Engineering Commons^™

Development Of An Explainability Scale To Evaluate Explainable Artificial Intelligence (Xai) Methods, Stephen Mccarthy

Dissertations

Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) is an area of research that develops methods and techniques to make the results of artificial intelligence understood by humans. In recent years, there has been an increased demand for XAI methods to be developed due to model architectures getting more complicated and government regulations requiring transparency in machine learning models. With this increased demand has come an increased need for instruments to evaluate XAI methods. However, there are few, if none, valid and reliable instruments that take into account human opinion and cover all aspects of explainability. Therefore, this study developed an objective, human-centred questionnaire …

Rational Design Of Flexible And Stretchable Electronics Based On 3d Printing, Yuanhang Yang

Theses and Dissertations

Flexible and stretchable electronics have been considered as the key component for the next generation of flexible devices. There are many approaches to prepare the devices, such as dip coating, spin coating, Mayer bar coating, filtration and transfer, and printing, etc. The effectiveness of these methods has been proven, but some drawbacks cannot be ignored, such as lacking pattern control, labor consuming, requiring complex pretreatment, wasting conductive materials, etc.

In this investigation, we propose to adopt 3D printing technology to design flexible and stretchable electronics. The objective is to rationally design flexible and stretchable sensors, simplify the preparation process, form …

Innovative Techniques Of Neuromodulation And Neuromodeling Based On Focal Non-Invasive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation For Neurological Disorders, Ivan C. Carmona-Tortolero

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation aims to develop alternative technology that improves the current range of application of transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), on a scale that would permit defining specific non-invasive treatments for Parkinson’s disease and other neurological disorders. This is accomplished through three specific objectives. 1) The design of a neurostimulation system that increases the focality in TMS to regions of narrow target areas and variable depths in the brain cortex. 2) The assessment of the feasibility of novel high-frequency neuromodulation techniques that would allow increasing the focality in deeper areas beyond the cortical surface. 3) The development of a computational model …

Improving The Early Detection Of Cardiovascular Toxicity Secondary To Radiotherapy For Lung Cancer Via Patient-Specific Quantitative Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Alireza Omidi

Theses and Dissertations

Purpose: To assess the cardiopulmonary-induced dose variation on the left ventricle (LV) and evaluate the spatiotemporal evolution of cardiac/aortic function following radiotherapy (RT).

Methods: 8 lung cancer patients who were scheduled to receive RT were recruited for this study. Each patient underwent one 4D-CT at baseline. MRI scans including cine GRE, T1/T2, LGE, and 4D-flow were acquired at baseline, 3-months and 6-months post-RT to evaluate the cardiac/aortic function. Finally, image registration was used to assess the cardiopulmonary-induced dose variation on the LV.

Results: Mean RT-dose was minimum during inspiration and systole (at expiration). No significant differences were found in the …

Analysis Of Non-Conventional Radiological Terrorism, James N. Padgett

Theses and Dissertations

Nuclear terrorism has been a risk since the dawn of the first atomic bomb. Though state sponsored nuclear weapons development is of concern for countries, non-state sponsored terrorism with radiological material can be of even greater concern. This stems from the fact that the material is under less stringent or no safeguards and can readily change hands between different terrorist groups or innocent civilians may accidently come into contact with the material.

Within this paper an analysis of previous accidents using orphan radiological sources, malicious use of orphan radiological sources, and how these sources could be used by terrorists is …

Low Insertion-Loss Nanophotonic Modulators Through Epsilon-Near-Zero Material-Based Plasmon-Assisted Approach For Integrated Photonics, Mohammad Ariful Hoque Sojib

Theses and Dissertations

Electro-optic/absorption Modulators (EOM/EAMs) encode high-frequency electrical signals into optical signals. With the requirement of large packing density, device miniaturization is possible by confining light in a sub-wavelength dimension by utilizing the plasmonic phenomenon. In plasmon, energy gets transferred from light to the form of oscillation of free electrons on a surface of a metal at an interface between the metal and a dielectric. Plasmonic provides increased light-matter interaction (LMI) and thus making the light more sensitive to local refractive index change. Plasmonic-based integrated nanophotonic modulators, despite their promising features, have one key limiting factor of large Insertion Loss (IL) which …

Universal Design In Bci: Deep Learning Approaches For Adaptive Speech Brain-Computer Interfaces, Srdjan Lesaja

Theses and Dissertations

In the last two decades, there have been many breakthrough advancements in non-invasive and invasive brain-computer interface (BCI) systems. However, the majority of BCI model designs still follow a paradigm whereby neural signals are preprocessed and task-related features extracted using static, and generally customized, data-independent designs. Such BCI designs commonly optimize narrow task performance over generalizability, adaptability, and robustness, which is not well suited to meeting individual user needs. If one day BCIs are to be capable of decoding our higher-order cognitive commands and conceptual maps, their designs will need to be adaptive architectures that will evolve and grow in …

Wideband Array For Bgan Portable Terminals, Jakub Przepiorowski, Patrick Mcevoy, Max Ammann, Xiulong Bao

Conference papers

With the increasing demand for global internet connectivity [1], services like INMARSAT’s Broadband Global Area Network (BGAN) are becoming more widely used. BGAN terminals are portable devices that can be plugged into a laptop or a network in a remote location and provide access to the internet via INMARSAT’s I-4 and the emerging I-6 geostationary satellites. BGAN terminals operate in the L-band with the receive band (Rx) of 1518-1559 MHz and the transmit band (Tx) of 1626.5-1675 MHz.

การเพิ่มผลผลิตลูทีนในจุลสาหร่ายสีเขียว Chlorococcum Sp. Tistr 8266, โยษิตา สวนแก้ว

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

งานวิจัยนี้มุ่งเน้นการเพิ่มประสิทธิภาพระบบการเพาะเลี้ยงจุลสาหร่ายสีเขียว Chlorococcum sp. TISTR 8266 แบบแบทซ์ในถังปฏิกรณ์ชีวภาพเชิงแสงแบบถังกวนขนาด 1 ลิตร ให้มีผลผลิตลูทีนมากที่สุด โดยศึกษาปัจจัยที่มีผลกระทบต่อผลผลิตลูทีน ได้แก่ ความเข้มข้นของไนโตรเจนและแหล่งของไนโตรเจนในอาหารเลี้ยงเชื้อ ความเข้มแสง ความยาวคลื่นแสง และก๊าซคาร์บอนไดออกไซด์ ผลการทดลองพบว่าการเพาะเลี้ยงจุลสาหร่ายด้วยอาหารเลี้ยงเชื้อสูตร BG-11 ที่ปรับความเข้มข้นของ NaNO3 เป็น 25% (62 มิลลิกรัม-ไนโตรเจน/ลิตร) เป็นสภาวะที่ให้ความเข้มข้นของลูทีนสูงที่สุดเมื่อเปรียบเทียบกับชุดทดลองอื่น จากนั้นศึกษาแหล่งของไนโตรเจนที่สามารถเพิ่มผลผลิตลูทีน โดยในแต่ละชุดทดลองใช้ความเข้มข้นของไนโตรเจนเท่ากับผลการทดลองที่ได้รับก่อนหน้า ผลการศึกษาพบว่าจุลสาหร่ายที่เพาะเลี้ยงในอาหารเลี้ยงเชื้อที่ใช้ NaNO3 เป็นแหล่งไนโตรเจนสามารถผลิตลูทีนได้มากที่สุด เมื่อได้สภาวะของอาหารเลี้ยงเชื้อที่เหมาะสมแล้วจึงดำเนินการศึกษาในเรื่องของการให้แสง จากผลการศึกษาพบว่าการให้แสงสีขาวจากหลอดไฟแอลอีดีที่ความเข้มแสง 201 ไมโครโมลโฟตอน/ตารางเมตร/วินาที เป็นสภาวะที่ได้รับความเข้มข้นของลูทีนสูงที่สุด ในส่วนสุดท้ายของงานวิจัยนี้เป็นการศึกษาผลของก๊าซคาร์บอนไดออกไซด์โดยในการทดลองจะใช้สภาวะการเพาะเลี้ยงที่ดีที่สุดที่ได้รับจากผลการทดลองตามที่ได้กล่าวไปข้างต้น อีกทั้งยังมีการเพิ่มชุดทดลองที่ใช้อาหารเลี้ยงเชื้อสูตร BG-11 ปกติ เพื่อลดข้อจำกัดเรื่องธาตุอาหารไนโตรเจน จากผลการทดลองชี้ให้เห็นว่าการเพาะเลี้ยงด้วยอากาศผสมก๊าซคาร์บอนไดออกไซด์ 0.3% โดยปริมาตร ให้ความเข้มข้นของลูทีนสูงกว่าการเพาะเลี้ยงด้วยอากาศที่ผสมก๊าซคาร์บอนไดออกไซด์ 2.5% โดยปริมาตร และยังพบว่าชุดทดลองที่มีการจำกัดไนโตรเจน (25% NaNO3) มีบทบาทสำคัญในการกระตุ้นการสะสมของลูทีนในชีวมวล แต่สภาวะดังกล่าวได้รับความเข้มข้นของลูทีนที่ต่ำกว่าชุดทดลองที่ใช้อาหารเลี้ยงเชื้อสูตร BG-11 ปกติ ดังนั้นสภาวะการเพาะเลี้ยงด้วยอาหารเลี้ยงเชื้อสูตร BG-11 ปกติร่วมกับการให้อากาศผสมกับก๊าซคาร์บอนไดออกไซด์ 0.3% โดยปริมาตร จึงเป็นสภาวะที่สามารถเพิ่มประสิทธิภาพให้กับภาพรวมของระบบ โดยสภาวะนี้ให้ความเข้มข้นลูทีนมากกว่าชุดควบคุมสูงถึง 3 เท่า

Biomarkers Of Inflammation And Oxidative Stress In The Prediction And Management Of Acute Coronary Syndrome, Udaya Ralapanawa, Sivakanesan R

Health Sciences

The assessment of patients presenting with chest pain or symptoms indicative of cardiac ischemia remains a diagnostic challenge. Many types of research have focused on the search for ideal biological markers for the rapid detection of cardiac cell injuries. Markers of inflammation and oxidative stress are the way forward. At present, the biomarker most widely used for diagnosing acute coronary syndrome is cardiac troponin though it has some limitations. Apart from cardiac troponin, several other biomarkers, especially inflammation and oxidative stress markers in acute coronary syndrome, have been investigated. However, most of them still require validation in further studies. As …

Antagonistic Co-Contraction Can Minimize Muscular Effort In Systems With Uncertainty, Anne D. Koelewijn, Antonie J. Van Den Bogert

Mechanical Engineering Faculty Publications

Muscular co-contraction of antagonistic muscle pairs is often observed in human movement, but it is considered inefficient and it can currently not be predicted in
simulations where muscular effort or metabolic energy are minimized. Here, we investigated the relationship between minimizing effort and muscular co-contraction
in systems with random uncertainty to see if muscular co-contraction can minimize effort in such system. We also investigated the effect of time delay in the muscle, by varying the time delay in the neural control as well as the activation time constant.We solved optimal control problems for a one-degree-of-freedom pendulum actuated by two identical …

Castor Oil Conversion To Biodiesel: A Process Simulation Study, Yaser M. Asal Mr, Islam M. Al-Akraa, Ahmad M. Mohammad, Razan Aymen

Chemical Engineering

The aim of this study is to highlights the importance to shift from the use of traditional fossil fuels to biodiesel as a clean energy source. A simulation study has been conducted using ASPEN HYSIS software for the biodiesel production form castor oil. The simulation was run and the properties of the produced biodiesel were highlighted. The optimum conditions resulted in 88 % conversion.

Impacts Of The Thai Canal On Liner Shipping Container Network, Krittitee Yanpisitkul

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

This thesis proposes a mathematical model that imitates the flow of containers in the container liner shipping network — particularly, in the Indo-Pacific region, where the Strait of Malacca is located — in order to assess the potential impact of the proposed Thai Canal on such a network. This model is constructed based on a combination of two network problems, namely (i) the Multi-commodity Minimum Cost Network Flow Problem (MCNFP) and (ii) the Liner Shipping Fleet Deployment Problem (LSFDP), which allows a more realistic representation of international trade, while taking to account congestion at container ports at the same time. …

Modeling Crash Severity And Collision Types Using Machine Learning, Amit Kumar, Hari Krishnan Melempat Kalapurayil

Data

Traffic safety analysis is the fundamental step for reducing economic, social, and environmental cost incurred due to traffic accidents. The essence of traffic safety is understanding the factors affecting crash occurrence, injury severity and collision type and their underlying relationships and predict-prevent future crash instances. Crash injury severity studies in past have utilized numerous statistical, econometric and Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools to extract the underlying relationship between the crash causal factors and the consequent severity or collision type. The study aims to explore the Multi-Label Classification (MLC) tool from the domain of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for …

Modeling Crash Severity And Collision Types Using Machine Learning, Amit Kumar, Hari Krishnan Melempat Kalapurayil

Publications

Traffic safety analysis is the fundamental step for reducing economic, social, and environmental cost incurred due to traffic accidents. The essence of traffic safety is understanding the factors affecting crash occurrence, injury severity and collision type and their underlying relationships and predict-prevent future crash instances. Crash injury severity studies in past have utilized numerous statistical, econometric and Machine Learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools to extract the underlying relationship between the crash causal factors and the consequent severity or collision type. The study aims to explore the Multi-Label Classification (MLC) tool from the domain of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for …

Characterization Of Shear Strength And Cracking Resistance Of A Chemically Stabilized Clayey Soil, Abdulaziz Alhawiti

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Improving the engineering properties of the subgrade soil by means of chemical stabilization is known to enhance the construction conditions in plastic soils and result in a reduction in design thickness requirements of the base, subbase, and wearing course in a layered pavement structure. This can also potentially lead to an increase in pavement life. This study was undertaken to study the effect of hydrated lime and Portland cement used as a stabilizing agents on the strength properties and the cracking resistance of a clayey soil collected from South Dakota. Hydrated lime was mixed with the collected soil by 2%, …

Nanomechanical Characterization And Comparison Of Additively Manufactured Grcop-42 Alloy, Trupti Suresh Mali

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In an aggressive thermomechanical environment, the superior mechanical as well as thermal properties of materials play an essential role. GRCop which is a copper-based alloy developed by NASA has the potential to fulfill the requirements necessary for hightemperature applications such as the combustion chamber of liquid rocket engines. The first alloy of this family, GRCop-84 (Cu-8 wt.% Cr-4 wt.% Nb) was discovered followed with the development of GRCop-42 (Cu-4 wt.% Cr, 2 wt.% Nb). The reduction in alloying element percentage enhanced thermal conductivity with less built time while maintaining the strength of the material. The conventional fabrication is replaced with …

Superhalogen-Based Li-Rich Anti-Perovskite Superionic Conductors, Md Mominul Islam

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Solid-state batteries are being widely explored to meet next-generation energy storage demand with a great potentiality of achieving high energy and power densities at All-solidstate Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs). In recent years, electronically inverted lithium-rich antiperovskite (LiRAP) solid electrolytes with the formula Li3OX, where X is a halogen or mixture of halogens have appeared as a prospective alternative of the commercially available flammable and corrosive organic liquid electrolytes because of their high ionic conductivity, structural variety, and wide electrochemical window. Here, For the first time, we have successfully formulated and synthesized a completely new class of super halogen based double anti-perovskite …

Design, Development, And Testing Of Near-Optimal Satellite Attitude Control Strategies, Giovanni Lavezzi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Advances in space technology and interest toward remote sensing mission have grown in the recent years, requiring the attitude control subsystems of observation satellites to increase their performances in terms of pointing accuracy and on-board implementability. Moreover, an increased interest in small satellite missions and the recent technological developments related to the CubeSats standard have drastically reduced the cost of producing and flying a satellite mission. In this context, the proposed research aims to improve the state of the art for satellite attitude control methodologies by proposing a near-optimal attitude control strategy, simulated in a high-fidelity environment. Two strategies are …

A Computational Fluid Dynamics Analysis Of The Temperature And Impurity Profiles In The Protodune-Sp Neutrino Detector, Jenna Harrison

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) models of the ProtoDUNE single-phase detector were developed, refined, and analyzed. The ProtoDUNE single-phase detector is a prototype detector that is part of the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment, an international research collaboration aimed at better understanding neutrinos and the role they play in our universe. The ProtoDUNE single-phase detector is used to gather data and inform design changes for the full-sized far detector prior to its construction. The effects of certain geometric features and heat sources on the thermal profiles within the liquid region of the detector were investigated in a set of parametric studies. The …

Project-Based Learning In Non-Traditional Settings In Engineering Education, Mary Foss

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to examine the effectiveness of utilizing the principles of Project-based learning (PJBL) in nontraditional settings in engineering education. There is ample literature related to the usage of PJBL techniques in engineering education but there are also challenges with incorporating PJBL within the curriculum. It is the aim of this dissertation to build upon this understanding of the advantages and limitations of PJBL in engineering education and identify areas within the existing body of knowledge in which more research is needed. This dissertation divides this topic into 4 sub-topics. The first sub-topic explores how PJBL …

Applying Cfd Model Studies To Determine Zones At Risk Of Methane Explosion And Spontaneous Combustion Of Coal In Goaves, Magdalena Tutak, Jarosław Brodny, Greg Galecki

Mining Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Underground mining operations are subject to a number of natural hazards. Events resulting from these hazards are difficult to predict, and if they occur, they disrupt the entire mining process and pose a great danger to the crew. Some of the most dangerous include ventilation hazards involving methane explosions and fires caused by the spontaneous combustion of coal. The complex state of the underground environment means that these hazards oftentimes occur simultaneously, making mining conditions even worse. The following paper addresses this issue by developing the methodology for determining areas endangered by methane explosions and spontaneous coal combustion in goaves. …

Spatial Transformation Of A Layer-To-Layer Control Model For Selective Laser Melting, Xin Wang, Robert G. Landers, Douglas A. Bristow

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Selective Laser Melting (SLM) is an Additive Manufacturing (AM) technique with challenges in its complexity of process parameters and lack of control schemes. Traditionally, people tried time-domain or frequency-domain control methods, but the complexity of the process goes beyond these methods. In this paper, a novel spatial transformation of SLM models is proposed, which transforms the time-domain process into a spatial domain model and, thus, allows for state-space layer-to-layer control methods. In a space domain, this also provides the convenience of modelling laser path changes. Finally, a layer-to-layer Iterative Learning Control (ILC) method is designed and demonstrates the methodology of …

High-Pressure Kinetic Interactions Between Co And H2 During Syngas Catalytic Combustion On Pdo, Ran Sui, John Mantzaras, Rolf Bombach, Meysam Khatoonabadi

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The catalytic combustion of H2/CO/O2/N2 mixtures over PdO was investigated at pressures 3 to 10 bar, H2:CO volumetric ratios 1:5 to 3:1, and global equivalence ratios ψ = 0.13 and 0.23. The catalyst surface temperatures were controlled to 540-690 K, a range especially important for hybrid hetero-/homogeneous combustion approaches with large gas turbines at idle or part-load operation and for microreactors with recuperative small-scale turbines. In situ Raman measurements determined the major gas-phase species concentrations over the catalyst boundary layers in a channel-flow reactor, thermocouples monitored the surface temperatures, and surface characterization identified the catalyst oxidation state (PdO) and surface …

Evaluation Of Automated Eye Blink Artefact Removal Using Stacked Dense Autoencoder, Matthew Rigney

Dissertations

The presence of artefacts in Electroencephalograph (EEG) signals can have a considerable impact on the information they portray. In this comparative study, the automated removal of eye blink artefacts using the constrained latent representation of a stacked dense autoencoders (SDAE) and comparing its ability to that of the manual independent component analysis (ICA) approach was evaluated. A comparative evaluation of 5 stacked dense autoencoder architectures lead to a chosen architecture for which the ability to automatically detect and remove eye blink artefacts were both statistically and humanistically evaluated. The ability of the stacked dense autoencoder was statistically evaluated with the …

Scrolling Vs Paging: Reading Performance And Preference Of Reading Modes In Long-Form Online News, Richard Herlihy

Dissertations

This study explores the impact of scrolling and dynamic pagination in long-form online documents on reader performance and reader experience. Previous research has produced mixed results, indicating no difference between modes, or a positive effect favouring scrolling. Recent advances in web standards have enabled simpler, dynamic, performant methods of pagination to tailor content responsively to any screen, meriting renewed study in this area. This paper uses one such method to load subsequent online news pages instantly without buffering. In an online browser experiment with 38 participants, an increase in reading speed in the scrolling mode was found at a level …

Study On Performance Of Pruned Cnn-Based Classification Models, Mengling Deng

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) is a neural network developed for processing image data. CNNs have been studied extensively and have been used in numerous computer vision tasks such as image classification and segmentation, object detection and recognition, etc. [1] Although, the CNNs-based approaches showed humanlevel performances in these tasks [2], they require heavy computation in both training and inference stages, and the models consist of millions of parameters. This hinders the development and deployment of CNN-based models for real world applications. Neural Network Pruning and Compression techniques have been proposed [3, 4] to reduce the computation complexity of trained CNNs …

Biking In Indianapolis: An Ethnographic Analysis Of Obstacles And Solutions, Emory Lietz

Undergraduate Honors Thesis Collection

Indiana is known as the ""Crossroads of America"" for its historic investment in vehicle infrastructure. This focus on automobiles has shaped Indianapolis's urban landscape, to the dismay of many cyclists. Based on semi-structured interviews with a range of stakeholders in the Indianapolis cycling community, including urban planners, bike commuters, IndyGo employees, city government officials, and bike advocates, this project identifies and evaluates the current barriers that prevent Indianapolis residents from riding their bikes. These obstacles, which include infrastructural, safety, and social factors, make it more difficult than it ought to be to bike in Indy.

For my thesis project, I …

Parenting Pre-Teens During Covid-19 In A Rural Midwestern Community: An Interpretive Phenomenological Study, Sarah Oerther, Daniel B. Oerther

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

To uncover the experiences of parenting Generation Z pre-teen children in rural communities impacted by the Stay Home Missouri order from April through May 2020. Researchers have focused on urban parents, leading to gaps in understanding the impact of the COVID-19 quarantine on rural parents and children. A qualitative study employing interpretive phenomenology. 14 white cis-male-sexed fathers and cis-female-sexed mothers living in midwestern rural communities participated in this study. Semi-structured interviews with 14 participants parenting pre-teen children were conducted. The interviews were analyzed using interpretive phenomenology. The COREQ checklist was followed. One theme that emerged from the narratives was the …

A Unified Health Information System Framework For Connecting Data, People, Devices, And Systems, Wu He, Justin Zuopeng Zhang, Huanmei Wu, Wenzhuo Li, Sachin Shetty

Information Technology & Decision Sciences Faculty Publications

The COVID-19 pandemic has heightened the necessity for pervasive data and system interoperability to manage healthcare information and knowledge. There is an urgent need to better understand the role of interoperability in improving the societal responses to the pandemic. This paper explores data and system interoperability, a very specific area that could contribute to fighting COVID-19. Specifically, the authors propose a unified health information system framework to connect data, systems, and devices to increase interoperability and manage healthcare information and knowledge. A blockchain-based solution is also provided as a recommendation for improving the data and system interoperability in healthcare.