Engineering Commons^™

Optimizing Xo Throughput At Imerys, Derek Beasley, Brennan Chandler, Baris Erarslan, Cynthia Grogin

Senior Design Project For Engineers

This project is conducted in collaboration with Imerys to optimize the performance of the VSI (Vertical Shaft Impactor) system at their Plant 4 facility, focusing on improving the production of XO, a fine material used in products such as textured coatings, acid neutralization, and water filtration systems. The VSI operates continuously, producing several materials at the Marble Hill, Georgia location, including #1 Chip, #2 Chip, OZ, XO, Z, and 30–50. The main focus of this project is to increase the throughput of XO, as it requires both throughput improvement and product quality consistency to meet growing market demand. Imerys’ quality …

The Safety Kuznets Curve: Context In Occupational Safety, Andy Knickerbocker

ASEM Capstones

2025 ASEM 620 Capstone Project

Integrating A “World -Class” Safety System Into Diverse Teams, Mark D. Keller

ASEM Capstones

2025 ASEM 620 Capstone Project

Dynamic, Reconfigurable, And Hierarchical Biosynthetic Composites Via Collagen Self-Assembly Within Highly Crowded Microgel Pastes, Elif Narbay, Abbygail Caine, Sanika Pandit, Gabrielle Montgomery, Marion Harper, E. Daniel Cárdenas-Vásquez, Hatte Hamilton, Megan Hicks, Daniel Mattar, Kyle Choy, Marco Bisoffi, L. Andrew Lyon

Engineering Faculty Articles and Research

The fabrication of a new class of biomimetic biomaterials is reported using nanostructured microgel pastes formed from “overpacked” assemblies of ultrasoft poly(N-isopropyl acrylamide-co-acrylic acid) microgels and their composites with collagen. Despite the solid-like nature of microgel pastes, collagen fibrillogenesis is robust and rapid, with a 3D collagen network forming throughout the paste volume. Structural organization within the composite is interrogated via a suite of microscopy methods, while rheological characterization provides insight into the static and dynamic mechanical properties of the materials. Long-range fibrillogenesis is enabled by local crowding, dynamics, and spatial reconfigurability of pastes at the …

Strategies For Prolonging Ventricular Action Potential Duration Without Increasing Transmural Dispersion Of Repolarization, Candido Cabo

Publications and Research

Dispersion of repolarization results from a non-homogeneous recovery of excitability in cardiac tissue, and it is an important factor in arrhythmogenesis because it could lead to the initiation and maintenance of a variety of arrhythmias. Antiarrhythmic agents that prolong action potential duration (APD) by selectively blocking specific ion channels (like IKr) often increase dispersion of repolarization, which could result in a pro-arrhythmic risk. In this report, using computer models of the action potential of human epicardial, mid-myocardial, and endocardial myocytes, we have identified strategies to prolong APD without increasing transmural dispersion of repolarization. The first strategy, which involves blocking several …

Environmental Risk Assessment Of Textile Waste From Bio-Engineered Fibers In The Fashion Industry, Aayush Pankaj Agarwal, Harshit Soral, Irmak Aktan, Karol Montserrat Gonzalez Saad, Maria Daniela Saa Espinosa, Sheetal Suhas Dhanuka, Yi Yang

Harrisburg University Dissertations and Theses

The global fashion industry generates over 92 million tons of textile waste annually, a figure projected to increase significantly by 2030. Bio-engineered fibers, including bacterial cellulose, mycelium-based leather, and recombinant protein textiles emerge as sustainable alternatives to conventional fibers. Despite their promise, recent evidence suggests that these fibers may pose environmental risks at the end-of-life stage, such as incomplete biodegradation in landfills, microfiber shedding, and chemical leaching from dyes and coatings. The purpose of this study is to examine how these risks are represented through scientific literature, corporate sustainability reports, and policy frameworks, and to identify strategies for integrating risk …

An Innovative Hdm Model For Assessing Renewable Heat Energy Resources In Utility Energy Systems, Mark Alan Ryan

Dissertations and Theses

Renewable Heat Energy projects exhibit numerous unique, complex, and often conflicting characteristics, including varying project sizes, diverse energy resources, stakeholder demands, and significant challenges in energy conversion applications. Traditionally, cash flow analysis and return on investment are the most widely recognized metrics for evaluating remote energy projects. However, numerous quantitative and qualitative factors influence the overall performance and success of Renewable Heat Energy System (RHES) projects. A comprehensive approach using advanced tools is essential for assessing the factors and criteria that significantly impact these projects.

This research investigates the key quantitative and qualitative factors that contribute to the successful implementation …

A Predictive Model For Multi- Week Respiratory Risk From Red Tide On Florida’S Gulf Coast., Elmer S. Ochaeta

Computer Science and Engineering Faculty Publications

Florida’s Gulf Coast red tide (Karenia brevis) can put toxins into the air, making people cough, irritating the throat, and worsening asthma or other breathing problems especially when winds blow from the ocean toward the beach. Right now, most public updates don’t really help with the question people actually ask when planning a weekend or vacation: “Will going to or close to the beach be risky in the next few weeks?”.

In this project, I build a weekly early warning system that estimates respiratory risk for specific beaches and predicts that risk 2 to 4 weeks ahead. The study covers …

Fuel Factors: Jet A Prices And Charter Operations, Manaal Choudhury, Zoey M. Hicks, Chanho Kang, Brooke Wheeler

Aeronautics Student Publications

The relationship between the average monthly fuel price (IndexMundi, 2025) and Part 135 operations (WingX, 2025) was not statistically significant, r = -.009, p = .95.

3d Printed Portable Automatic Pill Dispenser​, Amber M. Ocasio

Publications and Research

Medication adherence is a major public health concern, particularly among patients with chronic illnesses. Reports from the National Institutes of Health indicate that adherence rates are significantly lower for chronic conditions, with patients taking only ~50% of medications prescribed. Unintentional non-adherence—such as forgetting doses—is more prevalent (62.9%, 47.1%, 46.9%) than intentional non-adherence, and the consequences include medication waste, disease progression, reduced functional abilities, lower quality of life, and increased reliance on medical resources. Because existing automatic pill dispensers cost over $100 on average, they remain inaccessible for many lower-income patients who could benefit from such technology. This project addresses this …

The Relationship Between Compound Annual Growth Rate And Wildlife Strikes In U.S. Cities, Leila Burns, Katherine Oconnell, Ethan Schuam, Brooke E. Wheeler

Aeronautics Student Publications

This study investigates the relationship between urban expansion and wildlife strikes at airports around the U.S. To analyze this correlation, the Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) for each city’s population was compared to the Average Annual Wildlife Strike Reports (AAWSR) at each airport. The data were collected from the U.S. Census Bureau (2025) population records and the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) National Wildlife Strikes Database (2025). The research was intended to determine if urbanization contributes to the frequency of wildlife strikes. The results concluded that there was a near-zero correlation between CAGR and AAWSR. This indicates that population growth is …

Speaking Up: Aeronautics Student Voice Propensity And Power Distance By Experience, Nicholas Forthofer, Shellbie Reed, Mihir Wadhwa, Vivek Sharma, Brooke Wheeler

Aeronautics Student Publications

This research suggests that there is a difference in voice propensity and power distance with flight experience.

Clear The Air: Willingness To Pilot And Willingness To Pay With Leaded And Unleaded Fuel, Jaelyann A. Soto Marquez, Jay C. Helstone, Bryson T. Harber, Vivek Sharma, Brooke E. Wheeler

Aeronautics Student Publications

Pilots reported a higher willingness to pilot (WTPilot) with traditional leaded avgas compared to the unleaded alternative. Willingness to pay (WTPay) was lower when the unleaded fuel was priced higher, showing sensitivity to cost. Results revealed that familiarity and affordability matter when considering sustainable fuel for flight training.

Population Density And Recorded Unmanned Aerial Systems Sightings In Southeastern Cities, Avalon Bozard, Rebecca Berris, Mario Perez, Brooke Wheeler

Aeronautics Student Publications

The increase in Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS) sightings within the National Airspace System (NAS) has introduced many safety concerns, regulatory complications, and operational challenges, especially with the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) future removal of beyond visual line of sight (BVLOS). As UAS become more integrated, understanding the relationship between UAS sightings and city population density is of great importance for ensuring safety. This quantitative correlation examined the relationship between Southeast cities’ population density and reported UAS sightings in 2020. The data was obtained through the FAA’s UAS sightings report (2022) and the U.S. Census Bureau’s population data (2020) from the …

Mental Health And Willingness To Seek Mental Health Aid In Aviation, Andrew Lynch, Giacomo Tropeano, Trenton Paige Plogher, Vivek Sharma, Brooke Wheeler

Aeronautics Student Publications

No relationship was found between aviation student mental health status and willingness to seek mental health aid; there was no difference in willingness to seek help between pilots and non-pilots.

The Role Of Artificial Intelligence In Reducing Internet Crimes Against Children, Malyssa Shaw

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

When generative artificial intelligence (AI) first surfaced and broke into the public sphere, my immediate concern was in its development, implementation, and harmful applications. I was not surprised when deepfake technology rapidly advanced alongside these new developments and impacted women and children worldwide. Disproportionately, they have been made victims of intimate media forgery as early as the 1990s, with an unprecedented uptick in recent years as a direct result of these developments. In response, I wrote "Deepfake, Real Harm: Protecting Children in the Age of AI", analyzing data specifically regarding child sexual abuse material (CSAM) created with artificial intelligence while …

Developing A Waste-To-Energy Assessment Framework Integrating Engineering And Policy Dimensions Using A Triple Bottom Line Approach, Izech Brian O. Edwin, King Harold A. Recto

Electronics, Computer, and Communications Engineering Faculty Publications

The management of municipal solid waste (MSW) in swiftly urbanizing Philippine cities has emerged as a critical concern in both energy and governance. Dependence on landfills is approaching critical thresholds as disposal sites near saturation, transportation costs escalate, and host communities increasingly resist garbage transfers. In response, this study proposes a comprehensive Waste-to-Energy (WtE) assessment framework that integrates engineering evaluation with policy and stakeholder analysis to support sustainable decision- making.

Using Baguio City as a case study, the framework applies a Triple Bottom Line (TBL) approach to evaluate three waste management scenarios: (1) current landfill-dominated practices, (2) engineered landfill with …

Equity-Aware Natural Hazards Resilience Assessment And Improvement Of Road Networks, Naqib Mashrur

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

As climate change intensifies the frequency and severity of hurricanes, the resulting flood events pose escalating threats to transportation infrastructure and community well-being. This dissertation addresses the intersection of flood resilience, network connectivity, and social equity by integrating principles from network analysis, equity planning, and disaster resilience. The research begins by examining the social dimensions of accessibility loss during hurricane-induced flooding. Spatial and demographic analysis reveals that Native American and Hispanic populations in the case study region experience the most significant reductions in access to essential service facilities, highlighting inequities in systems.

Investigating a region southern Louisiana road network demonstrates …

Investigating The Impacts Of Agrivoltaic Design Choices On Inter-Row Shading And Electricity Production, Marcus Wu, Anna Stuhlmacher

Infinite Loop

No Abstract available.

Business Financial Information Systems, Lirie Koraqi, James Jolovski Prof.

International Journal of Business and Technology

An information system is a combination of software, hardware, and telecommunication networks to collect useful data, especially in an organisation. Many businesses use information technology to complete and manage their operations, interact with their consumers, and stay ahead of their competition. Some companies today are completely built on information technology.

Well designed and implemented business information systems should provide the information management and outside parties need to make informed and timely decisions about the operating health of the company. Business considers the need to have information available to assess the profitability of a new product they are selling or their …

Comparative Evaluation Of Microcontrollers For Real-Time Heart Rate Monitoring And Tachycardia/Bradycardia Detection, Arxhend Jetullahu, Luan Mulaku, Saranda Demolli

International Journal of Business and Technology

The growing demand for portable healthcare devices has led to combining microcontrollers with machine learning models to enable real-time health monitoring. It's quite paramount, specifically in the context of identifying irregularities in heart rate, like tachycardia—where the heart races unusually fast—and bradycardia, an instance of a sluggish heartbeat. The neat thing is that this study takes a stab at contrasting the effectiveness among three popular microcontroller types—the ESP32, the Raspberry Pi, and the Arduino Nano 33 BLE Sense—in terms of real-time tracking of heartbeats and spotting any oddities (using, of course, a model developed with some machine learning elements). At …

The Energy Future Of Kosovo, Why It Is Difficult To Give Up Coal, Avni Alidemaj, Drenusha Gashi

International Journal of Business and Technology

Energy and mining have constantly been highlighted as sectors with great potential for the Republic of Kosovo. Kosovo, as a small country in Southeast Europe, faces significant challenges in transitioning from a coal-dependent energy system to a more sustainable and diversified energy portfolio. Kosovo has a significant number of natural resources that is not managing to find the best use of these resources; therefore, a new and more dynamic approach is needed to change this trend. The main role of electrical energy systems is to enable safe, reliable and qualitative supply of electricity to all consumers. In this aspect, generation …

Study On The Use Of Mechanized-Fired Clay Bricks As A Supplementary Cementitious Material, Esra Elsheikh

International Journal of Business and Technology

The current global tendency is to replace a portion of the cement in the concrete mix with materials of cementitious properties to mitigate the cement industry’s negative environmental impact. This study explores using finely milled Fired Clay Brick debris to replace cement in the production of mortars partially. The aim is to create a more cost-effective mortar while tackling the problem of disposing of waste bricks. Two samples of it were collected from two factories, pulverized into a powder, and added to the cement mortar mixtures in 10%, 15%, and 20% by cement mass. Mortars were examined for their chemical …

Building Enveloperetrofitting Innovation: Recycled Materials Role In Digital Fabrication And 3d Printing, Amr Soliman Elgohary, Haytham M. Elbadrawy, Ahmed Elsamanoudi

HBRC Journal

Traditional construction methods are one of the main causes of resource depletion. This research explores the intersection of digital fabrication methods using recycled materials and eco-friendly construction through retrofitting the building envelope to achieve sustainability. Traditional methods of retrofitting existing building elements consume many resources (materials-energy) and produce a lot of waste. In this context, 3D printing, a modern digital manufacturing method, stands out as a promising alternative, offering innovative ways to reduce material and energy consumption and reduce waste in the building construction process. This technique can be used to produce innovative modules that may improve the environmental performance …

Building A Data-Driven Security Ai Framework Using Machine Learning Models, Christopher Chan Vi

Master's Theses

This research project explores a modern approach to Intrusion Detection System (IDS) anomaly detection by leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), Large Language Models (LLM), and Explainable AI (XAI). The purpose is to assess the effectiveness of these technologies in enhancing the understanding of intrusion events. This research study addresses the challenges of threshold determination and the interpretability of anomaly detection results. The proposed solution involves an LLM-based framework with XAI capabilities, integrated with a Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) architecture, to provide clear explanations for detected anomalies, utilizing both custom and pre-trained datasets. The study navigated inherent challenges, including …

Viability Of Widely Used Encryption Schemes In Drone Transmission, Emanuel Yasir Nelson

Cybersecurity Undergraduate Research Showcase

This paper presents throughout research on the security issues related to drone transmission. These topics were addressed and explained, in particular the aspects relating to cybersecurity, for utmost clarity. These include threats and vulnerabilities, drone transmission the impact of encryption on latency, and the details of the encryption methods AES-128, AES-256, and ChaCha20 that were used in the experiment described in the paper. Each encryption method performance was measured and outputted by the Python code developed and used in the experiment. Afterwards, the performance of each method was analyzed in relation to their decryption time, encryption time, end to end …

Unsaturated Fatty Acid Oil-Based Microdroplets: A Promising Novel Class Of Microdroplets, Ramiz S. Alejilat

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

Droplet-based microfluidics has rapidly advanced numerous fields, including chemistry, biology, materials science, medicine, food science, and cosmetics. In these systems, fluorocarbon oil combined with fluorinated surfactants is the preferred medium for fluid encapsulation, offering exceptional stability and biocompatibility essential for sensitive biological and chemical processes. However, growing concerns about the environmental and biological risks associated with fluorinated chemicals have prompted a search for alternatives.

This study is the first to explore the use of unsaturated fatty acids derived from emu oil for microdroplet formation. We characterized droplet formation based on flow rates and the presence non-fluorinated surfactant at a certain …

Imaging Of Dynamic Processes In Materials With A Laser-Wakefield Accelerator, J. Kang, R. J. Shalloo, M. J. Higgins, S. J.D. Dann, J. N. Gruse, C. I.D. Underwood, A. F. Antoine, C. Arran, C. D. Baird, M. D. Balcazar, N. Bourgeois, J. A. Cardarelli, K. Krushelnick, S. P.D. Mangles, C. D. Murphy, N. Lu, P. P. Rajeev, M. P. Selwood, D. R. Symes, C. P. Ridgers, A. G.R. Thomas, C. Thornton, Z. Najmudin, P. G. Sanders, P. D. Staublin, A. J. Shahani, M. J.V. Streeter

Michigan Tech Publications

Betatron x rays generated from laser-wakefield accelerators are a promising source for imaging dynamic processes in materials. Here, we present proof-of-concept imaging of microstructural evolution in a hypermonotectic Al-Bi alloy, which consists of liquid Bi particles in a solid Al matrix. The images capture the elongation and fragmentation of Bi particles upon isothermal annealing. Because of the femtosecond time scale of the betatron source, the images are not subject to motion blur, whereas the accessibility of the source allows for studies of long-term processes such as annealing. The high-resolution data reveal that the evolution of Bi particles is mediated by …

Developing Accessible Narrative-Based Stem Learning Software For K-6 Braille Display Users, Dylan Ravel, Daniel Tsivkovski, Brandon Foley, Maryam Etezad, Franceli Cibrian, Ariel Han, Rajeev Joshi

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

This research develops a free, accessible web application that enables K-6 students who are blind or visually impaired (BVI) to learn STEM concepts using refreshable braille displays. Currently, most online learning tools are not designed for BVI students, creating a significant educational barrier.

The application interfaces with commercial braille displays and uses narrative-based learning to make STEM content approachable and engaging. By presenting material as interactive stories, students can connect with concepts while developing braille reading skills. The curriculum design prioritizes accessibility through the Accessible Rich Internet Applications (ARIA) standards and screen reader support.

The goal is to provide BVI …

Using Artificial Intelligence Applications In Humanizing Temporary Buildings For Workers, Developing Design Standards And Involving Users, Anas Almahmoud, Hatem El Shafie

Mansoura Engineering Journal

This research focuses on artificial intelligence (AI) and its tools for assisting in architectural design and decision-making. It identifies modern AI applications for use in research and design processes, aiming to raise awareness among architects and consulting firms. This is the primary objective of the research. The study also analyzes a mobile temporary worker cabin complex in Riyadh, specifically the metro project, as a case study. The goal is to address its architectural program, improve its design, identifies the necessary design criteria and make it more humane. The core research problem lies in testing the effectiveness of using AI tools …