Engineering Commons^™

Predictive Behavior Of A Computational Foot/Ankle Model Through Artificial Neural Networks, Ruchi D. Chande, Rosalyn Hobson Hargraves, Norma Ortiz-Robinson, Jennifer S. Wayne

Biomedical Engineering Publications

Computational models are useful tools to study the biomechanics of human joints. Their predictive performance is heavily dependent on bony anatomy and soft tissue properties. Imaging data provides anatomical requirements while approximate tissue properties are implemented from literature data, when available. We sought to improve the predictive capability of a computational foot/ankle model by optimizing its ligament stiffness inputs using feedforward and radial basis function neural networks. While the former demonstrated better performance than the latter per mean square error, both networks provided reasonable stiffness predictions for implementation into the computational model.

Study Of In Vitro Transcriptional Binding Effects And Noise Using Constitutive Promoters Combined With Up Element Sequences In Escherichia Coli, Qiang Yan, Stephen S. Fong

Chemical and Life Science Engineering Publications

Background

UP elements (upstream element) are DNA sequences upstream of a promoter that interact with the α-subunit of RNA polymerase (RNAP) and can affect transcription by altering the binding RNAP to DNA. However, details of UP element and binding affinity effects on transcriptional strength are unclear.

Results

Here, we investigated the effects of UP element sequences on gene transcription, binding affinity, and gene expression noise. Addition of UP elements resulted in increased gene expression (maximum 95.7-fold increase) and reduced gene expression noise (8.51-fold reduction). Half UP element sequences at the proximal subsite has little effect on transcriptional strength despite increasing …

Nebraska Summary: S1141 John Deere 6120r, Nebraska Tractor Test Lab

Nebraska Tractor Tests

ABOUT THE TEST REPORT AND USE OF THE DATA The test data contained in this report are a tabulation of the results of a series of tests. Due to the restricted format of these pages, only a limited amount of data and not all of the tractor specifications are included. The full OECD report contains usually about 30 pages of data and specifications. The test data were obtained for each tractor under similar conditions and therefore, provide a means of comparison of performance based on a limited set of reported data. EXPLANATION OF THE TEST PROCEDURES Purpose The purpose of …

Tractor Test 2174: John Deere 9620rx Diesel, Nebraska Tractor Test Lab

Nebraska Tractor Tests

ABOUT THE TEST REPORT AND USE OF THE DATA The test data contained in this report are a tabulation of the results of a series of tests. Due to the restricted format of these pages, only a limited amount of data and not all of the tractor specifications are included. The full OECD report contains usually about 30 pages of data and specifications. The test data were obtained for each tractor under similar conditions and therefore, provide a means of comparison of performance based on a limited set of reported data. EXPLANATION OF THE TEST PROCEDURES Purpose The purpose of …

High Sensitivity Refractometer Based On Reflective Smf-Small Diameter No Core Fiber Structure, Guorui Zhou, Qiang Qu, Rahul Kumar, Wai Pang Ng, Hao Liu, Longfei Niu, Nageswara Lalam, Xiaodong Yuan, Yuliya Semenova

Conference Papers

A high sensitivity refractive index sensor based on a single mode-small diameter no core fiber structure is proposed. In this structure, a small diameter no core fiber (SDNCF) used as a sensor probe, was fusion spliced to the end face of a traditional single mode fiber (SMF) and the end face of the SDNCF was coated with a thin film of gold to provide reflective light. The influence of SDNCF diameter and length on the refractive index sensitivity of the sensor has been investigated by both simulations and experiments, where results show that the diameter of SDNCF has significant influence. …

Bayesian Nonparametric Model For Estimating Multistate Travel Time Distribution, Emmanuel Kidando, Ren Moses, Eren E. Ozguven, Thobias Sando

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

© 2017 Emmanuel Kidando et al. Multistate models, that is, models with more than two distributions, are preferred over single-state probability models in modeling the distribution of travel time. Literature review indicated that the finite multistate modeling of travel time using lognormal distribution is superior to other probability functions. In this study, we extend the finite multistate lognormal model of estimating the travel time distribution to unbounded lognormal distribution. In particular, a nonparametric Dirichlet Process Mixture Model (DPMM) with stick-breaking process representation was used. The strength of the DPMM is that it can choose the number of components dynamically as …

Factors That Contribute To Communities Establishing Sustainable Development Initiatives In Ireland, Gerard Doyle

Conference Papers

Community gardens contribute to addressing a range of environmental, economic and social issues facing urban communities across the globe (Keeney, 2000; Calvin, 2011; McIvaine-Newsad and Porter, 2013). In response to the benefits that they generate, there has been a significant increase in community gardens internationally over the last thirty years (Firth et al., 2011). Community gardens can be considered a form of sustainable development initiative (SDI). This paper is concerned with the factors that contribute to the establishment of sustainable development initiatives in Ireland by focusing on community gardens in Dublin City. The core question being addressed is: What capacities …

New Epoch For Community Co-Operatives In Ireland: Factors Required For Their Implementation, Gerard Doyle

Conference Papers

Over the past century co-operatives have made a significant contribution to alleviating many economic and social crises Irish society has encountered. For example, producer co-operatives have enabled farmers to gain a superior price for their produce rather than dealing with middlemen (Tucker, 1983). In the 1950s the credit union movement enabled thousands of families’ access to affordable credit (Quinn, 1999). Since the 1970s, Ireland has experienced many crises including mass unemployment, emigration and housing shortages. It was also affected by fuel rationing, emanating from our over-reliance on imported fossil fuels combined with the oil crisis of 1973 and 1977. In …

Central Washington University C-Clamp Matchplate, Ryan Thomas Berghoff

All Undergraduate Projects

The goal was to design and manufacture a matchplate to be used by the Central Washington University (CWU) Engineering Department to cast C-clamps. These castings are produced in the University’s foundry and would be prepared as a secondary project for the department’s basic machining course. The design produced allows the C-clamps to be molded in a single pour for a full class of students, which is approximately sixteen (16). The desire was to achieve a design that was functional, yet allowed room and/or means to be easily modified or repaired, if needed. This was achieved through designing the C-clamps in …

Adjustable Shelving Unit For Home Beer Brewing, Andrew L. Kastning

All Undergraduate Projects

The purpose of this report is to show the design, build, and test process for a portable beer brewing rack. The rack is designed to be compact, yet still be able to hold all of the necessary components for brewing: two 15-gallon insulated kettles, two gas burners, and an instant hot water heating system. These components can be supported in any configuration at multiple height intervals on the center tree during the brewing process. The rack is designed to be resistant to tipping over when brewing while requiring less than two square feet of floor space when stored. This report …

Solar Tracker, Carson Man

All Undergraduate Projects

During the senior year in Mechanical Engineering Technology program, a solar tracker was designed and manufactured to be used during Mechanical Engineering Technology labs. The solar tracker will be able to rotate 15 degrees per hour by keeping it in line with changing position of the sun as the sky daily. The solar tracker was designed by calculating the need of the motor speed, allowable load, estimated solar input, and desired efficiency. Also it must be able to withstand the elements of nature, most effects are from the sun(heat), rain(water) and wind(air). Most of the concern will be the effect …

Development Of Vegetation-Pervious Concrete In Grid Beam System For Soil Slope Protection, Xiaohua Bao, Wenyu Liao, Zhijun Dong, Shanyong Wang, Waiching Tang

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

One of the most efficient and environmentally friendly methods for preventing a landslide on a slope is to vegetate it. Vegetation-pervious concretes have a promising potential for soil protection. In this study, the vegetation-pervious concrete with low alkalinity was developed and studied. Combined with a grid beam structure system, the stability and strength between the vegetation-pervious concrete and base soil are believed to be enhanced effectively. For improving plant adaptability, the alkalinity of concrete can be decreased innovatively by adding a self-designed admixture into the cement paste. The effects of the admixture content on alkalinity and compressive strength of the …

Development Of Structural-Functional Integrated Energy Storage Concrete With Innovative Macro-Encapsulated Pcm By Hollow Steel Ball, Hongzhi Cui, Waiching Tang, Qinghua Qin, Feng Xing, Wenyu Liao, Haibo Wen

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Phase change materials (PCMs) have great potential for applications in energy efficient buildings. In this study, an innovative method of macro-encapsulation of PCM using hollow steel balls (HSB) was developed and the thermal and mechanical performance of PCM-HSB concrete was examined. The macro-encapsulation system (PCM-HSB) was attached with a metal clamp (c) for better mechanical interlocking with the mortar matrix. The latent heat of PCM-HSB-c that can be acquired is approximately 153.1 J/g, which can be considered to rank highly among PCM composites. According to the self-designed thermal performance evaluation, the PCM–HSB-c concrete panel is capable of reducing and deferring …

Optimized Trajectory Generation For Car-Like Robots On A Closed Loop Track, Tyler Friedl

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents a method for generating an optimized path through a given track. The path is generated by choosing waypoints throughout the track then iteratively optimizing the position of these waypoints. The waypoints are then connected by optimized paths represented by curvature polynomials. The end result is a path through the track represented as a spline of curvature polynomials. This method is applied to multiple simulated tracks and the results are presented. By generating and representing the paths in the continuous domain, the method has improved computational efficiency from many of the discrete methods used to generate an optimal …

Computer-Aided Cancer Diagnosis And Grading Via Sparse Directional Image Representations, Hadi Rezaeilouyeh

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Prostate cancer and breast cancer are the second cause of death among cancers in males and females, respectively. If not diagnosed, prostate and breast cancers can spread and metastasize to other organs and bones and make it impossible for treatment. Hence, early diagnosis of cancer is vital for patient survival. Histopathological evaluation of the tissue is used for cancer diagnosis. The tissue is taken during biopsies and stained using hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) stain. Then a pathologist looks for abnormal changes in the tissue to diagnose and grade the cancer. This process can be time-consuming and subjective. A reliable and …

Data-Centric Situational Awareness And Management In Intelligent Power Systems, Xiaoxiao Dai

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The rapid development of technology and society has made the current power system a much more complicated system than ever. The request for big data based situation awareness and management becomes urgent today. In this dissertation, to respond to the grand challenge, two data-centric power system situation awareness and management approaches are proposed to address the security problems in the transmission/distribution grids and social benefits augmentation problem at the distribution-customer lever, respectively.

To address the security problem in the transmission/distribution grids utilizing big data, the first approach provides a fault analysis solution based on characterization and analytics of the synchrophasor …

Optimal Capacity And Energy Efficiency Of Massive Mimo Systems, Ahmed Alshammari

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A lot of effort has been made during the last two decades to study and apply the concepts of MIMO technology in most of the wireless standards. Therefore, a huge improvement in the performance of wireless communications has been made. However, Demand for wireless services has exponentially increased during the past ten years. Hence, high throughput is very important for all users to get the best experience with the offered services. This creates many technical challenges that are difficult to handle with the existing technology. Therefore, massive multiple input multiple output (massive MIMO) is a new technology that has been …

Microgrid Control Strategy Study And Controller Design Based On Model Predictive Control, Yitong Shen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In the 21st century, because of the exhausting of oil, coal and other non-renewable energy, human beings enter a period of large-scale exploitation and utilization of renewable energy. Renewable energy generation become an important way for new energy utilization, however, as more and more distributed generation connect to power distribution network, the traditional distribution network structure will be changed. A large number of distributed generation applications of modern power electronic technology, have also produced a lot of harmonics to impact the power quality. It will threaten the safe operation of the distribution network and obstruct the utilization of renewable energy. …

3d Bioprinting Hydrogel For Tissue Engineering An Ascending Aortic Scaffold, Benjamin Stewart

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The gold standard in 2016 for thoracic aortic grafts is Dacron^®, polyethylene terephthalate, due to the durability over time, the low immune response elicited and the propensity for endothelialization of the graft lumen over time. These synthetic grafts provide reliable materials that show remarkable long term patency. Despite the acceptable performance of Dacron^® grafts, it is noted that autographs still outperform other types of vascular grafts when available due to recognition of the host's cells and adaptive mechanical properties of a living graft. 3-D bioprinting patient-specific scaffolds for tissue engineering (TE) brings the benefits of non-degrading synthetic …

Design And Operation Of Distribution Markets, Sina Parhizi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The growing penetration of distributed prosumers especially microgrids poses new challenges to the operation of wholesale markets and distribution power systems. Price spikes and higher uncertainty are among these consequences. Distribution markets are envisioned as a remedy to streamline integration of distributed resources and microgrids in the electricity market. This dissertation offers an analytical formulation of electricity markets in the distribution level, considering various prevailing aspects of the market operation problem.

The prevailing challenges in regards to integration of microgrids in the electricity markets are illustrated first, and the distribution market operator (DMO) construct is outlined. The day-ahead scheduling of …

Mechanical Effects Of Surgical Adhesives On Ascending Thoracic Aortic Aneurysm Replacement, Dong Qiu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Ascending thoracic aortic aneurysm (aTAA) is a potentially lethal disease which grows gradually over time and may lead to aortic dissection and rupture. Currently, aTAA surgical repair using Dacron graft is a well-established treatment. In addition, surgical adhesives are frequently used in the surgeries to seal the anastomotic site. This study aims to investigate mechanical effects of four commonly used surgical adhesives, namely BioGlue, CoSeal, Crosseal, and Tisseel, on the suture site using in-vitro digital image correlation (DIC) method and finite element (FE) simulations in an ovine model. In this study, first, mechanical properties of ovine ascending aorta were obtained …

Computational Modeling Of Percolation Conduction And Diffusion Of Heterogeneous Materials, Jian Qiu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Heterogeneous materials provide a unique combination of desirable mechanical, thermal or electrical properties. This dissertation presents several micro-structure modeling approaches to predict the effective properties of heterogeneous materials and demonstrates its certain application toward two highly heterogeneous, unconventional structural composite materials (carbon fiber reinforced composite materials and graphene nanoplatelets composite). By using the efficient computational algorithm based on the FEA, a randomly oriented disk-shaped particles system are generated. A new element partition scheme based on the vector operations and geometry of inclusion has been implemented to mesh the intersected disks. The computed equivalent conductivity is expressed as a power-law function …

Risk Optimized Microgrid Resource Management, Thomas William Cashel Iii

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis proposes a risk based price adjustment method for a day ahead scheduling of a distribution side tiered community microgrid within a transactive energy style market. The system is organized into a master controller and local controller confïguration to simulate behind meter activity that is not visible to the master controller. Conditional value at risk is used to asses the risk of distributed energy resources in each local controller and the risk for each local controller is aggregated providing each local controller a single risk value. Each device's, or local controller's, risk value is used to adjust the price …

Design Prototyping Methods: State Of The Art In Strategies, Techniques, And Guidelines, Bradley Camburn, Vimal Viswanathan, Julie Linsey, David Anderson, Daniel Jensen, Richard Crawford, Kevin Otto, Kristin Wood

Faculty Publications, Mechanical Engineering

Prototyping is interwoven with nearly all product, service, and systems development efforts. A prototype is a pre-production representation of some aspect of a concept or final design. Prototyping often predetermines a large portion of resource deployment in development and influences design project success. This review surveys literature sources in engineering, management, design science, and architecture. The study is focused around design prototyping for early stage design. Insights are synthesized from critical review of the literature: key objectives of prototyping, critical review of major techniques, relationships between techniques, and a strategy matrix to connect objectives to techniques. The review is supported …

Impact Of Reviewer Social Interaction On Online Consumer Review Fraud Detection, Kunal Goswami, Younghee Park, Chungsik Song

Faculty Publications

Background Online consumer reviews have become a baseline for new consumers to try out a business or a new product. The reviews provide a quick look into the application and experience of the business/product and market it to new customers. However, some businesses or reviewers use these reviews to spread fake information about the business/product. The fake information can be used to promote a relatively average product/business or can be used to malign their competition. This activity is known as reviewer fraud or opinion spam. The paper proposes a feature set, capturing the user social interaction behavior to identify fraud. …

Optimal Trajectory Determination And Mission Design For Asteroid/Deep-Space Exploration Via Multibody Gravity Assist Maneuvers, Sean Fritz, Kamran Turkoglu

Faculty Publications

This paper discusses the creation of a genetic algorithm to locate and optimize interplanetary trajectories using gravity assist maneuvers to improve fuel efficiency of the mission. The algorithm is implemented on two cases: (i) a Centaur-class target close to the ecliptic plane and (ii) a Centaur-class target with a high inclination to the ecliptic plane. Cases for multiple numbers of flybys (up to three) are discussed and compared. It is shown that, for the targets considered here, a single flyby of Jupiter is the most efficient trajectory to either target with the conditions and limitations discussed in this paper. In …

Assessment Of Individual Photovoltaic Module Performance After 26 Years Of Field Exposure At The Telonicher Marine Lab In Trinidad, California, Jake Rada

Projects

In 1990, 192 ARCO M75 photovoltaic (PV) modules were installed as a part of the Schatz Solar Hydrogen Project at the Humboldt State University (HSU) Telonicher Marine Lab in Trinidad, California, within 150 m of the Pacific Ocean. This 9.2 kW-rated PV array was used to power the marine laboratory air compressor and an electrolyzer. Individual current-voltage (IV) curve tests were performed on each of the PV modules prior to the array’s construction in 1990 and again in 2001, 2010, and, most recently, in 2016, following decommissioning of the array. After 25.5 years of use, 188 of the original 192 …

Automatic Power Management For Instructional Computers At Humboldt State University: A Calculation Of Potential Energy Savings And Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reductions, Nicholas F. Flenghi

Projects

Computers consume an estimated 5,610 GWh per year in California alone. Much of that energy is consumed by computers that are not being used. In this project, detailed user login data are used to estimate the energy consumption of instructional computers at Humboldt State University (HSU) over the course of one semester. The data are also used to estimate the potential energy savings from automating the shutdown process. Potential cost savings and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductions resulting from implementing an automatic-shutdown power management plan are also calculated.

There are approximately 1,000 computers used for teaching and learning purposes at …

Lecture Videos To Supplement Electromagnetic Classes At Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, Dean Y. Arakaki

Electrical Engineering

Electromagnetics and Transmission Lines is a fundamental, yet difficult subject in the Electrical Engineering (EE) field. To help improve information retention, a series of lecture videos was created to supplement traditional lectures, to facilitate in-class discussions, and to improve students’ proficiency and interest in electromagnetics.

Engineering electromagnetics classes at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo cover fundamentals to understand and analyze cell phone communications, radar systems (air traffic control, law enforcement), and biomedical imaging (MRI). However, this subject also requires considerable mathematics preparation in vector calculus, differential equations, linear algebra, and background in both physics and EE.

Lecture videos …

Modeling Of Selective Laser Sintering/ Selective Laser Melting, Xuan Wang, Connor West

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Selective laser sintering and selective laser melting are powder based additive manufacturing (AM) process that can rapidly manufacture parts with comparable mechanical properties to conventional manufacturing methods directly from digital files. However, the processing recipe development and design optimization of AM parts are often based on trial and error which erodes the benefit of AM. Modeling is a powerful tool to enable faster development cycle by significantly reducing the experimental efforts. In this paper we discussed the current status of selective laser sintering/melting modeling, in which the laser and powder interaction was studied to understand and predict the process and …