Engineering Commons^™

High-Efficiency Solar-Powered 3-D Printers For Sustainable Development, Jephias Gwamuri, Dhiogo Franco, Khalid Khan, Lucia Gauchia, Joshua M. Pearce

Michigan Tech Publications, Part 1

The release of the open source 3-D printer known as the RepRap (a self-Replicating Rapid prototyper) resulted in the potential for distributed manufacturing of products for significantly lower costs than conventional manufacturing. This development, coupled with open source-appropriate technology (OSAT), has enabled the opportunity for 3-D printers to be used for sustainable development. In this context, OSAT provides the opportunity to modify and improve the physical designs of their printers and desired digitally-shared objects. However, these 3-D printers require electricity while more than a billion people still lack electricity. To enable the utilization of RepRaps in off-grid communities, solar photovoltaic …

Design And Development Of The Sunswift Eve Solar Vehicle: World's Fastest Long-Range Electric Car, Sam Paterson, Pujith Vijayaratnam, Charith Perera, Graham Doig

Aerospace Engineering

The Sunswift project of the University of New South Wales, Australia, exists to provide university students with a multi-disciplinary engineering challenge, enhancing the true educational value of their degree with a unique hands-on real-world experience of creating solar–electric hybrid vehicles. The design and development of the low-drag ‘solar supercar’ Sunswift eVe car are described here, detailing the student-led process from initial concept sketches to the completed performance vehicle. eVe was designed to demonstrate the potential of effective solar integration into a practical passenger-carrying vehicle. It is a two-seater vehicle with an on-body solar array area of 4 m² and …

Jainism And Nonviolence: From Mahavira To Modern Times, Lana E. Sims

The Downtown Review: An Interdisciplinary Journal Written and Peer-Reviewed by Mandel Honors College Students at Cleveland State University

The research contained in this paper focuses on the religion of Jainism, its main principle of ahimsa, or nonviolence, and how that philosophy has evolved over the years, eventually inspiring today’s nonviolent movements. First, a look will be taken at the origin of Jainism, with a brief explanation of its most important principles and beliefs. Then, ahimsa is explained as it has been traditionally perceived by Jains. The recent evolution of the meaning of ahimsa and its impact on modern nonviolence movements is discussed, with a focus on the influence of second-generation Jains in the United States on the …

Methane Emissions As Energy Reservoir: Context, Scope, Causes And Mitigation Strategies, Xiaoli Chai, David J. Tonjes, Devinder Mahajan

Technology & Society Faculty Publications

Methane (CH4) is now considered a bridge fuel between present fossil (carbon) economy and desired renewables and this energy molecule is projected to play an important role in the global energy mix well beyond 2035. The atmospheric warming potential of CH4 is 28-36 times, when averaged over a 100-year period, that of carbon dioxide (CO2) and this necessitates a close scrutiny of global CH4 emissions inventory. As the second most abundant greenhouse gas (GHG), the annual global CH4 emissions were 645 million metric tons (MMT), accounting for 14.3% of the global anthropogenic GHG emissions. Of this, five key anthropogenic sources: …

High-Resolution, Stochastic Electricity System Models Are Key To Driving Low Carbon Policies In India, Ranjit Amod Deshmukh

Link Foundation Energy Fellowship Reports

Wind and solar generation sources have the potential to significantly replace fossil fuel-based generation in electricity grids and mitigate anthropogenic climate change. Their rapidly decreasing costs, along with policy incentives, have made them the world’s fastest growing generation sources. With the support of the Link Foundation Fellowship, I focused on the first topic of my dissertation – Multicriteria Analysis for Planning Renewable Energy. Under this topic, I conducted two studies in collaboration with colleagues at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of California at Berkeley, and the International Renewable Energy Agency. One focused on 20 countries in the Eastern and …

A Compact To Revitalise Large-Scale Irrigation Systems Using A Leadership-Partnership-Ownership 'Theory Of Change', Bruce Lankford, Ian Makin, Nathanial Matthews, Peter G. Mccornick, Andrew Noble, Tushaar Shah

Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute: Faculty Publications

In countries with transitional economies such as those found in South Asia, large-scale irrigation systems (LSIS) with a history of public ownership account for about 115 million ha (Mha) or approximately 45% of their total area under irrigation. In terms of the global area of irrigation (320 Mha) for all countries, LSIS are estimated at 130 Mha or 40% of irrigated land. These systems can potentially deliver significant local, regional, and global benefits in terms of food, water and energy security, employment, economic growth, and ecosystem services. For example, primary crop production is conservatively valued at about US$355 billion. However, …

Demonstration And Evaluation Of Dual Purpose Chicken “Potchefstroom Koekoek” Packages At Areka Areas, Snnpr, Ethiopia, Aman Getiso, Melese Yilma, Mesfin Mekonnen, Addisu Jimma, Mebratu Asrat, Asrat Tera, Endrias Dako

Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute: Faculty Publications

The demonstration was conducted in Wolaita zone, Boloso Sore district at Areka and around Areka areas. Participants (farmers) were selected purposively on the basis of willingness to construct poultry house; to cover all the associated package costs and record the required was selected. Survival of chicks during the first 8 weeks of brooding using hay-box at the farmers management condition was 79.8% (359 were survived out 450). On average about 93.1% of the chicken were survived to the laying age while mortality reduced from 20.2% to 6.9%. The average age at first egg-laying recorded at each farmers was 142 days …

Anthropogenic Nitrogen And Phosphorus Emissions And Related Grey Water Footprints Caused By Eu-271s Crop Production And Consumption, Mesfin Mekonnen, Stephan Lutter, Aldo Martinez

Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute: Faculty Publications

Water is a prerequisite for life on our planet. Due to climate change and pollution, water availability for agricultural production, industry and households is increasingly put at risk. With agriculture being the largest water user as well as polluter worldwide, we estimate anthropogenic nitrogen and phosphorus emissions to fresh water related to global crop production at a spatial resolution level of 5 by 5 arc min and calculate the grey water footprints (GWF) related to EU-271s crop production. A multiregional input-output model is used to trace the the GWF embodied in the final consumption of crop products by the EU-27. …

Engineering News, Winter 2016, School Of Engineering

Engineering News

No abstract provided.

Using Casual Loop Diagramming To Explore The Drivers Of The Sustained Functionality Of Rural Water Services In Timor-Leste, Kate Neely, Jeffrey P. Walters

Faculty Publications - Biomedical, Mechanical, and Civil Engineering

It is recognized that international water sector development work has issues with a lack of sustained positive outcomes. A large driver of this outcome is how NGOs work with communities to implement and then manage water services. Many NGOs tend to focus their efforts on improving their reach and organisational growth by continually engaging in new projects. This behaviour is largely driven by short-term donor funding models that reward extended coverage, leaving little focus on sustained outcomes. Similarly, community-based management (CBM) schemes often impede sustained services as a result of the community’s limited capacity to operate and maintain the technology. …

2016 Scholarly Productivity Report, Missouri University Of Science And Technology

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Scholarly Productivity Reports

No abstract provided.

Engineering Research Review 2016, Office Of Engineering Research

Engineering Research Review

Contents:
[Page] 2 Plasma processing decreases cost, improves biochar activation.
[Page] 4 Satellite calibration crucial to world’s scientists.
[Page] 8 Worldwide seaarch identifies new calibration sites.
[Page] 10 Precision ag group to develop predictive model for white mold in soybeans.
[Page] 14 Computer scientists develop software for new tumor imaging technology
[Page] 15 Decision-making analytics help business developers, customers and data centers
[Page] 16 Awards

Drivers Of Food Wastage And Their Implications For Sustainable Policy Development, Krista L. Thyberg, David J. Tonjes

Technology & Society Faculty Publications

There has been growing interest in establishing food waste prevention and recovery programs throughout the world. The drive to target food waste stems from increasing concerns about resource conservation, food security, food waste’s environmental and economic costs, and a general trend in the waste management industry to transition to more sustainable practices. Here the drivers of residential, institutional, and commercial food waste generation in developed countries, particularly in the U.S., are explored. The impacts of food system modernization on food waste generation are examined, particularly impacts related to food system industrialization, urbanization, globalization, and economic growth. Socio-demographic, cultural, political, and …

A Work System Front End For Object-Oriented Analysis And Design, Steven Alter, Narasimha Bolloju

Business Analytics and Information Systems

This paper proposes that basic ideas from the work system theory (WST) and the work system method (WSM) might serve as a front end to object-oriented analysis and design (OOAD), thereby providing a path from business-oriented descriptions to formal, technical specifications. After describing the background motivation and summarizing work system concepts, the paper uses a hiring system example to show how two tools from WSM can be used as a front end for OOAD, in effect, a step before creating use case diagrams and other types of Unified Modeling Language (UML) artifacts. Potential benefits of this approach stem from a …

A Framework To Utilize Shear Strength Properties For Evaluating Rutting Potentials Of Unbound Aggregate Materials, Issam Qamhia, Erol Tutumluer, Liang Chern Chow, Debakanta Mishra

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper presents shear strength and permanent deformation trends of four unbound aggregate materials, commonly used for base and subbase layers in the state of North Carolina, USA, studied through repeated load triaxial testing, using the University of Illinois FastCell equipment. A testing and modeling framework has been established to develop a proper permanent deformation prediction model, referred to herein as the UIUC rutting model, with number of load applications. According to the framework, the unbound aggregate shear strength properties are incorporated into the model using the ratio of the applied wheel load shear stress to the mobilized shear strength, …

Design And Optimization Of Lithium Ion Battery For High Temperature Applications, Khalid Abdullitife Ababtain

Wayne State University Dissertations

With massive commercial success of lithium ion batteries, the ability to operate at

and above 70 °C still a crucial issue and a safety concern to combat ever-increasing

global warming and to extend applications beyond portable electronics. Among various

components of battery, anode and electrolyte and the passivation layer formed between

them is crucial towards the development of Li-ion batteries for extendable temperature

range. In this regard, room temperature ionic liquids (RTILs) have the capability to

tackle thermal stability issues of lithium ion batteries but their poor compatibility with

traditional graphite anodes limits their practical application. Towards addressing this

issue, …

Bytewise Approximate Matching: The Good, The Bad, And The Unknown, Vikram S. Harichandran, Frank Breitinger, Ibrahim Baggili

Electrical & Computer Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications

Hash functions are established and well-known in digital forensics, where they are commonly used for proving integrity and file identification (i.e., hash all files on a seized device and compare the fingerprints against a reference database). However, with respect to the latter operation, an active adversary can easily overcome this approach because traditional hashes are designed to be sensitive to altering an input; output will significantly change if a single bit is flipped. Therefore, researchers developed approximate matching, which is a rather new, less prominent area but was conceived as a more robust counterpart to traditional hashing. Since the conception …

Analyses, Calibration And Validation Of Evapotranspirationmodels To Predict Grass-Reference Evapotranspiration In Thesenegal River Delta, Koffi Djaman, Hossein Tabari, Alpha B. Balde, Lamine Diop, Koichi Futakuchi, Suat Irmak

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

Study region: Grass-reference evapotranspiration estimation by the Penman-Monteithmethod (PM-ETo) requires a number of climate variables which are not always availableat all weather stations. Different alternative ETo equations have been developed and theirutilization for various local climate conditions requires analyses of their accuracy as com-pared to the standardized Penman-Monteith method. There is a significant lack of data andinformation on this topic in the Senegal River Delta (SRD). Study focus: The objective of this study was to evaluate, calibrate and validate six EToequations ((Trabert, Mahringer, Penman1948, Albrecht, Valiantzas1 and Valiantzas2) forthe SRD. Although all six equations showed good agreement with the PM-ETo …

Long-Term Patterns Of Air Temperatures, Daily Temperature Range, Precipitation, Grass-Reference Evapotranspiration And Aridity Index In The Usa Great Plains: Part Ii. Temporal Trends, Meetpal S. Kukal, Suat Irmak

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

Detection of long-term changes in climate variables over large spatial scales is a very important prerequisite to the development of effective mitigation and adaption measures for the future potential climate change and for developing strategies for future hydrologic balance analyses under changing climate. Moreover, there is a need for effective approaches of providing information about these changes to decision makers, water managers and stakeholders to aid in efficient implementation of the developed strategies. This study involves computation, mapping and analyses of long-term (1968-2013) county-specific trends in annual, growing-season (1st May- 30th Sept.) and monthly air temperatures [(maximum (T_max), …

Long-Term Patterns Of Air Temperatures, Daily Temperature Range, Precipitation, Grass-Reference Evapotranspiration And Aridity Index In The Usa Great Plains: Part I. Spatial Trends, Meetpal S. Kukal, Suat Irmak

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

Due to their substantial spatio-temporal behavior, long-term quantification and analyses of important hydrological variables are essential for practical applications in water resources planning, evaluating the water use of agricultural crop production and quantifying crop evapotranspiration patterns and irrigation management vs. hydrologic balance relationships. Observed data at over 800 sites across the Great Plains of USA, comprising of 9 states and 2,307,410 km² of surface area, which is about 30% of the terrestrial area of the USA, were used to quantify and map large-scale and long-term (1968-2013) spatial trends of air temperatures, daily temperature range (DTR), precipitation, grass-reference evapotranspiration (ET …

The Effect Of Glycerol On Readily Biodegradable Chemical Oxygen Demand (Rbcod) In A Wastewater Stream, Rojina Rawut

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study evaluated the short-term effects of glycerol addition on readily biodegradable (RB) chemical oxygen demand (COD) in a carbon limited wastewater influent. The presence of an RB fraction provides with a suitable substrate for microorganisms to produce volatile fatty acids (VFA). The oxygen utilization rate (OUR) has been used to evaluate the oxygen consumption for RB substrate in wastewater. Wastewater with low organic content contains limited RB substrate, and thus, additional carbon source is required to improve biological treatment capability. Acetate, propionate, methanol, and glycerol are the commonly available carbon sources for biological treatment process. However, the cost of …

Behavior Of Rc Beams Strengthened In Flexure With Spliced Cfrp Rod Panels, Akram Rasheed Jawdhari

Theses and Dissertations--Civil Engineering

FRP laminates and fabrics, used as an externally bonded reinforcement (EBR) to strengthen or repair concrete members, have proven to be an economical retrofitting method. However, when used to strengthen long-span members or members with limited access, the labor and equipment demands may negate the benefits of using continuous EBR FRP. Recently, CFRP rod panels (CRPs) have been developed and deployed to overcome the aforementioned limitations. Each CRP is made of several small diameter CFRP rods placed at discrete spacing. To fulfill the strengthening length, CRP’s are spliced together and made continuous by means of overlaps (or finger joints).

In …

A Review Of Non-Destructive Methods For Detection Of Insect Infestation In Fruits And Vegetables, Nader Ekramirad, Akinbode A. Adedeji, Reza Alimardani

Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering Faculty Publications

Insect damage in fruits and vegetables cause major production and economic losses in the agriculture and food industry worldwide. Monitoring of internal quality and detection of insect infestation in fruits and vegetables is critical for sustainable agriculture. Early detection of an infestation in fruits can facilitate the control of insects and the quarantine operations through proper post-harvest management strategies and can improve productivity. The present review recognizes the need for developing a rapid, cost-effective, and reliable insect infestation monitoring system that would lead to advancements in agriculture and food industry. In this paper, an overview of non-destructive detection insect damages …

Low-Cost, Wireless Optical Oximeter For Monitoring Of Brain Function In High-Risk Pediatric Population, Zahra Meghjani

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

Nearly 4 million neonates die every year due to brain injuries, most caused by hypoxia. Neonatal ICU requires newborns with critical health conditions to be monitored continuously calling for the need of a non-invasive, compact and portable device. However, commercial devices are mostly bulky and/or expensive. The neonatal mortality is higher in under-developed countries, where such expensive and large devices are not affordable. Hence, my thesis focuses on building first generation compact, inexpensive, and wireless device that can monitor and provide feedback to clinicians during intervention. This approach is based on light absorption by oxy- and deoxy-hemoglobin chromophores. The total …

Using Zeolite For Soil Moisture Retention And Salinity Control, Mark Torres

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

There is a great need in the desert southwest United States for exploring ways to save water in agriculture as it accounts for up to 90 percent of water consumption in many western states (USDA 2016). As surface water reaches critical lows the dependence on ground water has increased leading to the need for deeper wells with higher salt concentrations. The studies conducted for this research included using zeolites from the St Cloud Mining Company in Winston, New Mexico to determine the feasibility of using these zeolites to help and retain moisture in zeolite treated soils. The Volumetric Water Content …

Sustainable Construction With Green Compressed Earth Block (Gceb), Marwan Mostafa

All ETDs from UAB

orthogonal predictors.

Detecting And Tracing Slow Attacks On Mobile Phone User Service, Brian Cusack, Zhuang Tian

Australian Digital Forensics Conference

The lower bandwidth of mobile devices has until recently filtered the range of attacks on the Internet. However, recent research shows that DOS and DDOS attacks, worms and viruses, and a whole range of social engineering attacks are impacting on broadband smartphone users. In our research we have developed a metric-based system to detect the traditional slow attacks that can be effective using limited resources, and then employed combinations of Internet trace back techniques to identify sources of attacks. Our research question asked: What defence mechanisms are effective? We critically evaluate the available literature to appraise the current state of …

The Proceedings Of 14th Australian Digital Forensics Conference, 5-6 December 2016, Edith Cowan University, Perth, Australia, Craig Valli

Australian Digital Forensics Conference

Conference Foreword

This is the fifth year that the Australian Digital Forensics Conference has been held under the banner of the Security Research Institute, which is in part due to the success of the security conference program at ECU. As with previous years, the conference continues to see a quality papers with a number from local and international authors. 11 papers were submitted and following a double blind peer review process, 8 were accepted for final presentation and publication. Conferences such as these are simply not possible without willing volunteers who follow through with the commitment they have initially made, …

Foundation Design Of Low Volume Roads: Evaluation And Performance, Alyssa Clemen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A majority of roads in the state of SD are low volume roads (LVRs). The SDDOT has developed simplified methods for LVR pavement thickness selection. These guides allow users to obtain recommended asphalt surfacing and base course layer thickness based on the subgrade support and the average daily traffic (ADT) of the road. The main objective of this study is to relate the surface condition of LVRs to their ADT, layer thicknesses, foundation material properties, and maintenance. A secondary objective was to evaluate if the Dynamic Cone Penetrometer (DCP) is an acceptable tool in determining the subgrade support by using …

Impacts Of Land Use And Climate Changes On Hydrological Processes In South Dakota Watersheds, Manashi Paul

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study aims to evaluate the impacts of climate and land use change on the hydrology of South Dakota’s watersheds using the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT). The study analyzed the hydrologic impacts of climate and land use changes in two ways. The first aspect consists of characterizing hydrological changes between two recent decades in three representative watersheds – Bad River watershed, Skunk Creek watershed and Upper Big Sioux River watershed. Two historical land use maps (NLCD 1992 and 2011) were used to represent land use change on these watersheds, and two historical climate datasets (1981-1990 and 2005-2014) were …