Engineering Commons^™

Soft-Error Resilient On-Chip Memory Structures, Shuai Wang

Dissertations

Soft errors induced by energetic particle strikes in on-chip memory structures, such as L1 data/instruction caches and register files, have become an increasing challenge in designing new generation reliable microprocessors. Due to their transient/random nature, soft errors cannot be captured by traditional verification and testing process due to the irrelevancy to the correctness of the logic. This dissertation is thus focusing on the reliability characterization and cost-effective reliable design of on-chip memories against soft errors.

Due to various performance, area/size, and energy constraints in various target systems, many existing unoptimized protection schemes on cache memories may eventually prove significantly inadequate …

Adaptive Trust And Reputation System As A Security Service In Group Communications, Pitipatana Sakarindr

Dissertations

Group communications has been facilitating many emerging applications which require packet delivery from one or more sender(s) to multiple receivers. Owing to the multicasting and broadcasting nature, group communications are susceptible to various kinds of attacks. Though a number of proposals have been reported to secure group communications, provisioning security in group communications remains a critical and challenging issue.

This work first presents a survey on recent advances in security requirements and services in group communications in wireless and wired networks, and discusses challenges in designing secure group communications in these networks. Effective security services to secure group communications are …

Synthesis And Characterization Of Metal Oxide Semiconductors For Photoelectrochemical Hydrogen Production, Sudhakar Shet

Dissertations

The goal of this thesis is to investigate the properties of metal-oxide thin films on fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO)-coated glass substrates, prepared by using radio- frequency (RF) reactive magnetron sputtering for photoelectrochemical (PEC) applications. Metal-oxide thin films as a photoelectrode are of special interest for PEC systems to produce hydrogen in an aqueous solution by solar energy due to their low cost and potential stability.

The following list represents some of the accomplishments and results of this work:

• Narrowing of N-incorporated ZnO (ZnO:N) was achieved by reactive sputtering in a O₂/N₂ mixture ambient, and ZnO:N films with …

Generalized Discrete Fourier Transform With Non-Linear Phase : Theory And Design, Handan Agirman-Tosun

Dissertations

Constant modulus transforms like discrete Fourier transform (DFT), Walsh transform, and Gold codes have been successfully used over several decades in various engineering applications, including discrete multi-tone (DMT), orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) and code division multiple access (CDMA) communications systems. Among these popular transforms, DFT is a linear phase transform and widely used in multicarrier communications due to its performance and fast algorithms. In this thesis, a theoretical framework for Generalized DFT (GDFT) with nonlinear phase exploiting the phase space is developed. It is shown that GDFT offers sizable correlation improvements over DFT, Walsh, and Gold codes. Brute force …

Motion Coordination And Control In The Development Of A Gait Rehabilitation System, Yazan Ahmad Manna

Dissertations

While most take their ability to walk for granted, some are unable to walk due to any number of pathologies, such as traumatic brain injury (TBI), spinal cord injury (SCI), and Parkinson's disease. Decreased activity has been shown to be associated with rapidly deconditioning. Rehabilitation techniques that afford patients the ability to begin reconditioning through walking sooner may ultimately enhance their return to a better quality of life. To assist the functional recovery of such patients, an appropriate afferent input to the spinal cord will help in the therapy of the patient. Manual training is labor intensive, costly, and ergonomically …

Advanced Classification Of Ofdm And Mimo Signals With Enhanced Second Order Cyclostationarity Detection, Miao Shi

Dissertations

With the emergence of cognitive radio and the introduction of new modulation techniques such as OFDM and MIMO, the problem of Modulation Classification (MC) becomes more challenging and complicated. In the first part of the thesis, we explore the automatic modulation classification to blindly distinguish OFDM from single carrier signals. We use the fourth order cumulants; an approach which in the past has been also applied to classify single carrier signals. A blind OFDM parameter estimation scheme was then followed, which includes the estimation of number of subcarriers, CP length, timing and frequency offset and the oversampling factor for the …

Making Sense Of Software Development And Personality Types, Luiz Fernando Capretz, Faheem Ahmed Dr.

Electrical and Computer Engineering Publications

No abstract provided.

A Fpga/Dsp Design For Real-Time Fracture Detection Using Low Transient Pulse, Akash Mathur

Theses

This work presents the hardware and software architecture for the detection of fractures and edges in materials. While the detection method is based on the novel concept of Low Transient Pulse (LTP), the overall system implementation is based on two digital microelectronics technologies widely used for signal processing: Digital Signal Processor (DSP) and Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA). Under the proposed architecture, the DSP carries out the analysis of the received baseband signal at a lower rate and hence can be used for large number of signal channels. The FPGA's master clock runs at a higher frequency (62.5MHz) for the …

Stiffness Of Vascular Smooth Muscle Cells From Aged Primates Measured Using Reconstituted Tissue Model, Shilpa Nagendra

Theses

Increased stiffness of the aorta is an important detrimental change that occurs with aging. Most previous research has implicated stiffening of the extracellular collagen matrix with age. The study reported in this thesis focused instead on the potential contribution from stiffening of the vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) with age.

VSMCs previously obtained from young and old monkeys (macaca fascicularis) were seeded into a collagen gel to form a reconstituted tissue. The aim of this study was to quantitatively characterize the mechanical properties of this reconstituted tissue model via uniaxially stretching each ring to defined levels of strain. The total …

Development Of A Device For Whole Body Stimulation Of The Otoliths, Jon Edward Weimer

Theses

Over the past few decades, research has been conducted to explore the effects of microgravity on human musculature, As seen in astronauts upon their return to Earth after prolonged spaceflight, extensive muscle atrophy due to adaptation to conditions of microgravity many times decreases a person's ability to walk or even stand, With an understanding of the anatomical mechanisms that provide postural control, the proper stimulation, resulting in a reduction in spasticity, could be provided by simulating these conditions of microgravity.

In order to simulate microgravity, a device has been developed that is capable of providing whole body stimulation of the …

Sparse Representation For Audio Noise Removal Using Zero-Zone Quantizers, Neha Mittal

Theses

In zero zone quantization, bins around zero are quantized to a zero value. This kind of quantization can be applied on orthogonal transforms to remove the unwanted or redundant signal. Transforms reveal structures and properties of a signal and hence careful application of a zero zone over the transform coefficients leads to noise removal. In this thesis, such quantizers are applied over Discrete Fourier Transform and Karhunen Loeve Transform coefficients separately, and outputs compared. Further, the localization of the zero zones to certain frequencies leads to better performance in terms of noise removal. PEAQ (Perceptual Evaluation of Audio Quality) scores …

A Comparative Analysis Of Haptic And Eeg Devices For Evaluation And Training Of Post-Stroke Patients Within A Virtual Environment, Gregory Nicholas Ranky

Theses

Virtual Rehabilitation benefits from the usage of interfaces other than the mouse and keyboard, but also possess disadvantages: haptic peripherals can utilize the subject's hand to provide position information or joint angles, and allow direct training for specific movements; but can also place unneeded strain on the limbs; brain-machine interfaces (BMI) can provide direct connections from the user to external hardware or software, but are currently inaccurate for the full diversity of user movements in daily life and require invasive surgery to implement. A compromise between these two extremes is a BMI that can be adapted to specific users, can …

Life Cycle Greenhouse Gas Emissions From Biofuels: Variability, Uncertainty, And Steps Toward Accurate Regulation, Adam J. Liska, Bruce E. Dale

Adam Liska Papers

a)Variability in life cycle greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from corn-ethanol:
biorefineries
cropping systems
co-product feeding to livestock

b) EPA regulation of life cycle GHG emissions from biofuels & use of life cycle analysis (LCA):
uncertainties & inaccuracies
indirect effects

c) Building accurate knowledge infrastructure, theory, and research teams for accurate LCA methods for biofuels

Miniature Ceramic Pifa For Uwb Band Group 3 And 6, David Kearney, Matthias John, Max Ammann

Articles

A ceramic chip planar inverted-F antenna (PIFA) is proposed for integration into a mobile handset providing UWB functionality across band groups 3 and 6. The antenna design exhibits a total efficiency of greater than 50% across the entire 6.39 GHz bandwidth while maintaining a very small volume of 57.6 mm^3 . The antenna uses a combination of the normal PIFA resonance and a second resonance due to the ceramic block to achieve a broad ultrawideband (UWB) bandwidth.

High-Speed Concatenation Of Frequency Ramps Using Sampled Grating Distributed Bragg Reflector Laser Diode Sources For Oct Resolution Enhancement, Brandon George, Dennis J. Derickson

Electrical Engineering

Brandon George and Dennis Derickson California Polytechnic State Univ. (USA) Wavelength tunable sampled grating distributed Bragg reflector (SG-DBR) lasers used for telecommunications applications have previously demonstrated the ability for linear frequency ramps covering the entire tuning range of the laser at 100 kHz repetition rates1. An individual SG-DBR laser has a typical tuning range of 50 nm. The InGaAs/InP material system often used with SG-DBR lasers allows for design variations that cover the 1250 to 1650 nm wavelength range. This paper addresses the possibility of concatenating the outputs of tunable SGDBR lasers covering adjacent wavelength ranges for enhancing the resolution …

Modeling The Combined Effect Of Surface Roughness And Shear Rate On Slip Flow Of Simple Fluids, Nikolai V. Priezjev, Anoosheh Niavarani

Mechanical and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications

Molecular dynamics (MD) and continuum simulations are carried out to investigate the influence of shear rate and surface roughness on slip flow of a Newtonian fluid. For weak wall-fluid interaction energy, the nonlinear shear-rate dependence of the intrinsic slip length in the flow over an atomically flat surface is computed by MD simulations. We describe laminar flow away from a curved boundary by means of the effective slip length defined with respect to the mean height of the surface roughness. Both the magnitude of the effective slip length and the slope of its rate-dependence are significantly reduced in the presence …

Finite Tree-Based Decoding Of Low-Density Parity-Check Codes, Eric T. Psota

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Low-density parity-check codes are commonly decoded using iterative message-passing decoders, such as the min-sum and sum-product decoders. Computer simulations demonstrate that these suboptimal decoders are capable of achieving low probability of bit error at signal-to-noise ratios close to capacity. However, current methods for analyzing the behavior of the min-sum and sum-product decoders fails to produce usable bounds on the probability of bit error. Thus, the resulting probability of bit error when using these decoders remains largely unknown for signal-to-noise ratios beyond the reach of simulation. For this reason, it is worth considering alternative methods for decoding low-density parity-check codes. New …

A Multi-Variable Analysis Of Transient Near-Wall Haemodynamics In A Stented Coronary Artery, Jonathan Murphy, Fergal Boyle

Conference Papers

No abstract provided.

A Historical Look At The Av-8 Harrier Program, Bill O'Hara

ERAU Prescott Aviation History Program

Hear the inside story of one of the most controversial airplanes ever introduced to Naval Aviation, as told by a Marine pilot with more than 3,000 hours in the Harrier. Bill (Prof) O’Hara, was also the real pilot in the movie “True Lies” with Arnold Schwarzenegger!

Relating Electrophotographic Printing Model And Is013660 Standard Attributes, Elisa H. Barney Smith

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

A mathematical model of the electrophotographic printing process has been developed. This model can be used for analysis. From this a print simulation process has been developed to simulate the effects of the model components on toner particle placement. A wide variety of simulated prints are produced from the model's three main inputs, laser spread, charge to toner proportionality factor and toner particle size. While the exact placement of toner particles is a random process, the total effect is not. The effect of each model parameter on the ISO 13660 print quality attributes line width, fill, raggedness and blurriness is …

2x1d Image Registration And Comparison, Geng Zheng, Elisa H. Barney Smith, Nader Rafla, Tim Andersen

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper presents a novel 2x1D phase correlation based image registration method for verification of printer emulator output. The method combines the basic phase correlation technique and a modified 2x1D version of it to achieve both high speed and high accuracy. The proposed method has been implemented and tested using images generated by printer emulators. Over 97% of the image pairs were registered correctly, accurately dealing with diverse images with large translations and image cropping.

Reaction Sintered Zirconium Carbide/Tungsten Composite Bodies And A Method For Producing The Same, Shi C. Zhang, Greg Hilmas, William Fahrenholtz

Materials Science and Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

A method of sintering a composite body characterized by a transition metal carbide phase (such as a ZrC phase) substantially evenly distributed in a second, typically refractory, transition metal (such as W) matrix at ambient pressures, including blending a first predetermined amount of first transition metal oxide powder (such as ZrO₂) with a second predetermined amount of second transition metal carbide powder (such as WC powder). Next the blended powders are mixed to yield a substantially homogeneous powder mixture and a portion of the substantially homogeneous powder mixture is formed into a green body. The body is fired …

Simulation And Thermodynamic Analysis Of Extended Expansion On A Concept Rotary Engine Including Its Effects On Fuel Efficiency, Denis Allemant Andre, Matthew James Jensen, Gerald Micklow, James Brenner, Helgevon Helldorff

Mechanical and Civil Engineering Faculty Publications

This paper describes a novel method for extended expansion in a rotary combustion engine running ordinary gasoline. The engine consists of a toroidal-shaped piston that rotates around a drum to expand and evacuate the hot gas. There are several problems with today’s internal combustion (IC) engines. Current IC engines do not always have the necessary internal volume to extract the maximum work possible, and since the whole process of compression, combustion, and expansion happen within the same space, excess heat builds up and increases emissions of nitric oxides and nitrogen dioxide. The proposed solution is to redesign the IC engine …

The New Aviation Meteorology Specialization In The Graduate Aeronautics Program At Embry-Riddle, John M. Lanicci, Erin A. Roberts

School of Graduate Studies - Daytona Beach

The next 12 months will be an exciting time of growth in graduate aviation studies at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University's Daytona Beach, FL campus. Beginning in Fall Semester 2009, a new Area of Concentration (AOC) in Aviation Meteorology will be added to the Master of Science in Aeronautics (MSA) program, and the new Doctoral program in Aviation will be starting in January 2010. The Aviation Meteorology AOC adds a crucial specialty to the existing MSA options in Air Traffic Management, Aviation/Aerospace Education Technology, Aviation/Aerospace Management, Aviation/Aerospace Operations, and Aviation/Aerospace Safety Systems.

The Aviation Meteorology AOC is designed to be a cross-disciplinary …

The Nucleus 2009-2010, Rosalie A. Richards

Science Education Center

No abstract provided.

Constitutive Response And Mechanical Properties Of Pfsa Membranes In Liquid Water, Ahmet Kusoglu, Yaliang Tang, Melissa Lugo, Anette M. Karlsson, Michael H. Santare, Simon Cleghorn, William B. Johnson

Mechanical Engineering Faculty Publications

The mechanical properties and swelling behavior of perfluorosulfonic acid (PFSA) membranes in liquid water have been investigated using a custom-built, temperature-controlled water bath. Interestingly, the theoretical models of Mooney-Rivlin and Ogden for rubber elasticity are shown to reproduce the major features of the experimentally obtained stress-strain relationships. In addition, stress relaxation of the membrane subjected to a fixed strain at room temperature fits time-dependent constitutive models used to describe nonlinear rubber elasticity. Thus, the experimental results suggest that even though PFSA is not an elastomer, the constitutive models developed for rubber-like behavior can be used for describing the ex situ …

Recovery Of Rectified Signals From Hot-Wire/Film Anemometers Due To Flow Reversal In Oscillating Flows, Yingchen Yang, Douglas L. Jones, Chang Liu

Mechanical Engineering Faculty Publications

Hot-wire/film anemometers have been broadly used in experimental studies in fluid mechanics, acoustics, and ocean engineering. Yet, it is well known that hot-wire/film anemometers rectify the signal outputs due to the lack of sensitivity to flow direction. This main drawback, in turn, makes them less useful for diverse fluctuating flow measurements. To solve this issue, a rectification recovery method has been developed based on reconstruction of the Fourier series expansion in conjunction with signal-squaring approach. This signal recovery method was experimentally examined and proven to be successful for both conventional and microfabricated hot-wire/film anemometers. The method was further applied to …

Ceas E-News 01.12.2010, College Of Engineering And Applied Sciences

College of Engineering and Applied Sciences News

Eaton signs with CAViDS for future hybrid-electric drive lab at CEAS

Estimation Of Flight Delay Costs For U.S. Domestic Air Passengers, Hojong Baik, Tao Li, Naveen K. Chintapudi

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Evaluating the economic value of flight delays has always been a keen interest of research groups as well as of federal agencies such as the U.S. Department of Transportation and FAA. However, because of the complexity of the question as well as the incompleteness of available data sets, the estimation of flight delay costs is considered a challenging task in practice. This paper presents a method for estimating domestic air passengers' delay costs incurred by flight delays in U.S. airports. a unique feature of the method is that the costs incurred by flight delays relative to the original flight schedules …

East Bay Energy Consortium Meeting Minutes, January 11, 2010, East Bay Energy Consortium

East Bay Energy Consortium Meeting Minutes

No abstract provided.