Engineering Commons^™

Deriving System Vulnerabilities Using Log Analytics, Matthew Somers Higbee

Theses and Dissertations

System Administrators use many of the same tactics that are implemented by hackers to validate the security of their systems, such as port scanning and vulnerability scanning. Port scanning is slow, and can be highly inaccurate. After a scan is complete, the results of the scan must be cross checked with a vulnerability database to discover if any vulnerabilities are present. While these techniques are useful, they have severe limitations. System Administrators have full access to all of their machines. They should not have to rely exclusively on port scanning them from the outside of their machines to check for …

High-Efficiency Passive And Active Phased Arrays And Array Feeds For Satellite Communications, Zhenchao Yang

Theses and Dissertations

Satellite communication (Satcom) services are used worldwide for voice, data, and video links due to various appealing features. Parabolic reflector antennas are typically used to serve a cost effective scheme for commercial applications. However, mount degradation, roof sag, and orbital decay motivate the need for beam steering. Limited scan range beam steering opens a third option for electronic beam steering with lower cost than full aperture phased arrays and higher tracking speed and accuracy than mechanical-only steering.Multiple high efficiency passive patch array feeds were designed, fabricated, and measured, including a 2x2 MSA array, a stacked shorted annular patch antenna, and …

A Compact Phased Array Radar For Uas Sense And Avoid, Jonathan Cullinan Spencer

Theses and Dissertations

As small unmanned aerial systems (UAS) are introduced into the national airspace, measures must be introduced to ensure that they do not interfere with manned aviation and other UAS. Radar provides an attractive solution because of its inherent range accuracy and because it works in diverse weather and lighting conditions. Traditional radar systems, however, are large and high power and do not meet the size, weight and power (SWaP) constraints imposed by UAS, and fully integrated automotive solution do not provide the necessary range. This thesis proposes a compact radar system that meets both the SWaP and range requirements for …

Evolution Of The Statistical Distribution In A Topological Defect Network, Fei Xue, Xueyun Wang, Ion Socolenco, Yijia Gu, Longqing Chen, Sang-Wook Cheong

Materials Science and Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The complex networks of numerous topological defects in hexagonal manganites are highly relevant to vastly different phenomena from the birth of our cosmos to superfluidity transition. The topological defects in hexagonal manganites form two types of domain networks: type-I without and type-II with electric self-poling. A combined phase-field simulations and experimental study shows that the frequencies of domains with N-sides, i.e. of N-gons, in a type-I network are fitted by a lognormal distribution, whereas those in type-II display a scale-free power-law distribution with exponent ~ 2. A preferential attachment process that N-gons with a larger N have higher probability of …

Analyzing Responses From Likert Surveys And Risk-Adjusted Ranking: A Data Analytics Perspective, Abhijit Gosavi

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

We broadly consider the topic of ranking entities from surveys/opinions. Often, numerous ranks from different respondents are available for the same entity, e.g., a candidate from a pool, and yet an averaging of those ranks may not serve the purpose of identifying a consensus candidate. We first consider a risk-adjusted paradigm for ranking, where the rank is defined as the average (mean) rank plus a scalar times the risk in the rank; we use standard deviation as a risk metric. In case of a candidate being ranked either on the basis of opinions of a selection committee's members or on …

Engineering Cyber Physical Systems: Machine Learning, Data Analytics And Smart Systems Architecting Preface, Cihan H. Dagli

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Multi-faceted systems of the future will entail complex logic with many levels of reasoning in intricate arrangement. The organization of these systems involves a web of connections and demonstrates self-driven adaptability. They are designed for autonomy and may exhibit emergent behavior that can be visualized.

We are building systems that are created by a network of physical objects that contain embedded technology to communicate and interact with their internal states or the external environment. These changes in technology and deployment of system of systems having these new characteristics are demanding new ways of thinking and engineering. These are complex adaptive …

Real-Time Supervised Detection Of Pink Areas In Dermoscopic Images Of Melanoma: Importance Of Color Shades, Texture And Location, Ravneet Kaur, P. P. Albano, Justin G. Cole, Jason R. Hagerty, Robert W. Leander, Randy Hays Moss, William V. Stoecker

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Background/Purpose: Early detection of malignant melanoma is an important public health challenge. In the USA, dermatologists are seeing more melanomas at an early stage, before classic melanoma features have become apparent. Pink color is a feature of these early melanomas. If rapid and accurate automatic detection of pink color in these melanomas could be accomplished, there could be significant public health benefits.

Methods: Detection of three shades of pink (light pink, dark pink, and orange pink) was accomplished using color analysis techniques in five color planes (red, green, blue, hue, and saturation). Color shade analysis was performed using a logistic …

Bs News November/December

Building Services Engineering

No abstract provided.

A Two-Stage Fuzzy Logic Model For Urban Traffic Signal Control And Management., Nada Bakri Alnaser

Theses

Different traffic signal control systems are applied nowadays. They vary in complexity and approach but mostly aimed at improving the intersection level of service and the efficiency of the traffic network. Fuzzy Logic Models (FLM) have been widely regarded as quite appealing for real-time applications, in addition to their explicit considerations for stochasticities or uncertainties of traffic measures. The majority of the FLMs for signal control were developed to handle isolated intersections in specific. Very few of these FLM systems explicitly account for neighbor intersections’ traffic impact on the decisions to be made at the underlying intersections.

The aim of …

Potential Irrigation Reductions From Increasing Precipitation Utilization With Variable Rate Irrigation, Tsz Him Lo, Derek M. Heeren, Luciano Mateos, Joe D. Luck, Derrel L. Martin, Dean E. Eisenhauer

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

Much of the previous research quantifying the potential benefits of variable rate irrigation (VRI) consists of case studies with simulations using data from small numbers of intensely sampled fields. In this study, an indicator of the amount of root zone available water capacity that is unutilized by uniform rate irrigation was calculated for 49,224 center pivot irrigated fields in Nebraska using publicly available data exclusively. Based on the values of this indicator, potential seasonal irrigation reductions from increasing precipitation utilization with VRI were estimated to be high for a small fraction of analyzed center pivots but low on a regional …

Evaluation Of A Hybrid Remote Sensing Evapotranspiration Model For Variable Rate Irrigation Management, J. Burdette Barker, Christopher M. U. Neale, Derek M. Heeren

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

Accurate generation of spatial irrigation prescriptions is essential for implementation and evaluation of variable rate irrigation (VRI) technology. A hybrid remote sensing evapotranspiration (ET) model was evaluated for use in developing irrigation prescriptions for a VRI center pivot. The model is a combination of a two-source energy balance model and a reflectance based crop coefficient water balance model. Spatial ET and soil water depletion were modeled for a 10 km² area consisting of rainfed and irrigated maize fields in eastern Nebraska for 2013. Multispectral images from Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager and Thermal Infrared Sensor were used as model …

Review Of Robotic Technology For Strawberry Production, S. G. Defterli, Yeyin Shi, Yunjun Xu

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

With an increasing world population in need of food and a limited amount of land for cultivation, higher efficiency in agricultural production, especially fruits and vegetables, is increasingly required. The success of agricultural production in the marketplace depends on its quality and cost. The cost of labor for crop production, harvesting, and post-harvesting operations is a major portion of the overall production cost, especially for specialty crops such as strawberry. As a result, a multitude of automation technologies involving semi-autonomous and autonomous robots have been utilized, with an aim of minimizing labor costs and operation time to achieve a considerable …

Next-Generation Mrna Sequencing Reveals Pyroptosis-Induced Cd4+ T Cell Death In Early Simian Immunodeficiency Virus-Infected Lymphoid Tissues, Wuxun Lu, Andrew J. Demers, Fangrui Ma, Guobin Kang, Zhe Yuan, Yanmin Wan, Yue Li, Jiangqing Xu, Mark Lewis, Qingsheng Li

Nebraska Center for Biotechnology: Faculty and Staff Publications

Lymphoid tissues (LTs) are the principal sites where human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) replicates and virus-host interactions take place, resulting in immunopathology in the form of inflammation, immune activation, and CD4+ T cell death. The HIV-1 pathogenesis in LTs has been extensively studied; however, our understanding of the virus-host interactions in the very early stages of infection remains incomplete. We investigated virus-host interactions in the rectal draining lymph nodes (dLNs) of rhesus macaques at different times after intrarectal inoculation (days postinoculation [dpi]) with simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV). At 3 dpi, 103 differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were detected using next-generation …

Dna-Mediated Excitonic Upconversion Fret Switching, Donald L. Kellis, Sarah M. Rehn, Brittany L. Cannon, Paul H. Davis, Elton Graugnard, Jeunghoon Lee, Bernard Yurke, William B. Knowlton

Materials Science and Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Excitonics is a rapidly expanding field of nanophotonics in which the harvesting of photons, ensuing creation and transport of excitons via Förster resonant energy transfer (FRET), and subsequent charge separation or photon emission has led to the demonstration of excitonic wires, switches, Boolean logic and light harvesting antennas for many applications. FRET funnels excitons down an energy gradient resulting in energy loss with each step along the pathway. Conversely, excitonic energy upconversion via upconversion nanoparticles (UCNPs), although currently inefficient, serves as an energy ratchet to boost the exciton energy. Although FRET-based upconversion has been demonstrated, it suffers from low FRET …

Towards Effective Design Treatment For Right Turns At Intersections With Bicycle Traffic, David Hurwitz, Mafruhatul Jannat, Jennifer Warner, Christopher M. Monsere, Ali Razmpa

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

The overall goal of this research was to quantify the safety performance of alternative traffic control strategies to mitigate right-turning vehicle-bicycle crashes at signalized intersections in Oregon. The ultimate aim was to provide useful design guidance to potentially mitigate these collision types at the critical intersection configurations. This report includes a comprehensive review of more than 150 scientific and technical articles that relate to bicycle-motor vehicle crashes. A total of 504 right-hook crashes were identified from vehicle path information in the Oregon crash data from 2007-2011, mapped and reviewed in detail to identify the frequency and severity of crashes by …

Prediction And Validation Of External Cooling Loop Cryogenic Carbon Capture (Ccc-Ecl) For Full-Scale Coal-Fired Power Plant Retrofit, Mark J. Jensen, Christopher S. Russell, David Bergerson, Christopher D. Hoeger, David J. Frankman, Christopher S. Bence, Larry Lin Baxter

Faculty Publications

Bench-scale experiments and Aspen Plus (TM) simulations document full-scale, steady-state performance of the external cooling loop cryogenic carbon capture (CCC-ECL) process for a 550 MWe coal-fired power plant. The baseline CCC-ECL process achieves 90% CO2 capture, and has the potential to capture 99+ % of CO2, SO2, PM, NO2, Hg, and most other noxious species. The CCC-ECL process cools power plant flue gas to 175 K, at which point solid CO2 particles desublimate as the flue gas further cools to 154K. Desublimating flue gas cools in a staged column in direct contact with a cryogenic liquid and produces a CO2-lean …

Deep Multimodal Learning For Affective Analysis And Retrieval, Lei Pang, Shiai Zhu, Chong-Wah Ngo

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Social media has been a convenient platform for voicing opinions through posting messages, ranging from tweeting a short text to uploading a media file, or any combination of messages. Understanding the perceived emotions inherently underlying these user-generated contents (UGC) could bring light to emerging applications such as advertising and media analytics. Existing research efforts on affective computation are mostly dedicated to single media, either text captions or visual content. Few attempts for combined analysis of multiple media are made, despite that emotion can be viewed as an expression of multimodal experience. In this paper, we explore the learning of highly …

Development And Prototype Validation Of An Additive Manufactured Cubesat Propulsion Tank, Geovanni A. Solorzano

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

The purpose of this study is to determine if a cubesat propellant tank using the additive manufacturing technology of direct metal laser sintering meets the requirements, and material properties of a conventionally manufactured tank. Additionally, to see if additive manufactured parts are a viable option to be used in cubesat applications. This was accomplished by designing a model which will be used by the ARAPAIMA cubesat that meets all the Air Force's University Nanosatellite Program (UNP), NASA's and Department of Defense's requirements for pressurized vessels and material properties. A finite element analysis study was conducted to determine where and when …

An Experimental Method To Calculate Coefficient Of Friction In Mecanum Wheel Rollers And Cost Analysis Using Dfma Techniques, Nishant Sonawane

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Mecanum wheel is a special kind of omni-directional wheel which is designed for robot vehicles. The purpose of this thesis is to work on geometry and working of Mecanum wheel rollers and to conduct experiments on these rollers to find its values of coefficient of friction in different conditions. This thesis also includes the work conducted to formulate the equations which can be used to find different parameters of roller for its motion, kinematics, rolling, friction and overall impact with respect to the working of a robot. The work is tested in experiments and the values are compared with previous …

Identifying Secondary Crashes By Using Geographic Information System (Gis) And Determining The Secondary Crashes Characteristics, Yuan Tian

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

As the nation’s transportation infrastructure expands, traffic incidents led to more than 25% of traffic congestion in the United States (FHWA, 2014). The risk of the occurrence of secondary crashes can be six times higher in the presence of a primary crash than that at a normal traffic condition (Yang et al., 2013 and Tedesco, 1994). The purpose of this study is 1) to develop a method to identify the secondary crashes with the primary incidents in Geographic Information Systems (GIS) under different spatial-temporal criteria, and 2) to determine the impacts of spatial-temporal criteria on the secondary crash characteristics in …

Computational Replication Of The Patient-Specific Stenting Procedure For Coronary Artery Bifurcations: From Oct And Ct Imaging To Structural And Hemodynamics Analyses, Claudio Chiastra, Wei Wu, Benjamin Dickerhoff, Ali Aleiou, Gabriele Dubini, Hiromasa Otake, Francesco Migliavacca, John F. Ladisa Jr.

Biomedical Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

The optimal stenting technique for coronary artery bifurcations is still debated. With additional advances computational simulations can soon be used to compare stent designs or strategies based on verified structural and hemodynamics results in order to identify the optimal solution for each individual’s anatomy. In this study, patient-specific simulations of stent deployment were performed for 2 cases to replicate the complete procedure conducted by interventional cardiologists. Subsequent computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analyses were conducted to quantify hemodynamic quantities linked to restenosis.

Patient-specific pre-operative models of coronary bifurcations were reconstructed from CT angiography and optical coherence tomography (OCT). Plaque location and …

Design And Manufacture Of Mesoscale Robot-Actuated Surgical Instruments, Clayton L. Grames

Theses and Dissertations

Minimally Invasive Surgery (MIS) is a growing field including both laparoscopic androbotic operations. Surgeons and engineers are making continual efforts to reduce the negative effects of procedures on patients. Reducing the size of the surgical instruments is one effective method pursued in this effort. When the instruments approach 3 mm in diameter, they reach a threshold where the entry incisions can be small enough that no scar is left on the patient. Laparoscopic instruments on this scale exist but typically lack wrist articulation and only have 1 degree of freedom (DoF). Alternatively, robotic surgical instruments can achieve high levels of …

Biomechanical Investigation Of Elite Place-Kicking, Chase M. Pfeifer

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Many studies aim to understand the fundamentals of kicking commonly displayed by soccer players [4,6,10,16,17,18,24,25,28,29,30,34,36,38,40]. Of those studies, most are limited to a two-dimensional (2D) analysis using high-speed cameras for position tracking or utilizing electromyography to observe the activity of select muscles [4,6,18,25,29,36]. The few studies that investigate kicking using a three-dimensional (3D) model are limited in their position tracking capabilities and focus mainly on joint flexion potentials and foot speed.

This dissertation is a comprehensive biomechanical analysis (kinematic and EMG) of the field-goal place-kicking techniques of four elite kickers in American football. Data were compared and contrasted with ball …

How To Estimate Pedestrian Demand, Kelly Clifton, Patrick Allen Singleton, Christopher D. Muhs, Robert J. Schneider

TREC Project Briefs

There is growing support to improve the quality of the walking environment and make investments to promote pedestrian travel. Such efforts often require analytical non-motorized planning tools to estimate levels of pedestrian demand that are sensitive to environmental and demographic factors at an appropriate scale. Despite this interest and need, current forecasting tools, particularly regional travel demand models, often fall short.

To address this gap, Oregon Metro and NITC researcher Kelly Clifton worked together to develop a pedestrian demand estimation tool. For generations, planners have been using statistical models to forecast travel demand, but these models have traditionally been auto-centered. …

National Study Of Brt Development Outcomes, Arthur C. Nelson, Joanna Ganning

TREC Final Reports

Bus rapid transit (BRT) is poised to become the “next big thing” in public transit. From virtually no systems a generation ago, there are now 19 lines operating with at least seven under construction and more than 20 in the planning stages. BRT is gaining popularity because of its combination of low capital cost and potential for high levels of benefits. But are BRT systems effective in attracting development?

To answer this and many more trending BRT questions, the Metropolitan Research Center (MRC) reviewed multiple studies using data from the United States Census Bureau, Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics, and CoStar data …

Stability Of Transportation Networks Under Adaptive Routing Policies, Sebastien Boyer, Sebastien Blandin, Laura Wynter

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Growing concerns regarding urban congestion, and the recent explosion of mobile devices able to provide real-time information to traffic users have motivated increasing reliance on real-time route guidance for the online management of traffic networks. However, while the theory of traffic equilibria is very well-known, much fewer results exist on the stability of such equilibria, especially in the context of adaptive routing policy. In this work, we consider the problem of characterizing the stability properties of traffic equilibria in the context of online adaptive route choice induced by GPS-based decision making. We first extend the recent framework of “Markovian Traffic …

Lesinn: Detecting Anomalies By Identifying Least Similar Nearest Neighbours, Guansong Pang, Kai Ming Ting, David Albrecht

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

We introduce the concept of Least Similar Nearest Neighbours (LeSiNN) and use LeSiNN to detect anomalies directly. Although there is an existing method which is a special case of LeSiNN, this paper is the first to clearly articulate the underlying concept, as far as we know. LeSiNN is the first ensemble method which works well with models trained using samples of one instance. LeSiNN has linear time complexity with respect to data size and the number of dimensions, and it is one of the few anomaly detectors which can apply directly to both numeric and categorical data sets. Our extensive …

Direct Or Indirect Match? Selecting Right Concepts For Zero-Example Case, Yi-Jie Lu, Maaike De Boer, Hao Zhang, Klamer Schutte, Wessel Kraaij, Chong-Wah Ngo

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

No abstract provided.

Vireo-Tno @ Trecvid 2015: Multimedia Event Detection, Hao Zhang, Yi-Jie Lu, Maaike De Boer, Frank Ter Haar, Zhaofan Qiu, Klamer Schutte, Wessel Kraaij, Chong-Wah Ngo

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This paper presents an overview and comparative analysis of our systems designed for the TRECVID 2015 [1] multimedia event detection (MED) task. We submitted 17 runs, of which 5 each for the zeroexample, 10-example and 100-example subtasks for the Pre-Specified (PS) event detection and 2 runs for the 10-example subtask for the Ad-Hoc (AH) event detection. We did not participate in the Interactive Run. This year we focus on three different parts of the MED task: 1) extending the size of our concept bank and combining it with improved dense trajectories; 2) exploring strategies for semantic query generation (SQG); and …

Modeling And Experimental Study Of Carbon Dioxide Absorption/Stripping In Gas Liquid Membrane Contactor, Nihmiya Abdul Rahim

Dissertations

Natural gas consists primarily of methane (CH4) but it also contains considerable amounts of contaminating compounds mainly carbon dioxide (CO2). The presence of CO2 reduces the heating value of the gas and due to its acidic character causes several operational problems. Hence the removal of CO2 from natural gas is crucially important. The focus of this research work is to investigate the potential for the energy efficient and effective separation of CO2/CH4 gas mixture via lean solvent and regenerating of the rich solvent through absorption/stripping mechanism taking place in a hollow fiber gas liquid membrane contactor process (GLMC) which combines …