Engineering Commons^™

A Hierarchical Modelling Approach For Assessing The Impact Factors Of The Measured Of Mobility And Safety At Intersections, Hiba Eyesha Abou-Kassem

Civil and Environmental Theses

Measuring safety and mobility for various types of intersections is crucial in any transportation study. Many factors contribute to changing the effectiveness of the different types of intersections on mobility and safety. Deciding which type of intersection is most suitable in a particular environ and prevailing traffic conditions depends on the number of crashes, injuries, delay time, etc. This study focuses on two intersection types; signalized intersections and non-signalized intersections (only roundabouts). The aim of this research is to devise a theoretical modeling framework and hence a statistical-based methodology that can be used to assess the safety and mobility measures …

Solar Powered Single-Axis Heliostat Active Solar Tracking Device, Mason Kyle Roberts

Physics

As a means of cooking food, the burning of biomass accounts for over 4 million premature deaths in third world countries (“Household Air Pollution and Health”). The focus of this project was to explore an alternative that could utilize focused sunlight to cook food. A solar tracker was designed to be affixed to a parabolic, reflective, tilted single axis heliostat to follow the sun throughout the day and focus the reflected light to the bottom of a cooking surface. This surface became hot enough to for the preparation of food or boiling/sterilization of water.

A goal for each project was …

Acid: Anti-Jam Cots Infiltrator Drone, Scott Anderson

Space Dynamics Laboratory Publications

Anticipating the adversaries’ next move

Next-generation improvised, RF-silent drone:

• No GPS and no RF link in or out
• Passive sensor navigation (inertial, vision, etc.)
• Impervious to electronic countermeasures
• Renders electronic attack devices obsolete
• Freely operates in GPS-denied/EW areas

Low-cost, fire-and-forget, improvised weapon

Red team test asset

Deployable system in its own right

Kinetic/directed energy is the only way to defeat

An Application Of Box-Jenkins Approach In Forecasting Nigerian Crude Oil Prices., Bashir Umar Faruk

Bullion

Nigerian government has been adopting Moving Average (MA) method in pegging crude oil price benchmark. However, large discrepancy between the projected oil price benchmark and the actual international crude oil prices is observed over time. Therefore, the main objective of this research is to investigate whether Box-Jenkins approach could provide a lasting solution to the problem of inefficient oil price forecast in the Nigerian budgeting process. In our quest for an appropriate oil benchmark, monthly bonny light crude oil prices for the period of April 1986 to December 2015 are used.

Transforming The Insurance Sector In Nigeriain Using The Fss 2020 Platform, Chris O. Muo

Bullion

The National lnsurance Commission (NAICOM) is the statutory Regulatory body of insurance business created to ensure the effective administration, supervision and regulation of insurance business and regulate transactions between insurers and reinsurers within and outside Nigeria. FSS 2020 Insurance Sector, in collaboration with NAICOM aims to deepen the insurance market; ensure lnsurance credibility and protect policy holders; Embed governance and risk management framework for the lnsurance Companies; Enhance access to finance (financial inclusion) with business development support and new products; and risk-based capitalization of lnsurance Companies.

Nigeria's Power Sector Roadmap: Policy Perspectives And Prospects, Bandele A. G. Amoo, O. M. Adebayo, Derek Ibeagha

Bullion

Various strategies have been employed over the years by the Government to boost power in the country. These strategies have been hinged on policies, reforms and roadmaps, including the 2005 Electric Power Sector Reform Act, the Roadmap for Power Sector Reform 2010 and the current Roadmap for Change. A perfunctory look at previous reforms has resulted in significant progress, including unbundling and privatizing the long-standing government-owned monopoly in the power sector. This paper takes a comprehensive assessment of the Roadmap of Change comparing it to previous policies, isolating policy perspectives, prospects and challenges facing it. It also gleans lessons from …

Discontinuous Galerkin Time-Domain Analysis Of Power-Ground Planes Taking Into Account Decoupling Capacitors, Ping Li, Li (Lijun) Jun Jiang, Hakan Bagci

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In this paper, a discontinuous Galerkin time-domain (DGTD) method is developed to analyze the power-ground planes taking into account the decoupling capacitors. In the presence of decoupling capacitors, the whole physical system can be split into two subsystems: 1) the field subsystem that is governed by Maxwell's equations that will be solved by the DGTD method, and 2) the circuit subsystem including the capacitor and its parasitic inductor and resistor, which is going to be characterized by the modified nodal analysis algorithm constructed circuit equations. With the aim to couple the two subsystems together, a lumped port is defined over …

Influence Of Fibroblasts On Functional Arteriogenesis In A Murine Chronic Hindlimb Ischemia Model, Ashli A. Santos

Biomedical Engineering

Peripheral arterial occlusive disease (PAOD) occurs when there is a narrowing or blockage – usually a buildup of plaque - within the arteries that reduces blood flow to tissues which can chronic ischemia. As with most diseases, early detection and proactive treatment are important to maximize prognosis. Exercise effectively treats PAOD, but due to ischemic pain in the limbs, or intermittent claudication (IC), exercise can become painful and difficult. Due to the buildup of plaque, occlusions create an ischemic environment that changes the pressure distribution in collateral networks and increases the shear stress in transverse collaterals. Those two responses signal …

Modeling The Use Of An Airborne Platform For Cellular Communications Following Disruptions, Stephen John Curran

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

In the wake of a disaster, infrastructure can be severely damaged, hampering telecommunications. An Airborne Communications Network (ACN) allows for rapid and accurate information exchange that is essential for the disaster response period. Access to information for survivors is the start of returning to self-sufficiency, regaining dignity, and maintaining hope. Real-world testing has proven that such a system can be built, leading to possible future expansion of features and functionality of an emergency communications system.

Currently, there are no airborne civilian communications systems designed to meet the demands of the public following a natural disaster. A system allowing even a …

Hydrologic Impacts Of Bioswale Porous Media On Parking Lot Drainage, Jungseok Ho, James Jihoon Kang

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications

Bioswales are stormwater control structures designed stormwater runoff volume and filter stormwater solids and pollutant from surface runoff. Bioswale generally consists of sloped surface ground with native wetland plants to lead stormwater percolation and infiltration, porous media to allow for stormwater retention and stormwater contaminant filtration, and stormwater drain conduit under the porous media. In this study, we monitored the bioswale evaluation factors of stormwater total volume reduction, peak flow rate reduction, and peak time attenuation. It is concluded that, based on a total of 29 monitoring of storm events, pumice is a hydrologically best performing material for the bioswale …

Can A Strictly Defined Security Configuration For Iot Devices Mitigate The Risk Of Exploitation By Botnet Malware?, David Kennefick

Dissertations

The internet that we know and use every day is the internet of people, a collection of knowledge and data that can be accessed anywhere is the world anytime from many devices. The internet of the future is the Internet of Things. The Internet of Things is a collection of automated technology that is designed to be run autonomously, but on devices designed for humans to use. In 2016 the Mirai malware has shown there are underlying vulnerabilities in devices connected to the internet of things. Mirai is specifically designed to recognise and exploit IoT devices and it has been …

An Analysis Of Predicting Job Titles Using Job Descriptions, John Lynch

Dissertations

A job title is an all-encompassing very short form description that conveys all of the pertinent information relating to a job. The job title typically encapsulates - and should encapsulate - the domain, role and level of responsibility of any given job. Significant value is attached to job titles both internally within organisational structures and to individual job holders. Organisations map out all employees in an organogram on the basis of job titles. This has a bearing on issues like salary, level and scale of responsibility, employee selection and so on. Employees draw value from their own job titles as …

Cybercrime: An Investigation Of The Attitudes And Environmental Factors That Make People More Willing To Participate In Online Crime, Dearbhail Kirwan

Dissertations

Cybercrime incidence rates are increasing. In order to identify solutions to this problem, the sources of cybercrime need to be identified. This research attempted to identify a potential set of circumstances that create an environment in which people are more likely to engage in cybercrime. There are three aspects to this; (1) Behaviour on the internet – Are people more likely to engage in illicit activities online than in the physical world? (2) Crime Perceptions – Do people perceive cybercrime as being less serious than non-cybercrime? (3) Resources on the Internet – Are people aware of the types of free …

“How Short Is A Piece Of String?”: An Investigation Into The Impact Of Text Length On Short-Text Classification Accuracy, Austin Mccartney

Dissertations

The recent increase in the widespread use of short messages, for example micro-blogs or SMS communications, has created an opportunity to harvest a vast amount of information through machine-based classification. However, traditional classification methods have failed to produce accuracies comparable to those obtained from similar classification of longer texts. Several approaches have been employed to extend traditional methods to overcome this problem, including the enhancement of the original texts through the construction of associations with external data enrichment sources, ranging from thesauri and semantic nets such as Wordnet, to pre-built online taxonomies such as Wikipedia. Other avenues of investigation have …

Run-Out Based Crossed Roller Bearing Life Prediction By Utilization Of Accelerated Testing Approach And Fe Numerical Models, Luca Quagliato, Dongwook Kim, Nara Lee, Soyoung Hwang, Joseph P. Domblesky, Naksoo Kim

Mechanical Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

Surface wear and spalling phenomena are the most important factors affecting roller bearing performance and operational lifetime, in terms of number of cycles the bearing can operate. Although bearing life has been traditionally defined by the onset of spalling, as specified by international standard ISO 281, this definition does not always reflect the real operational conditions, since bearing wear can also represent a failure criterion when excessive run-out occurs. In such cases, bearing life needs to be predicted according to the amount of bearing run-out resulting from wear due to load and number of cycles. In the current study, the …

Applied Force And Semg Muscle Activity Required To Operate Pistol Grip Control In An Electric Utility Aerial Bucket, Richard W. Marklin Jr., Jonathaon E. Slightam, Mark L. Nagurka, Trent M. Wolff, Casey D. Garces, Lovely Krishen

Mechanical Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

Electric utility line workers report high levels of fatigue in forearm muscles when operating a conventional pistol grip control in aerial buckets. This study measured the applied force and surface electromyographic (sEMG) signals from four upper extremity muscles required to operate the pistol grip control in two tasks. The first task was movement of the pistol grip in six directions (up/down, forward/rearward, clockwise/counter-clockwise), and the second task was movement of the bucket from its resting position on the truck bed to an overhead conductor on top of a 40 ft tall pole. The force applied to the pistol grip was …

Application Of Ihsdm: Ky 30 Case Study, William Nicholas Staats, Adam J. Kirk

Kentucky Transportation Center Research Report

A section of KY 30 in Jackson and Owsley Counties is targeted for redesign to provide a safer and more efficient corridor that will support economic activity in eastern Kentucky. Data for the existing KY 30 alignment and eight alternative alignments developed by HMB Professional Engineers Inc. were provided to researchers at the Kentucky Transportation Center (KTC). KTC researchers also developed a new alternative that modified the existing alignment to improve the safety of various locations. Researchers applied safety analysis procedures from Part C of the Highway Safety Manual (HSM) to the existing and alternative alignments of KY 30 using …

Ns-K-Nn: Neutrosophic Set-Based K-Nearest Neighbors Classifier, Florentin Smarandache, Yaman Akbulut, Abdulkadir Sengur, Yanhui Guo

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

k-nearest neighbors (k-NN), which is known to be a simple and efficient approach, is a non-parametric supervised classifier. It aims to determine the class label of an unknown sample by its k-nearest neighbors that are stored in a training set. The k-nearest neighbors are determined based on some distance functions. Although k-NN produces successful results, there have been some extensions for improving its precision. The neutrosophic set (NS) defines three memberships namely T, I and F. T, I, and F shows the truth membership degree, the false membership degree, and the indeterminacy membership degree, respectively. In this paper, the NS …

Controllable Moderate Heating Enhances The Therapeutic Efficacy Of Irreversible Electroporation For Pancreatic Cancer, Chelsea M. Edelblute, James Hornef, Niculina I. Burcus, Thomas Norman, Stephen J. Beebe, Karl Schoenbach, Richard Heller, Chunqi Jiang, Sigi Guo

Bioelectrics Publications

Irreversible electroporation (IRE) as a non-thermal tumor ablation technology has been studied for the treatment of pancreatic carcinoma and has shown a significant survival benefit. We discovered that moderate heating (MH) at 43°C for 1-2 minutes significantly enhanced ex vivo IRE tumor ablation of Pan02 cells by 5.67-fold at 750 V/cm and by 1.67-fold at 1500 V/cm. This amount of heating alone did not cause cell death. An integrated IRE system with controllable laser heating and tumor impedance monitoring was developed to treat mouse ectopic pancreatic cancer. With this novel IRE system, we were able to heat and maintain the …

Distribution Of Essential Tremor In The Degrees Of Freedom Of The Upper Limb, Adam Charles Pigg

Theses and Dissertations

This study seeks to understand upper limb tremor in subjects with essential tremor (ET). A thorough understanding of tremor distribution will allow for the more effective development of tremor suppression devices, which offer an alternative to current treatments. Previous studies primarily focused on tremor in the hand only. This study seeks to characterize the distribution of tremor throughout the upper limb.We measured tremor in 25 subjects diagnosed with ET using motion capture, which provided displacement information of the limb during multiple postural and kinetic tasks. Inverse kinematics allowed us to analyze the motion capture data in the 7 major degrees …

Loading Time Flexibility In Cross-Docking Systems, Dincer Konur, Mihalis M. Golias

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In this study, we investigate truck-to-door assignment problem for loading outgoing trucks in a cross-docking system with flexible handling times. Specifically, a truck's loading time depends on the number of workers assigned to the outbound door, where the truck is being loaded. An optimization problem is formulated to jointly determine the number of workers and the trucks to be loaded at each door. The resulting problem is a nonlinear integer programming model. Due to the complexity of this model, two evolutionary heuristic methods are proposed for solution. First heuristic method is based on truck assignments while the second heuristic is …

An Automated Workflow For Quantifying Rna Transcripts In Individual Cells In Large Data-Sets, Matthew C. Pharris, Tzu-Ching Wu, Xinping Chen, Xu Wang, David M. Umulis, Vikki M. Weake, Tamara L. Kinzer-Ursem

Weldon School of Biomedical Engineering Faculty Publications

Advanced molecular probing techniques such as single molecule fluorescence in situ hybridization (smFISH) or RNAscope can be used to assess the quantity and spatial location of mRNA transcripts within cells. Quantifying mRNA expression in large image sets usually involves automated counting of fluorescent spots. Though conventional spot counting algorithms may suffice, they often lack high-throughput capacity and accuracy in cases of crowded signal or excessive noise. Automatic identification of cells and processing of many images is still a challenge. We have developed a method to perform automatic cell boundary identification while providing quantitative data about mRNA transcript levels across many …

Identifying And Reducing Variability, Improving Scaffold Morphology, And Investigating Alternative Materials For The Blood Vessel Mimic Lab Electrospinning Process, Evan M. Dowey

Master's Theses

The work of the Cal Poly Tissue Engineering Lab is primarily focused on the fabrication, characterization, and improvement of “Blood Vessel Mimics” (BVMs), tissue engineered constructs used to evaluate cellular response to vascular medical devices. Currently, cells are grown onto fibrous, porous tubes made using an in-house electrospinning process from PLGA, a biocompatible co-polymer. The adhesion and proliferation of cells in a BVM is reliant on the micro-scale structure of the PLGA scaffold, and as such it is of great importance for the electrospinning process to consistently produce scaffolds of similar morphologies. Additionally, it has been shown that cell proliferation …

Vulnerability Model Of Residential Structures Subject To Hurricane Induced Wind, Surge And Inundation, Mohammad Baradaranshoraka

Theses and Dissertations

Annualized hurricane-related losses to the built environment in the United States are in the billions of dollars. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, in 2010 39% of the United States population, or 123.3 million inhabitants, lived in a coastal county. This population is expected to increase by 8% from 2010 to 2020. The majority of these people live in buildings prone to hurricanes. The hurricanes can result in wind damage (due to high wind and/or wind-driven rain infiltration) and water damage (due to storm surge and waves or freshwater flooding) to the building and its contents, which are …

Bs News September/October

Building Services Engineering

No abstract provided.

Mutagenesis Of Human Alpha-Galactosidase A For The Treatment Of Fabry Disease, Erin Stokes

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Fabry disease is an X-linked lysosomal storage disorder caused by the deficiency of the enzyme, α-galactosidase A, which results in the accumulation of the lipid substrate. This accumulation results in obstruction of blood flow in patients and early demise at approximately 40-60 years of age. There is currently only one FDA approved treatment (Fabrazyme) classified as an enzyme replacement therapy. However, approximately 88% of patients experience a severe immune response that, rarely, can be fatal and is a huge cost burden at average $250,000 a year per patient. The structure of α-galactosidase A has been previously determined to be a …

Comparing And Improving Facial Recognition Method, Brandon Luis Sierra

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Facial recognition is the process in which a sample face can be correctly identified by a machine amongst a group of different faces. With the never-ending need for improvement in the fields of security, surveillance, and identification, facial recognition is becoming increasingly important. Considering this importance, it is imperative that the correct faces are recognized and the error rate is as minimal as possible. Despite the wide variety of current methods for facial recognition, there is no clear cut best method. This project reviews and examines three different methods for facial recognition: Eigenfaces, Fisherfaces, and Local Binary Patterns to determine …

Topographic And Frictional Controls On Tides In The Sea Of Okhotsk, Edward Zaron

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

The sensitivity of barotropic tides to bottom topography and frictional parameters has been studied in a model for the Sea of Okhotsk. This region was chosen because of the paucity of bathymetry data and the possibility of using satellite altimeter data to better identify the bottom topography using variational inverse methods. The sensitivity was studied using both the direct and adjoint sensitivity. In the former approach, perturbations to the nominal model were applied to examine their impact; in the latter approach, the sensitivities were computed using the adjoint of the tangent linearization of the dynamical model. It is found that …

A Spectral Ct Method To Directly Estimate Basis Material Maps From Experimental Photon-Counting Data, Tal Gilat Schmidt, Rina Foygel Barber, Emil Y. Sidky

Biomedical Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

The proposed spectral CT method solves the constrained one-step spectral CT reconstruction (cOSSCIR) optimization problem to estimate basis material maps while modeling the nonlinear X-ray detection process and enforcing convex constraints on the basis map images. In order to apply the optimization-based reconstruction approach to experimental data, the presented method empirically estimates the effective energy-window spectra using a calibration procedure. The amplitudes of the estimated spectra were further optimized as part of the reconstruction process to reduce ring artifacts. A validation approach was developed to select constraint parameters. The proposed spectral CT method was evaluated through simulations and experiments with …

Development And Investigation Of An Air Transportation Operations Safety Climate Scale, Matthew D. Roberts

Theses and Dissertations

Safety is of critical importance in many industries, and the US Air Force is no exception. Since 2005, the US Air Force has experienced more than 119 on-duty air and ground fatalities as well as 520 off-duty ground fatalities. One of the more dangerous environments in the U.S. Air Force and the civilian industry is air transportation operations where the fatal injury rate is higher than the national average. However, peer-reviewed safety research focusing on air transportation operations is practically non-existent, both in the military and civilian context. Therefore, safety research that helps us better understand how to shape safety …