by differences in memory retrieval and search strategy. Accordingly, a mathematical model of semi-systematic search is proposed here that can account for both memory retrieval and other …

Analytical And Intelligent Techniques For Dynamically Secure Dispatches, Aftab Alam

All Dissertations

The NERC August 14th Blackout report brought out by the task force cited 'failure to ensure operation within secure limits' as one of the main reasons. Many of the numerous recommendations focused on the need for better real-time tools for operators and reliability coordinators. In the absence of such tools the operators are limited to operating in conservative secure operating regions established using offline studies. At the same time, with the fast inception of deregulation, the need to ensure a reliable and secure power system has become all the more vital. The success of a competitive market is dependent upon …

Information Flow To Support Front End Planning, Ryan George

All Dissertations

Previous research has demonstrated the value of front end planning as it impacts project performance. This dissertation summarizes the findings of a research project which examined ways to improve information flow through the front end planning process. The front end planning process was carefully diagrammed as consisting of 33 distinct information flow activities, each with its own information flow entities and interactions. Fifty-one questionnaire survey forms were analyzed to obtain data for the 33 information flow activities that included activity duration, resources expended, and other supplemental insights such as the extent of information availability. The 51 projects were then grouped …

Domination And Decomposition In Multiobjective Programming, Alexander Engau

All Dissertations

During the last few decades, multiobjective programming has received much attention for both its numerous theoretical advances as well as its continued success in modeling and solving real-life decision problems in business and engineering. In extension of the traditionally adopted concept of Pareto optimality, this research investigates the more general notion of domination and establishes various theoretical results that lead to new optimization methods and support decision making.
After a preparatory discussion of some preliminaries and a review of the relevant literature, several new findings are presented that characterize the nondominated set of a general vector optimization problem for which …

Intrusion Detection And Response Model For Mobile Ad Hoc Networks., Sathishkumar Alampalayam 1974-

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation presents a research whose objective is to design and develop an intrusion detection and response model for Mobile Ad hoc NETworks (MANET). Mobile ad hoc networks are infrastructure-free, pervasive and ubiquitous in nature, without any centralized authority. These unique MANET characteristics present several changes to secure them. The proposed security model is called the Intrusion Detection and Response for Mobile Ad hoc Networks (IDRMAN). The goal of the proposed model is to provide a security framework that will detect various attacks and take appropriate measures to control the attack automatically. This model is based on identifying critical system …

The Use Of Hinged External Fixation To Provide Additional Stabilization For Fractures Of The Distal Humerus, Christopher R. Deuel, Philip Wolinsky, Eric Shepherd, Scott Hazelwood

Biomedical Engineering

Objective: To assess improvements in fixation stability when a hinged unilateral external fixator is used to supplement compromised internal fixation for distal humerus fractures.

Methods: Removing a 1-cm section of the distal humerus in cadaveric whole-arm specimens created a comminuted distal humerus fracture model (AO type 13-A3). Fixation was then performed using different constructs representing optimal, compromised, or supplemented internal fixation. Internal fixation consisted of either 2 reconstruction plates with 1, 2, or 3 (optimal) distal attachment screws, or crossing medial and lateral cortical screws. A hinged external fixator was applied in combination with compromised internal fixation. The stability of …

Corn Stover Availability And Collection Efficiency Using Typical Hay Equipment, Robert M. Prewitt, Michael D. Montross, Scott A. Shearer, Timothy S. Stombaugh, Stephen F. Higgins, Samuel G. Mcneill, Shahab Sokhansanj

Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering Faculty Publications

Corn stover has been identified as a potential feedstock for the production of fermentable sugars and thermochemical processes. The availability and efficiency of typical hay equipment for collecting corn stover has not been well quantified. Corn stover was collected for two years on a central Kentucky farm near Louisville. Six different harvesting treatments, using traditional hay equipment, were used to harvest corn stover. A rotary mower, rotary scythe (flail-type mower with windrow-forming shields), parallel bar rake, and a round baler were utilized. The average stover moisture content prior to grain harvest was above 40%, and field drying was required before …

Commensurate Phases Of Gases Adsorbed On Carbon Nanotubes, Angela D. Lueking, W. Milton Cole

Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

A study is presented of the nature of ordered phases of various gases adsorbed on an isolated carbon nanotube. Because the spacing between neighboring adsorption sites depends on the tube's radius R, the equilibrium structure of the ground state is predicted to differ from that observed on planar graphite. Results for this structure are presented for the inert gases and hydrogen as a function of R for zigzag nanotubes.

A Study On The Application Of Thermoelectric Heat Pumps For Heating Applications, James Lincicome

Mechanical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Typically, thermoelectric heat pumps are used in cooling applications where space and portability are important, but they can be used efficiently in heating applications under the right conditions. This paper explains the origins of the thermoelectric heat pump, its applications in society, and the technical aspects of the device. The many different appurtenances that the device requires will be discussed along with their drawbacks. The single-stage data for the cells will be compared to the two-stage configuration data, and the data gathered for a specific thermoelectric device will be compared to the manufacturer's published data for the different configurations of …

Atomic Force Microscope Imaging Of Dna And Multi Walled Carbon Nanotubes, Jacob Hohnbaum

Mechanical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

The Micro and Nano System Laboratory at the University of Arkansas currently is equipped with an Atomic Force Microscope (AFM). This device can be used to measure objects with resolution on the nanometer scale, but there are a number of technical difficulties in performing scans of carbon nanotubes and DNA. The goal of this research is to successfully perform scans on both carbon nanotubes and DNA and to also establish laboratory processing protocols to re-perform such scans in the future. Previous works performed by other researchers in the laboratory provided basic protocols with which to begin the present research. These …

Design Of A Supersonic Wind Tunnel, Jay Pascual

Mechanical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

A supersonic wind tunnel was to be designed using the existing compressed air tank at the Mechanical Engineering building at the University of Arkansas. A throat area of 0.000375 m2 was used in the design process. The properties of the air were calculated using various Mach numbers. These results are used to determine if a wind tunnel of Mach numbers between one and five can be built at the University of Arkansas and can run for a sufficient amount of time. Also, the dimensions of the supersonic wind tunnel were calculated for these various Mach numbers.

Single-Phase Ac Impedance Modeling For Stability Of Integrated Power Systems, Jing Huang, Keith Corzine, M. Belkhayat

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

To date, the only power system stability requirement that can be decomposed or quantitatively "flowed" down to component design requirements are impedance based. Impedance based requirements have been advanced for both dc and three-phase ac but none for single-phase ac interfaces. What are ultimately needed are universal stability requirements that are applicable to dc, single-phase ac, and three-phase ac interfaces as well as a measurement tool which can be used to enforce the requirements at all interfaces without changing the fundamental structure of the impedance measurement device. These advanced techniques should be applicable to all voltage levels currently in use …

Accurate Macro-Modeling For Leakage Current For IDdq Test, Kyung Ki Kim, Yong-Bin Kim, Minsu Choi, Nohpill Park

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This paper proposes a new precise macro-modeling for leakage current in BSIM4 65nm technology considering subthreshold leakage, gate tunneling leakage, stack effect, and fanout effect. Using the accurate macro-model, a heuristic algorithm is developed to estimate the leakage power and generate input test pattern for minimum leakage. The algorithm applies to ISCAS85 benchmark circuits, and the results are compared with the results of Hspice. The experimental result shows that the leakage power estimation using our macro-model is within 5% difference when comparing to Hspice results.

The Use Of Accelerated Full-Wave Modeling To Analyze Power Island Coupling In A Hyperbga Scm, Jason Morsey, Alina Deutsch, J. P. Libous, C. Surovic, Barry J. Rubin, Lijun Jiang, L. Eisenberg

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Presented here are results and recommendations for reducing coupling between adjacent power islands based on full-wave simulations of a HyperBGA SCM (single-chip module). These simulations highlight the use of IBM's internally developed accelerated full-wave solver based on the precorrected fast Fourier transform approach. Speedups of 100 x and memory reductions of 12 x are shown for real engineering problems, as compared to direct integral equation solutions. © 2007 IEEE.

Bs News

Building Services Engineering

No abstract provided.

Generalized Characteristics Of Resonant Polymer-Coated Microcantilevers In Viscous Liquid Media, Russell Cox, Michael J. Wenzel, Fabien Josse, Stephen M. Heinrich, Isabelle Dufour

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

Expressions describing the resonant frequency and quality factor of a dynamically-driven, polymer-coated microcantilever in a viscous liquid medium have been obtained. These generalized formulas are used to describe the effects the operational medium and the coating has on the device sensitivity when used in liquid-phase chemical sensing applications. The derived expressions are shown to reduce to well-known formulas for the case of an uncoated cantilever in an invisicid [sic] medium and the case of a coated cantilever in air. The theoretical results are compared to existing chemical sensor data in aqueous and viscous solutions.

Soar Checkers - An Intelligent Checkers Playing Agent In Soar, Jithu Menon

All Theses

The classic board game of checkers is ideally suited for research in AI game-playing programs or agents. The objective behind Soar Checkers is to investigate if it is possible to create an agent-based game playing system that would beat novices with ease and at least challenge advanced novice to intermediate-level players by designing a rules-based expert system whose knowledge base consists of nothing more than the rules of checkers, and a set of guidelines for game-play based on good strategy. Soar was chosen as the platform for building this agent because it came built-in with features that facilitate creating rules-based …

Energy Absorption Of Sine Wave Beams Subjected To Axial Impact Loading, Robert Smith

All Theses

Energy absorbers ideally remove kinetic energy efficiently and reliably while minimizing force magnitudes felt on the moving body. Until now, energy absorber design has concentrated on thin-walled prismatic tubes and tapered tubes. Sine wave beams (SWB) have been previously investigated as energy absorbers under lateral impacting situations only. This thesis investigates the energy absorption of the SWB under axial impact. FE models simulated the energy absorbing response of the SWB. Parametric analyses were performed using the structure's thickness, the web amplitude, and the period number of the web. The SWB's performance is evaluated and then compared to the prismatic structures. …

Extrapolation Of Time And Frequency Responses Of Resonant Antennas Using Damped Sinusoids And Orthogonal Polynomials, James Frye

All Theses

An extrapolation technique is presented which reduces the computational demands of obtaining a wide-band electromagnetic response from a resonant antenna using traditional computational methods. It has been shown that a wide-band response can be extrapolated by fitting early-time and low-frequency data as a summation of orthogonal polynomials. However, because the polynomials provide compact time support, representation of long time responses intrinsic to resonant structures in practice proves inefficient and can lead to numerical instabilities. This thesis outlines incorporating damped sinusoids to efficiently and reliably extrapolate time and frequency responses of resonant antennas due to a wide-band source. A genetic algorithm …

Modeling Requirements Propagation To Generate Solutions For Minimizing Mass, Thulasiram Ezhilan

All Theses

This thesis investigates the issue of weight reduction in moderately complex systems by addressing how to cascade the requirements to the individual components. Though mass can be reduced using different techniques such as material substitution or structural optimization; a systematic method for allocating mass as a function of requirements is necessary to provide novel alternate solutions that enable reduction of mass of the system while satisfying the requirements and tests governing them. Such a method can be developed by exploring different aspects of achieving weight reduction through change propagation in the parameters/elements governing the system. Though efforts have been made …

Machinability And Microstructure Stability During The Machining Of Pure Copper And Titanium Processed By Equal Channel Angular Pressing, Mason Morehead

All Theses

For ultrafine grained materials (containing microstructures of 100-300 nm) to be manufactured and used in industry, machining research is needed to form and shape these materials into their final dimensions. Because of their high internal energy, UFG materials are known to have microstructures which are susceptible to undesirable changes at low temperatures. In this study, pure ultrafine grained copper and titanium as well as their respective coarse grained (CG) counterparts were tested for their relative machinability and microstructure stability through lathe turning. To evaluate the machinability cutting forces, tool wear, chip morphology, and surface roughness were studied using different cutting …

A Study Of Induced Drag And Spanwise Lift Distribution For Three-Dimensional Inviscid Flow Over A Wing, Scott Monsch

All Theses

Numerical results for an untwisted, finite rectangular wing (NACA 0012, AR = 6.7) using no flap deflections are compared against theoretical lifting line predictions. The numerical approach used an Euler-based computational fluid dynamic (CFD) solver. A span-wise lift distribution was extracted from the CFD solution. The comparison between the predicted numerical and lifting-line span-wise lift distributions shows good agreement with a maximum deviation of only 2.4% over the wing span.
The induced drag was extracted from the downstream wake using a wake integral technique referred to as Trefftz plane analysis. The predictions for induced drag based on surface integration, wake …

On The Effects Of Estimation Error And Jitter In Ultra-Wideband Communication , Greta Grizzard

All Theses

The opening of the 3.6 - 10.1 GHz frequency spectrum below the 'noise-floor' by the FCC in 2002 has made possible the prospect of reusing this frequency spectrum through ultra-wideband (UWB) communication. In this thesis, we compare the performance of several UWB systems in the presence of estimation error and jitter. We then develop two alternative decision schemes to combat the effect of jitter in the UWB system. Numerical results show that one of the schemes provides significantly better performance in the presence of severe jitter than maximal ratio combining and minimal degradation of performance if jitter is not present. …

Effects Of Ionizing Radiaton On Diaphyseal Cortical Bone, Neil Travis

All Theses

Radiation exposure is experienced in both radiotherapy and exploratory space missions. As cancer treatments improve and astronauts aim to explore beyond low earth, radiation's effects on bone must be clearly understood. Nine-week old female C57BL/6 mice were evaluated for cortical bone changes by mechanical testing, micro-computed tomography, quantitative histomorphometry, percent mineralization and micro-hardness indentation. Study one, Multi-Type study, mice received a 2 Gray (Gy) gamma, proton, iron and carbon whole body radiation dose and sacrificed 110 days post-exposure. Study two, High-Dose study, mice received a 7 Gy gamma radiation whole body dose and sacrificed 14 days post-exposure. Neither study revealed …

Using Cross-Sectioned Multilayer Polymer Film And Surface Modification To Form Chemically Patterned Substrates , Chun Zhang

All Dissertations

Highly layered structures are important to micro- and nanofabrication technologies for understanding and controlling surface structures through manipulation of chemical and physical interactions. The objective of this work was to develop a new approach to create micro- and nanopatterned surfaces using multilayer polymer films of commercially available and inexpensive polymers instead of inorganic substrates. As an example, linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) and ethylene-co-acrylic acid copolymer (EAA) were used as alternating inert and reactive polymers, respectively. Thin cross-sections of the multilayer molded sheets were prepared by ultra-microtoming.
As a precursor to the multilayer work, surface modification of EAA was conducted …