Engineering Commons^™

Clean Process To Utilize The Potassium-Containing Phosphorous Rock With Simultaneous Hcl And Kcl Production Via The Steam-Mediated Reactions, Yunshan Wang, Lufang Shi, Houli Li, Yixiao Wang, Zhiying Wang, Xuebin An, Mingzhu Tang, Gang Yang, Jun He, Jing Hu, Yong Sun

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

In this paper, a clean process based on the steam-mediated reactions for simultaneous HCl and KCl production using the potassium (K)-containing phosphorous rock as a precursor is proposed. Through hydrochloric acid (HCl) leaching, not only the generation of H₃PO₄and CaCl₂ (via further precipitation) were realized but also the acid-insoluble residue [phosphorous-rock slag (PS)] rich in elements, that is, K, Al, Si, and so on, in the form of microcline (KAlSi₃O₈) and quartz (SiO₂) was obtained and became readily available for further HCl and KCl generation. Over 95 % of …

Impacts Of Atmospheric Stilling And Climate Warming On Cyanobacterial Blooms: An Individual-Based Modelling Approach, Mohammad Hassan Ranjbar, David P. Hamilton, Amir Etemad-Shahidi, Fernanda Helfer

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Harmful algal blooms of the freshwater cyanobacteria genus Microcystis are a global problem and are expected to intensify with climate change. In studies of climate change impacts on Microcystis blooms, atmospheric stilling has not been considered. Stilling is expected to occur in some regions of the world with climate warming, and it will affect lake stratification regimes. We tested if stilling could affect water column Microcystis distributions using a novel individual-based model (IBM). Using the IBM coupled to a three-dimensional hydrodynamic model, we assessed responses of colonial Microcystis biomass to wind speed decrease and air temperature increase projected under a …

Insights Into The Aerodynamic Versus Radiometric Surface Temperature Debate In Thermal-Based Evaporation Modeling, Kaniska Mallick, Dennis Baldocchi, Andrew Jarvis, Tian Hu, Ivonne Trebs, Mauro Sulis, Nishan Bhattarai, Christian Bossung, Yomna Eid, Jamie Cleverly, Jason Beringer, William Woodgate, Richard Silberstein, Nina Hinko-Najera, Wayne S. Meyer, Darren Ghent, Zoltan Szantoi, Gilles Boulet, William P. Kustas

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Global evaporation monitoring from Earth observation thermal infrared satellite missions is historically challenged due to the unavailability of any direct measurements of aerodynamic temperature. State-of-the-art one-source evaporation models use remotely sensed radiometric surface temperature as a substitute for the aerodynamic temperature and apply empirical corrections to accommodate for their inequality. This introduces substantial uncertainty in operational drought mapping over complex landscapes. By employing a non-parametric model, we show that evaporation can be directly retrieved from thermal satellite data without the need of any empirical correction. Independent evaluation of evaporation in a broad spectrum of biome and aridity yielded statistically significant …

Physical Layer Authentication Using Ensemble Learning Technique In Wireless Communications, Muhammad Waqas, Shehr Bano, Fatima Hassan, Shanshan Tu, Ghulam Abbas, Ziaul Haq Abbas

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Cyber-physical wireless systems have surfaced as an important data communication and networking research area. It is an emerging discipline that allows effective monitoring and efficient real-time communication between the cyber and physical worlds by embedding computer software and integrating communication and networking technologies. Due to their high reliability, sensitivity and connectivity, their security requirements are more comparable to the Internet as they are prone to various security threats such as eavesdropping, spoofing, botnets, man-in-the-middle attack, denial of service (DoS) and distributed denial of service (DDoS) and impersonation. Existing methods use physical layer authentication (PLA), the most promising solution to detect …

Responses Of Calcareous Sand Foundations To Variations Of Groundwater Table And Applied Loads, Dingfeng Cao, Sanjay Kumar Shukla, Linqing Yang, Chengchao Guo, Jinghong Wu, Fuming Wang

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

The long-term settlement of calcareous sand foundations caused by daily periodic fluctuations has become a significant geological hazard, but effective monitoring tools to capture the deformation profiles are still rarely reported. In this study, a laboratory model test and an in situ monitoring test were conducted. An optical frequency domain reflectometer (OFDR) with high spatial resolution (1 mm) and high accuracy (±10-6) was used to record the soil strain responses to groundwater table and varied loads. The results indicated that the fiber-optic measurements can accurately locate the swelling and compressive zones. During the loading process, the interlock between calcareous sand …

Synergistic Efficiency Of Zinc Oxide/Montmorillonite Nanocomposites And A New Derived Saponin In Liquid/Liquid/Solid Interface-Included Systems: Application In Nanotechnology-Assisted Enhanced Oil Recovery, Ahmad Nourinia, Abbas Khaksar Manshad, Seyed Reza Shadizadeh, Jagar A. Ali, Stefan Iglauer, Alireza Keshavarz, Amir H. Mohammadi, Muhammad Ali

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Oil production faces challenges such as limited oil production from carbonate reservoirs, high oil production costs, and environmental issues. Chemical flooding as an enhanced oil recovery (EOR) method (CEOR) can increase oil production by the use of chemical additives such as surfactants into the reservoirs. Surfactants can increase oil recovery by interfacial tension (IFT) reduction and alteration of the rock wettability from oil-wet to water-wet. The synthesis of chemicals such as synthetic surfactants is usually costly and harmful to the environment. To solve these problems, many researchers have oriented on the use of natural surfactants instead of synthetic ones within …

Zeta Potential Of A Natural Clayey Sandstone Saturated With Carbonated Nacl Solutions At Supercritical Co2 Conditions, Miftah Hidayat, Mohammad Sarmadivaleh, Jos Derksen, David Vega-Maza, Stefan Iglauer, Jan Vinogradov

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

The zeta potential is a measure of electric potential at the mineral-electrolyte interfaces. The zeta potential of natural sandstones depends on mineralogy, electrolyte pH, concentration, composition, amount of dissolved CO2, and temperature. We report for the first time the zeta potential measured on clayey sandstone comprising quartz, kaolinite, illite, albite and microcline saturated with NaCl solutions at supercritical CO2 conditions. Our results demonstrate that zeta potentials in clayey sandstone samples at supercritical CO2 conditions are significantly different from similar measurements conducted under ambient conditions and from those obtained with clean sandstones. Supercritical CO2 zeta potential remains negative but is influenced …

Role Of Primary Freeboard On Staged Combustion Of Hardwood Pellets In A Fixed Bed Combustor, Awais Junejo, Yasir Al-Abdeli, Jacobo Porteiro

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

In staged fixed bed biomass combustion, primary air is supplied beneath the fuel bed with secondary air then provided above in the freeboard region. For fixed bed configurations, the freeboard is further divided into a primary freeboard length (LI), which is upstream of the secondary air and a secondary freeboard length (LII), measured from the secondary air all the way to the exhaust port. Despite extensive research into fixed bed configurations, no work has been successfully completed that resolves the effects of changing LI on fuel conversion, both in the fuel bed and within the freeboard of batch-type biomass combustors. …

Deep Learning Inspired Feature Engineering For Classifying Tremor Severity, Ahmed Al Taee, Seyedehmarzieh Hosseini, Rami N. Khushaba, Tanveer Zia, Chin-Teng Lin, Adel Al-Jumaily

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Bio-signals pattern recognition systems can be impacted by several factors with a potential to limit their associated performance and clinical translation. Among these factors, selecting the optimum feature extraction method, that can effectively exploit the interaction between the temporal and spatial information, is the most prominent. Despite the potential of deep learning (DL) models for extracting temporal, spatial, or temporal-spatial information, they are typically restricted by their need for a large amount of training data. The deep wavelet scattering transform (WST) is a relatively recent advancement within the DL literature to replace expensive convolution neural networks models with computationally less …

Eye Movement And Pupil Measures: A Review, Bhanuka Mahanama, Yasith Jayawardana, Sundararaman Rengarajan, Gavindya Jayawardena, Leanne Chukoskie, Joseph Snider, Sampath Jayarathna

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Our subjective visual experiences involve complex interaction between our eyes, our brain, and the surrounding world. It gives us the sense of sight, color, stereopsis, distance, pattern recognition, motor coordination, and more. The increasing ubiquity of gaze-aware technology brings with it the ability to track gaze and pupil measures with varying degrees of fidelity. With this in mind, a review that considers the various gaze measures becomes increasingly relevant, especially considering our ability to make sense of these signals given different spatio-temporal sampling capacities. In this paper, we selectively review prior work on eye movements and pupil measures. We first …

Segmenting Technical Drawing Figures In Us Patents, Md Reshad Ul Hoque, Xin Wei, Muntabir Hasan Choudhury, Kehinde Ajayi, Martin Gryder, Jian Wu, Diane Oyen

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Image segmentation is the core computer vision problem for identifying objects within a scene. Segmentation is a challenging task because the prediction for each pixel label requires contextual information. Most recent research deals with the segmentation of natural images rather than drawings. However, there is very little research on sketched image segmentation. In this study, we introduce heuristic (point-shooting) and deep learning-based methods (U-Net, HR-Net, MedT, DETR) to segment technical drawings in US patent documents. Our proposed methods on the US Patent dataset achieved over 90% accuracy where transformer performs well with 97% segmentation accuracy, which is promising and computationally …

Customer Gaze Estimation In Retail Using Deep Learning, Shashimal Senarath, Primesh Pathirana, Dulani Meedeniya, Sampath Jayarathna

Computer Science Faculty Publications

At present, intelligent computing applications are widely used in different domains, including retail stores. The analysis of customer behaviour has become crucial for the benefit of both customers and retailers. In this regard, the concept of remote gaze estimation using deep learning has shown promising results in analyzing customer behaviour in retail due to its scalability, robustness, low cost, and uninterrupted nature. This study presents a three-stage, three-attention-based deep convolutional neural network for remote gaze estimation in retail using image data. In the first stage, we design a mechanism to estimate the 3D gaze of the subject using image data …

Effect Of Carbon Fibres On Electromagnetic-Interference-Shielding Properties Of Geopolymer Composites, Dimuthu Wanasinghe, Farhad Aslani, Guowei Ma

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Many of the construction materials available are known to cause a drastic level of damage to the environment during their manufacturing stages. Hence, many researchers have attempted to formulate construction materials that are more environmentally friendly. Additionally, the rise in wireless communications in recent decades has seen a rapid increase in electromagnetic pollution and interference, which affects the functionality of sensitive electronic devices. This research is focused on fabricating a more sustainable construction material that could prevent electromagnetic interference for electronic devices housed inside. Carbon fibres of three different lengths were added in four variations to a geopolymer control mix …

Effect Of Methyl Orange On Wettability Of Sandstone Formations: Implications For Enhanced Oil Recovery, Fatemah Alhamad, Mujahid Ali, Muhammad Ali, Hussein Abid, Hussein Hoteit, Stefan Iglauer, Alireza Keshavarz

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

With the increasing global population, fossil fuel resources still represent a main contributor to the energy supply, despite the progress made in the field of renewable energies. Large quantities of residual oil from mature reservoirs cannot be produced through primary and secondary recovery methods. Among alternative recovery techniques, chemically enhanced oil recovery methods are attracting considerable interest to increase the hydrocarbon recovery from oil-bearing geological formations. The wettability of any particular formation can be used to predict the oil recovery factor of a reservoir based on its wetting state. However, due to the complex nature of geological porous media, special …

Assessment Of Hole Quality, Thermal Analysis, And Chip Formation During Dry Drilling Process Of Gray Cast Iron Astm A48, Numan Habib, Aamer Sharif, Aqib Hussain, Muhammad Aamir, Khaled Giasin, Danil Yurievich Pimenov

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

The cutting parameters in drilling operations are important for high-quality holes and productivity improvement in any manufacturing industry. This study investigates the effects of spindle speed and feed rate on temperature, surface roughness, hole size, circularity, and chip formation during dry drilling of gray cast iron ASTM A48. The results showed that the temperature increased as spindle speed and feed rate increased. The surface roughness had an inverse relationship with the spindle speed and direct relation with the feed rate. Furthermore, hole size increased with increased spindle speed and decreased as the feed rate increased, while hole circularity decreased with …

Selective Harmonic Mitigation Based Two-Scale Frequency Control Of Cascaded Modified Packed U-Cell Inverters, Hasan Iqbal, Mohd Tariq, Mohammad Sarfraz, Arif I. Sarwat, Waleed Alhosaini, Obaid Aldosari, Asma Aziz

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

A new Modified Packed U-Cell (MPUC) converter architecture with cascading is proposed in this paper. To provide an output voltage of 25 levels, the proposed cascaded MPUC needs only twelve power switches and four power sources. The converter comprises two cascaded MPUCs with DC supply in a ratio of 5 : 1. One converter is operating at low frequency (LF) and the other at high frequency (HF) that leads to lower power losses and higher levels. Besides, a variable frequency method is anticipated to produce a 25-level output voltage which has low harmonic content (THD) with the help of Selective …

Fine-Grained Ship Image Recognition Based On Bcnn With Inception And Am-Softmax, Zhilin Zhang, Ting Zhang, Zhaoying Liu, Peijie Zhang, Shanshan Tu, Yujian Li, Muhammad Waqas

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

The fine-grained ship image recognition task aims to identify various classes of ships. However, small inter-class, large intra-class differences between ships, and lacking of training samples are the reasons that make the task difficult. Therefore, to enhance the accuracy of the fine-grained ship image recognition, we design a fine-grained ship image recognition network based on bilinear convolutional neural network (BCNN) with Inception and additive margin Softmax (AM-Softmax). This network improves the BCNN in two aspects. Firstly, by introducing Inception branches to the BCNN network, it is helpful to enhance the ability of extracting comprehensive features from ships. Secondly, by adding …

Optimum Geological Storage Depths For Structural H2 Geo-Storage, Stefan Iglauer

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

H₂ geo-storage has been suggested as a key technology with which large quantities of H₂ can be stored and withdrawn again rapidly. One option which is currently explored is H₂ storage in sedimentary geologic formations which are geographically widespread and potentially provide large storage space. The mechanism which keeps the buoyant H₂ in the subsurface is structural trapping where a caprock prevents the H₂ from rising by capillary forces. It is therefore important to assess how much H₂ can be stored via structural trapping under given geo-thermal conditions. This structural trapping capacity is thus …

Reference-Free Differential Histogram-Correlative Detection Of Steganography: Performance Analysis, Natiq M. Abdali, Zahir M. Hussain

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Recent research has demonstrated the effectiveness of utilizing neural networks for detect tampering in images. However, because accessing a database is complex, which is needed in the classification process to detect tampering, reference-free steganalysis attracted attention. In recent work, an approach for least significant bit (LSB) steganalysis has been presented based on analyzing the derivatives of the histogram correlation. In this paper, we further examine this strategy for other steganographic methods. Detecting image tampering in the spatial domain, such as image steganography. It is found that the above approach could be applied successfully to other kinds of steganography with different …

Application Of Neuromorphic Olfactory Approach For High-Accuracy Classification Of Malts, Anup Vanarse, Adam Osseiran, Alexander Rassau, Peter Van Der Made

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Current developments in artificial olfactory systems, also known as electronic nose (e-nose) systems, have benefited from advanced machine learning techniques that have significantly improved the conditioning and processing of multivariate feature-rich sensor data. These advancements are complemented by the application of bioinspired algorithms and architectures based on findings from neurophysiological studies focusing on the biological olfactory pathway. The application of spiking neural networks (SNNs), and concepts from neuromorphic engineering in general, are one of the key factors that has led to the design and development of efficient bioinspired e-nose systems. However, only a limited number of studies have focused on …

The Aquatic Particle Number Quandry, Alexander B. Bochdansky, Huanqing Huang, Maureen H. Conte

OES Faculty Publications

Optical surveys of aquatic particles and their particle size spectra have become important tools in studies of light propagation in water, classification of water masses, and the dynamics of trophic interactions affecting particle aggregation and flux. Here, we demonstrate that typical settings used in image analysis vastly underestimate particle numbers due to the particle – gel continuum. Applying a wide range of threshold values to change the sensitivity of our detection system, we show that macrogels cannot be separated from more dense particles, and that a true particle number per volume cannot be ascertained; only relative numbers in relation to …

Ooi Biogeochemical Sensor Data: Best Practices And User Guide. Version 1.0.0., Hilary I. Palevsky, Sophie Clayton, Dariia Atamanchuk, Roman Battisti, Jennifer Batryn, Annie Bourbonnais, Ellen M. Briggs, Filipa Carvalho, Alison P. Chase, Rachel Eveleth, Rob Fatland, Kristen E. Fogaren, Jonathan Peter Fram, Susan E. Hartman, Isabela Le Bras, Cara C.M. Manning, Joseph A. Needoba, Merrie Beth Neely, Hilde Oliver, Andrew C. Reed, Jennie E. Rheuban, Christina Schallenberg, Michael F. Vardaro, Ian Walsh, Christopher Wingard

OES Faculty Publications

The OOI Biogeochemical Sensor Data Best Practices and User Guide is intended to provide current and prospective users of data generated by biogeochemical sensors deployed on the Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI) arrays with the information and guidance needed for them to ensure that the data is science-ready. This guide is aimed at researchers with an interest or some experience in ocean biogeochemical processes. We expect that users of this guide will have some background in oceanography, however we do not assume any prior experience working with biogeochemical sensors or their data. While initially envisioned as a “cookbook” for end users …

Optimisation Of Process Parameters In Abrasive Waterjet Contour Cutting Of Aisi 304l, Jennifer M. Llanto

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This research work presents an optimisation of abrasive waterjet contour cutting process parameters with the objectives of maximising material removal rate, whilst minimising taper angle and surface roughness. This thesis contains an in-depth review of the systems behind abrasive waterjet machining and recent progress trends regarding its applications. The impacts of input parameters are investigated including traverse speed, waterjet pressure and abrasive mass flow rate against selected responses in abrasive waterjet contour cutting of austenitic stainless steel 304L. Experimental data is utilised to generate regression models in predicting responses, where the results are statistically evaluated to assess the percentage contribution …

Computer Vision Based Classification Of Fruits And Vegetables For Self-Checkout At Supermarkets, Khurram Hameed

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

The field of machine learning, and, in particular, methods to improve the capability of machines to perform a wider variety of generalised tasks are among the most rapidly growing research areas in today’s world. The current applications of machine learning and artificial intelligence can be divided into many significant fields namely computer vision, data sciences, real time analytics and Natural Language Processing (NLP). All these applications are being used to help computer based systems to operate more usefully in everyday contexts. Computer vision research is currently active in a wide range of areas such as the development of autonomous vehicles, …

Enhancing The Capabilities Of Electronic Performance Tracking System For Applications In Sports, Adnan Waqar

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

The success of electronic technologies has sparked interest in sports amongst coaches, athletes and sports scientists. Consequently, the sporting world has witnessed a rapid rise in sports technologies in recent years. In sports, technologies can assist in a variety of ways, ranging from winner selection to athlete injury prevention. In recent years, wearable technologies have become popular in sports. Wearable microtechnology devices, commonly known as electronic performance tracking system (EPTS) in sports, can be used to monitor and improve an athlete's performance. EPTSs can also play an important role in injury prevention. This thesis investigates the performance of wearable EPTSs …

Investigation Of Flow Characteristics In An Open Channel With One-Line Semicircular Vegetation Patches, Hemanta D. Karki

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Experiments are conducted in an open channel with semi-circular patches distributed on one sidewall of the channel in which velocity distribution, turbulent intensity, and vortex generation are analyzed. The resistance force offered by a vegetation patch causes the change in water depth which have a broader application in river management, bank stabilization, and flood control.

The measurement is conducted in the laboratory with the help of different measuring devices like Laser doppler velocimeter, particle image velocimeter, measuring scale, and so on. From the experiment, the velocity distribution in a longitudinal direction suggests that the flow is fully developed after a …

Challenges Of Constructing Entrainment Map For Arbitrary Circadian Models, Yuxuan (Nelson) Wu

Honors Theses

The entrainment map, developed by Dr.Diekman and Dr.Bose, is claimed to be a 1-dimensional map that produces a better prediction for phase-locking than methods than the phase response curve for circadian models. In his paper, he constructs the entrainment map for the two-dimensional circadian model, the Novak-Tyson model, and the other two higher-dimensional circadian models. For this thesis, we concentrate on exploring if it is viable to construct the entrainment map for other circadian models that are not included in his paper: the Becker-Weimann model and the Relogio model. In addition, we discuss the challenges of constructing the entrainment map …