Engineering Commons^™

Engineering Healthcare Delivery: A Systems Engineering Approach To Improving Trauma Center Nursing Efficacy, Robert A. Myers

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The efficacy of nurses is impacted by their availability to their patients and the occurrence of both beneficial and detrimental interruptions. Using system engineering tools, this work addresses open challenges in (i) methods for effective matching of nurse availability to non-stationary stochastic demand, (ii) differentiation of beneficial and detrimental interruptions, and (iii) modeling of nurses’ work with interruptions to provide an objective method of testing interruption interventions. First, we propose both qualitative and quantitative approaches to evaluate and then model the impact of resource scheduling on patient wait time in a Level I trauma center for a highly specialized nurse, …

Inlet Distortion Effects On The Unsteady Aerodynamics Of A Transonic Fan Stage, Daniel Oliver Reilly

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A computational study was conducted to understand the influence of aircraft inlet distortion flow on the unsteady aerodynamic loading of a gas turbine fan stage. A single stage, transonic fan design with no inlet guide vanes was modeled with a commercial, computational fluid dynamics solver, STAR-CCM+, using the harmonic balance technique. The baseline inlet boundary condition applied to the model is consistent with that of a homeomorphic variant of the M2129 S-duct, and exhibited stagnation pressure distortion and a swirl pattern. The baseline inlet flow was decomposed and parameterized into a set of inlet boundary conditions which were individually applied …

Measures Of User Interactions, Conversations, And Attacks In A Crowdsourced Platform Offering Emotional Support., Samir Yelne

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Online social systems have emerged as a popular medium for people in society to communicate with each other. Among the most important reasons why people communicate is to share emotional problems, but most online social systems are uncomfortable or unsafe spaces for this purpose. This has led to the rise of online emotional support systems, where users needing to speak to someone can anonymously connect to a crowd of trained listeners for a one-on-one conversation. To better understand who, how and when users utilize these systems, and to evaluate their safety, this thesis offers a comprehensive examination of the characteristics …

Evidence That Myo-Inositol Plus Ethanolamine Elevates Plasmalogen Levels And Lends Protection Against Oxidative Stress In Neuro-2a Cells, Isaie Sibomana

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Plasmalogens are glycerophospholipids abundant in brain and heart tissues. Evidence suggests that they have antioxidant properties. Studies from our laboratory showed that rats treated with myo-inositol plus ethanolamine (ME) have elevated ethanolamine plasmalogens (PE-Pls) in brain and are protected against phosphine-induced oxidative stress. We hypothesized that ME elevates PE-Pls levels and protects against oxidative stress through oxidation of its vinyl ether bond. We tested this hypothesis in Neuro-2A cell culture and assessed the effects of treatments with myo-inositol (M), ethanolamine (Etn), or a combination (ME) on the: (1) effects on phospholipid (PL) classes, especially Etn PLs; (2) effects on cell …

A Genetic Algorithm For Asic Floorplanning, Anvesh Kumar Perumalla

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Semiconductor integrated circuits (ICs) have become key components in almost every aspect of our daily lives. From simple home appliances to extremely sophisticated aerospace systems, we have become increasingly dependent on ICs. System-on-chip (SoC) is an IC methodology that includes multiple design technologies on a single IC chip. SoC was developed to further integrate and manage system complexity. Due to SoC and increasingly dense IC fabrication technologies, design time and thereby system time-to-market are becoming more critical drivers of the IC design cycle. In order to address issues related to design time and time-to-market, highly optimized semiconductor intellectual property (IP) …

High-Fidelity Multidisciplinary Sensitivity Analysis For Coupled Fluid-Solid Interaction Design, Koorosh Gobal

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In many engineering disciplines such as aerospace, marine, automotive, and biomedical engineering, the consideration of the coupling between the fluid and structural systems is necessary for quality engineering analysis. Therefore, the need for such analysis in the design is continuously increasing. The primary motivation for this work is to develop a sensitivity analysis tool that is capable of calculating accurate sensitivities without significant modification of the source codes for simulations based on non-body conformal grids. The majority of work done on the coupled fluid-solid simulations are based on computational grids that conform to solid boundaries. This becomes a restriction for …

Software Defined Secure Ad Hoc Wireless Networks, Maha Alqallaf

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Software defined networking (SDN), a new networking paradigm that separates the network data plane from the control plane, has been considered as a flexible, layered, modular, and efficient approach to managing and controlling networks ranging from wired, infrastructure-based wireless (e.g., cellular wireless networks, WiFi, wireless mesh net- works), to infrastructure-less wireless networks (e.g. mobile ad-hoc networks, vehicular ad-hoc networks) as well as to offering new types of services and to evolving the Internet architecture. Most work has focused on the SDN application in traditional and wired and/or infrastructure based networks. Wireless networks have become increasingly more heterogeneous. Secure and collab- …

Multi-Carrier Radar For Target Detection And Communications, John David Ellinger

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This dissertation considers the optimization of radar performance within the structure imposed by a coded Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) format required to achieve an acceptable communication link. The dual goal of achieving both satisfactory radar and communication performance raises challenges that can be substantively addressed by combining phase coding and modulation techniques to provide the temporal and spectral structure necessary to implement simultaneous radar and communication operations. In particular, the specific techniques, as introduced within this dissertation, of using the Multi-Frequency Complementary Phase Coded (MCPC) sequences, as prescribed by Levanon and Mozeson, for simultaneous radar and wireless communication operations …

The Effect Of Laser Power And Scan Speed On Melt Pool Characteristics Of Pure Titanium And Ti-6al-4v Alloy For Selective Laser Melting, Chandrakanth Kusuma

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Selective Laser Melting (SLM) is an additive manufacturing (AM) technique that creates complex parts by selectively melting metal powder layer-by-layer. In SLM, the process parameters decide the quality of the fabricated component. In this study, single beads of commercially pure titanium (CP-Ti) and Ti-6Al-4V alloy are melted on a substrate of the same material as powder using an in-house built SLM machine. Multiple combinations of laser power and scan speed are used for single bead fabrication while the laser beam diameter and powder layer thickness are kept constant. This experimental study investigates the influence of laser power, scan speed and …

Knowledge-Empowered Probabilistic Graphical Models For Physical-Cyber-Social Systems, Pramod Anantharam

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There is a rapid intertwining of sensors and mobile devices into the fabric of our lives. This has resulted in unprecedented growth in the number of observations from the physical and social worlds reported in the cyber world. Sensing and computational components embedded in the physical world constitute a Cyber-Physical System (CPS). Current science of CPS is yet to effectively integrate citizen observations in CPS analysis. We demonstrate the role of citizen observations in CPS and propose a novel approach to perform a holistic analysis of machine and citizen sensor observations. Specifically, we demonstrate the complementary, corroborative, and timely aspects …

Fault Diagnosis And Fault-Tolerant Control Of Quadrotor Uavs, Remus C. Avram

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Quadrotors represent a special class of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and have attracted significant attention in recent years due to their potential in various military and civilian applications. However, due to their intrinsic fabrication process and component damage, quadrotors are prone to various type of faults. This dissertation presents the design, analysis, and experimental implementation of fault diagnosis, fault-tolerant control, and controller verification methods to achieve safety assurance and trusted autonomy of quadrotor UAVs. First, the issue of sensor faults is investigated under two different scenarios: (1) the case when all Euler angles are available for measurement; (2) the case …

Design And Evaluation Of A Fiber Optic Shape Tracker For Use As A Navigational Aid In Endovascular Guidewires And Catheters, Benjamin Stewart Rinehart

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Endovascular intervention is the current gold-standard for screening and treating aortic aneurysms and complications caused by peripheral vascular disease (PAD). A typical endovascular procedure begins with inserting an endovascular guidewire into the femoral artery via incision. A catheter is then threaded over the guidewire and both tools are then navigated to the treatment site. The navigation is guided solely by fluoroscopy (x-ray) imagery that is performed throughout the duration of the procedure. Not only does this method provide limited 2-D guidance, but also exposes the patient and medical staff to high levels of radiation. This thesis research focuses on the …

Fpga Realization Of Low Register Systolic All One-Polynomial Multipliers Over Gf (2M) And Their Applications In Trinomial Multipliers, Pingxiuqi Chen

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All-one-polynomial (AOP)-based systolic multipliers over GF (2m) are usually not con-sidered for practical implementation of cryptosystems such as elliptic curve cryptography (ECC) due to security reasons. Besides that, systolic AOP multipliers usually suer from the problem of high register-complexity, especially in field-programmable gate array (FPGA) platforms where the register resources are not that abundant. In this thesis, however, we have shown that the AOP-based systolic multipliers can easily achieve low register-complexity implementations and the proposed architectures can be employed as computation cores to derive ecient implementations of systolic Montgomery multipli-ers based on trinomials, which are recommended by the National Institute …

A Theoretical Framework For Evaluating Mental Workload Resources In Human Systems Design For Manufacturing Operations, Sharon Claxton Bommer

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Manufacturing is a human-driven process that applies energy and manpower to produce consumer goods. In repetitive task processes like manufacturing systems, optimal performance is extremely important for the production employee and the company. In the general fast pace of manufacturing operations, there is the potential for operator errors, which correlates to possible safety issues and loss of revenue. This research explores the influence of cognitive resources on operator performance in manufacturing operations using the Multiple Resource Theory (MRT) and mental workload measures. Computer simulation models and mathematical modeling with Improved Performance Research Integration Tool (IMPRINT) were used to assess mental …

Growth And Characterization Of Molybdenum Disulfide Thin Films, Carl Morris Gross Iii

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Two-dimensional materials, or materials that are only one atomic layer thick, have seen much research in recent years because of their interesting electrical properties. The first of these materials, graphene, was found to have incredible electrical properties but lacked a bandgap in intrinsic films. Without a bandgap, graphene cannot create transistors that can be shut off. Molybdenum disulfide, however, is a two-dimensional semiconductor with a large bandgap. The main issue of molybdenum disulfide is that synthesized films are a much lower quality than their exfoliated counterparts. For molybdenum disulfide to be able to be used practically, a method of synthesis …

Performance Prediction Of Constrained Waveform Design For Adaptive Radar, Aaron M. Jones

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Today's radars face an ever increasingly complex operational environment, intensified by the numerous types of mission/modes, number and type of targets, non-homogenous clutter and active interferers in the scene. Thus, the ability to adapt ones transmit waveform, to optimally suit the needs for a particular radar tasking and environment, becomes mandatory. This requirement brings with it a host of challenges to implement including the basic decision of what to transmit. In this dissertation, we discuss six original contributions, including the development of performance prediction models for constrained radar waveforms, that aid in the decision making process of an adaptive radar …

Refining A Post-Stroke Pharmacological And Physical Treatment To Reduce Infarct Volume Or Improve Functional Recovery, Using Gene Expression Changes In The Peri-Infarct Region To Examine Potential Mechanisms In Male And Female Rats, Moner A. Ragas

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Stroke, a life-threatening medical condition, is the fifth-leading cause of death in the United States with an estimated annual cost of treatments above $70 billion. A combination of innovative approaches was used in our lab to optimize the pre-clinical stroke research design by choosing the most appropriate animal model and methodologies to increase the translational capability of the stroke research. The first study, modeled after ongoing clinical trials using fluoxetine, refined the appropriate timing of fluoxetine and ascorbic acid delivery if a rat was on simvastatin for 7 days pre-stroke and throughout the remainder of the study. Administration of fluoxetine …

Co-Transplantation Of Endothelial Progenitor Cells And Neural Progenitor Cells For Treating Ischemic Stroke In A Mouse Model, Jinju Wang

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Ischemic stroke (IS) is a major cause of death and disability with limited and less effective therapeutics. Transplantation of stem cells, such as neuronal progenitor cells (NPCs) and endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs), is promising for treating IS. It is well known that neurogenesis and angiogenesis are critical for cerebral repair following ischemic injury. However, whether co-transplantation of EPCs and NPCs has synergistic effects remains unclarified. In addition, the PI3K/Akt pathway participates in modulating a widely range of cellular functions such as anti-apoptotic and anti-oxidant. The signal pathways responsible for the effects of grafted NPCs and EPCs are also waiting for …

Modular Multi-Signal Tracking Pulse Descriptor Word (Pdw) Generator With Field Programmable Gate Array (Fpga) Implementation, Justin Darrell Pelan

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As signal spectra become dense, the task of tracking and identifying radars becomes increasingly cumbersome. The variety of radars in modern theaters of war compound the task due to simultaneous operation. Real-time processing of large data sets prove difficult for sequential systems, and the parallelism of Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) becomes an attractive option. To mitigate the increasing complexity of this task, this design proposes an FPGA architecture to produce pulse descriptor words (PDW) for up to eight independent radio frequency signals that can be used in near-real-time processing. Focusing on digital hardware techniques and modular design allow for …

Knowledge-Driven Implicit Information Extraction, Pathirage Dinindu Perera

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Natural language is a powerful tool developed by humans over hundreds of thousands of years. The extensive usage, flexibility of the language, creativity of the human beings, and social, cultural, and economic changes that have taken place in daily life have added new constructs, styles, and features to the language. One such feature of the language is its ability to express ideas, opinions, and facts in an implicit manner. This is a feature that is used extensively in day to day communications in situations such as: 1) expressing sarcasm, 2) when trying to recall forgotten things, 3) when required to …

Probabilistic Svm For Open Set Automatic Target Recognition On High Range Resolution Radar Data, Jason Daniel Roos

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The application of Automatic Target Recognition (ATR) on High Range Resolution (HRR) radar data in a scenario that contains unknown targets is of great interest for military and civilian applications. HRR radar data provides greater resolution of a target as well as the ability to perform ATR on a moving target, which gives it an advantage over other imaging systems. With the added resolution of HRR comes the disadvantage that a change in the aspect angle or orientation results in greater changes in the collected data, making classical ATR more difficult. Closed set ATR on HRR radar data is defined …

Purification And Recovery Of Infectious Virus Particles Using Osmolyte Flocculation, Ashish Saksule

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Viral infectious diseases cause millions of deaths and severe illness all around the world affecting public health and economics. Viral vaccines are helping to fight against viral diseases, but current vaccines are expensive and unavailable, especially in poor and developing countries. When measuring the entire manufacturing processing, the downstream processing of vaccines is the major cost of production. Our goal for this research is to develop a low-cost alternative downstream processing platform for new vaccine manufacturing infrastructures. We have developed a novel osmolyte flocculation method for viral particles. To create a platform purification for several types of viral particles, we …

A Petrophysical Evaluation For Permeability Of A Gas Reservoir In The Taranaki Basin, New Zealand, Musa Cetin

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

The goal of this study was to evaluate permeability and study the controls on permeability in a gas saturated formation. Conventional well logs, mineral identification crossplots and empirical models were applied to analyze different lithologic and diagenetic features and to examine the effect that these features may have on the reservoir. An unusual feature was observed, and required detailed examination: there existed (in two wells) five zones of lower resistivity (higher water saturation) above the gas-water contact. This is unexpected, as above that contact, the water is usually at irreducible water saturation. I conclude that the lower resistivity (the higher …

Towards A Generic Ontology For Solar Irradiance Forecasting, Abhilash Kantamneni

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

The growth of solar energy resources in recent years has led to increased calls for accurate forecasts of solar irradiance for the reliable and sustainable integration of solar into the national grid. A growing body of academic research has developed models for forecasting solar irradiance, identified metrics for comparing solar forecasts, and described applications and end users of solar forecasts.

In recent years, many disciplines are developing ontologies to facilitate better communication, improve inter-operabiity and refine knowledge reuse by experts and users of the domain. Ontologies are explicit and formal vocabulary of terms and their relationships. This report describes a …

On The Applications Of Interactive Theorem Proving In Computational Sciences And Engineering, Amer Tahat

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Interactive Theorem Proving (ITP) is one of the most rigorous methods used in

formal verification of computing systems. While ITP provides a high level of confidence in the correctness of the system under verification, it suffers from a steep learning curve and the laborious nature of interaction with a theorem prover. As such, it is desirable to investigate whether ITP can be used in unexplored (but high-impact) domains where other verification methods fail to deliver. To this end, the focus of this dissertation is on two important domains, namely design of parameterized self-stabilizing systems, and mechanical verification of numerical approximations …

The Effect Of Community Connectivity On Water And Sanitation Systems In Rural Panama, M.C. Moritz

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

The world has yet to realize universal access to water and sanitation. Various academic and professional fields provide frameworks for understanding water and sanitation access, but none directly consider the impact of community connectivity. Community connectivity refers to the infrastructures linking rural communities with urban centers. These infrastructures fall under the broad categories of transportation, energy, and telecommunication. This paper examines 23 rural Panamanian communities and compares connectivity measures with the functionality of the communities’ rural water and sanitation systems (RWSS). Community connectivity was evaluated with the Community Connectivity Analysis Tool (CCAT), while the water and sanitation systems were evaluated …

Experimental And Theoretical Investigation Of Sustainable Fast Pyrolysis Biofuels From Woody Biomass, Bethany Jean Klemetsrud

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Biofuels are an important advancement in alternative energy that can provide substantial environmental benefits compared to their conventional fossil fuel counterparts Said benefits are usually measured using life cycle assessments. However, it is not well understood yet how different methodological choices such as system boundaries, biomass feedstocks, conversion pathways, geographical data, etc. affect the conclusions drawn from biofuels LCA. This research shows large variability in life cycle assessment results and limits comparison across different biofuel pathways due to methodological choices set forth by policy and certification schemes. Advanced biofuels have not reached large scale production due to a limited understanding …

A Clean Electricity Future: Assessing The Role Of Wide-Area Power System Operations In Supporting Weather-Driven Renewable Energy In The U.S., Paul D. Picciano

Pomona Senior Theses

Over the coming decades, renewable energy sources, namely wind and solar, will need to play a larger role in our nation’s energy mix as we seek to lower greenhouse emissions and respond to renewable energy policies and the EPA’s Clean Power Plan. This thesis assesses the role of wider-area power system operations in the U.S. as a powerful solution in supporting the integration of these weather-driven, variable energy resources that pose substantial challenges to grid reliability. The expansion and integration of organized electricity markets and transmission networks over wider geographic areas can (1) help reduce net-variability in wind and solar …

Cfd Prediction And Simulation Of A Pumpjet Propulsor, Lin Lu, Guang Pan, Prasanta K. Sahoo

Ocean Engineering and Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

In this study an attempt has been made to study the hydrodynamic performance of pumpjet propulsor. Numerical investigation based on the Reynolds Averaged NaviereStokes (RANS) computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method has been carried out. The structured grid and SST keu turbulence model have been applied. The numerical simulations of open water performance of marine propeller E779A are carried out with different advance ratios to verify the numerical simulation method. Results show that the thrust and the torque are in good agreements with experimental data. The grid independent inspection is applied to verify accuracy of numerical simulation grid. The numerical predictions …

Simulation To Application. The Use Of Computer Simulations To Improve Real-World Application Of Learning, Wendi M. Kappers, Stephanie L. Cutler

Publications

Simulations have been used in training and education for years to aid students in gaining the skills needed to complete a task in a low risk environment. However, students can have trouble connecting the skills used in the simulated working environments to skills that are needed to be applied in the real-world environment, referred to as adaptive transfer. The simulations referred to in this study are simulated environments that mirror students kill application, not a simulation of an event that is meant to aid students in the development of concept knowledge around the demonstrated event. This study examines students' ability …