Engineering Commons^™

Baseball Portfolio Optimization, Keegan Henderson

Industrial Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Portfolio optimization techniques are methods used to determine the best set of stocks in which to invest. Mean-variance optimization, one method of portfolio optimization, attempts to find the set of portfolios that have the maximum expected return at each level of risk (Jorion, 1992). Another technique, Monte Carlo simulation, uses random number generation to create a probability distribution of potential returns (Kwak & Ingall, 2007). This can be used to determine the risk of potential investments not returning a certain desired amount (Thompson & McLeod, 2009). Though traditionally used in the world of finance, these tools can also be utilized …

The Role Of The Structural Engineer In The Contemporary Design Process, Amanda Yeager

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

This capstone is a critical look at the contemporary design process, particularly design competitions, and the role of the structural engineer in that process. Often, the design process for competitions is architect-led with the technical experts entering the process after the major design decisions have been made. As a result, structural requirements and other technical considerations are too often left out of the conceptual design proposals, leading to extensive design changes and costly structural issues to resolve before the structure can be realized. To investigate this issue, a structural analysis of an ambitious winning pedestrian bridge design was conducted. The …

Tracking The Rain: Can We Use Remote In Situ Sensors To Evaluate The Effectiveness Of Green Infrastructure?, Ethan Schafer

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

For decades Onondaga County and the City of Syracuse, New York, have struggled with water quality issues involving combined sewer overflows. These combined sewer overflows and the lack of an appropriate system to mitigate storm water runoff have continually contributed to the degradation of Onondaga Lake and the streams draining into it. To combat the issues presented by combined sewer overflows, Onondaga County implemented the storm water reduction program known as "Save the Rain". The Save the Rain program aims to utilize various forms of green infrastructure to reduce storm water flows into the combined sewer system. Examples of green …

Development Of An Inflammatory Joint Fluid Corrosion Assessment Method For Metallic Biomaterials, Kathleen Pieri

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

There is currently no systematic way to analyze the corrosion response of orthopedic alloys in contact with human joint fluid. The goal of this project was to design and test a small device that can successfully run electrochemical tests on retrieved inflamed joint fluids. Methods of fluid testing analysis were also explored. The a small electrochemical cell was created using polypropylene for the body and an electrode cartridge that could be disposed of after each test. In total the device could hold 4 mL of liquid. Testes were preformed using titanium, stainless steel, and CoCrMo alloys as the working electrodes …

Direct Printing Of Microstructures By Femtosecond Laser Excitation Of Nanocrystals In Solution, W. Shou, Heng Pan

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

No abstract provided.

Strong Coupling Between Mid-Infrared Localized Plasmons And Phonons, W. Wan, Xiaodong Yang, Jie Gao

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

No abstract provided.

Flight Physician - May, 2016, Civil Aviation Medical Association

Browse all Civil Aviation Medical Association Newsletters

A nineteen page newsletter of the Civil Aviation Medical Association. The newsletter provided news about civil aviation medicine and information related to the organization.

Efficiency And Particulate Matter Emissions Testing Of Wood Burning Heating Units, Collin W. Michael

Chemical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

The University of Arkansas StoveHOGS team developed a method for efficiency and particle emissions testing of wood fired heaters. The EPA currently regulates the particulate emissions of wood burning stoves, and the goal of this project was to develop a cheaper, easier method for small manufacturers to test the efficiency and particulate emissions of wood burning stoves without sending them to a testing facility. The team used EPA and CSA testing standards to design and test a method that could accomplish the same task in a simpler and more cost effective manner.

2016 Maintenance Customer Survey, R. Clark Graves, David L. Allen

Kentucky Transportation Center Research Report

The Kentucky Transportation Center, with the assistance of the University of Kentucky’s Survey Research Center, administered a telephone survey to 1,221 licensed drivers throughout the state to gauge their opinion of the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet’s (KYTC) maintenance activities. Survey respondents were distributed throughout KYTC’s 12 highway districts. The survey focused on five areas of highway maintenance: roadside features, pavement surfaces, shoulders, drainage and signs/markings. Respondents indicated they were most satisfied with the current maintenance of signs, guardrail, and striping. Pavement surfaces and potholes, and shoulders and roadway drainage, received the lowest rankings — given that the driving public is very …

Design And Optimization Of Membrane-Type Acoustic Metamaterials, Matthew G. Blevins

Durham School of Architectural Engineering and Construction: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

One of the most common problems in noise control is the attenuation of low frequency noise. Typical solutions require barriers with high density and/or thickness. Membrane-type acoustic metamaterials are a novel type of engineered material capable of high low-frequency transmission loss despite their small thickness and light weight. These materials are ideally suited to applications with strict size and weight limitations such as aircraft, automobiles, and buildings. The transmission loss profile can be manipulated by changing the micro-level substructure, stacking multiple unit cells, or by creating multi-celled arrays. To date, analysis has focused primarily on experimental studies in plane-wave tubes …

An Evaluation Of Agricultural Tractors Hydraulic Lift Performance, Grant W. Melotz

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The current OECD Code 2 detailing the procedures for the hydraulic lift test of agricultural tractors, section 4.3, published lift values that were sometimes unattainable. The static weight of 2WD, two wheel drive, and MFWD, mechanical front wheel drive, tractors and the amount of lifting force have increased at a greater rate than the amount of static weight on the front axle. This increase in lifting force has led to a decrease in the percent of weight as the upward support force on the front axle of a tractor. Many of the 2WD and MFWD unballasted tractors tested at the …

Tractor Measurement And Data Acquisition System For Hydraulic Power, Draft Force, And Power Take-Off Torque, James Roeber

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Numerous advancements in machinery performance of agricultural tractors have been made in recent years. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) tests predetermined points (e.g., maximum power and torque) for drawbar, Power Take-Off (PTO), and hydraulic power as separate tests for tractor performance. Testing methods with the tractor operating at a steady state have been done for years, which were uncharacteristic of agricultural tractor operations in field conditions. As part of this thesis work, field usable data acquisition systems (DAQs) were developed to record implement energy consumption (e.g., drawbar loading, PTO torque, and hydraulic power). The system used LabVIEW …

Cooling And Packaging Of Accumulators For Formula Sae Electric Car, Hang Yin

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Theses - Archive

Electric car is the future of automotive industry. The performance of the batteries is vital for that of electric cars. Overheating will compromise the performance of batteries, shorten the life span and even damage the battery permanently. So it is crucial to have an efficient packaging and cooling method. This project using Formula SAE Electric car as the testing ground is dedicated to develop the efficient way of thermal and electronic packaging of accumulators for automobiles.

Development And Flight Test Of Moving-Mass Actuated Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, Sampath Reddy Vengate

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Theses - Archive

Conventional airplane control is achieved by aerodynamic control surfaces by generating moments around all the three axes of the aircraft. Defections of the control surfaces have some disadvantages such as induced drag, increase in radar signature, and exposure to high temperature in high speed applications. As an alternative moment generation mechanism, prior research proposed internal mass-actuation, which is to generate gravitational moment by changing the center of gravity of the aircraft through motion of internal masses within the aircraft. Prior research investigated the feasibility and benefit of internal mass-actuation in airplane control based on simulation analysis. The main focus of …

Numerical Studies On Spin Coating Of Metals, Varun Nanjunda Rao Viswamithra

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Theses - Archive

Spin coating is a surface coating process which involves spreading a liquid dispensed on the center of a rotating substrate. The liquid is discharged using a suitable method on to the substrate rotating at a constant angular speed. The spinning speed is controlled to obtain a coating of desired thickness with faster spinning resulting in thinner coating. The thickness of the coating also depends on the properties of the fluid and other process parameters. Centrifugal force is introduced into the code as radial component of acceleration. The first part of the code solves the continuity and the Navier-Stokes equations, with …

Cfd Analysis And Design Optimization Of Heat Sink For Oil Immersion Cooling, Koushik Epuri

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Theses - Archive

Air cooling is predominant cooling technique employed in most of the data centers. As the demand for High performance computing (HPC) which deploy large concentration of high-end servers (30 kW to 200 kW per rack) is increasing, it is becoming challenging to cool the systems using air cooling. Liquid cooling has significant advantages over air cooling techniques due to higher heat capacities of fluids. Liquid immersion cooling using dielectric and non-corrosive mineral oils is one of the potential alternative to air cooling methods for high density data centers. In this work, we consider a third generation open compute server optimized …

Design And Stiffness Optimization Of Quadri-Directional Composite Grid Lattice Structures, Gajendra Devanga Gangadara

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Theses - Archive

Composite grid structures are rib stiffeners connected to each other rigidly in a pattern or a lattice such that the whole grid pattern has certain smeared stiffness property and has a certain structural behavior. The main focus of this thesis is to design the geometric pattern of a Quadri-directional composite grid lattice such that it has the prescribed stiffness moduli. The research is divided into three phases, in the first phase, the equation for stiffness moduli, the reduced stiffness matrix [Q] and the laminate stiffness matrices [ABD] of the grid pattern is derived for Quadri-directional grid panels. In the second …

Crack Growth Mechanisms Under Anti-Plane Shear In Composite Laminates, Allison Lynne Horner

Dissertations - ALL

The research conducted for this dissertation focuses on determining the mechanisms associated with crack growth in polymer matrix composite laminates subjected to anti-plane shear (mode III) loading. For mode III split-beam test methods were proposed, and initial evaluations were conducted. A single test method was selected for further evaluation. Using this test method, it was determined that the apparent mode III delamination toughness, GIIIc, depended on geometry, which indicated a true material property was not being measured. Transverse sectioning and optical microscopy revealed an array of transverse matrix cracks, or echelon cracks, oriented at approximately 45° and intersecting the plane …

Resource Management For Distributed Estimation Via Sparsity-Promoting Regularization, Sijia Liu

Dissertations - ALL

Recent advances in wireless communications and electronics have enabled the development of low-cost, low-power, multifunctional sensor nodes that are small in size and communicate untethered in a sensor network. These sensor nodes can sense, measure, and gather information from the environment and, based on some local processing, they transmit the sensed data to a fusion center that is responsible for making the global inference. Sensor networks are often tasked to perform parameter estimation; example applications include battlefield surveillance, medical monitoring, and navigation. However, under limited resources, such as limited communication bandwidth and sensor battery power, it is important to design …

Novel Methods And Self-Reinforced Composite Materials For Assessment And Prevention Of Fretting Corrosion In Modular Tapers, Eric S. Ouellette

Dissertations - ALL

Novel methods for assessing the electrochemical and micromechanical performance of modular tapers were evaluated, and self-reinforced composite materials were developed for their potential to prevent the onset of mechanically assisted corrosion in modular taper devices.

A study of the seating and taper locking mechanics of modular taper samples was conducted, and the effect on taper engagement strength of seating load, loading rate, taper moisture, and taper design/material combination was studied. The load-displacement behavior was captured during seating, and the subsequent pull off load was correlated to seating displacement, seating energy, and seating load. The primary factor affecting taper engagement strength …

Uncovering And Mitigating Unsafe Program Integrations In Android, Xiao Zhang

Dissertations - ALL

Android’s design philosophy encourages the integration of resources and functionalities from multiple parties, even with different levels of trust. Such program integrations, on one hand, connect every party in the Android ecosystem tightly on one single device. On the other hand, they can also pose severe security problems, if the security design of the underlying integration schemes is not well thought-out. This dissertation systematically evaluates the security design of three integration schemes on Android, including framework module, framework proxy and 3rd-party code embedding. With the security risks identified in each scheme, it concludes that program integrations on Android are unsafe. …

Containment And Dewatering Of Heavy Metal Contaminated Sediments Using Reactive Soil Minerals And Cellulose Materials, Prabesh Rupakheti

Dissertations - ALL

The aim of this study is to investigate effective and sustainable measures to contain heavy metal contaminated sediments inside a geotextile tube during dewatering process. The efficacy of cellulosic materials (Jute fibers, Peanut hull, and Kraft pulp) on adsorption of selected heavy metals (Pb2+, Cu2+, Zn2+, and Cd2+) and dewatering performance inside a geotextile tube was studied by a series of Batch Adsorption and Pressure Filtration tests (PFT). The cellulosic materials were chosen keeping in mind their cost, accessibility, ease of handling and use, and sustainability. The studied adsorbents are inexpensive, easily available, and sustainable. In order to understand the …

Intentio Ex Machina: Android Intent Access Control Via An Extensible Application Hook, Carter Yagemann

Dissertations - ALL

Android's intent framework facilitates binder based interprocess communication (IPC) and encourages application developers to utilize IPC in their applications with a frequency unseen in traditional desktop environments. The increased volume of IPC present in Android devices, coupled with intent's ability to implicitly find valid receivers for IPC, bring about new security challenges to the computing security landscape.

This work proposes Intentio Ex Machina (IEM), an access control solution for Android intent IPC security. IEM separates the logic for performing access control from where the intents are intercepted by placing an interface in the Android framework. This allows the access control …

Wireless Power Transfer For Medical And Industrial Applications, Minh Quoc Nguyen

Electrical Engineering Dissertations - Archive

My primary research focuses on wireless power transfer technology utilizing in two different areas: medical and industrial applications. In the medical applications, my research focuses on design and optimization methods for spiral coils utilized for wireless power transfer in wireless medical implant applications. A theoretical model was examined for near field distributions of spiral-type transmitter antennas in both orthogonal components. Finite element simulations were performed to verify the theoretical radiation patterns. Receiver antenna voltages were measured at planes of interest as a means to map field distributions. Theoretical, simulation and experimental results were conducted in the free space and they …

Cfd Model For Ventilation In Broiler Holding Sheds, Christian Heymsfield

Biological and Agricultural Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Broiler production in Arkansas was valued at over $3.6 billion in 2013 (University of Arkansas Extension of Agriculture). Consequently, improvement in any phase of the production process can have significant economic impact and animal welfare implications. From the time poultry leave the farm and until they are slaughtered, they can be exposed to harsh environmental conditions, both in winter and in summer. After road transportation, birds are left to wait in holding sheds once they arrive at the processing plant, for periods of approximately 30 minutes to two hours. This project was interested in this holding shed waiting time during …

Crizotinib And Ceritinib Induce Apoptosis And Necrosis In Primary Rat Hepatocytes With Distinct Capacity, Alec T. Salminen

Biomedical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Drug development makes up a major portion of biomedical engineering research interests. The FDA oversees the introduction, experimentation, and implementation of all drugs before market approval is granted. Even after market approval is granted, the FDA continues to monitor the safety of all drugs. Crizotinib and ceritinib are two anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) inhibitors recently approved by the FDA. Both drugs are indicated for treatment of non-small cell lung cancers (NSCLC) with abnormal ALK gene, and they are approved with a companion diagnostic test that determines ALK abnormality. Clinical trial data suggest that crizotinib and ceritinib can cause liver injury, …

Exploring Biomarkers For Point Of Care Bladder Cancer Detection, Cassandra M. Walker

Biomedical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Bladder cancer is the 5th most common non-cutaneous human cancer in the United States. While effective methods of detecting bladder cancer are currently practiced, they are often expensive and invasive. There is a need for a noninvasive detection method that can be used in areas with few medical resources. Cell free DNA in urine is normally present only in very low concentrations. Abnormally high levels of cell free DNA in urine could be indicative of disease. This study tests the hypothesis that DNA present in urine can be used as a biomarker for bladder cancer before hematuria is seen in …

Optimized Protocol For Measuring 2-Nbdg Uptake As A Cellular Marker Of Glycolytic Demand, Drew Folgmann

Biomedical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

2[N-(7-nitrobenz-2-oxa-1,2-diaxol-4-yl)amino]-2-deoxyglucose (2-NBDG) a fluorescently tagged analog of FDG is ideal for in vitro studies and imaging. 2-NBDG has been proven to be an adequate marker for glucose uptake in many different types of cells [1]. However, across the spectrum of 2-NBDG use a lack of consensus is observed for the following questions. What is the ideal time to fast cells to optimize cellular uptake of 2-NBDG? Also, what is the ideal concentration of 2-NBDG to be used when quantifying glucose uptake? Finally, what is the effect of serum on the uptake of 2-NBDG? To answer these questions and understand glucose …

Micellular Electrokinetic Chromatography For Studying Amyloid Beta Oligomer Membrane Affinity, Andrew Bryson

Biomedical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Amyloid Beta (Aβ) was the major focus of this study. It is a peptide that is present in the brain with a high tendency to self-aggregate. When this protein aggregates, it forms oligomers and protofibrils which in turn are deposited as senile plaques in the brain. The reason for the concern with these plaques is their association with the neurological disorder Alzheimer’s disease. It has been found that the most dangerous oligomers are formed in a portion of the plasma membrane known as lipid rafts. The purpose of this study was to understand how micelles affect the aggregation properties of …

Non-Directional Conjugation Of Fluorescent Antibodies To Gold Nanoparticles For Stem Cell Therapy, Kunal B. Shah

Biomedical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

The objective of this study was to design citrate-coated gold nanoparticles conjugated with FITC-IgG, a fluorescent antibody, and to qualitatively and quantitatively measure the resulting fluorescent emission. Optical properties of the gold nanoparticles were measured at various stages to provide evidence of successful conjugation. The absorbance spectrum of the citrate gold nanoparticles was compared to that of the reaction mixture containing the gold nanoparticles and the FITC-IgG. A noticeable broadening of the absorption peak was observed at 519 nm indicating a surface modification of the gold nanoparticles. Fluorescence data was obtained with a fluorospectrometer and revealed a significant amount of …