Engineering Commons^™

Provenance: An Intermediary-Free Solution For Digital Content Verification, Bilal Yousuf, M. Atif Qureshi, Brendan Spillane, Gary Munnelly, Oisin Carroll, Matthew Runswick, Kirsty Park, Eileen Culloty, Owen Conlan, Jane Suiter

Articles

The threat posed by misinformation and disinformation is one of the defining challenges of the 21st century. Provenance is designed to help combat this threat by warning users when the content they are looking at may be misinformation or disinformation. It is also designed to improve media literacy among its users and ultimately reduce susceptibility to the threat among vulnerable groups within society. The Provenance browser plugin checks the content that users see on the Internet and social media and provides warnings in their browser or social media feed. Unlike similar plugins, which require human experts to provide evaluations and …

Insights From Two Decades Of P-12 Engineering Education Research, Cary I. Sneider, Mihir K. Ravel

Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER)

The 21st century has seen a growing movement in the United States towards the adoption of engineering and technology as a complement to science education. Motivated by this shift, this article offers insights into engineering education for grades P-12, based on a landscape review of 263 empirical research studies spanning the two decades from January 2000 to June 2021. These insights are organized around three core themes: (1) students’ understandings, skills, and attitudes about engineering and technology; (2) effective methods of P-12 engineering education; and (3) benefits of P-12 engineering education. The insights are captured in the form of evidence-based …

Cyber Physical Systems For Non-Contact Infrastructure Monitoring, Roya Nasimi

Civil Engineering ETDs

In recent decades, the decay of infrastructure has become a relevant challenge of both developed and under developing countries. Prioritization of maintenance and repairs of transportation infrastructure is a new worldwide priority since it is important to quantify the rate of decay of assets to increase both safety and cost-efficient operations. Infrastructure owners need frequent inspections on their assets to predict and to avoid unsafe conditions prone to cause disasters. Frequent infrastructure inspections call for cost-effective methods. Traditional measurement methods require human access to the infrastructure, are subjective, expensive, and unsafe. Therefore, infrastructure managers are interested in exploring new non-contact …

The Profound Photophysical Effects Of Organic Chromophore Connectivity And Coupling, David J. Walwark Jr

Nanoscience and Microsystems ETDs

Through-bond and through-space interactions between chromophores are shown to have wide-ranging effects on photophysical outcomes upon light absorption in organic molecules. In collapsed poly(3-hexylthiophene), through-space coupling creates hybrid chromophores that act as energy sinks for nearby excitons and favorable sites for molecular oxygen to dock. Upon excitation with visible light the highly-coupled chromophores react with the docked oxygen and subsequently do not quench nearby excitons as efficiently. In tetramer arrays of perylene diimide chromophores the central moiety through-bond connectivity is synthesized in two variants which exhibit vastly different single-molecule blinking behavior and theoretically-predicted electronic transition character. In the more-connected tetramer …

Silica Sol-Gel Control With High Voltage Contactless Electrodes, Jonathan C. Hebert

Nanoscience and Microsystems ETDs

High Voltage Contactless Electrodes (HVE) non-evasively modulates silica sol-gel reactions by redistributing charge in solution. HVE induces formation of local neutral band (LNB) strata (pseudo interfacial surfaces) where the gradient of potential is zero ∇𝜓𝜓=0. HVE LNB shape corresponds to solubility and ultimately sol-gel form. HVE silica sol-gel control works by localizing pH and creating conditions where silanol polymerization is biform; condensation by protonation (cathodic), or by deprotonation (anodic). Steric modified Poisson-Boltzmann equation is used to develop a theory on HVE control of silica sol-gel formation and a nucleate potential functional of potential 𝜓𝜓. Technologies developed during this research are …

Three-Dimensional Lattices As Effective Impact Absorption Layers For Space Applications, James Youchison

Mechanical Engineering ETDs

Additive manufacturing (AM) is increasingly becoming a viable manufacturing process due to dramatic advantages that it facilitates in the material selection and design complexity. This paper investigates the potential of additively manufactured lattice structures for the application of dissipating impact energy. In this research the role of geometry and material properties on the static and dynamic energy absorption properties of additively manufactured wave spring lattices composed of various materials were studied under drop/impact and compression tests. A finite element simulation of the lattice structure was also conducted, although the results were overall inconclusive, it gave some great insight into the …

Determinants Of Effective Change Management For Software Deployment Projects, Abebaw Zeleke, Walter Mccollum

International Journal of Applied Management and Technology

Software application deployment change management is one of the emerging research themes that is gaining increased focus day by day. Our study examined the factors that affect software application deployment change management in Agile software development settings. Our study provided a systematic review and synthesized the approaches, practices, and challenges reported for adopting and implementing deployment change management. The prime objective of our study was to systematically synthesize the data extracted and formulate evidence-based practical recommendations that are influential in software deployment change management. Six research themes are proposed to evaluate the rationale of the research question. This qualitative study …

Reducing Kidney Discard With Artificial Intelligence Decision Support: The Need For A Transdisciplinary Systems Approach, Richard Threlkeld, Lirim Ashiku, Casey I. Canfield, Daniel Burton Shank, Mark A. Schnitzler, Krista L. Lentine, David A. Axelrod, Anil Choudary Reddy Battineni, Henry Randall, Cihan H. Dagli

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Purpose of Review: A transdisciplinary systems approach to the design of an artificial intelligence (AI) decision support system can more effectively address the limitations of AI systems. By incorporating stakeholder input early in the process, the final product is more likely to improve decision-making and effectively reduce kidney discard.

Recent Findings: Kidney discard is a complex problem that will require increased coordination between transplant stakeholders. An AI decision support system has significant potential, but there are challenges associated with overfitting, poor explainability, and inadequate trust. A transdisciplinary approach provides a holistic perspective that incorporates expertise from engineering, social science, and …

College Of Engineering News, Georgia Southern University

College of Engineering & Computing: News & Publications (2010-2023)

• Dr. Marcel Maghiar Earns Master Thermographer Certification

Cognizant Composites: Seamless Integration Of Circuitry And Sensors Into Structural Composites, Reuben Fresquez

Computer Science ETDs

This thesis describes a set of novel techniques for embedding sensors, circuitry, and electronics into structural composites. I leverage recent developments in human computer interaction to create sensors and circuitry that are seamlessly incorporated into structural composites. I fabricate bend and compression sensors, along with circuitry, from textiles, which enables me to add electronic capabilities without impacting the composite’s structural integrity. I describe the construction of these “cognizant composites” and demonstrate their functionality. I also explore techniques for embedding standard electronic components, including microcontrollers, into structural composites. Potential applications of this technology include buildings that can warn occupants if load-bearing …

The Effect Of Viscosity On The Puddle Dynamics In Low Gravity Environment, Taif Hamed Saleh Al Juboori

Dissertations and Theses

Enormous liquid puddles are observed to jump spontaneously from non-wetting substrates when exposed to the nearly step-reduction in body force common to drop tower test facilities. The phenomenon is similar to the second half of terrestrial drop bounce experiments except that (1) the initial static equilibrium configuration satisfies the static contact angle condition, (2) the initial height of the puddle is limited to the capillary height, and (3), for drop tower test durations on the order of seconds, puddle volumes can be over 10⁴ times larger in mass (volume). The passive puddle jump mechanism provides a no-moving-parts deployment method …

An Optimized Machine Learning And Big Data Approach To Crime Detection, Ashokkumar Palanivinayagam, Siva Shankar Gopal, Sweta Bhattacharya, Noble Anumbe, Ebuka Ibeke, Cresantus Biamba

Faculty Publications

Crime detection is one of the most important research applications in machine learning. Identifying and reducing crime rates is crucial to developing a healthy society. Big Data techniques are applied to collect and analyse data: determine the required features and prime attributes that cause the emergence of crime hotspots. The traditional crime detection and machine learning-based algorithms lack the ability to generate key prime attributes from the crime dataset, hence most often fail to predict crime patterns successfully. This paper is aimed at extracting the prime attributes such as time zones, crime probability, and crime hotspots and performing vulnerability analysis …

Asynchronous, Distributed Optical Mutual Exclusion And Applications, Ahmed Bahaael Mansour

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Silicon photonics have drawn much recent interest in the setting of intra-chip andmodule communication. In this dissertation, we address a fundamental computationalproblem, mutual exclusion, in the setting of optical interconnects. As a main result, wepropose an optical network and an algorithm for it to distribute a token (shared resource)mutually exclusively among a set ofnprocessing elements. Following a request, the tokenis granted in constant amortized time andO(n) worst case time; this assumes constantpropagation time for light within the chip. Additionally, the distribution of tokens is fair,ensuring that no token request is denied more thann−1 times in succession; this is thebest possible. …

Massive Mimo Beamforming Analysis For 5g Systems, Mohammad M. Abdellatif, Aya Abdel Moniem

Electrical Engineering

Multiple input multiple outputs, MIMO Technology is based on the usage of multiple receivers and transmitters or antennas at the sending and receiving end of a signal, to increase the throughput and capacity of the network. The number of antennas in a MIMO station can reach up to eight. The Massive MIMO is like the simple MIMO, with the only difference is the number of antennas can reach hundreds. Massive MIMO operates in time division duplex mode, which means the channel has reciprocal properties of radio propagation. The base station calculates an estimate the channel capacity from the uplink pilots …

Spectrum Sensing Limitations In Cognitive Radio Networks, Mohammad M. Abdellatif, Hazim E. Mustafa

Electrical Engineering

As the number of wireless devices is increasing daily, the radio frequency spectrum is becoming more crowded. Moreover, due to the stochastic nature of wireless communications technologies, some frequency bands which are allocated to services or users can be underutilized. On the other hand, some users may not be able to access the medium as all the frequency bands have been already allocated to different users. Cognitive radio has gained a lot of interest in the past few years as it tackles the problem of spectrum scarcity by taking advantage of spectrum holes that are available in the frequency spectrum. …

Infectious Disease Modeling And Intervention Planning, Shalome Hanisha Anand Tatapudi

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Disease outbreaks caused by existing and emerging pathogens pose a serious threat to local and global communities in the form of epidemics and pandemics, respectively. The 2009 H1N1 pandemic and the 2019 COVID-19 pandemic are exemplars of how underprepared both the developed and developing nations are at mitigating pandemics.

Mathematical modeling and simulation of disease outbreaks has served as a powerful tool to understand disease transmission dynamics. They also aid in developing effective intervention strategies. However, existing models are usually particularized to a region, or a specific disease pathogen and interventions used in these models may not translate well to …

Single-Molecule Localization Microscopy Of 3d Orientation And Anisotropic Wobble Using A Polarized Vortex Point Spread Function, Tianben Ding, Matthew D. Lew

Electrical & Systems Engineering Publications and Presentations

Within condensed matter, single fluorophores are sensitive probes of their chemical environments, but it is difficult to use their limited photon budget to image precisely their positions, 3D orientations, and rotational diffusion simultaneously. We demonstrate the polarized vortex point spread function (PSF) for measuring these parameters, including characterizing the anisotropy of a molecule’s wobble, simultaneously from a single image. Even when imaging dim emitters (∼500 photons detected), the polarized vortex PSF can obtain 12 nm localization precision, 4°–8° orientation precision, and 26° wobble precision. We use the vortex PSF to measure the emission anisotropy of fluorescent beads, the wobble dynamics …

Novel Approach To Integrate Can Based Vehicle Sensors With Gps Using Adaptive Filters To Improve Localization Precision In Connected Vehicles From A Systems Engineering Perspective, Abhijit Vasili

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Research and development in Connected Vehicles (CV) Technologies has increased exponentially, with the allocation of 75 MHz radio spectrum in the 5.9 GHz band by the Federal Communication Commission (FCC) dedicated to Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) in 1999 and 30 MHz in the 5.9 GHz by the European Telecommunication Standards Institution (ETSI). Many applications have been tested and deployed in pilot programs across many cities all over the world.

CV pilot programs have played a vital role in evaluating the effectiveness and impact of the technology and understanding the effects of the applications over the safety of road users. The …

Civil Engineering And Construction News, Georgia Southern University

Civil Engineering & Construction: News & Publications (2011-2022)

• Dr. Marcel Maghiar Earning the Highest Level of Certification in Infrared (IR) Imaging and Analysis

Measurement Of Resilience Performance For Infrastructure Construction Project Delivery, Fei Han

Civil Engineering ETDs

In the past decade, infrastructure resilience in the U.S. has become critical due to increasing disruptions to the built environment and the resultant consequences on economic, social, and environmental goals. This attention to resilience research is drawn to investigating the ability of existing structures and facilities to resist and recover from natural and human-caused hazards. From a broader view, resilience also applies to processes, such as infrastructure project delivery processes. During these processes, a project often suffers inevitable threats and disruptions, which can significantly delay or derail the project if the process is not resilient.

This research aimed to conceptualize …

Disaster Recovery System And Service Continuity Of Digital Library, Sivankalai S, Virumandi A, Sivasekaran K, Sharmila M

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

This paper will discuss catastrophe recovery and likelihood development for digital library structures. The article establishes a foundation for establishing Library continuity and disaster recovery strategies through the use of best practices. Library continuity development and catastrophe recovery are critical modules of the planning stage for a virtual digital library. Few institutions that experience a catastrophic disaster occurrence are powerless to recover always, but libraries can suggestively boost the possibility of long-term recovery of institutional digital resources by drafting a continuity and recovery strategy in preparation. This article is intended for system designers and administrators, as well as high-ranking library …

Spatial And Temporal Analysis Of Sodium-Ion Batteries, Dewen Hou, Eric Gabriel, Joshua A. Russell, Kincaid Graff, Hui Xiong

Materials Science and Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

As a promising alternative to the market-leading lithium-ion batteries, low-cost sodium-ion batteries (SIBs) are attractive for applications such as large-scale electrical energy storage systems. The energy density, cycling life, and rate performance of SIBs are fundamentally dependent on dynamic physiochemical reactions, structural change, and morphological evolution. Therefore, it is essential to holistically understand SIBs reaction processes, degradation mechanisms, and thermal/mechanical behaviors in complex working environments. The recent developments of advanced in situ and operando characterization enable the establishment of the structure–processing–property–performance relationship in SIBs under operating conditions. This Review summarizes significant recent progress in SIBs exploiting in situ and operando …

Analysis Of Energy Utilization And Losses For Jet-Propelled Vehicles, Mohammad Abbas, David W. Riggins

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The global control volume-based energy utilization balance for an aerospace vehicle is extended to allow for the analysis of jet-propelled vehicles. The methodology is first developed for analyzing the energy utilization and entropy generation characteristics of jet engines without airframe considerations. This methodology, when combined with separate energy utilization analysis for an unpowered airframe, allows for the assessment of a powered vehicle. Wake entropy generation for a powered vehicle is shown to be the summation of the wake entropy generation associated with the propulsion system (no airframe) and the unpowered airframe. The fundamental relationship between overall entropy generation and the …

Monte Carlo Perturbation Analysis Of Dimension And Density Variations Of The Annular Core Research Reactor Model Fuel, Karissa Currie

Nuclear Engineering ETDs

This thesis assesses sources of uncertainty in the neutron energy spectrum of the Annular Core Research Reactor (ACRR) Monte Carlo N-Particle Transport Code (MCNP) model. Uncertainty evaluations have been performed on the ACRR core but were computationally intensive and could not isolate the uncertainties associated with discrete sources. Monte Carlo Perturbation Theory (MCPT) is used in MCNP to calculate 640-group neutron energy fluences and their associated uncertainties [1]. To understand the uncertainties associated with only the UO₂-BeO fuel, perturbations in densities and dimensions were evaluated. A 640 by 640 covariance and correlation matrices were produced and compared to …

Inverse Kinematics Of The 6dof C12xl, Carl Liu, Lili Ma

Publications and Research

Industrial robotic manipulators are widely used in applications such as pick & place, welding, and assembly to perform repeated tasks in replace of human labor. Such tasks typically require fully autonomous mechanical arms that are capable of identifying the parts to operate, path planning, and trajectory generation & tracking. A robotic arm consists of a sequence of rigid links connected by movable components (the joints). Proper control of the arm’s motion requires the knowledge of inverse kinematics, which computes/outputs the joint variables, i.e., angles for revolute joints and displacement for prismatic joints, causing the robotic arm’s end effector (e.g., gripper, …

Computationally Driven Design Of Shape-Controlled Polymeric Nanostructures, Davindra Tulsi

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the realm of shape control involving synthetic soft materials, block copolymers are ubiquitously exploited due to their ability to spontaneously self-assemble into a plethora of morphologies. The growing need in areas such as drug delivery, lithography, and microelectronics to generate new nanostructures demands ever finer control of copolymer self-assembly. It is desirable to better control the shape and size of soft nanostructures, with minimal post processing techniques to assert stability.

While there is an abundance of literature on diblock copolymer assembly, few relationships exist for sequence-controlled copolymers. It is well known that biological macromolecules are highly sequence specific and …

Degradation Issues And Stabilization Strategies Of Protonic Ceramic Electrolysis Cells For Steam Electrolysis, Hanrui Su, Yun Hang Hu

Michigan Tech Publications, Part 1

Protonic ceramic electrolysis cells (PCECs) are attractive electrochemical de-vices for converting electrical energy to chemicals due to their high conversion efficiency, favorable thermodynamics, fast kinetics, and inexpensive materials. Compared with conventional oxygen ion- conducting solid oxide electrolysis cells, PCECs operate at a lower operating temperature and a favorable operation mode, thus expecting high durability. However, the degradation of PCECs is still significant, hampering their development. In this review, the typical degradations of PCECs are summarized, with emphasis on the chemical stability of the electrolytes and the air electrode materials. Moreover, the degradation mechanism and influencing factors are assessed deeply. Finally, …

Experimental Verification On The Effectiveness Of Random Vibration Testing With Controlling Acceleration And Velocity Kurtosis, Daichi Nakai, Katsuhiko Saito

Journal of Applied Packaging Research

Random vibration tests for packages are conducted to confirm the safety of these packages during shipping. In our previous study, a method of generating the random vibration controlling the power spectral density and kurtosis of acceleration and the kurtosis of velocity was proposed. The aim of the present study is to verify the effectiveness of the proposed method. Three vibrations were generated in this study and compared with the real vibration, which replicates the truck bed. In the first case, control of the acceleration and velocity kurtosis was neglected. In the second case, the vibration controlling the acceleration kurtosis was …

Reconfigurable Cushion Design For E-Commerce Packaging Using Kirigami Concept, Euihark Lee, Xingguang Pan, Hannah Kim, Kazuko Fuchi

Journal of Applied Packaging Research

In packaging, cushion barriers are needed to provide content protection in a disposable form. However, conventional cushioning materials and designs typically require a large volume, which decreases shipping and storage efficiency and increases environmental impact. Especially in e-commerce, where “shipping and handling” occur at an exceedingly rapid pace in large-scale operations, many packages suffer from being over or under packed through the fulfilment process. To solve this issue, this paper presents deployable kirigami-based cushion designs that can be collapsed or deployed depending on the distribution situation. Kirigami is a variation of origami that involves both cutting and folding of paper. …

Application Of Using Fault Detection Techniques In Different Components In Power Systems, Mohamed Yahia Abd-Alkader, Ahmed M. Ebid Dr., Ibrahim Mahdi, Ibrahim Abdelrashed Nosseir

Future Engineering Journal

Throughout the years, Fault detection has been one of the most frequently discussed topics in the scientific community at present. Consequently, it has been extensively studied and focused on in recent years. This scientific paper presents some of this research, what they have reached, and the methods used for their studies. The literature review provides that these problems are not covered yet. It needs more works to develop fault detection techniques for better performance.