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2010

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Articles 2581 - 2610 of 5382

Full-Text Articles in Engineering

'Transfer Effect Study Of A Virtual Borescope In Training Aircraft Maintenance Technicians', Melissa Dorlette Paul May 2010

'Transfer Effect Study Of A Virtual Borescope In Training Aircraft Maintenance Technicians', Melissa Dorlette Paul

All Theses

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has acknowledged training as an important tactic to improve the trustworthiness of inspection. This study was conducted to test the transfer of the skills learned with a simulator into the real world. For this purpose, data from seventeen students in the AMT program of Greenville Technical College was analyzed. Objective data was taken to assess the group's performance on the simulator after each session of training. The comparison between two groups was made using objective data, collected while the subjects went through a test on a real engine and using the real borescope, and subjective …

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Electrokinetic Manipulation Of Particles And Cells In Microfluidic Devices, Christopher Church May 2010

Electrokinetic Manipulation Of Particles And Cells In Microfluidic Devices, Christopher Church

All Theses

With the recent advancement in micro-fabrication technology, lab-on-a-chip devices have been developed in order to perform biological analysis through cell manipulation. Microchannels used in these lab-on-a-chip devices have been demonstrated to accurately perform many different cell manipulation techniques such as focusing, separation, trapping, and lysis. Although there are many methods available for these techniques, electrokinetics has been rapidly gaining popularity due to the simplicity of application and removal of the need for in channel micro-structures. This thesis studies the use of electrokinetic flow and accompanying phenomena in various structured microchannels to perform focusing, separation, trapping, and lysis of cells. Three …

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A Comparison Of Small Scale Laboratory Experiments With The Environmetnal Protection Agency Reccomended Dense Gas Dispersion Models: An Assessment Of The Validity Of Salt Bath Modeling Of Atmospheric Flows, Katie Betz May 2010

A Comparison Of Small Scale Laboratory Experiments With The Environmetnal Protection Agency Reccomended Dense Gas Dispersion Models: An Assessment Of The Validity Of Salt Bath Modeling Of Atmospheric Flows, Katie Betz

All Theses

Accurate dense gas dispersion modeling is important in a number of fields from modeling smoke movement in a room to the spreading of dense toxic gas releases such as resulted from the Chlorine spill in Graniteville, SC in 2005. To this end, a series of small scale laboratory experiments using instantaneous releases of a cylindrical, finite volume of dense salt water were performed. In the experiments, the horizontal spread of the dense liquid over a flat surface(i.e. gravity current front position over time) was measured.
The results of these small scale experiments were compared to two dense gas dispersion models …

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Liquefaction Analysis Of Three Pleistocene Sand Deposits That Did Not Liquefy During The 1886 Charleston, South Carolina Earthquake Based On Shear Wave Velocity And Penetration Resistance, Aaron Geiger May 2010

Liquefaction Analysis Of Three Pleistocene Sand Deposits That Did Not Liquefy During The 1886 Charleston, South Carolina Earthquake Based On Shear Wave Velocity And Penetration Resistance, Aaron Geiger

All Theses

The results of geotechnical investigations at three sites located in the South Carolina Coastal Plain are presented in this thesis. The three sites are called the Hobcaw Barony Borrow Pit site located near Georgetown, SC; the Rest Area Ponds site near Walterboro, SC; and the Lowcountry Sand & Gravel site, also near Walterboro. Near-surface sand deposits at these sites ranged in geologic age from 200,000 to greater than 1,000,000 years. These three sites lie well outside the region of most liquefaction effects observed following the 1886 Charleston earthquake. Investigations conducted at the sites include seismic cone penetration tests with pore …

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Traffic Analysis Of Anonymity Systems, Ryan Craven May 2010

Traffic Analysis Of Anonymity Systems, Ryan Craven

All Theses

This research applies statistical methods in pattern recognition to test the privacy capabilities of a very popular anonymity tool used on the Internet known as Tor.
Using a recently developed algorithm known as Causal State Splitting and Reconstruction (CSSR), we can create hidden Markov models of network processes proxied through Tor. In contrast to other techniques, our CSSR extensions create a minimum entropy model without any prior knowledge of the underlying state structure. The inter-packet time delays of the network process, preserved by Tor, can be symbolized into ranges and used to construct the models.
After the construction of training …

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An Assessment Of Linear Wrist Motion During The Taking Of A Bite Of Food, Meredith Drennan May 2010

An Assessment Of Linear Wrist Motion During The Taking Of A Bite Of Food, Meredith Drennan

All Theses

Motivated by the goal of building a device capable of detecting when a user takes a bite of food, we examine whether there is a correlation between linear wrist motion and bite detection. Such a device could be used to manage weight loss by tracking eating trends over time and providing real time feedback to the user regarding eating rate or total consumption. A comprehensive analysis of tracking linear motion using low cost inertial sensors is presented. Based on this theory, we discuss the design and tracking accuracy of a prototype bite counting device. We show that tracking position using …

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Acceleration Of Biomolecular Simulations Using Fpga-Based Reconfigurable Computing, Ananth Nallamuthu May 2010

Acceleration Of Biomolecular Simulations Using Fpga-Based Reconfigurable Computing, Ananth Nallamuthu

All Theses

A paradigm shift is occurring in the way compute-intensive scientific applications are developed. Thanks to advancements in commercially viable hybrid architectures for High-Performance Computing (HPC), the focus has shifted from improving performance by merely scaling algorithms on von Neumann computing nodes to fully exploiting additional computational capabilities provided by accelerators such as FPGAs (Field Programmable Gate Arrays) and GPGPUs (General Purpose Graphical Processing Units).
Computational chemists use Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulations like LAMMPS (Large Scale Atomic Molecular Massively Parallel Systems) and NAMD (NAnoscale Molecular Dynamics) to simulate biomolecular behaviour such as protein folding and small molecule docking to proteins. MD …

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Interpretability Analysis Of Function Structures At Various Levels Of Abstraction: A User Study, Jonathan Thomas May 2010

Interpretability Analysis Of Function Structures At Various Levels Of Abstraction: A User Study, Jonathan Thomas

All Theses

Function models are used during the conceptual design phase of the design process to model the intended use or objective of a product, independent of the products physical form. Function models also aid in guiding design activities such as generating concepts and allocating design team resources. Recent research efforts have focused on the formalization of functional models through a controlled vocabulary and archival of functional representations in computer-based repositories. However, the usefulness and interpretability of these function models has not been rigorously evaluated.
This thesis presents the results of two controlled user studies to ascertain the interpretability of functional representations …

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The Great Teakon: A 3d Video Game, Chad Cable May 2010

The Great Teakon: A 3d Video Game, Chad Cable

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

The Great Teakon is an experimental 3D video game that uses gameplay as a narrative device. Players take charge of Charles Teakon, a rising film star, during the silent film era in the early 1900ʼs. But when Charles breaks his leg on set, heʼs forced into retirement and obscurity. After a 30 year hiatus, he decides to return to the film world and complete his unfinished movie. ! As the protagonist ages, so will the players - not only is this reflected in the physicality of the characters, landscape, and architecture, but the actual mechanics for interacting with the virtual …

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Waste To Work Using Eccrine Sweat Battery Modules To Enhance Pedestrian Safety, Lauren J. Vesty May 2010

Waste To Work Using Eccrine Sweat Battery Modules To Enhance Pedestrian Safety, Lauren J. Vesty

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

There is a need for increased pedestrian visibility. Improved athletic clothing with built in visibility features would enhance a roadside athlete’s safety. This experiment aims to create such an athletic shirt, while incorporating wearable biotechnology. A sweat battery that produced a voltage of 0.49 V and a current of 5.16 mA was created to power the visibility aspects of the shirt. The battery uses an aluminum anode, a carbon cathode, a sponge block as the container and semi-permeable membrane, and the body’s eccrine sweat as the electrolyte solution. The battery cells were arranged into blocks to produce an optimal current …

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Hydrogen Separation Membranes, University Of North Dakota. Energy And Environmental Research Center May 2010

Hydrogen Separation Membranes, University Of North Dakota. Energy And Environmental Research Center

EERC Brochures and Fact Sheets

Technical brief describing hydrogen separation membranes and their potential to reduce cost of hydrogen production and CO2 separation. Outlines membrane types, commercially available membranes, and new technological developments. [This item is an outdated or superseded version and retained for historical purposes only. It may no longer reflect current information, policies, or practices.]

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Standby Leakage Power Reduction Technique For Nanoscale Cmos Vlsi Systems, Heungjun Jeon, Yong-Bin Kim, Minsu Choi May 2010

Standby Leakage Power Reduction Technique For Nanoscale Cmos Vlsi Systems, Heungjun Jeon, Yong-Bin Kim, Minsu Choi

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In this paper, a novel low-power design technique is proposed to minimize the standby leakage power in nanoscale CMOS very large scale integration (VLSI) systems by generating the adaptive optimal reverse body-bias voltage. The adaptive optimal body-bias voltage is generated from the proposed leakage monitoring circuit, which compares the subthreshold current (ISUB) and the band-to-band tunneling (BTBT) current (IBTBT). The proposed circuit was simulated in HSPICE using 32-nm bulk CMOS technology and evaluated using ISCAS85 benchmark circuits at different operating temperatures (ranging from 25°C to 100°C). Analysis of the results shows a maximum of 551 and …

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Evaluation Of In-Situ Stiffness Of Subgrade By Resilient And Fwd Modulus, Daehyeon Kim, Yigong Ji, Nayyar Zia Siddiki May 2010

Evaluation Of In-Situ Stiffness Of Subgrade By Resilient And Fwd Modulus, Daehyeon Kim, Yigong Ji, Nayyar Zia Siddiki

JTRP Technical Reports

Resilient modulus has been used for characterizing the stress-strain behavior of subgrade soils subjected to traffic loadings in the design of pavements. With the recent release of the M-E Pavement Design Guide, highway agencies are further encouraged to implement the resilient modulus test to improve subgrade design. A laboratory resilient modus test and a FWD test are usually used to obtain the resilient modulus of subgrade. However, the difference in the resilient modulus obtained from these two methods is considerably large due to the fact that these tests are conducted under different conditions. This difference gives engineers a significant confusion …

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Travel Time Reliability In Indiana, Maria Martchouk, Fred L. Mannering, Lakhwinder Singh May 2010

Travel Time Reliability In Indiana, Maria Martchouk, Fred L. Mannering, Lakhwinder Singh

JTRP Technical Reports

Travel time and travel time reliability are important performance measures for assessing traffic condition and extent of congestion on a roadway. This study first uses a floating car technique to assess travel time and travel time reliability on a number of Indiana highways. Then the study goes on to describe the use of Bluetooth technology to collect real travel time data on a freeway and applies it to obtain two weeks of data on Interstate 69 in Indianapolis. An autoregressive model, estimated based on the collected data, is then proposed to predict individual vehicle travel times on a freeway segment. …

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System Modeling And Power Management Strategy For A Series Hydraulic Hybrid Vehicle, Sisay Molla May 2010

System Modeling And Power Management Strategy For A Series Hydraulic Hybrid Vehicle, Sisay Molla

All Theses

A hydraulic hybrid vehicle draws propulsion power from an internal combustion engine as its prime mover and a gas-charged hydro-pneumatic accumulator as its energy buffer. The accumulator serves the purposes of storing regenerated braking energy and supplementing engine power as determined by an on-board power management strategy. In the configuration known as a series hydraulic hybrid powertrain, the engine is mechanically decoupled from the vehicle's wheels thereby offering excellent opportunities for maximizing energy efficiency and reducing pollutant emissions.
This thesis dealt with the development of a causally interconnected, non-linear, dynamic model of a series hydraulic hybrid powertrain featuring independently controllable …

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Flying Blanket, Keane Daquioag, Ryan Grable, Eric Reynolds, Kaitlin Spak May 2010

Flying Blanket, Keane Daquioag, Ryan Grable, Eric Reynolds, Kaitlin Spak

Mechanical Engineering

This report contains the design plan for PolyNet Design’s Senior Design Project. The PolyNet Design team comprises four mechanical engineering seniors who created a prototype for Raytheon Missile Systems. The overall goal of this project was to create a system that will launch a blanket from a packaged and folded state to an unfurled state and then securely wrap the blanket around a target. The team began with five initial concepts, and chose the Four-Rod model as their first construction concept. Construction of the Four Rod model evolved through several design iterations. The team tested the final prototype extensively, using …

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Cal Poly Sit Ski: Final Report, Marc Bergreen, David Bydalek, Ross Gompertz May 2010

Cal Poly Sit Ski: Final Report, Marc Bergreen, David Bydalek, Ross Gompertz

Mechanical Engineering

The purpose of this project was to design, build, and test a Sit Ski for the US Adaptive Ski Team. The design is for Mr. Marlon Shepard, a new competitor on the Ski Team, who is in need of a new racing sit ski. Some of the top design priorities include reduced weight, increased rider comfort, and increased durability over existing designs. With these design considerations in mind, our team from Cal Poly designed, built and tested a cross country sit ski in June 2010 at the mechanical engineering senior project expo. The project was sponsored by a National Science …

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Vehicle Steering Systems - Hardware-In-The-Loop Simulator, Driving Preferences, And Vehicle Intervention, Jesse Black May 2010

Vehicle Steering Systems - Hardware-In-The-Loop Simulator, Driving Preferences, And Vehicle Intervention, Jesse Black

All Dissertations

The steering system is a critical component of all ground vehicles regardless of their propulsion source. Chassis directional control is provided by the steering system, which in turn relays valuable feedback about the road and vehicle behavior. As the primary feedback channel to the driver, the steering system also delivers the initial perception of a vehicle's handling and responsiveness to the consumer. Consequently, the steering system is an important aspect of the vehicle's evaluation and purchasing process, even if drivers are unaware of its direct influence in their decision making. With automobile purchases potentially hinging on the steering system, a …

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Cross-Layer Scheduling Protocols For Mobile Ad Hoc Networks Using Adaptive Direct-Sequence Spread-Spectrum Modulation, Brian Wolf May 2010

Cross-Layer Scheduling Protocols For Mobile Ad Hoc Networks Using Adaptive Direct-Sequence Spread-Spectrum Modulation, Brian Wolf

All Dissertations

We investigate strategies to improve the performance of transmission schedules for mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) employing adaptive direct-sequence spread-spectrum (DSSS) modulation. Previously, scheduling protocols for MANETs have been designed under the assumption of an idealized, narrowband wireless channel. These protocols perform poorly when the channel model incorporates distance-based path loss and co-channel interference. Wideband communication systems, such as DSSS systems, are more robust in the presence of co-channel interference; however, DSSS also provides multiple-access capability that cannot be properly leveraged with a protocol designed for narrowband systems. We present a new transmission scheduling protocol that incorporates link characteristics, spreading …

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Microstructural Evolution Of Nickel During Spark Plasma Sintering, Matthew Thomas Luke May 2010

Microstructural Evolution Of Nickel During Spark Plasma Sintering, Matthew Thomas Luke

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Spark plasma sintering (SPS) is reported to produce materials with properties superior to those that result from conventional processing techniques. Spark plasma sintering is also reported to process materials at lower temperatures and in a shorter time than other processes, which may facilitate the synthesis of materials that are traditionally difficult to process. While the properties of materials that result from SPS processing have been studied, there is not a thorough understanding of the evolution of the microstructure in response to SPS process parameters. A comparison of the microstructure of nickel produced by SPS at varying ramp rate, temperature, dwell …

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Nutrient Utilization From Anaerobic Digester Effluent Through Algae Cultivation, Shantanu Wahal May 2010

Nutrient Utilization From Anaerobic Digester Effluent Through Algae Cultivation, Shantanu Wahal

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Nutrients present in digested animal waste can be utilized for algae cultivation under suitable conditions. Algal growth, however, depends on the chemical forms and speciation of these nutrients. In this study a chemical equilibrium model was first used to describe nutrient speciation and predict conditions that enhance the solubility of nutrients in anaerobic digester effluent. Dilution with water and separation of large particulates greatly improved nutrient availability and light penetration - conditions favorable for algal cultivation. Algae growth was tested using three strains - Scenedesmus dimorphous (UTEX # 417), Chlorella vulgaris (UTEX# 265), and an algal isolate (designated as LLAI …

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Optimal Sensing And Actuation Policies For Networked Mobile Agents In A Class Of Cyber-Physical Systems, Christophe Tricaud May 2010

Optimal Sensing And Actuation Policies For Networked Mobile Agents In A Class Of Cyber-Physical Systems, Christophe Tricaud

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The main purpose of this dissertation is to define and solve problems on optimal sensing and actuating policies in Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs). Cyber-physical system is a term that was introduced recently to define the increasing complexity of the interactions between computational hardwares and their physical environments. The problem of designing the "cyber'' part may not be trivial but can be solved from scratch. However, the "physical'' part, usually a natural physical process, is inherently given and has to be identified in order to propose an appropriate "cyber'' part to be adopted. Therefore, one of the first steps in designing a …

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A Synthetic Biological Engineering Approach To Secretion- Based Recovery Of Polyhydroxyalkanoates And Other Cellular Products, Elisabeth Linton May 2010

A Synthetic Biological Engineering Approach To Secretion- Based Recovery Of Polyhydroxyalkanoates And Other Cellular Products, Elisabeth Linton

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The costs associated with cellular product recovery commonly account for as much as 80% of the total production expense. As a specific example, significant recovery costs limit commercial use of polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA), which comprise a class of microbially-accumulated polyesters. PHAs are biodegradable compounds that are of interest as a sustainable alternative to petrochemically-derived plastics. Secretion-based recovery of PHAs was studied to decrease PHA production costs. Type I and II secretory pathways are commonly used for the translocation of recombinant proteins out of the cytoplasm of E. coli. Proteins were targeted for translocation using four signal peptides (HlyA, TorA, GeneIII, …

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Improved Framework For Fast And Efficient Memory-Based Frame Data Reconfiguration For Multi-Row Spanning Designs On Field Programmable Gate Arrays, Rohan Sreeram May 2010

Improved Framework For Fast And Efficient Memory-Based Frame Data Reconfiguration For Multi-Row Spanning Designs On Field Programmable Gate Arrays, Rohan Sreeram

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Reconfigurable computing is an evolving paradigm in computer architecture where the ability to load different designs onto a field programmable gate array (FPGA) at execution time has proven useful in adapting FPGA prototypes to a wide range of applications. Reconfiguration techniques can be primarily categorized as Partial Dynamic Reconfiguration (PDR) and Partial Bitstream Relocation (PBR). PDR involves reconfiguring a single Partial Reconfiguration Region (PRR) with a partial bitstream, while PBR is targeted at reconfiguring multiple PRRs on the FPGA with a partial bitstream. Previous techniques have primarily focused on using either slower off-chip memory or on-chip memory-based solutions to store …

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Minimum Symbol Error Rate Timing Recovery System, Nagendra Bage Jayaraj May 2010

Minimum Symbol Error Rate Timing Recovery System, Nagendra Bage Jayaraj

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This thesis presents a timing error detector (TED) used in the symbol timing synchronization subsystem for digital communications. The new timing error detector is designed to minimize the probability of symbol decision error, and it is called minimum symbol error rate TED (MSERTED). The new TED resembles the TED derived using the maximum likelihood (ML) criterion but gives rise to faster convergence relative to MLTED. The new TED requires shorter training sequences for symbol timing recovery. The TED operates on the outputs of the matched filter and estimates the timing offset. The S-curve is used as a tool for analyzing …

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Effects Of Temperature And Humidity On Glass-Reinforced Nylon Rotating Bands, Marc D. Raby May 2010

Effects Of Temperature And Humidity On Glass-Reinforced Nylon Rotating Bands, Marc D. Raby

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Certain 30mm munitions used in various military applications are configured with a glass-reinforced nylon band that acts as a firing ring or rotating band. The purpose of this research is to investigate whether storage environments compromise the strength and integrity of the glass-reinforced nylon rotating bands by researching the environmental factors that will degrade nylon and by performing tests to investigate if these factors will embrittle nylon composites. Moisture and temperature are found to be the environmental factors that will have an effect on the rotating bands in their respective storage environments. Absorbed moisture is found to increase the impact …

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A Finite Domain Constraint Approach For Placement And Routing Of Coarse-Grained Reconfigurable Architectures, Rohit Saraswat May 2010

A Finite Domain Constraint Approach For Placement And Routing Of Coarse-Grained Reconfigurable Architectures, Rohit Saraswat

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Scheduling, placement, and routing are important steps in Very Large Scale Integration (VLSI) design. Researchers have developed numerous techniques to solve placement and routing problems. As the complexity of Application Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs) increased over the past decades, so did the demand for improved place and route techniques. The primary objective of these place and route approaches has typically been wirelength minimization due to its impact on signal delay and design performance. With the advent of Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs), the same place and route techniques were applied to FPGA-based design. However, traditional place and route techniques may …

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Experiment And Simulation On The Dynamics Of A Slug Of Liquid Oxygen Displaced By A Pulsed Magnetic Field, Jeffrey C. Boulware May 2010

Experiment And Simulation On The Dynamics Of A Slug Of Liquid Oxygen Displaced By A Pulsed Magnetic Field, Jeffrey C. Boulware

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

A magnetic fluid system could potentially replace mechanically moving parts in a satellite as a means of increasing system reliability and mission lifetime, but rather than a standard ferrofluid with magnetic particles, liquid oxygen (LOX) may be a more adequate working fluid. As a pure paramagnetic cryogen, LOX is already heavily used in space, but still requires basic research before being integrated into system development. The objectives of the research conducted were to verify LOX as a magnetic working fluid through experiment and establish a theoretical model to describe its behavior. This dissertation presents the theoretical, experimental, and numerical results …

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Metamaterial-Inspired Miniaturized Multi-Band Microwave Filters And Power Dividers, Alper Genc May 2010

Metamaterial-Inspired Miniaturized Multi-Band Microwave Filters And Power Dividers, Alper Genc

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Integration of more communication standards in one microwave wireless device created a demand on developing compact, low-cost, and robust multi-band microwave components. This dissertation presents three studies for designing miniaturized and multi-band circuits that can be used for multi-band radio frequency (RF) front-ends. These three studies are the design of dual-band and tunable bandpass filters as well as dual- and triple-band equal-split power dividers/combiners. The dual-band filter is based on split ring resonators and double slit complemantary split ring resonators. A dual-band prototype three-stage Chebyshev filter, with a fractional bandwidth of 2% at 0.9 GHz and a fractional bandwidth of …

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Bio-Inspired Distributed Constrained Optimization Technique And Its Application In Dynamic Thermal Management, Saranya Chandrasekaran May 2010

Bio-Inspired Distributed Constrained Optimization Technique And Its Application In Dynamic Thermal Management, Saranya Chandrasekaran

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The stomatal network in plants is a well-characterized biological system that hypothetically solves the constrained optimization problem of maximizing CO2 uptake from the air while constraining evaporative water loss during the process of photosynthesis. There are numerous such constrained optimization problems present in the real world as well as in computer science. This thesis work attempts to solve one such constrained optimization problem in a distributed manner by taking a cue from the dynamics of stomatal networks. The problem considered here is Dynamic Thermal Management (DTM) in a multi-processing element system in computing. There have been several approaches in …

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