Engineering Commons^™

Cockpit Video Recorder & Streaming For Training Purposes, Ruthvik Adloori

Theses and Dissertations

This paper is my Master's Thesis which is based on Cockpit Voice and Video Recorder which is an enhancement to the current Cockpit Voice Recorder. The main aim of my project is to use the system for training of pilots about cockpit functions and different in flight scenarios. The key factors for efficient Human-Machine systems such as situation awareness, decision making, risk management are studied in this thesis. The complexity in the design and the way to override such complexity is also demonstrated in this paper. A g1 impse of understanding through emotions is also discussed as an advantage in …

On Reliability Of Smart Grid Neighborhood Area Networks, Shengjie Xu, Yi Qian, Rose Qingyang Hu

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Faculty Publications

With the integration of the advanced computing and communication technologies, smart grid system is dedicated to enhance the efficiency and the reliability of future power systems greatly through renewable energy resources, as well as distributed communication intelligence and demand response. Along with advanced features of smart grid, the reliability of smart grid communication system emerges to be a critical issue, since millions of smart devices are interconnected through communication networks throughout critical power facilities, which has an immediate and direct impact on the reliability of the entire power infrastructure. In this paper, we present a comprehensive survey of reliability issues …

Subjective Perception Of Varying Reflection Densities In Room Impulse Responses, Hyun Hong

Durham School of Architectural Engineering and Construction: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Reverberation time (RT) is a metric commonly used to describe room acoustic conditions, but different rooms which have the same reverberation time can have different reflection densities. Much less is known about how humans perceive different reflection densities and how sensitive humans are to changes in reflection density. Previous investigations in the existing literature have studied the upper limit of distinguishable reflection density using artificial impulse responses, but not with more realistic impulse responses simulated in room acoustic software or measured from real rooms. The aim of this dissertation is to investigate methods for quantifying reflection density from measured impulse …

Microstructure Alone Induced Wetting Transition From Hydrophilic To Hydrophobic On Silicon And Graphene, Henry L. Ems

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

In the present work, transition from hydrophilic to hydrophobic wetting states for an intrinsically hydrophilic surface (contact angle less than 45 degrees) using only surface microstructuring is presented. The surface microstructures are re-entrant microcavities (inverted trapezoidal microstructures) which promote air entrapment below the water droplet causing a Cassie wetting state as opposed to a Wenzel state where the surface is completely wetted. The microstructures were fabricated on a Silicon-On-Insulator (SOI) wafer through steps of deposition, photolithography, etching, and bonding. Contact angle measurements demonstrated the ability of the microfabricated surfaces to sustain large contact angles above 100°, in comparison to a …

Transforming C Openmp Programs For Verification In Civl, Michael Rogers

School of Computing: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

There are numerous way to express parallelism which can make it challenging for developers to verify these programs. Many tools only target a single dialect but the Concurrency Intermediate Verification Language (CIVL) targets MPI, Pthreads, and CUDA. CIVL provides a general concurrency model that can represent pro- grams in a variety of concurrency dialects. CIVL includes a front-end that support all of the dialects mentioned above. The back-end is a verifier that uses model checking and symbolic execution to check standard properties.

In this thesis, we have designed and implemented a transformer that will take C OpenMP programs and transform …

Using Software-Defined Networking To Improve Campus, Transport And Future Internet Architectures, Adrian Lara

School of Computing: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Software-defined Networking (SDN) promises to redefine the future of networking. Indeed, SDN-based networks have unique capabilities such as centralized control, flow abstraction, dynamic updating of forwarding rules and software-based traffic analysis. SDN-based networks decouple the data plane from the control plane, migrating the latter to a software controller. By adding a software layer between network devices and applications, features such as network virtualization and automated management are simpler to achieve.

In this dissertation, we show how SDN-based deployments simplify network management at multiple scales such as campus and transport networks, as well as future Internet architectures. First, we propose OpenSec, …

Viscoelastic, Fatigue Damage, And Permanent Deformation Characterization Of High Rap Bituminous Mixtures Using Fine Aggregate Matrix (Fam), Hesamaddin Nabizadeh

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Performance characteristics of bituminous mixtures play the most influential role in designing flexible pavement. These asphaltic mixtures can be considered as heterogeneous mixtures which composed of two primary components: fine aggregate matrix (FAM) phase and aggregate phase. The FAM phase acts as a critical phase in evaluating the performance characteristics including viscoelastic, fatigue damage, and permanent deformation characteristics of entire asphalt mixtures. This study evaluates the viscoelastic, fatigue damage and permanent deformation characteristics of bituminous mixtures containing 65% reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP) by performing oscillatory torsional shear tests of cylindrical bars of FAM using a dynamic mechanical analyzer. Moreover, this …

Phase I Evaluation Of Selected Concrete Material Models In Ls-Dyna, Bradley J. Winkelbauer

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Numerous roadside safety systems are configured with reinforced concrete materials, such as bridge railings, median barriers, and roadside parapets. These protective barrier systems are intended to safely contain and redirect errant vehicles as well as prevent impacts into hazardous fixed objects or other geometric features. The analysis and design of these structures may involve impact simulation with finite element software, like LS-DYNA, which includes multiple concrete material models. For such investigations, limited guidance is available for selecting preferred concrete material models and determining appropriate values for specific parameters. This Phase I study investigated the viability and performance of existing concrete …

Feasibility Of Using Raman-Based Techniques For Breast Cancer Detection, Sara Mollamohammada

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Breast cancer is one of the common types of cancer among women all over the world. Early diagnosis is an effective way that improve the treatment process and gives the patients a better chance of survival. Many of the patients infected by breast cancer choose breast conservation surgery (BCS). However, some of those will be subjected to mastectomy, and many will have tumor recurrence as there is no precise technique to show the tumor margins. Raman-based methods are powerful techniques with potential to rapidly differentiate normal from tumor tissues and provides a solution to detect tumor margin. This is because …

Sound Attenuation Of Fiberglass Lined Ventilation Ducts, Jacob Albright

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Sound attenuation is a crucial part of designing any HVAC system. Most ventilation systems are designed to be in areas occupied by one or more persons. If these systems do not adequately attenuate the sound of the supply fan, compressor, or any other source of sound, the affected area could be subject to an array of problems ranging from an annoying hum to a deafening howl. The goals of this project are to quantify the sound attenuation properties of fiberglass duct liner and to perform a regression analysis to develop equations to predict insertion loss values for both rectangular and …

Object Detection And Tracking In Wide Area Surveillance Using Thermal Imagery, Santosh Bhusal

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The main objective behind this thesis is to examine how existing vision-based detection and tracking algorithms perform in thermal imagery-based video surveillance. While color-based surveillance has been extensively studied, these techniques can not be used during low illumination, at night, or with lighting changes and shadows which limits their applicability. The main contributions in this thesis are (1) the creation of a new color-thermal dataset, (2) a detailed performance comparison of different color-based detection and tracking algorithms on thermal data and (3) the proposal of an adaptive neural network for false detection rejection.

Since there are not many publicly available …

Fast Transient Digitizer And Pcb Interface, Kevin Thomas Buck

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This thesis outlines the design, layout and characterization of an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC) and a printed circuit board (PCB) designed to discretize an input signal and read out the data at a user desired interval to replicate the input signal at a lower frequency or pulse rate with no quantization error. The ASIC for this task utilizes 128 individual capacitive storage cells to capture data at approximately 200 ps intervals, thus the chip can capture approximately 25 ns of an input signal. The read out rate can be adjusted to the desired rate by the user by changing …

The Influence Of Iron On Arctic Thule Migration Patterns, Alina T. Aquino

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Arctic scholars have yet to fully understand the reasons behind the migration of Thule culture from the western to the eastern Arctic. This rapid movement across such a vast area into environmentally diverse regions marks a critical period of cultural change that is usually summarized by two theoretical positions. Ecological theories postulated environmental changes placed selective pressures on traditional food sources that required Thule hunters to follow migrating prey. Theories that focused on material acquisition alternately proposed the Thule followed the trail of meteoric iron eastward into northwestern Greenland.

This research sought to examine the eastward Thule migration from another …

Study Of Machine Learning Methods In Intelligent Transportation Systems, Vishal Jha

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Machine learning and data mining are currently hot topics of research and are applied in database, artificial intelligence, statistics, and so on to discover valuable knowledge and the patterns in big data available to users. Data mining is predominantly about processing unstructured data and extracting meaningful information from them for end users to help take business decisions. Machine learning techniques use mathematical algorithms to find a pattern or extract meaning out from big data. The popularity of such techniques in analyzing business problems has been enhanced by the arrival of big data.

The main objective of this thesis is to …

A Hybrid Approach For Increasing Baffling Factors In Contact Tanks, Justin J. Kattnig, Subhas K. Venayagamoorthy

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

A novel approach using a hybrid combination of internal baffles and industrial packing material is investigated in order to optimize the hydraulic residence time of a 1,500-gal rectangular concrete tank. Hydraulic residence time, which is commonly classified using the baffling factor (BF), was determined from residence time distribution curves obtained using both computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations and physical tracer studies. CFD simulations were used to model two scenarios. The first scenario was a base system consisting of an unbaffled concrete tank, and the second scenario was a two-baffle system. Computational simulation results were experimentally validated via tracer studies on …

Fast Random Walk Based Capacitance Extraction For The 3-D Ic Structures With Cylindrical Inter-Tier-Vias, Chao Zhang, Wenjian Yu, Qing Wang, Yiyu Shi

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

3-D integrated circuits (3-D ICs) make use of the vertical dimension for smaller footprint, higher speed, lower power consumption, and better timing performance. In 3-D ICs, the inter-Tier-via (ITV) is a critical enabling technique because it forms vertical signal and power paths. Accordingly, it is imperative to accurately and efficiently extract the electrostatic capacitances of ITVs using field solvers. Unfortunately, the cylindrical via shape presents major challenges to most of the existing methods. To address this issue, we develop a novel floating random walk (FRW) method by rotating the transition cube to suit the cylindrical surface, devising a special space …

Fiscal Year 2015 Fhwa-536 Report For The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet, Steven Douglas Kreis, Candice Y. Wallace, Bryan Gibson, Sarah M. Mccormack

Kentucky Transportation Center Research Report

The Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) requires state transportation agencies to submit a biennial report on local highway finances. The purpose of these reports is to provide FHWA with the data it needs to capture the financing of highway activities at the local level. Based on this information, it can identify trends in revenue, expenditures, investments, and program development, and in turn make decisions about future investments. The report, FHWA-536, asks agencies to report on four areas of local highway finance: 1) disposition of highway-user revenues; 2) revenues used for roads and streets identified by source and funding type; 3) road …

Development Of A Vascularized, Induced Pluripotent Stem Cell-Derived Liver-Tissue Mimic For Therapeutic Applications., Venkat Madhav Ramakrishnan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation describes the incorporation of several technologies (stem cells, gene therapy, tissue engineering and regenerative medicine) into a single project that aims to produce a liver-tissue mimic for therapeutic applications. The liver is arguably one of the most complex organs in the body. In addition to its remarkable capacity to regenerate, it performs a host of vital functions. As a result, its impairment has widespread systemic consequences. The work described herein focused on the liver in the context of cardiovascular disease and used the heritable disorder Familial Hypercholesterolemia (FH) as a clinical disease model. As (a) the only definitive …

Application Of The Aeroacoustic Analogy To A Shrouded, Subsonic, Radial Fan., Bryan Buccieri

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A study was conducted to investigate the predictive capability of computational aeroacoustics with respect to a shrouded, subsonic, radial fan. A three dimensional unsteady fluid dynamics simulation was conducted to produce aerodynamic data used as the acoustic source for an aeroacoustics simulation. Two acoustic models were developed: one modeling the forces on the rotating fan blades as a set of rotating dipoles located at the center of mass of each fan blade and one modeling the forces on the stationary fan shroud as a field of distributed stationary dipoles. Predicted acoustic response was compared to experimental data. The blade source …

Plasma Catalysis Using Low Melting Point Metals., Maria Carreon

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Plasma catalysis is emerging as one of the most promising alternatives to carry out several reactions of great environmental importance, from the synthesis of nanomaterials to chemicals of great interest. However, the combined effect of a catalyst and plasma is not clear. For the particular case of 1-D nanomaterials growth, the low temperatures synthesis is still a challenge to overcome for its scalable manufacturing on flexible substrates and thin metal foils. Herein, the use of low-melting-point metal clusters under plasma excitation was investigated to determine the effectiveness in their ability to catalyze the growth of 1-D nanomaterials. Specifically, plasma catalysis …

Methodology Update For Estimating Volume To Service Flow Ratio, Mei Chen, Xu Zhang

Kentucky Transportation Center Research Report

Volume/service flow ratio (VSF) is calculated by the Highway Performance Monitoring System (HPMS) software as an indicator of peak hour congestion. It is an essential input to the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet’s (KYTC) key planning applications, such as highway adequacy rating. After the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) reassessed the HPMS, the standalone HPMS software was no longer supported. This conclusion was based on the 2000 Highway Capacity Manual (HCM2000). As a result, the peak capacity and VSF estimates based on the submittal file are no longer available to KYTC. The calculation of VSF ratios requires AADT, K factor, directional factor, and …

Novel Biomechanical Test Method For Cancellous Bone Screws And Screw Augmentation With Cement., Kevin Lancaster

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

It is often difficult to achieve adequate screw fixation for plate constructs in fractures with poor quality bone or in metaphyseal bone with extensive bone loss or comminution[7][17]. Furthermore, rescuing or augmenting failed screw fixation in inadequate bone with various cement products has yielded mixed results when tested with pure axial pullout loading[20][21]. In most cases, plate/screw constructs experience both vertical (translational) and horizontal (pullout) forces during physiologic loading[17][20][21]. The increased use of locked screws in plate constructs has also changed the loading patterns of bone screws. For this study, a novel “toggle-out” testing method was developed to more realistically …

Spare Parts On Demand Using Additive Manufacturing : A Simulation Model For Cost Evaluation., Stefan Jedeck

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Little is known about the impact of additive manufacturing in the spare part supply chain. A few studies are available, but they focus on specific parts and their applications only. A general model, which can be adapted to different applications, is nonexistent. This dissertation proposes a decision making framework that enables an interested practitioner/manager to decide whether using additive manufacturing to make spare parts on demand is economical when compared to conventional warehousing strategy. The framework consists of two major components: a general discrete event simulation model and a process of designing a wide range of simulation scenarios. The goal …

New Visible Light Absorber For Solar Fuels : Ga(Sbx)N1-X Alloys., Swathi Sunkara

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Solar energy conversion to fuels via photoelectrochemical water splitting is one of the most important technological directions toward meeting the global energy and environmental challenge. However, till date, there are no suitable semiconductor materials available that can absorb visible light, possess right kind of band edge energetics and are stable in aqueous environments. In this work, a new III-V alloy material Ga(Sbx)N1-x with dilute antimony concentration is proposed and developed for photoelectrochemical water splitting. Experimental studies were conducted first to synthesize the proposed alloy materials to understand structure-property relationships and compare them to those obtained using first principles computations. Finally, …

Evaluation Of Two-Phase Evaporation Pressure Drop Correlations For Low Refrigerant Mass Flux., Anna Fenko

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study was conducted to evaluate three currently popular two-phase pressure drop models for extremely low velocity refrigerant flow through smooth circular evaporators in household refrigeration systems. Experimental data was taken at mass fluxes under 70 kg/m²s for two refrigerants, R134A and R600A, internal diameters of aluminum evaporators ranging from 0.186 to 0.317 inches, U-bend internal radii ranging from 0.342 to 0.750 inches in horizontal and vertical orientations of evaporators. The geometry of the samples closely resembled a commonly used serpentine shape with multiple U-bends experiencing both, up- and down-flow of the refrigerant. Two empirical models, Müller-Steinhagen & …

Biomineralization And Biocompatibility Studies Of Bone Conductive Scaffolds Containing Poly(3,4-Ethylenedioxythiophene):Poly(4-Styrene Sulfonate) (Pedot:Pss), Mostafa Yazdimamaghani, Mehdi Razavi, Masoud Mozafari, Daryoosh Vashaee, Hari Kotturi, Lobat Tayebi

Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Considering the well-known phenomenon of enhancing bone healing by applying electromagnetic stimulation, manufacturing conductive bone scaffolds is on demand to facilitate the delivery of electromagnetic stimulation to the injured region, which in turn significantly expedites the healing procedure in tissue engineering methods. For this purpose, hybrid conductive scaffolds composed of poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene), poly (4-styrene sulfonate) (PEDOT:PSS), gelatin (Gel), and bioactive glass (BaG) were produced employing freeze drying technique. Concentration of PEDOT:PSS were optimized to design the most appropriate conductive scaffold in terms of biocompatibility and cell proliferation. More specifically, scaffolds with four different compositions of 0, 0.1, 0.3 and 0.6 % …

Dgtd Analysis Of Electromagnetic Scattering From Penetrable Conductive Objects With Ibc, Ping Li, Yifei Shi, Li (Lijun) Jun Jiang, Hakan Bagci

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

To avoid straightforward volumetric discretization, a discontinuous Galerkin time-domain (DGTD) method integrated with the impedance boundary condition (IBC) is presented in this paper to analyze the scattering from objects with finite conductivity. Two situations are considered. 1) The skin depth is smaller than the thickness of the conductive volume. 2) The skin depth is larger than the thickness of a thin conductive sheet. For the first situation, a surface impedance boundary condition (SIBC) is employed, wherein the surface impedance usually exhibits a complex relation with the frequency. To incorporate the SIBC into DGTD, the surface impedance is first approximated by …

Signage Recognition Based Wayfinding System For The Visually Impaired, Abdullah Khalid Ahmed

Masters Theses

Persons of visual impairment make up a growing segment of modern society. To cater to the special needs of these individuals, society ought to consider the design of special constructs to enable them to fulfill their daily necessities. This research proposes a new method for text extraction from indoor signage that will help persons of visual impairment maneuver in unfamiliar indoor environments, thus enhancing their independence and quality of life.

In this thesis, images are acquired through a video camera mounted on glasses of the walking person. Frames are then extracted and used in an integrated framework that applies Maximally …

Design Of A New Digital Relay For Transmission Line Fault Detection, Classification And Localization Based On A New Composite Relay And Artificial Neural Network Approach, Ahmed Sabri Altaie

Masters Theses

This thesis focuses on new approach to detect, classify, and localize the fault in transmission line. Firstly, fault detection was carried out using the New Composite Relay (CR) which, has different characteristics and the ability to detect any type of fault including series faults. Secondly, fault classification was conducted using the Feed Forward Artificial Neural Network (FFANN). In addition, the fault classification led to the investigation of the best use of the FFANN. The data used come from MATLAB/SIMULINK three phase series compensated network. The results obtained using FFANN, were compared with the type of the fault that have been …

Implementing A Linear Quadratic Spacecraft Attitude Control System, Daniel Kolosa

Masters Theses

This thesis implements a linear quadratic attitude control system for a low-thrust spacecraft. The goal is to maintain spacecraft alignment with a time-varying thrust vector needed for trajectory change maneuvers. A linear quadratic attitude control approach is used to maintain spacecraft pointing throughout flight. This attitude control strategy uses the thrust-acceleration input obtained from a linear quadratic optimal trajectory control model that simulates the trajectory of a spacecraft in orbit maneuvers. This attitude model simulates a CubeSat, a small satellite that is equipped with a low-thrust propulsion and attitude control system. An orbit raising and a plane change scenario is …