Engineering Commons^™

A Self Controlled Rdp Approach For Feature Extraction In Online Handwriting Recognition Using Deep Learning, Sukhdeep Singh, Vinod Kumar Chauhan, Elisa H. Barney Smith

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

The identification of accurate features is the initial task for benchmarked handwriting recognition. For handwriting recognition, the objective of feature computation is to find those characteristics of a handwritten stroke that depict the class of a stroke and make it separable from the rest of the stroke classes. The present study proposes a feature extraction technique for online handwritten strokes based on a self controlled Ramer-Douglas-Peucker (RDP) algorithm. This novel approach prepares a smaller length feature vector for different shaped online handwritten strokes without preprocessing and without any control parameter to RDP. Thus, it also overcomes the shortcomings of the …

Quantum Frontiers: To Boldly Go, Michael Dixon, Cali Christensen, Rachael Leisek

Space Dynamics Laboratory Publications

We have lift off!

Cali Christensen started her summer at Quantum Frontiers (QF) at an intern lunch. Seated around her were 20 other interns from universities all over the country who had been selected from a pool of over 900 applicants to participate in high-tech, space-related research endeavors pushing the boundaries of various fields such as engineering, mathematics, computer science, machine learning, and physics. Cali quickly realized after the first presentation that she may be one of the only non-engineer or scientists in the room. Her internship was different from any others that QF had yet sponsored. Instead of making …

Classification Of Plant Moisture Conditions Using Canopy And Leaf Temperature Responses To Step Changes Of Incident Radiation, George Meyer, Ellen T. Paparozzi, Erin Stevens

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

Environmental and soil conditions affect plant productivity. Determining and understanding how plants respond to moisture stress may be considered in different ways, but often not easily done. This study focused on measuring canopy and individual leaf temperature response times of selected horticultural and agricultural crops, treated to very dry (moisture stress) and well-watered conditions, and subjected to an incident step radiation change at the top of the canopy, in a controlled environment at a constant air temperature. A light-emitting-diode (LED), grow light system, delivering approximately 400 μEinstein s-1 m-2 of photosynthetically-active-radiation (PAR) was turned on and off to produce light …

Deep Learning For Real-World Object Detection, Xiongwei Wu

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

Despite achieving significant progresses, most existing detectors are designed to detect objects in academic contexts but consider little in real-world scenarios. In real-world applications, the scale variance of objects can be significantly higher than objects in academic contexts; In addition, existing methods are designed for achieving localization with relatively low precision, however more precise localization is demanded in real-world scenarios; Existing methods are optimized with huge amount of annotated data, but in certain real-world scenarios, only a few samples are available. In this dissertation, we aim to explore novel techniques to address these research challenges to make object detection algorithms …

Synthesis Of Carbide Ceramics Via Reduction And Carburization Of Oxyanions Adsorbed Onto An Activated Carbon Matrix, Grant Wallace

Graduate Theses & Non-Theses

Carbide ceramics rank high among the hardest and most chemically resistant materials. Their ability to resist physical and chemical attack under conditions where more traditional materials fail make them very desirable for a number of industrial applications. Their use is limited, however, due to the expensive and energy-intensive methods required to produce them commercially.

A more versatile and energy-efficient process for commercial carbide production has been developed by synthesizing micron/sub-micron carbide ceramic particles through the adsorption and subsequent carburization of anions on an activated carbon matrix. Oxyanion solutions containing sodium tungstate, sodium molybdate, or sodium metasilicate are adsorbed onto activated …

A Testbed And Methods For Improved Power Plant Model Validation Via Pmu Terminal Measurements, Jacob Eisenbarth

Graduate Theses & Non-Theses

The power industry requires the validation and sharing of the models for generators and controlling equipment to other utilities within North America. Accurate simulation of the electric grid is essential when setting operation and control strategies during various conditions present on the grid. An industry accepted method for performing model validation involves using the voltage and frequency measurements during an event, typically recorded by a phasor measurement unit, to perform a dynamic simulation on the system. The output real and reactive powers from the dynamic simulation and the actual event are then compared to each other. If the real and …

Modeling And Prototyping A Modular, Low-Cost Collision Avoidance System For Uavs, Tyler Holliday

Graduate Theses & Non-Theses

Many challenges arise when attempting to use unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in indoor environments, such as the lack of a GPS signal for use in navigation and the smaller margin of error in movements. Typically, those challenges are addressed by using a collision avoidance system. However, most commercially available collision avoidance systems are expensive, limited in suppliers, and are restricted to use on a specific platform. Additionally, some of the collision avoidance systems choose to forego obstacle detection in one or more directions, usually the upward direction. This work proposes that it is possible to develop a custom, low-cost collision …

Secondary Uses Of Ballutes After Aerocapture, Josiah Shelton

Master's Theses

Aerocapture is a method for spacecraft orbital insertion that is currently being assessed for use in interplanetary missions. This method would use a low periapsis hyperbolic entry orbit to induce drag allowing the spacecraft to slow down without the use of a propulsion system. This is accomplished by using a ballute (balloon parachute), which is released after the appropriate change in velocity necessary to achieve the desired planetary orbit. Once released, the ballute could deploy a secondary mission vehicle. A MATLAB simulation was run to understand the environment a secondary payload would undergo, such as heating and deceleration, as well …

Secretion Of Proteins And Antibody Fragments From Transiently Transfected Endothelial Progenitor Cells, Loree Heller, Reynald Thinard, Melanie Chevalier, Sezgi Arpag, Yu Jing, Ruth Greferath, Richard Heller, Claude Nicolau

Bioelectrics Publications

In neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, multiple sclerosis and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, neuroinflammation can lead to blood-brain barrier (BBB) breakdown. After intravenous or intra-arterial injection into mice, endothelial progenitor cells (EPCs) home to the damaged BBB to promote neurovascular repair. Autologous EPCs transfected to express specific therapeutic proteins offer an innovative therapeutic option. Here, we demonstrate that EPC transfection by electroporation with plasmids encoding the reporter protein GFP or an anti-beta-amyloid antibody fragment (Fab) leads to secretion of each protein. We also demonstrate the secreted anti-beta-amyloid Fab protein functions in beta-amyloid aggregate solubilization.

Dynamic Modeling And Optimal Design For Net Zero Energy Houses Including Hybrid Electric And Thermal Energy Storage, Huangjie Gong, Vandana Rallabandi, Dan M. Ionel, Donald G. Colliver, Shaun Duerr, Cristinel Ababei

Power and Energy Institute of Kentucky Faculty Publications

Net zero energy (NZE) houses purchase zero net metered electricity from the grid over a year. Technical challenges brought forth by NZE homes are related to the intermittent nature of solar generation, and are due to the fact that peak solar generation and load are not coincident. This leads to a large rate of change of load, and in case of high PV penetration communities, often requires the installation of gas power plants to service this variability. This paper proposes a hybrid energy storage system including batteries and a variable power electric water heater which enables the NZE homes to …

Flexible Capacitive Pressure Sensors And Triboelectric Energy Harvesters Using Laser-Assisted Patterning Process For Flexible Hybrid Electronic Applications, Valliammai Palaniappan

Masters Theses

This work focuses on the design, fabrication and characterization of novel flexible capacitive pressure sensors and triboelectric energy harvesters using laser-assisted patterning process for flexible hybrid electronic applications. Initially, the capacitive pressure sensor was developed by fabricating a set of polydimethylsiloxanes (PDMS) dielectric films with pyramid shaped micro-structures using a laser-assisted patterning process. The pressure sensor consists of two electrodes (top and bottom) that were fabricated by depositing silver (Ag) on flexible polyethylene terephthalate (PET) using additive screen-printing process. Finally, the pressure sensor was assembled by attaching the top and bottom Ag electrodes to the smooth side of pyramid shaped …

Prediction Of Isotropic Strain Hardening Material Properties Using Gradient Boosted Regression Tree Method And Hyperparameter Optimization, Darren R. Promer

Masters Theses

In this study a new technique is proposed for the determination of elastic-plastic stress-strain relations for isotropic materials using the force-displacement output from an instrumented indentation test, finite element simulation, and machine learning methods. This non-destructive testing methodology has promising potential for industry implementation. Applications to benefit from this method include the characterization of localized material properties on surface engineered components, and the post-manufacturing assessment of material properties for items such as additively manufactured metallic components and load-bearing welded joints.

Currently, the capability of the instrumented indentation test for determining material properties is limited to the elastic modulus and surface …

A Multiscale Thermomechanical Metal Additive Manufacturing Simulation And The Impact Of Geometry On Residual Stress And Distortion, Luis Fernando Silva Velasco

Masters Theses

Metal additive manufacturing is an enabling technology for the rapid prototyping and manufacturing of geometrically complex parts that would otherwise be difficult or impossible to manufacture. However, the manufacturing process can produce undesired residual stresses and distortions. The first part of the work describes the implementation of a multiscale, thermo-mechanical simulation modeling the metal powder bed fusion additive manufacturing process. NASA’s Micromechanics Analysis Code was is to incorporate the microscale effects of an evolving material porosity on the predicted macroscale residual fields. The simulation shows that modeling an evolving material porosity, as the material transitions from a metal powder to …

The Response Of Synechococcus Sp. Pcc 7002 To Micro-/Nano Polyethylene Particles - Investigation Of A Key Anthropogenic Stressor, Mary C. Machado, Gina V. Vimbela, Tania T. Silva-Oliveira, Arijit Bose, Anubhav Tripathi

Chemical, Biomolecular, and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications

Microplastics or plastic particles less than 5 mm in size are a ubiquitous and damaging pol- lutant in the marine environment. However, the interactions between these plastic particles and marine microorganisms are just starting to be understood. The objective of this study was to measure the responses of a characteristic marine organism (Synechococcus sp. PCC 7002) to an anthropogenic stressor (polyethelene nanoparticles and microparticles) using molecular techniques. This investigation showed that polyethylene microparticles and nanoparticles have genetic, enzymatic and morphological effects on Synechococcus sp. PCC 7002. An RT-PCR analysis showed increases in the expression of esterase and hydro- lase genes …

Incorporating Stability In Deployable Origami-Based Engineering Applications, David Wayne Andrews

Theses and Dissertations

For origami-based designs to be functional, they need to be stable. Typically, stability is achieved through the introduction of exterior supports or members. This work focuses on incorporating stability into deployable origami-based engineering applications, including the development of deployable stiffeners or hard stops and generating concepts for stable origami-based systems in specific applications. Two types of deployable stiffeners are developed. Models for transcrease hard stops are presented, which can be directly implemented into origami-patterns to block motion at a specified angle. Thickness Utilizing Deployable Hard Stops (ThUDS), adapted from the transcrease hard stop models, can be implemented into thick materials …

Born-Digital Preservation: The Art Of Archiving Photos With Script And Batch Processing, Rachel S. Evans, Leslie Grove, Sharon Bradley

Articles, Chapters and Online Publications

With our IT department preparing to upgrade the University of Georgia’s Alexander Campbell King Law Library (UGA Law Library) website from Drupal 7 to 8 this fall, a web developer, an archivist, and a librarian teamed up a year ago to make plans for preserving thousands of born-digital images. We wanted to harvest photographs housed only in web-based photo galleries on the law school website and import them into our repository’s collection. The problem? There were five types of online photo galleries, and our current repository did not include appropriate categories for all of the photographs. The solution? Expand our …

Remediation Of Desiccation Cracking In Clayey Soils Through Bio-Cementation And Bottom Ash, Mark Vail

Theses and Dissertations

Desiccation cracking considerably impairs the hydraulic and mechanical properties of clayey soils and is critical to the long-term performance of infrastructure foundations and earth structures. Classical crack remediation methods are associated with high labor and maintenance costs or the usage of environment-unfriendly chemicals. Recycling waste materials and developing bio-mediated techniques have emerged as green and sustainable soil stabilization solutions. The objective of this study is to investigate the feasibility of soil crack remediation through the usage of microbial-induced calcite precipitation (MICP) and bottom ash admixtures. We carry out monotonic drying and cyclic drying-wetting tests to characterize the effects of bottom …

Rotor-On-Rotor Aeroacoustic Interactions Of Multirotor In Hover, Eduardo Alvarez, Austin Schenk, Tyler Critchfield, Andrew Ning

Faculty Publications

Multirotor configurations introduce complicated aerodynamic and aeroacoustic interactions that must be considered during aircraft design. In this paper we explore two numerical methods to model the acoustic noise caused by aerodynamic rotor-on-rotor interactions of rotors in hover. The first method uses a conventional mesh-based unsteady Reynolds-average Navier-Stokes (URANS) solver, while the second consists of a meshless Lagrangian solver based on the viscous vortex particle method (VPM). Both methods are coupled with an aeroacoustics solver for tonal and broadband noise predictions. Noise predictions are validated for single and multi-rotor configurations, obtaining with the VPM a similar accuracy than URANS while being …

Tracking Joint Angles During Whole-Arm Movements Using Electromagnetic Sensors, Ryan Clark, Taylor Dickinson, Johnfredy Loaiza, Daniel W. Geiger, Steven Knight Charles

Faculty Publications

Electromagnetic (EM) motion tracking systems are suitable for many research and clinical applications, including in-vivo measurements of whole-arm movements. Unfortunately, the methodology for in vivo measurements of whole-arm movements using EM sensors is not well described in the literature, making it difficult to perform new measurements and all but impossible to make meaningful comparisons between studies. The recommendations of the International Society of Biomechanics (ISB) have provided a great service, but by necessity they do not provide clear guidance or standardization on all required steps. The goal of this paper was to provide a comprehensive methodology for using EM sensors …

Nanomaterial-Based Drilling Fluids For Exploitation Of Unconventional Reservoirs: A Review, Muhammad Ali, Husna Hayati Jarni, Adnan Aftab, Abdul Razak Ismail, Noori M.Cata Saady, Muhammad Faraz Sahito, Alireza Keshavarz, Stefan Iglauer, Mohammad Sarmadivaleh

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

© 2020 by the authors. The world's energy demand is steadily increasing where it has now become difficult for conventional hydrocarbon reservoir to meet levels of demand. Therefore, oil and gas companies are seeking novel ways to exploit and unlock the potential of unconventional resources. These resources include tight gas reservoirs, tight sandstone oil, oil and gas shales reservoirs, and high pressure high temperature (HPHT) wells. Drilling of HPHT wells and shale reservoirs has become more widespread in the global petroleum and natural gas industry. There is a current need to extend robust techniques beyond costly drilling and completion jobs, …

Groundwater Level Mapping Tool: An Open Source Web Application For Assessing Groundwater Sustainability, Steven W. Evans, Norman L. Jones, Gustavious P. Williams, Daniel P. Ames, E. James Nelson

Faculty Publications

Decision makers need an accurate understanding of aquifer storage trends to effectively manage groundwater resources. Groundwater is difficult to monitor and quantify since the data collected from monitoring wells are often available only at irregular and infrequent intervals. We present an open-source web application (app) to visualize groundwater data over time and automatically calculate changes in aquifer storage volume to help managers assess aquifer sustainability. This app uses a novel multi-linear regression (MLR) algorithm to impute missing data for infrequently sampled wells, using correlated data from other wells in the same aquifer. The app uses this MLR-imputed data to spatially …

Flood Prediction Using Artificial Neural Networks: Empirical Evidence From Mauritius As A Case Study, A. Z. Dhunny, Reena H. Seebocus, Z. Allam, Mohammad Yasser Chuttur

Knowledge Engineering and Data Science

Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) has been well studied for flood prediction. However, there is not enough empirical evidence to generalize ANN applicability to small countries with microclimates prevailing in a small geographical space. In this paper, we focus on the climatic conditions of Mauritius for which we seek to investigate the accuracy of using ANN to predict flooding using locally collected data from 11 meteorological stations spread across the country. The ANN model for flood prediction presented in this work is trained using 20,000 climate data records, collected over a period of two years for Mauritius. Our input climate features …

Opinion Analysis For Emotional Classification On Emoji Tweets Using The Naïve Bayes Algorithm, Siti Sendari, Ilham Ari Elbaith Zaeni, Dian Candra Lestari, Hanny Prasetya Hariyadi

Knowledge Engineering and Data Science

Opinion Analysis is a research study needed to social media, since the content could become a trending topic and has a significant impact on social life. One of the social media that have a big contribution to cyberspace and information development is Twitter. In the Twitter application, users can insert images that represent emotions, facial expressions, or icons. Emoji is a graphic symbol in the form of an image to express a thing, with the Emoji, a text can be read and understood according to its meaning because the image represents it. Of the several things that have been mentioned …

Power-Over-Tether Uas Leveraged For Nearly-Indefinite Meteorological Data Acquisition, Daniel Rico, Carrick Detweiler, Francisco Muñoz-Arriola

School of Computing: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Use of unmanned aerial systems (UASs) in agriculture has risen in the past decade. These systems are key to modernizing agriculture. UASs collect and elucidate data previously difficult to obtain and used to help increase agricultural efficiency and production. Typical commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) UASs are limited by small payloads and short flight times. Such limits inhibit their ability to provide abundant data at multiple spatiotemporal scales. In this paper, we describe the design and construction of the tethered aircraft unmanned system (TAUS), which is a novel power-over-tether UAS leveraging the physical presence of the tether to launch multiple sensors along …

Vector Magneto-Optical Generalized Ellipsometry On Magnetic Slanted Columnar Heterostructured Thin Films, Chad Briley

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Modern material growth techniques allow for nano-engineering highly complex three dimensionally nanostructured materials. These nano-engineered materials possess highly anisotropic physical properties that are significantly different from that of their bulk counterparts. The magnetization properties of nano-engineered materials can be modified through a close range interaction known as magnetic exchange. These materials are referred to as magnetic exchange-coupled materials. Exchange-coupled magnetic materials are composite magnetic materials where the magnetization of one material is influenced by the magnetization state of the neighboring materials.

The author describes the creation of a representative sample set of exchange-coupled nanoengineered magnetic materials. These materials are created …

Optimum Mixing Design Of Xanthan And Gellan Treated Soils For Slope Stabilization For Weathered Shales And Glacial Tills In Nebraska, Layal Bitar

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

Verdigre located in North Eastern Nebraska experienced slope failures. The geological formations of theses slopes largely consist of several layers of weathered shales and glacial tills. It is believed that the weathering process reduced the shear strength of the soils leading to slope failures.

In this study, strength characteristics of Xanthan and Gellan gums treated soil specimens compacted at the optimum moisture content for field application were investigated so that the biopolymer treated soils may be properly used to stabilize the slopes. The untreated and treated samples were subjected to a wet-freeze(-6^oF)-thaw(167^oF)-dry weathering process up to …

Machine Learning For The Internet Of Things: Applications, Implementation, And Security, Vishalini Laguduva Ramnath

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Artificial intelligence and ubiquitous sensor systems have seen tremendous advances in recent times, resulting in groundbreaking impact across domains such as healthcare, entertainment, and transportation through a collective ecosystem called the Internet of Things. The advent of 5G and improved wireless networks will further accelerate the research and development of tools in deep learning, sensor systems, and computing platforms by providing improved network latency and bandwidth. While tremendous progress has been made in the Internet of Things, current work has largely focused on building robust applications that leverage the data collected through ubiquitous sensor nodes to provide actionable rules and …

Identification Of The Planetary Boundary Layer (Pbl) Using Upper Air Observation, Elok Suci Wulandari

International Programs

No abstract provided.

Audio-Visual Caption Evaluation Metric For People Who Are Deaf And Hard Of Hearing, Akhter Al Amin

Articles

While the availability of captioned television programming has increased, the quality of this captioning is not always acceptable to Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHH) viewers, especially for live or unscripted content, broadcast from local television stations, especially in smaller markets. There is a need for formal metrics to evaluate captioning quality, to enable audits or quality assurance. Although some current caption metrics focus on comparing the textual accuracy (comparing the caption text and accurate transcription of what was spoken), there are other properties of captions that may affect quality or usability judgments. We propose to conduct experiments with DHH …

Applications Of Portable Libs For Actinide Analysis, Ashwin P. Rao, John D. Auxier Ii, Dung Vu, Michael B. Shattan

Faculty Publications

A portable LIBS device was used for rapid elemental impurity analysis of plutonium alloys. This device demonstrates the potential for fast, accurate in-situ chemical analysis and could significantly reduce the fabrication time of plutonium alloys.