Engineering Commons^™

An Engage Or Retreat Differential Game With Mobile Agents, Swathi Chandrasekar

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The thesis is aimed at developing optimal defensive strategies that dissuade an attacker from engaging a defender while simultaneously persuading the attacker to retreat. A two-player Engage or Retreat differential game is developed in which one player represents a mobile attacker and the other player represents a mobile defender. Both players are modeled as massless particles moving with constant velocity. The choice to terminate the game in engagement or retreat lies with the attacker. The defender indirectly influences the choice of the attacker by manipulating the latter's utility function. In other words, the defender co-operates with the attacker so that …

Portable Motion Lab For Diagnostic And Rehabilitation Processes, Yogesh Laxman Chavan

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In this thesis research, we have explored the capabilities of a household body-tracking device - Microsoft Xbox Kinect for motion analysis and assessment to assist patient’s rehabilitation after joint replacement and repair surgeries. In particular, we have combined the motion tracking capabilities of Kinect with the 3D modelling of human body for accurate and intuitive movement assessment and feedback. Our prototype system demonstrates the effective and efficient workflow of motion capturing, data processing and analyzing and augmented reality based presentation, resulting in a design which is not only accurate, reliable and robust, but also extremely cost- and space-efficient. Furthermore, we …

Detecting Information Leakage In Android Malware Using Static Taint Analysis, Soham P. Kelkar

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According to Google, Android now runs on 1.4 billion devices. The growing popularity has attracted attackers to use Android as a platform to conduct malicious activities. To achieve these malicious activities some attacker choose to develop malicious Apps to steal information from the Android users. As the modern day smartphones process, a lot of sensitive information, information security, and privacy becoming a potential target for the attacker. The malicious Apps steal information from the infected phone and send this information to the attacker-controlled URLs using various Android sink functions. Therefore, it necessary to protect data as it can prove detrimental …

Configuration And Electronic Properties Of The Interface Between Lead Iodide Hybrid Perovskite And Self-Assembled Monolayers In Solar Cells, Parin Divya Amlani

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Hybrid perovskite photovoltaic materials are currently the most promising functional materials for solar cell applications with efficiency reaching to those of more conventional materials such as silicon. Using self-assembled monolayers between photovoltaic materials and electrodes is a method for improving the stability and functionality. Recent experiments have shown that using 4-mercaptobenzoic acid and pentafluorobenzenethiol monolayers bridging lead iodide hybrid perovskite photovoltaic materials and electrodes result in improved stability and efficiency. The details of monolayer assembly, molecular adsorption configuration, and resulting modification of electronic properties are important characteristics related to solar cell performance. These characteristics can be obtained through accurate computer …

Turboelectric Distributed Propulsion System For Nasa Next Generation Aircraft, Hashim H. Abada

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Next generation aircraft, more specifically NASA aircraft concepts, will include new technologies and make many advancements in fuel economy and noise. However, there are some challenges associated with the latest technologies that NASA is planning to use for the next generation aircraft. For example, these aircraft concepts require large amounts of electrical power to generate the required thrust throughout a notional flight profile. One of the new technologies is using advanced propulsion systems, such as the Turboelectric Distributed Propulsion (TeDP) system, which is significantly different from current aerospace high bypass turbofan based propulsion system. The TeDP propulsion system replaces the …

Computational Simulations Of Biomechanical Kinematics In Wsu Total Ankle Replacement Systems, Dinesh Gundapaneni

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Ankle arthritis constitutes about 10% of all joint arthritis cases, however, the revision rate of ankle replacement devices is three times higher than comparable hip and knee devices. With complicated bone morphology and surrounding ligament structures, the physiological and gait characteristics of the ankle joint presents a challenge to biomechanicians. As a result, there is a lack of fundamental understanding how the ligaments and articular surfaces interact. The objective of this doctoral research is to address the pattern of contact at the joint articulation, the fundamental role of ligaments in joint mobility, and biomechanics of total ankle replacement (TAR) devices. …

Data Mining Techniques And Mathematical Models For The Optimal Scholarship Allocation Problem For A State University, Shuai Wang

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Enrollment Management and Financial Aid. Enrollment management is the term that is often used to describe the synergistic approaches to influence the enrollment of higher education institutions, and consists of activities such as student college choice, transition to college, retention, and graduation. Of all the factors, financial aid, institution rank, and tuition are the three most important ones that affect students' choice processes and matriculation decisions; as such, with the continuous increase of tuition over the years, financial aid serves as a marketing tool and plays an important role in attracting students. In the United States, in the 2012-2013 academic …

Layout Implementation Of A 10-Bit 1.2 Gs/S Digital-To-Analog Converter In 90nm Cmos, Vinay Kumar Chunchu

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Digital-to-analog converters are the interface circuits between digital and analog domains. They are used in data communication applications and different sorts of applications where transformation amongst digital and analog signals is needed. High-speed data converters are needed to match the bandwidth demands of the present-day communication systems. This thesis presents the layout implementation of a 10-bit current steering DAC with a sampling rate of about 1.2 GS/s using CMOS 90 nm technology. Current steering DAC topology is used in high-speed applications. The DAC in this thesis is designed using a segmented architecture in which 4 LSB current cells are binary …

An Automated Controller Design Methodology For Six Degree-Of-Freedom Aircraft Models, Dominic J. Dierker

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This thesis presents an automated design methodology for development of six degree-of-freedom aircraft controllers. The essential functions required of the controller design are 1) to provide sufficient inner loop compensation to guarantee dynamic stability and acceptable handling qualities over the full flight envelope, and, 2) to enable automated mission following capabilities through implementation of outer loop trackers. A hierarchical control architecture consisting of nested nonlinear dynamic inversion control loops is proposed as a means of achieving these top level objectives. Gain tuning based on an automated linearization methodology is then suggested. Next, an automated optimal control allocation algorithm is tested …

Electrical Power And Storage For Nasa Next Generation Aircraft, Saif Al-Agele

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Next generation aircraft will incorporate more electrical power generation and storage for both a distributed electric propulsion system and onboard subsystems. The power generation in this type of aircraft will require orders of magnitude higher than today’s commercial aircrafts, thus producing many challenges. For this reason, a unique, high-powered electric propulsion system primarily powered by a turbo-generator system with electrical storage is being considered. A Simulink/Matlab model has bee created for the electrical power system of the next generation blended wing commercial aircraft proposed by NASA. The components of the electrical system include turbo-generators, generators, battery banks, and electrical distribution …

Synthesis And Characterizations Of Lithium Aluminum Titanium Phosphate (Li1+Xalxti2-X(Po4)3) Solid Electrolytes For All-Solid-State Li-Ion Batteries, Jianping Yang

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New-generation low-emission transportation systems demand high-performance lithium ion (Li-ion) batteries with high safety insurance at broad operable temperatures. Highly conductive solid electrolyte is one of the key components for such applications. The objective of this thesis is to synthesize and characterize aluminum doped lithium titanium phosphate, i.e. Li1+xAlxTi2-x(PO4)3 (LATP), one of the solid-state electrolytes for potential applications to all solid-state lithium-ion batteries. In this research, sol-gel method and one step solid-state reaction approaches were explored and critical processes were optimized towards maximizing lithium ion conductivities at room temperature. The impacts of the processing conditions on the structures, morphologies, compositions of …

Investigation Of Residual Stresses In Melt Infiltrated Sic/Sic Ceramic Matrix Composites Using Raman Spectroscopy, Kaitlin Noelle Kollins

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Ceramic matric composites (CMCs) are being developed for use in extreme operating conditions. Specifically, there is interest to replace superalloys with Silicon Carbide/Silicon Carbide (SiC/SiC) CMCs in the hot section of gas turbine engines because of their lower densities, high temperature performance, and oxidation resistance. Residual stresses in SiC/SiC CMCs are a direct result of the high temperature processing conditions, a mismatch in the coefficients of thermal expansion between composite constituents, and silicon crystallization expansion upon cooldown. Understanding the residual stress state and magnitudes of these stresses will enable better prediction of behavior and life performance in application environments. This …

Calibration Models And System Development For Compressive Sensing With Micromirror Arrays, Rebecca L. Profeta

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Compressive sensing (CS) is an active research field focused on finding solutions to sparse linear inverse problems, i.e. estimating a signal using fewer linear measurements than there are unknowns. The assumption of signal sparsity makes solutions to this otherwise ill-posed problem possible and has lead to a number of technological innovations such as smaller and less expensive cameras that capture high resolution imagery, low-power radar systems, and accelerated MRI scanners. In this thesis, we present the development of a hardware CS imaging system using a Digital Micromirror Device (DMD) providing spatial light modulation via an array of micromirrors that can …

Harassment Detection On Twitter Using Conversations, Venkatesh Edupuganti

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Social media has brought people closer than ever before, but the use of social media has also brought with it a risk of online harassment. Such harassment can have a serious impact on a person such as causing low self-esteem and depression. The past research on detecting harassment on social media is primarily based on the content of messages exchanged on social media. The lack of context when relying on a single social media post can result in a high degree of false alarms. In this study, I focus on the reliable detection of harassment on Twitter by better understanding …

Semantic Web Foundations For Representing, Reasoning, And Traversing Contextualized Knowledge Graphs, Vinh Thi Kim Nguyen

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Semantic Web technologies such as RDF and OWL have become World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) standards for knowledge representation and reasoning. RDF triples about triples, or meta triples, form the basis for a contextualized knowledge graph. They represent the contextual information about individual triples such as the source, the occurring time or place, or the certainty. However, an efficient RDF representation for such meta-knowledge of triples remains a major limitation of the RDF data model. The existing reification approach allows such meta-knowledge of RDF triples to be expressed in RDF by using four triples per reified triple. While reification is …

Automated Rendering Of Schema Diagram For Ontologies, Nazifa Karima

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Semantic Web extends the current web, using ontologies, metadata and other technologies to establish links between terms and concepts. This enables machines to automatically integrate information across different platforms utilizing the standard definitions. Furthermore, reasoning agents can infer new knowledge by gathering existing information and these additional connections between them. As a result of being designed and maintained independently, data sources exhibit highly heterogeneous nature. This increases the complexity of data integration and hinders interoperability. However, if we can align the overlapping concepts among different domains of knowledge, the prospect of achieving interoperability and integration without having any intermediate reasoning …

Adapting The Search Space While Limiting Damage During Learning In A Simulated Flapping Wing Micro Air Vehicle, Monica Sam

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Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) are characterized by closely coupled physical and software components that operate simultaneously on different spatial and temporal scales; exhibit multiple and distinct behavioral modalities; and interact with one another in ways not entirely predictable at the time of design. A commonly appearing type of CPS are systems that contain one or more smart components that adapt locally in response to global measurements of whole system performance. An example of a smart component robotic CPS system is a Flapping Wing Micro Air Vehicle (FW-MAV) that contains wing motion oscillators that control their wing flapping patterns to enable the …

Development Of An Ultra-Portable Non-Contact Wound Measurement System, Anka Babu Billa

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Continuous monitoring of changes in wound size is key to correctly predict whether wounds will heal readily with conventional treatment or require more aggressive treatment strategies. Unfortunately, existing wound measurement solutions don't meet the clinical demand due to their limitations in accuracy, operating complexity and time, acquisition and operation cost, or reproducibility, resulting in unnecessarily lengthy recovery or extra treatment procedures, incurring an excessively high financial cost, and in many cases extended usage of addictive painkillers. In this thesis, we proposed and developed a low cost, a portable non-contact solution that combines multi-spectral imaging and a portfolio of imaging processing …

Sensorimotor Deficits Following Oxaliplatin Chemotherapy, Jacob Adam Vincent

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Neurotoxicity is one of the most significant side effects diminishing clinical efficacy and patient quality of life during and following chemotherapy. Oxaliplatin (OX) is a platinum based chemotherapy agent used in the treatment of colorectal cancer. Colorectal cancer currently ranks as the 4th most common cancer, and the majority of patients receive OX as a part of their adjuvant therapy. OX based adjuvant therapies significantly improve 5 year survival rates, however in many cases patients must stop treatment early because of the neurotoxic side effects. OX causes two clinically distinct forms of neurotoxicity. Acutely, within hours and for days following …

Novel Mechanisms Underlying Warm-Up And Percussion Myotonia In Myotonia Congenita, Kevin Richard Nnovak

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Patients with myotonia congenita have muscle hyperexcitability due to loss-of-function mutations in the ClC-1 chloride channel in skeletal muscle, which causes spontaneous firing of muscle action potentials (myotonia), producing muscle stiffness. Triggers for myotonia can occur voluntarily at the neuromuscular junction or involuntarily by striking the muscle with a reflex hammer (percussion myotonia). In patients, muscle stiffness lessens with exercise, a change known as the warm-up phenomenon. Our goal was to identify the mechanism underlying warm-up and percussion myotonia and to use this information to guide development of novel therapies. To determine these underlying mechanisms, we used a drug to …

Persistent Inward Currents Play A Role In Muscle Dysfunction Seen In Myotonia Congenita, Ahmed Alaa Hawash

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Myotonia congenita is a rare skeletal muscle channelopathy caused by a reduced chloride channel (ClC-1) current, which results in debilitating muscle hyperexcitability, prolonged contractions, and transient episodes of weakness. The excitatory events that trigger myotonic action potentials in the absence of stabilizing ClC-1 current are not fully understood. My in vitro intracellular recordings from a mouse homozygous knockout of ClC-1 revealed a slow after-depolarization (AfD) that triggers myotonic action potentials. The AfD is well-explained by a tetrododoxin-sensitive and voltage-dependent Na+ persistent inward current (NaPIC). Notably, this NaPIC undergoes slow inactivation over seconds, thus providing the first mechanistic explanation for the …

Functions Of The Apical Na+/ K+/ 2cl- Cotransporter 1 In Choroid Plexus Epithelial Cells., Jeannine Marie Crum Gregoriades

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Choroid plexus epithelial cells (CPECs) secrete cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and regulate its electrolyte composition. CPECs express both the Na⁺/ K⁺ ATPase and the Na⁺/ K⁺/ 2Cl^- cotransporter 1 (NKCC1) on their apical membrane (CSF facing), deviating from the typical basolateral membrane location in chloride secretory epithelia. Given this unusual location of NKCC1 and the unknown intracellular Na⁺ and Cl^- concentrations of CPECs, the cotransporter function in these cells is not understood. Further, the direction of net ion and associated water fluxes mediated by NKCC1 under basal physiological conditions in CPECs …

The Subject Librarian Newsletter, Engineering And Computer Science, Spring 2017, Buenaventura "Ven" Basco

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Heat Transfer Analysis In A Paddle Reactor For Biomass Fast Pyrolyis, Ankith Ullal

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Heat transfer analysis was performed on a novel auger reactor for biomass fast pyrolysis. As part of this analysis, correlations for specific heat capacity and heat transfer coefficients for biomass (sawdust) and sand (used as heat transfer medium) were developed. For sand, the heat transfer coefficient followed a power law distribution with reactor fill level and temperature. For raw biomass, the heat transfer coefficient also showed similar dependence on fill level, but was independent of temperature up to 300°C. These correlations were used in a one dimensional heat transfer model developed to calculate the heating time and heating rate of …

Detecting Overpressure Zones By Using Model Based Inversion In Kupe Field, New Zealand, Timucin Cakir

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Overpressure is a significant parameter during a drilling process in oil exploration. This phenomenon happens when pore pressure exceeds the limit of hydrostatic pressure in a formation and causes drastic hazards such as blow outs while drilling. This thesis focuses on the determination of possible overpressure areas and studies at three wells in Kupe Field, which is considered to be a natural-gas field in Taranaki Basin. In an effort to identify potential overpressure zones at the Kupe Field, acoustic impedance responses of 3D seismic data for three wells, along with their well log responses were evaluated.

Seismic inversion plays an …

Computational Ultrasound Elastography: A Feasibility Study, Yu Wang

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Ultrasound Elastography (UE) is an emerging set of imaging modalities used to assess the biomechanical properties of soft tissues. UE has been applied to numerous clinical applications. Particularly, results from clinical trials of UE in breast lesion differentiation and staging liver fibrosis indicated that there was a lack of confidence in UE measurements or image interpretation. Confidence on UE measurements interpretation is critically important for improving the clinical utility of UE. The primary objective of my thesis is to develop a computational simulation platform based on open-source software packages including Field II, VTK, FEBio and Tetgen. The proposed virtual simulation …

Controlling Properties Of Agglomerates For Chemical Processes, Joseph A. Halt

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Iron ore pellets are hard spheres made from powdered ore and binders. Pellets are used to make iron, mainly in blast furnaces. Around the time that the pelletizing process was developed, starch was proposed as a binder because it’s viscous, adheres well to iron oxides, does not contaminate pellets and is relatively cheap. In practice, however, starch leads to weak pellets with rough surfaces – these increase the amount of dust generated within process equipment and during pellet shipping and handling. Thus, even though the usual binder (bentonite clay) contaminates pellets, pelletizers prefer it to starch or other organics.

This …

Blossomsttm Hub – An Online Tool For Designing Sttm Vectors And Visualizing Phenotypic Changes Of Sttm Transgenic Lines, Avinash Subramanian

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Small RNAs including microRNAs (miRNAs) and short interfering RNAs (siRNAs) are widely present in plants. They are transcribed from non-coding small RNA genes and then play as regulators to modulate the levels of messenger RNAs (mRNAs) of protein-coding genes via sequence pairings. This is because a paired complementary double sequence helix structure can trigger mRNA degradation or interfere with mRNA translation. Short Tandem Target Mimic (STTM) is a recently developed technology that can be used to produce a complementary sequence to a miRNA and destroy it or reduce the expression level of this miRNA via the formation of paired double-strand …

Position Control Of An Unmanned Aerial Vehicle From A Mobile Ground Vehicle, Astha Tiwari

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Quadcopters have been developed with controls providing good maneuverability, simple mechanics, and the ability to hover, take-off and land vertically with precision. Due to their small size, they can get close to targets of interest and furthermore stay undetected at lower heights. The main drawbacks of a quadcopter are its high-power consumption and payload restriction, due to which, the number of onboard sensors is constrained. To overcome this limitation, vision-based localization techniques and remote control for the quadcopter are essential areas of current research. The core objective of this research is to develop a closed loop feedback system between an …