Engineering Commons^™

Dependability Enhancing Mechanisms For Integrated Clinical Environments, Wenbing Zhao, Mary Q. Yang

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

In this article, we present a set of lightweight mechanisms to enhance the dependability of a safety-critical real-time distributed system referred to as an integrated clinical environment (ICE). In an ICE, medical devices are interconnected and work together with the help of a supervisory computer system to enhance patient safety during clinical operations. Inevitably, there are strong dependability requirements on the ICE. We introduce a set of mechanisms that essentially make the supervisor component a trusted computing base, which can withstand common hardware failures and malicious attacks. The mechanisms rely on the replication of the supervisor component and employ only …

Effects Of Nitrogen And Phosphorus Fertilizer And Topsoil Amendment On Native Plant Cover In Roadside Revegetation Projects, Heidi L. Hillhouse, Walter H. Schacht, Jonathan M. Soper, Carol E. Wienhold

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

Establishing vegetation on roadsides following construction can be challenging, especially for relatively slow growing native species. Topsoil is generally removed during construction, and the surface soil following construction (“cut-slope soils”) is often compacted and low in nutrients, providing poor growing conditions for vegetation. Nebraska Department of Transportation (NDOT) protocols have historically called for nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) fertilization when planting roadside vegetation following construction, but these recommendations were developed for cool-season grass plantings and most current plantings use slower-establishing, native warmseason grasses that may benefit less than expected from current planting protocols. We evaluated the effects of nitrogen and …

Semantic Reasoning In Zero Example Video Event Retrieval, M. H. T. De Boer, Yi-Jie Lu, Hao Zhang, Klamer Schutte, Chong-Wah Ngo, Wessel Kraaij

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Searching in digital video data for high-level events, such as a parade or a car accident, is challenging when the query is textual and lacks visual example images or videos. Current research in deep neural networks is highly beneficial for the retrieval of high-level events using visual examples, but without examples it is still hard to (1) determine which concepts are useful to pre-train (Vocabulary challenge) and (2) which pre-trained concept detectors are relevant for a certain unseen high-level event (Concept Selection challenge). In our article, we present our Semantic Event Retrieval Systemwhich (1) shows the importance of high-level concepts …

An Abbreviated Leap: The Geopolitical And Geoeconomic Significance Of The China – Pakistan Economic Corridor To The New Silk Road, Emma Nichols

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The objective of this analysis is to reveal the geopolitical and geoeconomic significance of the China – Pakistan Economic Corridor of the Belt and Road Initiative to its major stakeholders; Pakistan and China. In 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping unveiled one of the most ambitious international infrastructure plans in modern history. The plan, in its earliest stages, is currently underway with its first portion, the China – Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Through careful preliminary analysis of the greater Belt and Road Initiative, the China – Pakistan Economic Corridor, and history of Sino-Pak relations, the motivations of the collaborating nations are …

Memetic-Based Schedule Synthesis For Communication On Time-Triggered Embedded Systems, Heyuan Shi, Kun Tang, Chengbao Lio, Xiaoyu Song, Chao Hu, Jiaguang Sun

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

ime-triggered systems play an important role in industrial embedded systems. The time-triggered network is deployed on the time-triggered network-on-chip implementation. It ensures the safety-critical industrial communication for real-time embedded multiprocessor systems. To guarantee the safety-critical requirements for communication, each message is transmitted by a predefined static schedule. However, synthesizing a feasible schedule is a challenge because both spatial and temporal constraints should be considered. This article presents a novel memetic-based schedule synthesis algorithm to derive a feasible schedule by determining the offset of messages on the time-triggered network-on-chip. Memetic-based schedule synthesis algorithm is based on memetic algorithm, which incorporates local …

Role Of Surface Factors On Heterogeneous Ice Nucleation, Brittany Glatz

All Dissertations

Heterogeneous ice nucleation is the primary pathway for ice formation. However, the detailed molecular mechanisms by which surfaces promote or hinder ice nucleation are not well understood. We present results from extensive molecular dynamics and forward flux sampling (FFS) simulations of ice nucleation near modified surfaces. The surfaces are modified to investigate the effects of different surface factors on the rate and mechanism of ice nucleation. We find that the surface charge distribution has significant effects on ice nucleation. We also investigate the interplay of surface lattice and hydrogen bonding properties in affecting ice nucleation. We find that lattice matching …

Energy Management Algorithm For Resilient Controlled Delivery Grids, Mahmoud Saleh, Yusef Esa, Ahmed Mohamed, Haim Grebel, Roberto Rojas-Cessa

Publications and Research

Resilience of the power grid is most challenged at power blackouts since the issues that led to it may not be fully resolved by the time the power is back. In this paper, a Real-Time Energy Management Algorithm (RTEMA) has been developed to increase the resilience of power systems based on the controlled delivery grid (CDG) concept. In a CDG, loads communicate with a central controller, periodically sending requests for power. The central controller runs an algorithm, based on which it may decide whether to grant the requested energy fully or partially. Therefore, the CDG limits loads discretionary access to …

Engineering At San Jose State University, Fall 2017, San Jose State University, Charles W. Davidson College Of Engineering

Engineering at San Jose State University

No abstract provided.

Study Of Ultra Wide Band Gap Alxga1-Xn Field Effect Transistors For Power Electronic Applications, Sakib Mohammed Muhtadi

Theses and Dissertations

High Aluminum content Al_xGa_1-xN (x > 30%) has attracted intense research interest nowadays as “Ultra Wide Band Gap (UWBG)” material due to large band gap (> 3.4 eV). The critical electric field (EC) of UWBG semiconductor AlGaN is significantly higher than GaN. Moreover, electron saturation velocity is also comparable to GaN. These attractive material properties are the needs for getting large breakdown voltage and high thermal stability which are the requirements for next generation power semiconductor devices. Theoretical possibilities show UWBG AlGaN based devices are an emerging class and can outperform conventional GaN based devices even at …

Quantifying Forecast Uncertainty In The Energy Domain, Mohammad Saber

Dissertations (1934 -)

This dissertation focuses on quantifying forecast uncertainties in the energy domain, especially for the electricity and natural gas industry. Accurate forecasts help the energy industry minimize their production costs. However, inaccurate weather forecasts, unusual human behavior, sudden changes in economic conditions, unpredictable availability of renewable sources (wind and solar), etc., represent uncertainties in the energy demand-supply chain. In the current smart grid era, total electricity demand from non-renewable sources influences by the uncertainty of the renewable sources. Thus, quantifying forecast uncertainty has become important to improve the quality of forecasts and decision making. In the natural gas industry, the task …

Muscle Coordination Contributes To Function After Stroke; Proprioception Contributes To Control Of Posture, Movement, Maria Bengtson

Dissertations (1934 -)

More than half of stroke survivors experience persistent upper extremity motor impairments that can negatively impact quality of life and independence. Effective use of the upper extremity requires coordination of agonist/antagonist muscle pairs, as well as coordination of multiple control actions for stabilizing and moving the arm. In this dissertation, I present three studies in which I recorded isometric torque production, single joint movement and stabilization, and clinical measures of function and impairments after stroke to evaluate the extent to which changes in coordination of agonist/antagonist muscles and of sequential control actions contribute to deficits after stroke. In Aim 1, …

Motion Artifact Evaluation Of Coronary Ct Angiography Images, Hongfeng Ma

Dissertations (1934 -)

The objective of this dissertation was to develop and validate an automated algorithm to quantify motion artifact level on coronary CT angiography (CCTA) images. Unlike existing motion artifact reduction techniques that evaluate the relative level of motion artifacts within one exam, this dissertation aims to quantify the absolute level of motion artifacts across exams from varying patients. The ability to quantify absolute motion artifact level enables several potential applications, for example, assessing and comparing two motion artifact reduction techniques. This dissertation includes three specific aims. Aim 1 investigated the absolute motion artifact quantification effectiveness of six motion artifact metrics using …

Hip Joint Function In People With Femoroacetabular Impingement Syndrome, Philip Malloy

Dissertations (1934 -)

Femoroacetabular impingement syndrome (FAIS) is a clinical hip disorder that represents symptomatic contact between the proximal femur and rim of the acetabulum during normal hip range of motion. FAIS has been described as a precursor to hip joint osteoarthritis (OA), and results in physical impairments and functional limitations in young individuals and active adults. Despite tremendous growth in arthroscopic hip surgery for FAIS, little is known about how this disorder affects dynamic hip joint function. The purpose of this dissertation was to investigate hip joint function, during clinical and functional activities, both before and after arthroscopic hip surgery for FAIS. …

Energy Storage For Pv-Driven Air-Conditioning For An Off-Grid Resort - A Case Study, Christoph Luerssen, Arifeen Wahed, Thomas Reindl, Clayton Miller, David Cheong, Chandra Sekhar

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

The current paper presents a case study of a PV-driven air-conditioning system with battery and latent heat storage applied for an off-grid resort in Bintan (Indonesia). The lead-acid battery bank has a nominal energy storage capacity of 47 kWh and the ice storage can store up to 92 kWh latent heat. The entire energy system of the resort was equipped with a comprehensive real-time data acquisition system to measure different parameters such as solar irradiation, temperatures, flow rates and power consumptions. More than 100 parameters are transferred minutely and monitored remotely across country borders. A TRNSYS model has also been …

Dynamic Energy Management For Chip Multi-Processors Under Performance Constraints, Milad Ghorbani Moghaddam, Cristinel Ababei

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

We introduce a novel algorithm for dynamic energy management (DEM) under performance constraints in chip multi-processors (CMPs). Using the novel concept of delayed instructions count, performance loss estimations are calculated at the end of each control period for each core. In addition, a Kalman filtering based approach is employed to predict workload in the next control period for which voltage-frequency pairs must be selected. This selection is done with a novel dynamic voltage and frequency scaling (DVFS) algorithm whose objective is to reduce energy consumption but without degrading performance beyond the user set threshold. Using our customized Sniper based CMP …

Advances In Diamond Nanofabrication For Ultrasensitive Devices, Stefania Castelletto, Lorenzo Rosa, Jonathan Blackledge, Mohammed Zaher Al Abri, Albert Boretti

Articles

This paper reviews some of the major recent advances in single-crystal diamond nanofabrication and its impact in nano- and micromechanical, nanophotonics and optomechanical components. These constituents of integrated devices incorporating specific dopants in the material provide the capacity to enhance the sensitivity in detecting mass and forces as well as magnetic field down to quantum mechanical limits and will lead pioneering innovations in ultrasensitive sensing and precision measurements in the realm of the medical sciences, quantum sciences and related technologies.

The Professional Constructor, Full Issue, Volume 42, Number 02

The Professional Constructor

No abstract provided.

Thermally Assisted Pulsed Electric Field Ablation For Cancer Therapy, James Michael Hornef

Biomedical Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Pulsed Electric Fields (PEF) have promised improved treatment results in a variety of cancer types including melanoma, pancreatic and lung squamous cancer. Recent studies show that PEF-based cancer therapy may be improved further with the assistance of moderate heating of the target. Experiments were performed to design, calibrate and implement a feedback-looped infrared laser irradiation system that could maintain specified temperatures during the treatment. The exact treatment area, penetration depth and thermal distribution of a 980-nm laser fiber were quantified using several methods, including the knife-edge technique and a tissue optical property study. In vivo and in vitro experiments using …

Modeling Energy Consumption Of High-Performance Applications On Heterogeneous Computing Platforms, Gary D. Lawson Jr.

Computational Modeling & Simulation Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Achieving Exascale computing is one of the current leading challenges in High Performance Computing (HPC). Obtaining this next level of performance will allow more complex simulations to be run on larger datasets and offer researchers better tools for data processing and analysis. In the dawn of Big Data, the need for supercomputers will only increase. However, these systems are costly to maintain because power is expensive. Thus, a better understanding of power and energy consumption is required such that future hardware can benefit.

Available power models accurately capture the relationship to the number of cores and clock-rate, however the relationship …

Implementation Of A Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (Mcda) Toolkit To Aid In Ranking Naval Mission Vessel Combinations With Uncertainty, Andrew R. Miller

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

United States (U.S.) military bases have largely been constructed outside of the contiguous United States (OCONUS) due to the need of close support logistics for conflicts and wars. In contrast, military bases within the contiguous United States (CONUS) have been constructed mostly due to economic and other related monetary factors. In addition to monetary concerns for the placement of military bases (specifically naval bases), there exists tactical, environmental, cultural, climate, logistical, and geographical issues that need to be fully considered before deciding on a naval installation location and the vessels to be stationed there. I will present a new toolkit …

Spatio-Temporal Analysis And Prediction Of Cellular Traffic In Metropolis, Xu Wang, Zimu Zhou, Zheng Yang, Yunhao Liu, Chunyi Peng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Understanding and predicting cellular traffic at large-scale and fine-granularity is beneficial and valuable to mobile users, wireless carriers and city authorities. Predicting cellular traffic in modern metropolis is particularly challenging because of the tremendous temporal and spatial dynamics introduced by diverse user Internet behaviours and frequent user mobility citywide. In this paper, we characterize and investigate the root causes of such dynamics in cellular traffic through a big cellular usage dataset covering 1.5 million users and 5,929 cell towers in a major city of China. We reveal intensive spatio-temporal dependency even among distant cell towers, which is largely overlooked in …

Combinatorial Auction For Transportation Matching Service: Formulation And Adaptive Large Neighborhood Search Heuristic, Baoxiang Li, Hoong Chuin Lau

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This paper considers the problem of matching multiple shippers and multi-transporters for pickups and drop-offs, where the goal is to select a subset of group jobs (shipper bids) that maximizes profit. This is the underlying winner determination problem in an online auction-based vehicle sharing platform that matches transportation demand and supply, particularly in a B2B last-mile setting. Each shipper bid contains multiple jobs, and each job has a weight, volume, pickup location, delivery location and time window. On the other hand, each transporter bid specifies the vehicle capacity, available time periods, and a cost structure. This double-sided auction will be …

The Shaping Of Things That Are: How Airplane Windows Took Their Shape, Morgan Lopez

Student Works

Have you ever wondered why your airplane's windows are rounded? It is not for aesthetic appeal.

The first commercial jetliner windows' sole purpose was appearance; a squared window afforded an impressive view of the earth, but the view was not without consequence.

The Capabilities Of The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-16 (Goes-16), Brandon M. Kane

Student Works

This report investigates the capability of the new Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-16 (GOES-16) satellite to display 16 channels of the electromagnetic spectrum, to produce images at a higher resolution at increased intervals, and to detect and display lightning. This report also discusses the main instrumentation aboard the new geostationary satellite and how it aids in creating accurate data collection, which in turn, produces quicker weather forecasts and warnings. The 16 different channels produced by the Advanced Baseline Imager aboard the new satellite are analyzed in detail as to the functions and wavelengths on which the channels operate. The image resolution …

United States Drone Laws, Jacob Crittenden

Student Works

The purpose of this Directed Study was to investigate and compile the drone laws that exist within the United States, both on the federal level and for each individual state. The federal laws are directed by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) under laws that pertain to “Unmanned Aircraft Systems” (UAS) and are relatively new. Most states have further regulations on UAS that they have passed. Most of these laws are in place to protect public safety and privacy, but some also prohibit certain locations of flight and certain modifications that might be made to the platform. State laws that limit …

Simple Implementation Of An Elgamal Digital Signature And A Brute Force Attack On It, Valeriia Laryoshyna

Student Works

This study is an attempt to show a basic mathematical usage of the concepts behind digital signatures and to provide a simple approach and understanding to cracking basic digital signatures. The approach takes on simple C programming of the ElGamal digital signature to identify some limits that can be encountered and provide considerations for making more complex code. Additionally, there is a literature review of the ElGamal digital signature and the brute force attack.

The research component of this project provides a list of possible ways to crack the basic implementations and classifies the different approaches that could be taken …

Vulnerability Assessment Of Critical Bridges In The Hampton Roads Region Of Virginia To Storm Surge Flooding Under Sea Level Rise, Luca Castrucci

Civil & Environmental Engineering Theses & Dissertations

In this thesis, a hydrodynamic model was developed to study the vulnerability of the transportation infrastructure in the Hampton Roads region of Virginia to storm surge flooding under sea level rise. The Hampton Roads region is the second most affected area by relative sea level rise in the United States. The hydrodynamic model was validated for tide prediction, and its performance in storm surge simulation was validated with data from Hurricane Irene (2011). The developed model was then applied to eight flood-prone bridges in the transportation network that connect the cities of Norfolk, Hampton, Virginia Beach, Chesapeake and Portsmouth; the …

Treating A 20 Mm Hg Gradient Alleviates Myocardial Hypertrophy In Experimental Aortic Coarctation, David C. Wendell, Ingeborg Friehs, Margaret M. Samyn, Leanne Harmann, John F. Ladisa

Biomedical Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

Background

Children with coarctation of the aorta (CoA) can have a hyperdynamic and remodeled left ventricle (LV) from increased afterload. Literature from an experimental model suggests the putative 20 mm Hg blood pressure gradient (BPG) treatment guideline frequently implemented in CoA studies may permit irreversible vascular changes. LV remodeling from pressure overload has been studied, but data are limited following correction and using a clinically representative BPG.

Materials and methods

Rabbits underwent CoA at 10 weeks to induce a 20 mm Hg BPG using permanent or dissolvable suture thereby replicating untreated and corrected CoA, respectively. Cardiac function was evaluated at …

Protection By Inhaled Hydrogen Therapy In A Rat Model Of Acute Lung Injury Can Be Tracked In Vivo Using Molecular Imaging, Said H. Audi, Elizabeth R. Jacobs, Xiao Zhang, Amadou K.S. Camara, Ming Zhao, Meetha M. Medhora, Benjamin Michael Rizzo, Anne V. Clough

Biomedical Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

Inhaled hydrogen gas (H₂) provides protection in rat models of human acute lung injury (ALI). We previously reported that biomarker imaging can detect oxidative stress and endothelial cell death in vivo in a rat model of ALI. Our objective was to evaluate the ability of ^99mTc-hexamethylpropyleneamineoxime (HMPAO) and ^99mTc-duramycin to track the effectiveness of H₂ therapy in vivo in the hyperoxia rat model of ALI. Rats were exposed to room air (normoxia), 98% O₂ + 2% N₂ (hyperoxia) or 98% O₂ + 2% H₂ (hyperoxia+H₂) for up to 60 …

Holistic Approach In Microalgae Conversion To Bioproducts And Biofuels Through Flash Hydrolysis, Ali Teymouri

Civil & Environmental Engineering Theses & Dissertations

In recent years, the demand for renewable energy, mainly biomass has increased. The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported that more than 13.3% of the total energy production in the first seven months of 2017 was produced from a biomass source. Among all biomass resources, microalgae has brought a lot of attention due to their numerous advantages such as higher growth rate and productivity compared with the conventional energy crops, higher energy conversion efficiency by photosynthesis, and less water requirement than terrestrial crops. However, its development is far behind industrial production. Several research efforts across the globe have been concerned with …