Engineering Commons^™

From Research Data To Web-Based Policy Tools: User-Centered Design Techniques In The Development Of The Agmip Impacts Explorer, Joske Houtkamp, Inge La Rivière, Hugo De Groot, Sander Janssen, Arjan De Jong

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

decision making through a web-based tool is a complex challenge. Research projects are generally not designed to meet the information needs of specific stakeholder groups. Furthermore, tools developed in these projects are usually intended to disseminate research data on a wide scale, not to provide answers to specific questions of these stakeholders. User-centered design techniques can guide the development process of such tools, to enhance their usefulness and thus the applicability of the research outcomes for the intended audience. We applied techniques for user requirements analysis of the Impacts Explorer tool in the AgMIP research project, which models the impacts …

The Validation Of Algal Growth Processes In A Water Quality Model Using Remote Sensing Data, A. R. Slaughter, S. K. Mantel

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The Water Quality Systems Assessment Model (WQSAM) uses the concept of requisite simplicity within the context of modelling water quality of data scarce South African surface waters. Although WQSAM has successfully simulated the frequency distribution of observed historical nutrient data for various catchments in South Africa, the validation of algal and macrophyte growth processes in the model is a challenge because of a lack of observed data. Remote sensing data can provide an estimate of algal growth within reservoirs. Therefore, this study aimed to validate the WQSAM simulations of algal growth using remote sensing estimations of primary production in reservoirs. …

Modelling Social Ecological Dynamics With Transfers Of Vulnerability And Robustness. Examples With Adaptation To Coastal Vulnerability, Olivier Barreteau, J. Marty Anderies, Bruno Bonté, Pauline Brémond, Frédéric Grelot, Chloé Guerbois, Tara Quinn

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Adaption patterns undertaken by policy makers within their own jurisdiction may bump in adaptation patterns undertaken by others at their own level. The consequences of these interactions may lead to mutual reinforcement or to cancelling each policy maker’s adaptation capacity. In this presentation, we consider following Anderies (2014) that autonomous SES have their own adaptive management as an autonomous feedback loop. We take on seriously the concept of pluralism of agency in SES: any goal can be used as the root for a specific feedback loop. We identify the interactions between these loops to characterize transfers of vulnerability or robustness …

On The Use Of Finite-Difference Model To Evaluate The Impact Of Underground Water Overexploitation, Hani A., Bougherira N., Djabri L., Chaffai H., Lallahem S.

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The potentiometric surface in the Annaba basin, which covers an area of 264 km², has declined significantly since 1995. A transient multilayer model has been developed to synthesise the hydrologic data. The groundwater flow was modelled using the finite difference method with a horizontal dimension of 500 x 500 m for the cells. The model consists of two layers, the first corresponding to the alluvial phreatic aquifer and the second to the deep confined aquifer, and is calibrated against the steady state groundwater heads recorded before 1996. Under steady-state conditions, the correspondence between simulated and observed water levels …

Government Motivation-Embedded Return Guarantee For Urban Infrastructure Projects Based On Real Options, Qingpeng Man, Chengshuang Sun, Yuesheng Fei, Martin Skitmore, Yong Bai, Weizhuo Lu

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

Governments usually guarantee the amount of investment income to private sector partners to encourage their participation in Public-Private Partnership urban infrastructure development projects, with the ‘float return on investment guarantee’ being the main method in use by the Chinese government today. The current problems with the float return on investment guarantee are analysed and a guarantee approach with embedded motivational behaviour is presented as an alternative. A pricing method option is then introduced as the motivation-embedded return guarantee has similar characteristics to real options. From this, a valuation model is developed that provides the basis of a new systematic method …

Groundwater Recharge And Associated Uncertainty Estimation Combining Multi-Method And Multi-Scale Approaches, S. Lanini, Y. Caballero

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Groundwater resource assessment is a major concern for water managers who have to balance water demands and resources at a basin or territory scale. One operational way to address this question is to estimate the part of recharge which is linked to precipitation. Many methods to estimate groundwater recharge are described in the literature, varying in terms of time scale and the nature of the data they treat. They do not always provide a suitable estimate of uncertainty. To obtain both a realistic estimation of groundwater recharge and a confidence interval at the hydrogeological basin scale, we propose a multi-method …

An Integrated Modelling Approach To Climate Change And Malaria Vulnerability Assessments, Esther Achieng Onyango, Oz Sahin, Cordia Chu, Brendan Mackey

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Malaria is one of the key research concerns in climate change-health relationships. Numerous risk assessments and modelling studies providing evidence that the transmission range of malaria will expand with rising temperatures resulting in adverse impacts on vulnerable communities. This risk is significant in East Africa whereby current research shows an expansion of malaria into the highland areas due to changes in temperature and rainfall. While there exist multiple lines of evidence for the influence of climate change on malaria and the risk posed to vulnerable communities, there is insufficient understanding of the complexity of factors influencing the spread of the …

Using Sddp To Perform Basin-Wide Water Resources Assessments With Limited Data Availability, Charles Rougé, Amaury Tilmant

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

In many situations, water resources assessments are hindered by the limited availability of data concerning both water supplies and demands. Stochastic dual dynamic programming (SDDP) is one of few solutions available to determine optimal allocation policies in large-scale water resources systems. Yet, limited data on water demands and hydraulic infrastructure leads to the existence of multiple near-optimal solutions (MNOS). This work shows that when MNOS exists, SDDP is very sensitive to even minimal variations of the problem setting, e.g. initial conditions – we call this “algorithmic chaos”. Besides, the approximations of the benefit-to-go function that SDDP constructs at each stage …

Methane Extraction From Lake Kivu: A Case Study For Model-Based Policy, Martin Schmid, Alfred Wüest

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Lake Kivu in East Africa contains enormous amounts of dissolved carbon dioxide and methane. The dissolved methane is increasingly used as a resource to produce electricity, with two power plants currently in operation and several additional facilities in planning. The design of such gas extraction facilities needs to take into account possible negative impacts: if badly designed, the extraction could disturb the lake’s permanent density stratification and thus risk to create a catastrophic gas eruption; and it could increase nutrient fluxes from the deep water to the surface layers, leading to eutrophication and related negative consequences for the ecosystem, fisheries …

Development Of A Decentralized And Off-Grid Anaerobic Membrane Bioreactor (Anmbr) For Urban Sanitation In Developing Countries, Robert Alonso Bair

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Urbanization has led to rapid and uncontrolled growth of informal housing settlements in many developing countries. As most slum growth is unplanned, these areas tend to lack basic infrastructure including sanitation. The high user rates, lack of water and electricity infrastructure, space limitations, and scant financial resources make sanitation provision a major challenge in slums. As most decentralized sanitation technologies fail when applied in these environments, better technologies need to be developed that cater to the specific needs of slum dwellers. One promising technology, the membrane bioreactor (MBR) is routinely used in developed countries when a compact and resilient treatment …

Physicochemical And Functional Properties Of Extruded Sorghum‐Based Bean Analog, Akinbode A. Adedeji, Michael V. Joseph, Brian Platter, Sajid Alavi

Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering Faculty Publications

The objective of this study was to develop and evaluate the physicochemical and functional properties of a bean like product made from cold extrusion of sorghum, soy and wheat flours. Formulated samples comprised of sorghum (25–70%), wheat (0–35%) and soy (30–50%) flours. The degree of gelatinization ranged from 54.1 to 93.6%. Pasting curves showed minimal starch damage with peak and final viscosities in the range of 456.0–1138.5 and 297–584 cP, respectively. Textural properties of the extrudates were significantly impacted by starch content and cooking time. There was significant cooking loss due to poor binding properties of the extrudates. Cooking the …

Santa Clara Magazine, Volume 57 Number 3, Summer 2016, Santa Clara University

Santa Clara Magazine

26 - CAN’T THREAD A MOVING NEEDLE To tackle sexual assault on college campuses, a playwriting project comes to the screen. By Danae Stahlnecker ’15.

28 - MISSION CRITICAL When three students fell ill from meningitis-causing bacteria—which can be fatal—it meant the clock was ticking. And to get through this, it would take everybody’s help. By Harold Gutmann.

36 - “WHERE ARE THEY TAKING US?” A journal from the front lines of the Syrian refugee crisis in Greece. By Colleen Sinsky ’10.

40 - NO STRANGERS HERE Refugees, home, and work by Ameera Naguib ’16 from Jordan to Silicon Valley. …

The Derivation Of Sea Surface Velocities From Satellite Imagery Using Maximum Cross Correlation (Mcc), Philip Lawrence

The Plymouth Student Scientist

An investigation into the use of cross-correlation statistics to resolve surface velocities from satellite imagery was conducted for the region characterised by the Benguela current at approximately 24oS - 28oS and 9oE - 17oE for July 14th and 15th 2011. Colour images depicting concentrations for chlorophyll_a taken by the MODIS sensor and provided by NASA’s Ocean Color Browser, were used to conduct the statistical analysis using distinguishable surface colour features as tracers. Three runs using different parameter values for the cross correlation were carried out and the output vector fields examined. The first run produced 126 vectors with mean u …

Facebook Use Among African American And Hispanic Students: An Exploratory Investigation Of Perceived Academic Impact, Sathasivam Mathiyalakan, Sharon D. White, Jorge O. Brusa

Journal of International Technology and Information Management

Facebook is one of the world’s leading social networking sites. It is pervasive in students’ lives and can impact their academic careers in a variety of ways. However, little research exists evaluating the use of Facebook in minority academic settings. An early step in this direction is to gain an understanding of how different student demographic groups use Facebook. An interest in further assessment of Facebook’s role in diverse segments of academia motivates the collection and analysis of Facebook-related data from minority serving institutions such as Historically Black Colleges or Universities (HBCUs) and Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs). This study presents …

Cfd Study Of Decay Function Of Wall Shear Stress With Scour Around Complex-Shape Bridge Pier, Chen Li

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Pier scour problem is close related to the safety of bridges. The Federal Highway Administration of the United State also has a great interest in studying the relation between hydraulic loadings and scour depth. The current technological problem of directly measuring hydraulic loadings on a dynamic bed using physical experiments and the weak capacity to simulate the real scour processes with CFD methods inspired the development of a hybrid approach by combining them to study pier scour.

This research specifically focuses on the CFD part of the hybrid method. A series of three-dimensional (3-D) CFD models were developed with unsteady …

Analysis And Implementation Of Communications Systems For Small Satellite Missions, Jason S. Harris

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Nano satellites are becoming more and more popular space platforms due to their relatively low cost. Constellations of many of these small satellites are being launched for scientific and research purposes. This thesis has examined implementing a communications system for small satellites that can be used to maintain constant contact with satellites as they orbit the Earth. It analyzes the various components of a small satellite and how they integrate. It then discusses the different abstraction layers that will be required in order to support the same software architecture across various types of hardware. An orbital analysis was performed to …

Use Of Cycling Paths Along The Morogoro Brt Line, Ford Sanger

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

As the urban population continues to increase rapidly in Dar es Salaam it will become increasingly important to find sustainable means of urban transportation. With planned infrastructure improvements in the city to help alleviate traffic congestion, bicycles, which represent a largely underutilized form of urban transportation, have the potential to play a large role in the future of the city. Through background research, direct observations, community surveys, and interviews, both formal and informal, this study sought to understand the impact of the recent addition of bike lanes along the first phase of the Dar Bus Rapid Transit line. It was …

Extension Of The Gravity Model: A Risk Integrated Approach Towards The Impact Analysis Of Mega Sports Events On Inbound Tourist Arrivals, Abdul Sami Stanekzai

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Mega sports events such as the Olympics and the FIFA World Cup are highly attended and countries compete ferociously to host such events due to their perceived long term positive effects. Inbound tourist forecasting is an important aspect of the hosting decision both for the organizing committees and the hosting nations. As a precaution against letting the event fall into incapable hands, which can lead into chaos and mismanagement, measures needs to be taken. Capacity evaluation of interested parties is possible, only by knowing the number of people who may attend the event. However, due to the infrequent occurrence of …

Comparative Empirical Analysis On Computer Software Piracy Behaviors Between China And The United States: An Exploratory Study, Xiang Fang, Sooun Lee

Journal of International Technology and Information Management

Using the data collected from several universities in China and the United States, which have drastically different piracy rates, economic development stages, income levels, and national cultures, this study aims to identify which demographic factors affect software piracy significantly. Totally, the dataset includes 600 valid responses. Multivariate data analysis, supported by Multivariate Analysis of Variance and Turkey’s test, reveals that among various factors, country difference and gender most significantly influence software piracy. In addition, this study offers recommendations on how to curb software piracy effectively.

A Tool For Downscaling Weather Data From Large-Grid Reanalysis Products To Finer Spatial Scales For Distributed Hydrological Applications, Avirup Sen Gupta, David G. Tarboton

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

A downscaling tool was developed to provide sub-daily high spatial resolution surfaces of weather variables for distributed hydrologic modeling from NASA Modern Era Retrospective-Analysis for Research and Applications reanalysis products. The tool uses spatial interpolation and physically based relationships between the weather variables and elevation to provide inputs at the scale of a gridded hydrologic model, typically smaller (∼100 m) than the scale of weather reanalysis data (∼20–200 km). Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE) measures greater than 0.70 were obtained for direct tests of downscaled daily temperature and monthly precipitation at 173 SNOTEL sites. In an integrated test driving the Utah Energy …

Advanced Technologies For Sustainable Systems, Hesham Safwat

Mechanical Engineering

No abstract provided.

Determining Optimal Discharge And Optimal Penstock Diameter In Water Turbines, Arturo S. Leon

International Symposium on Hydraulic Structures

Minimizing water consumption for producing hydropower is critical given that overuse of flows for energy production may result in a shortage of flows for other purposes such as irrigation and navigation. This paper presents a dimensional analysis for finding optimal flow discharge and optimal penstock diameter when designing impulse and reaction water turbines for hydropower systems. The objective of this analysis is to provide general insights for minimizing water consumption when producing hydropower. This analysis is based on the geometric and hydraulic characteristics of the penstock, the total hydraulic head and the desired power production. As part of this analysis, …

Physical Modeling Of An Aerating Stepped Spillway, S. Erpicum, M. Lodomez, J. Savatier, P. Archambeau, B. J. Dewals, M. Pirotton

International Symposium on Hydraulic Structures

To mitigate the negative effects on the water quality in the downstream river of a projected large dam, and in particular to increase the dissolved oxygen concentration during low flow periods within the first 10 years of dam operation, an aerating weir has been designed and tested on a physical model at the Laboratory of Engineering Hydraulics (HECE) of the Liege University. The design of the structure has been done considering data from the literature. The selected solution is a 3 m high stepped spillway designed to operate in nappe flow conditions within the range of design discharges (25 – …

A Life Cycle Assessment Of A Uranium Mine In Namibia, Janine Lambert

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Uranium mining and nuclear power is a controversial topic as of late, especially in light of the recent Fukushima event. Although the actual use of nuclear fuel has minimal environmental impact, its issues come at the very beginning and end of the fuel’s life cycle in both the mining and fuel disposal process. This paper focuses on a life cycle analysis (LCA) of uranium mine in the desert nation of Namibia in Southern Africa. The goal of this LCA is to evaluate the environmental effects of uranium mining. The LCA focuses on water and energy embodiment such that they can …

Towards A New Design Equation For Piano Key Weirs Discharge Capacity, H. Bashiri, B. Dewals, M. Pirotton, P. Archambeau, S. Erpicum

International Symposium on Hydraulic Structures

No abstract provided.

State-Of-The-Practice Review Of Maintenance Closure Structures For Large Spillway Gates, C. M. Johnson, R. T. Indri, F. G. Snider, S. M. Planck, K. F. De Lapp

International Symposium on Hydraulic Structures

Maintenance, remediation, and inspection of large spillway gates are best performed in a dry, dewatered state due to reduced overall cost, worker safety, and improved work quality. Provision for gate dewatering has become a key design consideration for new spillways. Unfortunately, many existing spillways were not originally constructed with gate dewatering capabilities. Therefore, maintenance and inspection work has often been scheduled during planned drawdowns or seasonally low reservoir levels. However, for operators of hydroelectric, flood control, water supply, and multi-purpose dams, artificial drawdowns can significantly impact operations, flood protection, downstream habitat, and revenue generation. Aging gates deteriorate and require significant …

Interaction Of Hydraulic Structures With Air, Water, And Rock: The Challenge Of Researchers And Designers, Anton J. Schleiss

International Symposium on Hydraulic Structures

Since the last ten years, financial crisis has strongly impacted the global economy, which was mainly the result of un-controlled financial speculations at the stock markets highlighted by the revelations regarding offshore companies. Fortunately, the field of construction of large infrastructures, such as hydraulic schemes, has been left relatively untouched by this crisis. In order to stimulate their economies, many governments across the world have injected significant sums into sustainable infrastructures development.

Modeling Of Soybean Under Present And Future Climates In Mozambique, Manuel António Dina Talacuece, Flávio Barbosa Justino, Rafael De Ávila Rodrigues, Milton Edgar Pereira Flores, Jéssica Garcia Nascimento, Eduardo Eduardo Santos

Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute: Faculty Publications

This study aims to calibrate and validate the generic crop model (CROPGRO-Soybean) and estimate the soybean yield, considering simulations with different sowing times for the current period (1990–2013) and future climate scenario (2014–2030). The database used came from observed data, nine climate models of CORDEX (Coordinated Regional climate Downscaling Experiment)-Africa framework and MERRA (Modern Era Retrospective-Analysis for Research and Applications) reanalysis. The calibration and validation data for the model were acquired in field experiments, carried out in the 2009/2010 and 2010/2011 growing seasons in the experimental area of the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) in Angónia, Mozambique. The yield …

Plant-Based Technologies To Enable Rapid Response To Ebola Outbreak, Jerzy Karczewski, Vidadi Yusibov

Vaccine Technology VI

Ebola is a rare and deadly disease caused by infection with a strain of Ebola virus (Zaire, Sudan or Marburg). Ebola is spread through a direct contact with body fluids of infected patients. The recent Ebola outbreak affected multiple countries in West Africa and clearly demonstrated a need for development of technologies enabling production of adequate supply of vaccines and therapeutics to treat infected patients. We have undertaken efforts to develop methods and produce plant-based recombinant vaccine as well as a series of monoclonal antibodies to fight Ebola infection.

Several approaches were carried out to develop vaccines based on recombinant …

Meeting The Dod’S Tactical Weather Needs Using Cubesats, Shayna K. Mckenney

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates a CubeSat design that uses Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) components to capture, store, process, and downlink collected terrestrial weather data at resolutions near stat-of-the-art. The weather phenomena to be detected and transmitted in a timely manner are cloud formations, wind profiles, ocean currents, sea state, lightning, temperature profiles, and precipitation. It is hypothesized and shown that the proposed design will provide an improvement on the current U.S. tactical weather collection satellites because of the anticipated increased reliability and lowered cost to build and maintain the proposed CubeSat constellation. The methodology employed a multi-phase approach through the collective research of …