Engineering Commons^™

Incentives, Information, And Winner's Curse In Construction Industry Bidding, Gerald H. Williams, Timothy R. Anderson

Engineering and Technology Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper investigates the relationship between incentives, information and winner's curse in the bidding for construction industry contracts. The approach uses both simple Monte Carlo simulations and bidding experiments to show the effects of changing levels of information (in terms of variance) and incentive (in terms of risk share) on the winner's curse.

A New Measure Of Baseball Batters Using Dea, Timothy R. Anderson, Gunter P. Sharp

Engineering and Technology Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) is used to create an alternative to traditional batting statistics called the Composite Batter Index (CBI). Advantages of CBI over traditional statistics include the fact that players are judged on the basis of what they accomplish relative to other players and that it automatically accounts for changing conditions of the game that raise or lower batting statistics. Historical results are examined to show how the industry of baseball batting has matured and potential uses of CBI are discussed. The application of baseball suggests that random variation may have an effect on CBI. We investigated this effect …

A System For Collecting Milligram Quantities Of Cloud Condensation Nuclei, Darryl J. Alofs, Donald E. Hagen, Steven D. Medley, Daniel R. White, John L. Schmitt, Allen L. Williams

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

An Experimental System to Collect Cloud Condensation Nuclei (CCN) Onto Filters in Amounts Sufficient for Chemical Analysis is Described. This Experimental Apparatus is Designed to Process Ambient Air at a Rate of More Than 1 M3/min. Two Identical Systems Have Been Built. One is Installed in a Laboratory at Rolla, MO. the Other is Installed on an 11 M Long Trailer. the System Isolates Three Size Classes of CCN, Having Mass Median Diameters of 0.27, 0.12, and 0.075 Μm, Respectively, and Mass Collection Rates of 11.5, 1.28, and 0.13 Mg/day, Respectively. the above Sizes and Collection Rates Are Obtained from …

A Design Of A Marine Radar Mast System For Minimum Vibration, Suey-Yueh Hu

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

This experimental research focused on four areas: (a) the design of a new procedure for imitating the dynamic behavior of an electronic base plate on a radar mast system; (b) determination of a reasonable oscillation modal state; (c) avoidance of the destruction of the ability of the radar on the mast of a ship to receive and analyze incoming signals; and (d) design of a vibration absorber and vibration isolator based on an oscillation frequency. An adapted design for the vibration absorber and vibration isolator contributed to the prevention of excessive amplitude being produced by random forces acting upon a …

The Use Of Solid Waste Materials As Alternative Compositions In The Development Of Wood/Cement Blocks, Haig Mamas Vahradian

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

As the population of the planet Earth increases, the need for affordable housing becomes a paramount issue in construction. This need is further complicated by the rising cost of basic building materials due to the depletion of natural resources throughout the world. These problems have caused the construction industry to refocus its attention on the elimination of waste through a comprehensive strategy to: (a) reclaim and recycle these resources into usable materials, and (b) develop products and markets in construction for recycled materials through research and testing to prove their integrity.

The purpose of this study is to determine the …

Backpropagation Of Accuracy, Donald C. Wunsch, M. Yu Senashova, Alexander N. Gorban

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

We solve the problem: how to determine maximal allowable errors, possible for signals and parameters of each element of a network, proceeding from the condition that the vector of output signals of the network should be calculated with given accuracy? "Backpropagation of accuracy" is developed to solve this problem

Effect Of Cl Incorporation On The Performance Of Amorphous Silicon Thin Film Transistor, Jong Hyuni Choi, Chang-Soo Kim, Sung Ki Kim, Jin Jang

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

No abstract provided.

High Order Orthogonal Tensor Networks: Information Capacity And Reliability, Donald C. Wunsch, Y. M. Mirkes, Alexander N. Gorban

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Neural networks based on construction of orthogonal projectors in the tensor power of space of signals are described. A sharp estimate of their ultimate information capacity is obtained. The number of stored prototype patterns (prototypes) can many times exceed the number of neurons. A comparison with the error control codes is made

Miniaturized Isfet Glucose Sensor Including A New Structure Actuation System, Chang-Soo Kim, Hwa-Il Seo, Chae-Hyang Lee, Byung-Ki Sohn

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

A new principle of an amperometric actuation technique was incorporated in the ISFET glucose sensor. The ISFET is fabricated by the CMOS process and the platinum working electrode is deposited by the lift-off process. A sensor with a specially designed ladder type working electrode exhibits improved operation in response time, response magnitude and detection range. An expectation concerning the reduction of sensor size is also discussed.

Prediction Of Yarn Strength From Fiber Properties Using Fuzzy Artmap, Raonak Zaman, Donald C. Wunsch

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The count-strength-product (CSP) of cotton yarn is a complex function of fiber properties and spinning performance. The traditional way of predicting yarn CSP is using linear multiple regression. The correlation coefficient between actual CSP and predicted CSP obtained from linear regression is almost always less than 0.9. In this paper, we used a Fuzzy ARTMAP network to predict yarn CSP from fiber properties and spinning performance. Fiber properties and spinning data were used as inputs to ART_a, and yarn CSP was used as ART_b input. Our objectives are: better prediction of the quality of the end product, …

Safety Analysis Of Redundant Systems Using Fuzzy Probability Theory, James P. Dunyak, Ihab W. Ssad, Donald C. Wunsch

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

No abstract provided.

Stability Of Discrete-Time Matrix Polynomials, Khanh Tu Ngo, Kelvin T. Erickson

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This paper derives conditions for the stability of discrete-time systems that can be modeled by a vector difference equation, where the variables are m x 1 vectors and the coefficients are m x m matrices. Stability of the system is related to the locations of the roots of the determinant of a real m x m matrix polynomial of nth order. In this case, sufficient conditions for the system to be stable are derived. The conditions are imposed on the infinity norm of two matrices constructed from the coefficient matrices and do not require the computation of the determinant polynomial. …

The New--But Is It Improved?--Power System, Mariesa Crow

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In this paper, the author examines the effect that deregulation will have on the US power system. The paper details how the electric power industry in the USA is undergoing major changes, both politically and technically, as a result of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's Orders 888 and 889 issued in 1996. These orders essentially deregulate the transmission network, allowing producers and customers access to the network for electricity transactions.

A 50 Kilowatt Distributed Grid-Connected Photovoltaic Generation System For The University Of Wyoming, Badrul H. Chowdhury, S. Muknahallipatna, T. Dinwoodie, D. Shugar, J. J. Cupal, J. C. Hamann

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The University of Wyoming (UW) campus (USA) is serving as the site for a 50 kilowatt solar photovoltaic (PV) power system. Three sub-systems were sited and built on the UW campus in 1996. The first sub-system, a 10 kW roof-integrated system of PV roof tiles is located on the roof of the Engineering Building. The second sub-system-a 5 kW rack-mounted, ballasted PV system is on a walkway roof of the Engineering building. The third sub-system is a 35 kW shade structure system and is located adjacent to the parking lot of the University's football stadium. The three sub-systems differ in …

Adaptive Critic Design In Learning To Play Game Of Go, R. Zaman, Danil V. Prokhorov, Donald C. Wunsch

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This paper examines the performance of an HDP-type adaptive critic design (ACD) of the game Go. The game Go is an ideal problem domain for exploring machine learning; it has simple rules but requires complex strategies to play well. All current commercial Go programs are knowledge based implementations; they utilize input feature and pattern matching along with minimax type search techniques. But the extremely high branching factor puts a limit on their capabilities, and they are very weak compared to the relative strengths of other game programs like chess. In this paper, the Go-playing ACD consists of a critic network …

Adaptive Critic Based Neurocontroller For Autolanding Of Aircrafts, S. N. Balakrishnan, Gaurav Saini

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In this paper, adaptive critic based neural networks have been used to design a controller for a benchmark problem in aircraft autolanding. The adaptive critic control methodology comprises successive adaptations of two neural networks, namely action and critic network (which approximate the Hamiltonian equations associated with optimal control theory) until closed loop optimal control is achieved. The autolanding problem deals with longitudinal dynamics of an aircraft which is to be landed in a specified touchdown region (within acceptable ranges of speed, pitch angle and sink rate) in the presence of wind disturbances and gusts using elevator deflection as the control …

The Agent Test, Michael N. Huhns, Munindar P. Singh

Faculty Publications

The authors consider agents on the World Wide Web, including information retrieval agents. They propose a test for agenthood, involving communication in multi-agent systems.

Ontologies For Agents, Michael N. Huhns, Munindar P. Singh

Faculty Publications

An ontology is a computational model of some portion of the world. It is often captured in some form of a semantic network-a graph whose nodes are concepts or individual objects and whose arcs represent relationships or associations among the concepts. This network is augmented by properties and attributes, constraints, functions, and rules that govern the behavior of the concepts. Formally, an ontology is an agreement about a shared conceptualization, which includes frameworks for modeling domain knowledge and agreements about the representation of particular domain theories. Definitions associate the names of entities in a universe of discourse (for example, classes, …

Mobile Agents, Michael N. Huhns, Munindar P. Singh

Faculty Publications

A lot of agents are executing on the Web, and some of them are starting to move around. While most agents are static (existing as a single process or thread on one host), others can pick up and move their code and data to a new host where they resume executing.

Internet-Based Agents: Applications And Infrastructure, Munindar P. Singh, Michael N. Huhns

Faculty Publications

Software agents are mitigating the complexity of modern information systems—technically by providing a locus for managing information subsets, and psychologically by providing an abstraction for human interaction with them.

Hierarchical Classification As An Aid To Browsing, John R. Rose, Caroline M. Eastman

Faculty Publications

An approach to browsing large chemical reaction databases is presented. The method that is described builds on earlier work in which unsupervised hierarchical classification was used to extract generalizations of reaction classes from reaction databases for use in reaction knowledge bases. The method described in this paper involves classification based on both semantic and topological features. It supports the creation of deep hierarchies in which succeeding levels represent increasing degrees of abstraction. The creation of a hierarchy allows the user to quickly locate interesting items or classes of items by performing a tree traversal as opposed to sequentially scanning a …

An Analog Integrated Circuit For Continuous-Time Gain And Offset Calibration Of Sensor Arrays, Yu Ming Chiang, John G. Harris

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Parameter variations cause unavoidable nonuniformities in Infra-Red Focal Plane Arrays and other integrated sensors. Since these nonuniformities change slowly with time, calibrating sensors one-time only is not suitable-much more frequent calibration is required. We have developed an algorithm that continually calibrates an array of sensors that contain gain and offset variations. This algorithm has been mapped to analog hardware and designed and fabricated with a 2um CMOS technology. Measured results from the chip show that the system achieves invariance to gain and offset variations of the input signal.

Physical Media Independence: System Support For Dynamically Available Network Interfaces, Jon Inouye, Jim Binkley, Jonathan Walpole

Computer Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Advances in hardware technology has fueled the proliferation of dynamically configurable network interface cards. This empowers mobile laptop users to select the most appropriate interface for their current environment. Unfortunately, the majority of system software remains "customized" for a particular network configuration, and assumes many network characteristics remain invariant over the runtime of the software. Physical Media Independence (PMI) is the concept of making assumptions about a particular device explicit, detecting events which invalidate these assumptions, and recovering once events are detected. This paper presents a model supporting PMI. Based on device availablilty, the model identifies implicit device-related assumptions made …

Neutron Transmutation Doping As An Experimental Probe For Cuzn In Znse, Edward D. Wheeler, Jack L. Boone, J. W. Farmer, H. R. Chandrasekhar

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Nuclear transmutation is employed in an investigation of copper doping in ZnSe. Copper atoms are introduced at zinc sites in ZnSe after crystal growth processes are complete. Since the copper dopants are introduced after growth, far from equilibrium, they are less able to form complexes with other dopants or lattice defects as they may do when present during crystal growth. Initial results are consistent with CuZn being involved in the copper red and copper green emissions in ZnSe but not in the if exitonic emission. © 1997 American Institute of Physics.

Finding The Way : Navigation In Hypermedia, Janet Marsh Pine

Graduate Research Papers

If navigation is recognized as a fundamental problem experienced by hypermedia users, then navigation merits further investigation. This review will identify observed navigational problems, suspected causes, and proposed solutions. To investigate the problem, it is necessary to examine methods used to sequence hypermedia components and to identify the various schemes used for navigation.

Information resulting from the review of literature will serve as the basis for a project evaluating current multimedia software packages designed to develop reading skills. The findings will also provide the media specialist or professional educator with a framework for evaluation and subsequent utilization of multimedia learning …

Kramers-Kronig Anomalous Dispersion On Single-Mode Fiber-Optic Couplers And Tapers, Arnel C. Lavarias

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The Kramers-Kronig relations couple the real and imaginary part of the dielectric constant of a medium, namely the refractive index n(ω) and the extinction coefficient κ(ω). Changes in n(ω) due to normal and anomalous dispersion (Kramers-Kronig effect) are investigated for the first time using fiber optic couplers and tapers. Kramers-Kronig effect is induced by evanescent wave absorption in these devices. Couplers and tapers have oscillatory spectral outputs that are highly sensitive to the refractive index of the surrounding medium. Theoretical modeling of the Kramers-Kronig effect on couplers and tapers shows two distinct effects. First, the spectral outputs of these devices …

Diamond For Fiber-Optic Raman Spectroscopy, Jianli Zheng

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Raman spectroscopy is a powerful technique for molecular structural studies and concentration measurement. Being a single beam technique, the Raman intensity depends on the optical power of the excitation source, optical alignment of the system, detector response as well as species concentration. To eliminate the unwanted variations in the system and get the concentration information of the species, intensity referencing is necessary. The existing referencing methods either use a constant Raman band of the sample, or add a chemically inert material with known concentration into the sample. Unfortunately, the former method is not always applicable and the latter is not …

Simulating Migration Of Contaminated Sediments In The Lower Columbia Slough System, Min Chen

Dissertations and Theses

Recent screening-level risk assessment of Slough sediments initiated by the City of Portland identified five contaminated areas in the Slough as posing the greatest potentially significant risks to human health. These five areas were recommended for accelerated remedial action.

But one question remains, does the sediment contamination at these hot spots change over time in response to the changing Slough hydrodynamics? Specifically, will the contamination move or spread even before remedial action is taken? Will they still be there by the time when potential remedial action is taken? Will any new hot spots be created in response to nonuniform transient …

New Approaches To Column Compatibility Checking And Column-Based Input/Output Encoding For Curtis Decompositions Of Completely Or Incompletely Specified Switching Functions, Michael A. Burns

Dissertations and Theses

Cube calculus is an algebraic model used to process boolean functions. Cube calculus operations are widely used in logic optimization, logic synthesis, image processing and recognition, machine learning, and other applications which require massive logic operations.

The cube calculus operations can be carried out on general-purpose computers. Since these operations can involve several levels of nested loops, this approach has poor performance.

A cube calculus machine which has a special data path designed to speed up cube calculus operations is presented in this thesis. This c-qbe calculus machine can execute cube calculus operations 10 to 25 times faster than the …

Closed Loop Time Domain Gradient Methods For Parameter And Time Delay Estimation, M, Behan, M Cahill, M. Carry, G Clausen, V. Dooley, N. English, W. Grainger, D. O'Connor, Aidan O'Dwyer, John Ringwood

Conference papers

This paper discusses the estimation of process parameters and time delay, in a Smith predictor structure, using gradient algorithms in the time domain. A number of estimation algorithms are outlined and applied in simulation to the estimation of the parameters of an appropriate process model. An analytical exploration of the technique is also provided.