Engineering Commons^™

Toward Intuitive 3d Interactions In Virtual Reality: A Deep Learning- Based Dual-Hand Gesture Recognition Approach, Trudi Di Qi, Franceli L. Cibrian, Meghna Raswan, Tyler Kay, Hector M. Camarillo-Abad, Yuxin Wen

Engineering Faculty Articles and Research

Dual-hand gesture recognition is crucial for intuitive 3D interactions in virtual reality (VR), allowing the user to interact with virtual objects naturally through gestures using both handheld controllers. While deep learning and sensor-based technology have proven effective in recognizing single-hand gestures for 3D interactions, research on dual-hand gesture recognition for VR interactions is still underexplored. In this work, we introduce CWT-CNN-TCN, a novel deep learning model that combines a 2D Convolution Neural Network (CNN) with Continuous Wavelet Transformation (CWT) and a Temporal Convolution Network (TCN). This model can simultaneously extract features from the time-frequency domain and capture long-term dependencies using …

Electrospun Shape Memory Fibers For Chronic Wound Surveillance, Avery Gunderson

Theses - ALL

Approximately 6 million patients suffer from chronic wounds each year. These wounds are highly susceptible to infection and subsequent biofilm formation. Biofilms are difficult to dislodge due to their protective extracellular matrix. Antibiotics cannot penetrate the biofilm matrix, so wound healing is often compromised. Current surveillance and treatment options, such as swabbing or dressings, are ineffective and often painful to the patient. Our approach is to employ a bacterial protease-responsive shape memory polymer (SMP) that combats biofilm formation and helps the healing process proceed. To aid in protease penetration and enhance wound dressing comfort, electrospinning can be used to produce …

Exploring The Impact Of Lake Browning On The Production Of Singlet Oxygen In Adirondack Surface Waters, Birdem Oz

Theses - ALL

Many inland lakes in temperate and boreal regions, including those in the Adirondack region of New York, are experiencing browning due to increased terrestrial inputs of colored dissolved organic matter (DOM). This phenomenon results from watershed recovery following declines in atmospheric acid deposition and shifts in precipitation patterns. Close coupling of changes in dissolved organic carbon levels and DOM quality in Adirondack lakes has important implications for ecosystem services, ranging from aquatic food web functioning to drinking water production. However, comparatively little is known about the potential effects of lake browning on carbon cycling and contaminant attenuation driven by the …

Systematically Testing The Clustering Properties Of Peptoids For Use In Medical Implants, Steven Matthew Axelsen

Theses - ALL

Peptoids are peptidomimetics, in which the side chains are carried by the backbone nitrogen atoms instead of the alpha carbon, resulting in N-substituted glycine repeat units. The cationic peptoids have antimicrobial properties and can be sequestered into anionic hydrogels as coatings on implantable devices to prevent infection. In a recent study, our lab investigated the self-assembly of short peptoids with 6 to 12 repeat units. We showed that peptoids can cluster into large aggregates or remain as individual molecules depending on the net charge and nature of the sidechains. This study also demonstrated that the complexation of peptoids with microgels …

Recovery Of Cyber Manufacturing Systems From False Data Injection Attacks On Sensors By Reinforcement Learning, Romesh Prasad

Dissertations - ALL

Cyber-manufacturing systems (CMS) represent the future design vision for manufacturing systems, aiming to enhance product quality, and productivity, and reduce downtime. The third industrial revolution was driven by computer systems and automation, while the fourth industrial revolution was inspired by the internet, network, and connectivity. However, this integration also introduces vulnerabilities, particularly through false data injection attacks on sensors. Sensors play a pivotal role in the automation framework of manufacturing systems spanning five levels: process, operational, supervisory, plant, and enterprise. Sensors are instrumental in communicating information from the process level to the enterprise level. It also enables controllers at the …

Urban Scale Vehicle-To-Building-To-Grid Integration Leveraging Human Mobility Modeling, Yapan Liu

Dissertations - ALL

In the United States (U.S.), the buildings sector consumes about 76% of electricity use and 40% of all primary energy use and associated greenhouse gas emissions. Occupant behavior, which includes the presence of people in the space, interactions between the occupant and building systems, and occupant adaptations to the built environment, has a significant impact on the energy consumption of buildings. Many researchers have investigated occupant behaviors at a single building scale, however, very few studies have been conducted at the community scale or urban scale. Our previous review study introduced human mobility modeling approach from other domains into the …

Insight Into The Application Of Engineered Phenol Polymer Nanocomposites For Geothermal Well Applications To Modify Fracture Permeability, Fatemeh Hamidi

Civil Engineering ETDs

In enhanced geothermal systems, the efficient transfer of heat from the formation to the fluid circulating through the fracture network can be compromised when thermal short-circuiting occurs due to preferential flow through highly conductive fractures. This study introduces a pioneering approach using newly developed phenol polymer nanocomposites as an engineering solution to address the challenges associated with preferential flow in geothermal wells, which can lead to thermal short-circuiting. Multiple phenol polymer nanocomposites were formulated, incorporating aluminum oxide, COOH-functionalized graphitized multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs), and graphene nanoparticles, each with a 0.5 wt.% polymer dosage. This research successfully modified the crosslinking process …

Optimizing Flash Flood Prediction In Arid And Semi-Arid Regions: A Comparative Evaluation Of Infiltration Models And Parameter Estimation Guidance Across Spatial Scales, Sara Rassa

Civil Engineering ETDs

This study improves flash flood prediction by analyzing the vital role of infiltration models in hydrologic modeling, especially for areas with scarce data. It offers new parameter estimation guidance for three infiltration models—initial-constant (IC), linear-constant (LC), and Green-Ampt (GA)—based on plot-scale rainfall simulations. The research emphasizes the impact of soil texture, moisture, and crust on model parameters. A comparative analysis of four models (curve-number, IC, GA, and LC) using data from Arizona's Walnut Gulch Experimental Watershed under different calibration scenarios shows the GA model's superiority in certain conditions, though it faces issues of equifinality in unconstrained calibrations. Meanwhile, the simpler …

Flexural Investigation And Retrofit Of Aashto Type Iii Prestressed Girder-Deck System With Strand Bond Damage, Haoran Ni

Dissertations - ALL

Prestressed concrete (PC) bridge girders play an important role in highway bridges because of their embedded prestressing strands and low cost. They can provide adequate flexural strength depending on the integrity of the concrete-strand bond. However, highway bridges near industrial facilities are often subjected to heavy trucks. Under frequent overloads, the large deflections of bridge girders may induce deterioration of the bond between the strands and concrete at critical sections during bending, resulting in debonding of the strands in the most critical section region, over the span length. This study describes an in-depth analysis of the flexural strength of a …

Multi-Scale Analysis Of The Structure-Mechanics Relationship Of Mycelium-Based Bio-Composites, Libin Yang

Dissertations - ALL

The construction industry faces significant challenges due to the environmental impact of traditional materials like steel and concrete, whose production is energy-intensive and contributes to environmental pollution. This issue is exacerbated by the growing global demand for construction materials, driven by an increasing population. Concurrently, the agricultural and wood industrial sectors produce vast byproducts, such as straw, husk, coir, sawdust, and wood chips. They are often considered as wastes and disposed of through methods like burning. Such a reckless treatment releases greenhouse gases that further lead to environmental degradation. Mycelium, the vegetative part of fungi, presents a natural, promising solution …

Fate, Composition And Formation Of Unknown N-Nitrosamines In Wastewater And Wastewater-Impacted Waters, Changcheng Pu

Dissertations - ALL

N-Nitrosamines form as byproducts during oxidative water treatment or occur as impurities in consumer and industrial products. N-Nitrosamines and their precursors pose significant concerns for water utilities exploiting wastewater-impacted water supplies, as many N-nitrosamines are potential human carcinogens and have genotoxicity. To date, research on N-nitrosamines in environmental engineering has primarily focused on the occurrence, sources, formation, and control of N-nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA) in the broad context of drinking water and wastewater treatment. However, NDMA and the few other N-nitrosamines of current interest only constitute a fraction of the larger pool of total N-nitrosamines (TONO) in source waters and wastewater, while …

Past And Future Predictions Of Climate Change And Urbanization Effects On The Carbon, Nitrogen, And Water Dynamics In Northeastern Forest Ecosystems, Linghui Meng

Dissertations - ALL

Human activities have significantly influenced the structure and function of forest ecosystems in the northeastern US. Urbanization directly reduces forest area and alters forest functions. Forest growth, health, and function can also be affected by climate change, atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations, and air pollution including ground-level ozone (O3) and atmospheric nitrogen (N) deposition. Critical questions for research and environmental management are: How will urbanization, climate change, and air pollution interact to influence the function of forest ecosystems, and how will changes in these environmental drivers alter the function of forests in the future? In this dissertation, I simulate the …

Path Planning And Cyber-Physical System Integration In Unmanned Aerial Vehicles For Wireless Communication, Mohamad Hani Sulieman

Dissertations - ALL

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have become indispensable in a variety of fields, including surveillance, emergency response, packet delivery, and data collection for the Internet of Things (IoT). These systems are also critical in enhancing connectivity within cellular networks. This dissertation focuses on improving UAV operational efficiency and security by advancing trajectory optimization techniques, enhancing trajectory design through antenna radiation patterns, and increasing resilience against cyber-physical attacks, particularly GPS sensor faults. The first part of the study addresses UAV trajectory optimization in wireless communications, highlighting the significance of trajectory planning in improving the efficiency and reliability of UAV operations. Effective trajectory …

Investigation Of Hydropathy Of Proteins, Lipid-Modified Proteins, And Self-Defensive Biomaterials, Jingjing Ji

Dissertations - ALL

Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations serve as crucial tools for unraveling the underlying physical principles governing the structure and functionality of biological macromolecules. Experimental techniques provide valuable results, but sometimes it is quite difficult to explain phenomena at atomic and molecular levels. MD simulations investigate physical motion of atoms and molecules over microsecond time scale and compute the equilibrium properties. In this work, I investigated the hydropathy of proteins, lipid-modified proteins, and self-defensive biomaterials with atomistic MD simulations and coarse-grained (CG) MD simulations. The method, Protocol for Assigning a Residue's Character on a Hydropathy (PARCH) scale, is developed to characterize and …

Homomeric Tight Junction Strand Assembly Of Claudin Proteins, Patrick Matthew Marsch

Dissertations - ALL

Tight junctions, a form of cell junction, are utilized throughout the animal kingdom in one way or another. Tasked with facilitating a critical blockade between toxins and vital tissues while also allowing small crucial molecules to pass, the tight junction provides an important line of defense against disease. To build this barrier, various proteins with self-assemble within a cell membrane to then zipper with another cell membrane. The strand-like architecture and size & charge selective pore channels created within the barrier are chiefly governed by the claudin family of proteins. Without claudins present, the tight junction cannot form, and toxic …

Synthesis And Design Of High-Silica Pd-Containing Zeolites For The Catalytic Combustion Of Methane, Jingzhi Liu

Dissertations - ALL

Greenhouse gases, notably carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (N2O), are principal contributors to global warming, leading to an incremental rise in Earth's atmospheric temperature. The escalation of these gases, primarily from fossil fuel combustion, deforestation, and industrial processes, enhances the radiative forcing mechanism, thereby trapping excessive solar heat within the atmosphere. Scientific inquiries into the spectral absorption properties and life span of these gases emphasize their varying impacts on Earth's thermal equilibrium. For instance, CO2, with its extensive atmospheric residency, brings a prolonged thermal influence, whereas CH4, while being the cleanest burning fossil fuel that generates far …

A Trustzone-Based Framework To Secure Mobile Financial Transactions And Provide End-To-End Protection For Qr-Code Payments And Credit Card Information, Ammar Salman Salman

Dissertations - ALL

In this work we have developed multiple solutions for financial transactions that can be coordinated to provide high level of security and data integrity, while providing all services with minimum changes in infrastructures, and maximum flexibility. The solutions are novel in many aspects and the generalization is a clear feature. The TrustZone hardware is an important component to ensure high security and protection. The system can function smoothly on any type of operating systems and works with any platform of services in the market. The tested case study is built on the Android system and the ARM TrustZone hardware. This …

Engineering The Signal Resolution Of A Paper-Based Cell-Free Glutamine Biosensor With Genetic Engineering, Metabolic Engineering, And Process Optimization, Tyler J. Free, Joseph P. Talley, Chad D. Hyer, Catherine J. Millar, Joel S. Griffitts, Bradley Charles Bundy

Faculty Publications

Specialized cancer treatments have the potential to exploit glutamine dependence to increase patient survival rates. Glutamine diagnostics capable of tracking a patient’s response to treatment would enable a personalized treatment dosage to optimize the tradeoff between treatment success and dangerous side effects. Current clinical glutamine testing requires sophisticated and expensive lab-based tests, which are not broadly available on a frequent, individualized basis. To address the need for a low-cost, portable glutamine diagnostic, this work engineers a cell-free glutamine biosensor to overcome assay background and signal-to-noise limitations evident in previously reported studies. The findings from this work culminate in the development …

Spectral Characterization Of High-Speed Sers Fluctuations, Makayla Schmidt, Emily A. Farley, Marit A. Engevik, Alexandre G. Brolo, Nathan Lemke, Nathan Lindquist

Science Symposium

The concept of plasmonic “hotspots” is central to the broad field of nanophotonics. In surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS), hotspots can increase Raman scattering efficiency by orders of magnitude. Hotspot dimensions may range from a few nanometers down to the atomic scale and are able to generate SERS signals from single molecules. However, these single-molecule SERS signals often show significant fluctuations, and the concept of intense, localized, yet static hotspots has come into question. Recent experiments have shown these SERS intensity fluctuations (SIFs) to occur over an extremely wide range of timescales, from seconds to micro-seconds, due to the various physical …

Effect Of Recommending Users And Opinions On The Network Connectivity And Idea Generation Process, Sriniwas Pandey, Hiroki Sayama

Northeast Journal of Complex Systems (NEJCS)

The growing reliance on online services underscores the crucial role of recommendation systems, especially on social media platforms seeking increased user engagement. This study investigates how recommendation systems influence the impact of personal behavioral traits on social network dynamics. It explores the interplay between homophily, users’ openness to novel ideas, and recommendation-driven exposure to new opinions. Additionally, the research examines the impact of recommendation systems on the diversity of newly generated ideas, shedding light on the challenges and opportunities in designing effective systems that balance the exploration of new ideas with the risk of reinforcing biases or filtering valuable, unconventional …

Engineering Composite Gridlines For Improved Solar Module Reliability, Andre Chavez

Electrical and Computer Engineering ETDs

Renewable energy sources, such as solar power, are rapidly expanding worldwide to meet increased energy demands. However, these sources are exposed to challenging environmental stressors, such as extreme wind, heavy snow loads, and hailstorms that can cause irreversible damage to the crystalline semiconductor solar cells. Today, single crystalline silicon solar cells dominate the market, and our work is focused on improving their reliability against environmental stressors. One of the main degradation mechanisms caused by environmental stressors is cell cracks. These microcracks can go virtually undetected and lead to reduced power output from solar modules over time. To solve this engineering …

Discrete Element Method Investigation Of The Dynamic And Seismic Response Of Embedded Geotechnical Systems, Ahmed Khamiss, Usama El Shamy

Civil and Environmental Engineering Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the seismic response of various embedded geotechnical systems utilizing the discrete element method (DEM). Embedded geotechnical systems play a crucial role in enhancing the stability and resilience of various structures as they provide solid foundations for infrastructural elements such as buildings, bridges, and transportation networks. The behavior of various embedded systems such as tunnels, pier foundations, and wind turbine foundations is investigated when subjected to seismic loading. In the first study, the seismic response of tunnels constructed in a deposit of granular soil of depth greater than 20 m is examined. Three-dimensional discrete element method simulations were …

Beyond The Horizon: Exploring Anomaly Detection Potentials With Federated Learning And Hybrid Transformers In Spacecraft Telemetry, Juan Rodriguez

Computer Science and Engineering Theses and Dissertations

Telemetry sensors play a crucial role in spacecraft operations, providing essential data on efficiency, sustainability, and safety. However, identifying irregularities in telemetry data can be a time-consuming process that risks the success of missions. With the rise of CubeSats and smallsats, telemetry data has become more abundant, but concerns about privacy and scalability have resulted in untapped data potential. To address these issues, we propose a new approach to anomaly detection that utilizes machine learning models at data sources. These models solely transmit weights to a centralized server for aggregation, resulting in improved dataset performance with a single global model. …

Intelligent Resource Allocation For Sdn/Nfv-Enabled Networks Through Reinforcement Learning, Jing Su

Computer Science and Engineering Theses and Dissertations

Software-Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) are two emerging paradigms that enable the feasible and scalable deployment of Virtual Network Functions (VNFs) in commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) devices, which deliver a range of network services with reduced cost. The deployment of these services requires efficient resource allocation that fulfills the requirements in terms of Quality of Service (QoS) and Service-Level Agreement (SLA) while considering the constraints of the underlying infrastructure, such as maximum latency tolerance and affinity policies.

An optimized resource allocation result can benefit the network in various aspects, such as energy-saving, performance boost, and latency reduction. To achieve …

Stimuli-Responsive Glycopolymeric Nanoparticles To Boost Tumor Immunogenicity Through Macrophage-Targeted Therapy, Oluwaseyi Shofolawe-Bakare

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) play a substantial role in sculpting the tumor microenvironment (TME) into an immunosuppressive bastion that undermines immune surveillance and enables tumor progression. They therefore represent a promising therapeutic target to make the TME more conducive for anti-tumor immunity and greatly improve treatment outcomes in cancers that are highly resistant to conventional forms of therapy. Several medications have been developed to modulate the activities of TAMs, showing tremendous potential, but these medications lack specificity for TAMs making their use susceptible to adverse side effects that could outweigh prospective benefits. Sophisticated delivery vehicles that can preferentially deliver these medications …

Development Of Hybrid Multi Criteria Decision Making Techniques For Efficient Cloud Service Selection, Obulaporam Gireesha

Theses and Dissertations

During the past few decades, cloud computing became a primary driver for the next generation of digital technology due to the increase in organizational performance and profitability based on a ‘pay-as-you-use’ fashion at anytime and anywhere across the globe. Cloud computing enables various enterprises to access pooled resources (like storage, network bandwidth, software applications, processing power, etc.) over the Internet with minimal Information Technology (IT) infrastructure and capital expenditure.

Indeed, the enormous popularity of cloud computing in both academia & industry over the decade has resulted in a wide range of similar cloud services offered by numerous service providers. Even …

Neuro-Symbolic Commonsense Reasoning With Resistance To Data Poisoning: A First-Order Logic And Sub-Symbolic Embeddings Framework, Bryce Shurts, King-Ip Lin

Computer Science and Engineering Theses and Dissertations

Commonsense reasoning has long presented a hurdle between conversational agents and their ability to naturally engage with humans in conversation, as the infinitely dimensional nature of a dialogue’s topics presents a significant reasoning challenge in the study of Natural Language Understanding (NLU). Such a system must conceivably be able to act as a generalizable system for evaluating and reasoning about commonsense statements, problems, and queries: in this way, the agent can attempt to quantify the reasonability of a given input. We attempt to address this through the integration of an explainable neuro-symbolic system that leverages Logical Tensor Networks (LTNs) and …

Process Optimization Of An Ethylbenzene Production Facility Through Integrated Process Simulation And Economic Analysis Methods, Veronica Cunitz

Honors Theses

The following thesis consists of an investigation into the optimization of an ethylbenzene production facility. Aspen Plus software was used to model the production facility and Excel was used to price the facility using Aspen simulation data. This integrated technique was used to optimize the facility based on the Net Present Value (NPV) of the project. The NPV was improved from a base case value of -$23.5 million to a final value of $51.5 million. After this optimization based on NPV, the potential of operating the reactors as isothermal packed bed reactors was investigated. The reactor inlet feed pressure, inlet …

Evaluation Of Error Sources In Dynamic Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (Mimo) Tests, Odey Yousef

Civil Engineering ETDs

Dynamic testing of systems is used to characterize the relationship between inputs and outputs using frequency response functions (FRFs). Multiple input and multiple output (MIMO) techniques are crucial for realistic representation. In MIMO tests, environmental conditions are replicated by inverting the FRF matrix for input estimation. Steps include system identification, FRF inversion, input estimation, and input application. Each of these steps are nontrivial and require careful attention. Error sources manifest as error between desired and experimental outputs. Significant efforts to minimize this error exist, yet literature lacks a formal understanding of their origins. This research focuses on 3 of these …

Securing The Skies: Safety-Constrained Decentralized Multi-Uav Coordination With Deep Reinforcement Learning, Jean-Elie Pierre

Electrical and Computer Engineering ETDs

In the dynamic landscape of autonomous aerial systems, the integration of uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) has sparked a paradigm shift, offering unprecedented opportunities and challenges in collaborative decision-making and navigation. This thesis explores the application of multi-agent reinforcement learning (MARL) for the planning and coordination of UAVs in complex environments.

The first part of this thesis provides an introduction to single-agent reinforcement learning and MARL. We provide examples of the use of MARL for countering uncrewed aerial systems (C-UAS). We formulate the Counter-UAS problem as a multiagent partially observable Markov decision process (MAPOMDP), and we propose Multi-AGent partial observable deep …