Engineering Commons^™

Capital One Mobile Directory, Nicholas Bellucci, Ricky Lee, Austin Mccracken

Capstone Design Expo Posters

One issue that large companies struggle with is the ability for employees to find contact information and communicate with other employees. Capital One has had a mobile directory iOS application in the past, but their information was static and difficult to change, and the interface left much to be desired. Instead of refactoring the app, Capital One requested us to scrap the previous application entirely, and start from scratch, keeping just the basic principle of it being a mobile directory app. The purpose of the new application is to be able to easily access information and communicate with other members …

Proam Sports, Shruti Patel, Haseeb Niazi, Neelam Jhurani

Capstone Design Expo Posters

ProAm Sports takes fitness one step further by designing a tournament-based program, where members can sign up to participate in matches as individuals or teams in various sports and win actual cash prizes accumulated from a portion of their membership fees. Our project required implementing a database which stores information on players, teams, and games as well as a website that offers the ability for players to sign up, view information on events, pay for membership, and communicate with other players. There are three levels of paid membership, where each offers different benefits including discounts on event registration. After registering …

Effect Of Crosslinker Length On The Elastic And Compression Modulus Of Poly(Acrylamide) Nanocomposite Hydrogels, Josergio Zaragoza, A. Chang, Prashanth Asuri

Bioengineering

Polymer hydrogelshave shown to exhibit improved properties upon the addition of nanoparticles; however, the mechanical underpinnings behind these enhancements have not been fully elucidated. Moreover, fewer studies have focused on developing an understanding of how polymer parameters affect the nanoparticle-mediated enhancements. In this study, we investigated the elastic properties of silica nanoparticle-reinforced poly(acrylamide) hydrogels synthesized using crosslinkers of various lengths. Crosslinker length positively affected the mechanical properties of hydrogels that were synthesized with or without nanoparticles. However the degree of nanoparticle enhancement was negatively correlated to crosslinker length. Our findings enable the understanding of the respective roles of nanoparticle and …

Distinguished Alumni Luncheon With Dr. Wayne A. Brown, Nova Southeastern University

College of Computing and Engineering News Archive

Last week on November 9th, 2017, Dr. Tao and Dr. Abramson had the pleasure of honoring CCE's distinguished alumni Dr. Wayne A. Brown as part of the NSU's Homecoming festivities.

Robert B. Batie Jr., Ph.D., Nova Southeastern University

College of Computing and Engineering News Archive

It’s a safe bet to say that Robert B. Batie Jr., Ph.D., has seen a thing or two. Given his 22 years in the U.S. Army, it’s pretty clear to understand why. That’s because in those 2+ decades he traveled to 33 foreign countries, 41 of the 50 states and visited every continent aside from Antarctica and Australia. And it was his chosen occupation while serving in the U.S. Army – Signal Corp as a Communications Security (COMSEC) Maintenance Chief – that led him to where he is today.

Cce Hosts Shbe Workshop, Nova Southeastern University

College of Computing and Engineering News Archive

Dr. Yong Tao, Dean and Professor, College of Computing and Engineering hosted the Interdisciplinary Data Structure for Collaborative Research in Sustainable Human-Building Ecosystems (SHBE) Workshop on June 5-6 at NSU Art Museum with the support from Bonnie Clearwater, Director and Chief Curator of NSU Art Museum. The workshop was aimed at bringing together professionals from multiple disciplines, i.e., architects, civil engineers, electrical engineers, mechanical engineers, computer scientists, social scientists, psychologists, and social/ public policy experts.

Cec Congratulates 2017 Dean's List, Nova Southeastern University

College of Computing and Engineering News Archive

College of Computing and Engineering at NSU (CCE) held its Fall 2017 Dean’s List reception on April 25. 18 undergraduate students major in computer science, computer engineering, information technology and engineering are on the 2017 Dean’s List and have achieved a minimum GPA of 3.8 for the semester. They are: Franco Criscola, Christopher Daniels, Maximiliano Hernandez, Liana Huynh, Abraham Kohn, Brogan O’Connor, Sagar Patel, Liam White, Karen Rita Ann D’Lima, Ashli Amoy Jarrett, Anthony DiFede, Corey Lee, Nicole Staley, Simon Wang, Lydia Warshaw, Albert Baldoni, Henry Koenig, Nikolas Kevorkian.

A Summer Camp In Engineering Physics For Incoming Freshman To Improve Retention And Student Success, Hector A. Ochoa, Christopher J. Aul, Dan Bruton, Collin J. Timmons

Faculty Publications

Summer camps have proven to be a valuable tool to attract and recruit students interested in pursuing a career in the STEM field. They have been also used to spark their curiosity in areas like mathematics. However, these camps do not help with issues that appear after the student has been admitted at the university. It is well known that many students are shocked when they transition from high-school to college. Many of them do not know how to handle their academic freedom; they start without any friends, and they do not know the campus and the resources available. By …

Aquacrop-Os: An Open Source Version Of Fao’S Crop Water Productivity Model, T. Foster, N. Brozovic, A. P. Butler, C. M. U. Neale, D. Raes, P. Steduto, E. Fereres, T. C. Hsiao

Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute: Faculty Publications

Crop simulation models are valuable tools for quantifying crop yield response to water, and for devising strategies to improve agricultural water management. However, applicability of the majority of crop models is limited greatly by a failure to provide open-access to model source code. In this study, we present an open-source version of the FAO AquaCrop model, which simulates efficiently water-limited crop production across diverse environmental and agronomic conditions. Our model, called AquaCrop-OpenSource (AquaCrop-OS), can be run in multiple programming languages and operating systems. Support for parallel execution reduces significantly simulation times when applying the model in large geospatial frameworks, for …

In-Situ Observation And Transport Modelling Of Arsenic In Gangetic Plain, India, Pankaj Kumar Gupta, Pranjay Joshi, Jahangeer

Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute: Faculty Publications

The focus of this study is to investigate the arsenic movement and impacts on the residual concentrations on groundwater pollution load. The Gangetic plain area in the Ballia, Uttar Pradesh is selected as study area, which is also reported to extreme arsenic pollution in soil-water system. A modelling approach is developed to assess the arsenic flux in partially saturated zone using data of soil texture, soil hydraulic properties and stratigraphy. Soil type, slope, and land-use cover is considered for estimating the transient flux at the top boundary from daily precipitation and evapotranspiration data of the study area. Solute transport in …

Paid To Pump: How A Tax Credit Could Discourage Conservation Of The High Plains Aquifer, S. Polzkill,, A. Stejskal, H. Wilke, Anna Wistrom, Katherine E. B. Gibson, Mindy J. Spiehs, Nicholas Brozovic

Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute: Faculty Publications

In 1965’s United States v. Shurbet case, an irrigator from Texas asserted his claim for a depletion tax deduction for groundwater pumped from the High Plains Aquifer. He argued that the unique conditions of the southern High Plains region - a plateau where the shallow aquifer is recharged only through precipitation at a slow rate - meant the groundwater resource would be depleted in time. The state argued that groundwater was not fundamentally an exhaustible natural deposit, but the Supreme Court concluded the tax deduction was appropriate given the “peculiar” conditions in the area. It was stated the decision was …

Pathways To Increasing Farmer-Led Investments In Sustainable Agricultural Water Management In Sub-Saharan Africa, Douglas J. Merrey, Peter G. Mccornick, Molly C. Nance

Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute: Faculty Publications

Without a transformative leap forward in the use of irrigation, Africa will continue falling short in the struggle to feed its growing population, improve its people’s nutrition, grow its economies, adapt to the impacts of climate change, and eliminate poverty. While Africans must lead this transformation for it to be successful, the international community can help African countries substantially increase the use of more productive and sustainable water management practices and unlock the potential of farmer-led irrigated agriculture. Achieving highly productive irrigated agricultural systems in Africa requires an enabling environment that facilitates the full engagement of farmers, public and private …

Studying The Optimal Scheduling For Controlling Prostate Cancer Under Intermittent Androgen Suppression, Sunil K. Dhar, Hans R. Chaudhry, Bruce G. Bukiet, Zhiming Ji, Nan Gao, Thomas W. Findley

Harvard University Biostatistics Working Paper Series

This retrospective study shows that the majority of patients’ correlations between PSA and Testosterone during the on-treatment period is at least 0.90. Model-based duration calculations to control PSA levels during off-treatment are provided. There are two pairs of models. In one pair, the Generalized Linear Model and Mixed Model are both used to analyze the variability of PSA at the individual patient level by using the variable “Patient ID” as a repeated measure. In the second pair, Patient ID is not used as a repeated measure but additional baseline variables are included to analyze the variability of PSA.

Fabricating Non-Close Packed Colloidal Monolayers For Ion Irradiation Templates, Nandini Padaraju

Undergraduate Research Posters 2017

Due to their unique properties, anisotropic nanoparticles are desirable components for future applications yet there are few processes capable of fabricating nanoparticle impregnated coatings for the manufacturing environment. Our work seeks to develop new masking techniques for the production of the templated substrates that will induce ordered nanoparticle films. Specifically, we are fabricating non-close packed colloidal monolayers onto silicon substrates, which then serve as the template for ion irradiation. The first steps to creating this monolayer are obtaining a spin-coated poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) thin film of ~200 nm and a close-packed colloidal monolayer using a peltier heater. We achieved a …

C-Jun N-Terminal Kinase Inhibitory Nanotherapeutics For Regenerative Elastic Matrix Repair In Abdominal Aortic Aneurysms, Andrew T. Camardo

ETD Archive

Abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAA) are localized expansions of the aorta wall that continue to grow until they reach a critical size and fatally rupture. This growth is driven by the chronic disruption, degradation, and subsequent loss of aortal wall elastic fibers by matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) secreted by inflammatory cells recruited to the aorta wall following an injury stimulus, and the inherent inability of vascular smooth muscle cells (SMCs) to naturally repair or regenerate elastic fibers. This leads to a net loss of elastic matrix and the continuing weakening of the aortal wall until eventual rupture. Current treatments seek to reinforce …

Harmful Algae Bloom Prediction Model For Western Lake Erie Using Stepwise Multiple Regression And Genetic Programming, Amin Daghighi

ETD Archive

The Great Lakes are most important freshwater bodies providing water resources and other various related businesses to the northeastern part of North America. However, harmful algal blooms (HABs) are more often and severe in those lakes than before and thus threatening lake environments and economies. Researchers have studied the factors influencing HABs characteristics using different scientific methods. In this study, all possible predictors and predictand variables were collected from various data source and then eight final predictors and one predictand were selected based on correlation between predictors and predictand variables. This study tests two machine learning techniques, Stepwise Multiple Regression …

Influence Of Cross-Section Change During Directional Solidification On Dendrite Morphology, Macrosegregation And Defect Formation In Pb-6 Wt Sb Alloy, Claudine Lacdao

ETD Archive

The purpose of this research is to examine the dendrite array morphology, macrosegregation, and defect formation caused by the fluid flow at the abrupt cross-section changes during directional solidification of Pb-6% Sb alloy. Four 24-cm long cylindrical alloy samples were directionally solidified in graphite crucibles: two having a constant diameter (9-mm) grown at 10.4 and 63.1 μm s-1 , one having an abrupt cross-section decrease (from 12.7 to 6.35 mm) and one having an abrupt increase (from 6.35 to 12.7 mm) by pulling down the alloy containing cylindrical graphite crucibles from the upper hot-zone of a stationary vertical furnace into …

Design And Control Of Electronic Motor Drives For Regenerative Robotics, Taylor Barto

ETD Archive

Two regenerative motor drives, a voltage source converter and a bidirectional buck/boost converter, are studied for energy regeneration and joint trajectory tracking. The motor drives are applied to two different robotic systems—a PUMA560 robotic arm and a hip testing robot / prosthesis system. An artificial neural network controller is implemented with the two motor drives and provides joint trajectory tracking with an RMS error of 0.03 rad. The control signals produced by the artificial neural network contain a large amount of high frequency content which prevents practical implementation. A robust passivity-based motion controller is modified to include information about the …

Information Driven Control Design: A Case For Pmsm Control, Han Zhang

ETD Archive

The key problem in control system design was the selection and processing of information. The first part was to collect some system dynamics offline or online in a cost-effective manner and use them in the controller design effectively. Next was to minimize the phase lag in the feedback loop to ensure best performance and stability. A systematic information-driven design strategy was discussed. A few key problems in permanent magnet synchronous motor control were taken in a case study: the current loop and decoupling, velocity loop with position feedback and position estimation at low speed. An active disturbance rejection based integrated …

A Review Of Approaches To Solving The Problem Of Bim Search: Towards Intelligence-Assisted Design, Hamed Khademi, Avril Behan

Conference papers

Due to the growing adoption of BIM and the rising popularity of cloud computing, BIM models are increasingly stored in central cloud repositories or Common Data Environments. Effective management and exploitation of these models creates the requirement for BIM retrieval systems. Thus far, the BIM industry has utilized general-purpose, text-based search techniques that operate on BIM metadata. This paper highlights the need for a domain-specific BIM search engine and reviews various approaches to address the problem of BIM search. Three main approaches were identified as context-, geometry-, and content-based BIM retrieval. For a comprehensive BIM retrieval system, all three approaches …

A Project-Based-Learning Approach To Teaching Second-Order Differential Equations To Engineers, Michael Carr, Eabhnat Ní Fhloinn

Conference papers

In an attempt to increase engagement in a third-year mechanical-engineering mathematics module, a series of group-work sessions were introduced on a single topic. Students were asked to use the solution of a second-order differential equation (previously introduced in lectures) to solve a problem in which they must design a simple spring-damper system for one of a lorry, digger, truck, tractor, car, motorbike or pogo stick. This project was worth 10% of the module and done in groups of four. The groups gave an oral presentation of their results and a written report was handed up for grading. A detailed description …

Mining Sequences Of Developer Interactions In Visual Studio For Usage Smells, Kostadin Damevski, David C. Shepherd, Johannes Schneider, Lori Pollock

Computer Science Publications

In this paper, we present a semi-automatic approach for mining a large-scale dataset of IDE interactions to extract usage smells, i.e., inefficient IDE usage patterns exhibited by developers in the field. The approach outlined in this paper first mines frequent IDE usage patterns, filtered via a set of thresholds and by the authors, that are subsequently supported (or disputed) using a developer survey, in order to form usage smells. In contrast with conventional mining of IDE usage data, our approach identifies time-ordered sequences of developer actions that are exhibited by many developers in the field. This pattern mining workflow is …

An Android-Based Mechanism For Energy Efficient Localization Depending On Indoor/Outdoor Context, Nicholas Capurso, Tianyi Song, Wei Cheng, Jiguo Yu, Xiuzhen Cheng

Computer Science Publications

Today, there is widespread use of mobile applications that take advantage of a user's location. Popular usages of location information include geotagging on social media websites, driver assistance and navigation, and querying nearby locations of interest. However, the average user may not realize the high energy costs of using location services (namely the GPS) or may not make smart decisions regarding when to enable or disable location services-for example, when indoors. As a result, a mechanism that can make these decisions on the user's behalf can significantly improve a smartphone's battery life. In this paper, we present an energy consumption …

Fdetect Webserver: Fast Predictor Of Propensity For Protein Production, Purification, And Crystallization, Fanchi Meng, Chen Wang, Lukasz Kurgan

Computer Science Publications

Background: Development of predictors of propensity of protein sequences for successful crystallization has been actively pursued for over a decade. A few novel methods that expanded the scope of these predictions to address additional steps of protein production and structure determination pipelines were released in recent years. The predictive performance of the current methods is modest. This is because the only input that they use is the protein sequence and since the experimental annotations of these data might be inconsistent given that they were collected across many laboratories and centers. However, even these modest levels of predictive quality are still …

Sotxtstream: Density-Based Self-Organizing Clustering Of Text Streams, Avory C. Bryant, Krzysztof J. Cios

Computer Science Publications

A streaming data clustering algorithm is presented building upon the density-based selforganizing stream clustering algorithm SOSTREAM. Many density-based clustering algorithms are limited by their inability to identify clusters with heterogeneous density. SOSTREAM addresses this limitation through the use of local (nearest neighbor-based) density determinations. Additionally, many stream clustering algorithms use a two-phase clustering approach. In the first phase, a micro-clustering solution is maintained online, while in the second phase, the micro-clustering solution is clustered offline to produce a macro solution. By performing self-organization techniques on micro-clusters in the online phase, SOSTREAM is able to maintain a macro clustering solution in …

Ensemble Learning For Data Stream Analysis: A Survey, Bartosz Krawczyk, Leandro L. Minku, João Gama, Jerzy Stefanowski, Michał Wozniak

Computer Science Publications

In many applications of information systems learning algorithms have to act in dynamic environments where data are collected in the form of transient data streams. Compared to static data mining, processing streams imposes new computational requirements for algorithms to incrementally process incoming examples while using limited memory and time. Furthermore, due to the non-stationary characteristics of streaming data, prediction models are often also required to adapt to concept drifts. Out of several new proposed stream algorithms, ensembles play an important role, in particular for non-stationary environments. This paper surveys research on ensembles for data stream classification as well as regression …

Crosstalk And The Dynamical Modularity Of Feed-Forward Loops In Transcriptional Regulatory Networks, Michael A. Rowland, Ahmed Abdelzaher, Preetam Ghosh, Michael L. Mayo

Computer Science Publications

Network motifs, such as the feed-forward loop (FFL), introduce a range of complex behaviors to transcriptional regulatory networks, yet such properties are typically determined from their isolated study. We characterize the effects of crosstalk on FFL dynamics by modeling the cross regulation between two different FFLs and evaluate the extent to which these patterns occur in vivo. Analytical modeling suggests that crosstalk should overwhelmingly affect individual protein-expression dynamics. Counter to this expectation we find that entire FFLs are more likely than expected to resist the effects of crosstalk (approximate to 20% for one crosstalk interaction) and remain dynamically modular. The …

Sensor Technology Using Fluorescent Dyes, Rebecca Jarrell, Rashed Rashed, Joshua Petteway

Capstone Design Expo Posters

This project is concerned with the application of fluorescent dye technology for leak detection in pulp and paper recovery boiler systems in order to avoid a smelt / water explosion. The dyes’ property to absorb light of short wavelength and emit light of a longer wavelength (fluoresce) is what makes them a quintessential candidate for the desired sensor technology. The projected benefits of this technology pertain to cost-effectiveness and safety of recovery boiler operations.

For all purposes, the inert dye pyrenetetrasulfonic acid (PTSA) was used as a tracer agent. Multiple methods of experimental design were attempted to determine the reaction …

Spirit Of Broad Street Station, Rhey Igou, Allyson Yohe, Kyle Sutherland

Capstone Design Expo Posters

The Science Museum of Virginia used to be an active train station, known as Broad Street Station. The building itself has since been radically renovated and contains a vast history of important visitors and events. The Science Museum has hundreds of beautiful photos from throughout the building’s lifespan, however the average visitor to the museum might not even realize that the museum was once a train station. The goal of this project was to present these photographs in a “story” format as the user is traveling through the museum. This is accomplished with Bluetooth beacons (Estimotes), placed in relevant locations …

Picshare, Kyle Crane, Emily Klein, Ben Wunschel

Capstone Design Expo Posters

PicShare is an app that allows companies to easily manage their social media presence without having to dedicate large amounts of time to the process. Your social media department can now extend their reach with the help of all of your other employees.

Our platform allows users to upload images/text from a mobile application or directly from the web. Administrators have the ability to take their own or user's image/text uploads and prepare for a social media post.

Employees attending events can get content to your social media staff much faster and with more variety. Our application is a great …