Engineering Commons^™

Overseas Chinese Environmental Engineers And Scientists Association (Oceesa) Report, Regular Issue, February 2020, Yung-Tse Hung, Wen-Chi Ku, Lawrence K. Wang

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

This OCEESA report, which is regular issue of OCEESA Journal (Overseas Chinese Environmental Engineers and Scientists Association Journal). This report is OCEESA report number: OCEESA/JL-2020/3701, February 2020, ISSN 1072 -7248. This report is also OCEESA Journal, Volume 37, Number 1, February 2020. Yung-Tse Hung, Permanent Executive Director, OCEESA, is editor of this report. This issue includes: (A) 10 OCEESA Best Papers (B) 6 OCEESA Papers; 21.Zhang-Zhi Charlie Huang 黄长志 , Implementing Compensation System for Environmental Damages: Challenges and Solutions, 22. Hanlu Yan, Kaimin Shih施凱閔 , Quantitative X-Ray Diffraction for Characterizing P Recovery Products from Wastewater, 23. Kaimin Shih 施凱閔 , …

Cycle-To-Cycle Flow Variations In A Square Duct With A Symmetrically Oscillating Constriction, Erica Sherman, Lori M. Lambert, Bethany White, Michael H. Krane, Timothy Wei

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering: Faculty Publications

Spatially and temporally resolved Digital Particle Image Velocimetry (DPIV) measurements are presented of flow complexities in a nominally two-dimensional, symmetric, duct with an oscillating constriction. The motivation for this research lies in advancing the state-of-the-art in applying integral control volume analysis to modeling unsteady internal flows. The specific target is acoustic modeling of human phonation. The integral mass and momentum equations are directly coupled to the acoustic equations and provide quantitative insight into acoustic source strengths in addition to the dynamics of the fluid-structure interactions in the glottis. In this study, a square cross-section duct was constructed with symmetric, computer …

Analysis And Assessment Of The Reimbursement Rates And Mechanisms For Kentucky’S Publicly Funded Ferries, P. Gayle Marks, Bryan Gibson, Andrew Martin, Steven Douglas Kreis

Kentucky Transportation Center Research Report

The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KYTC) reimburses publicly operated ferries, including when they cease operations due to severe weather or unforeseen events. Reimbursement procedures are not codified in law and are largely based on historical practice. To determine how the Cabinet should handle reimbursement, funding, oversight of ferry services moving forward, the Kentucky Transportation Center (KTC) reviewed practices adopted by 10 other states and conducted a detailed analysis of Kentucky’s current approach. Of the states KTC examined, only Tennessee reimburses ferry operations for closures (at 50 percent of the normal hourly rate for a period up to 48 hours). Half of …

Predicting Pilot Misperception Of Runway Excursion Risk Through Machine Learning Algorithms Of Recorded Flight Data, Edwin Vincent Odisho Ii

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

The research used predictive models to determine pilot misperception of runway excursion risk associated with unstable approaches. The Federal Aviation Administration defined runway excursion as a veer-off or overrun of the runway surface. The Federal Aviation Administration also defined a stable approach as an aircraft meeting the following criteria: (a) on target approach airspeed, (b) correct attitude, (c) landing configuration, (d) nominal descent angle/rate, and (e) on a straight flight path to the runway touchdown zone. Continuing an unstable approach to landing was defined as Unstable Approach Risk Misperception in this research. A review of the literature revealed that an …

Dislocation-Oxide Interaction In Y2o3 Embedded Fe: A Molecular Dynamics Simulation Study, M. Mustafa Azeem, Qingyu Wang, Zhongyu Li, Yue Zhang

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Oxide dispersed strengthened (ODS) steel is an important candidate for Gen-IV reactors. Oxide embedded in Fe can help to trap irradiation defects and enhances the strength of steel. It was observed in this study that the size of oxide has a profound impact on the depinning mechanism. For smaller sizes, the oxide acts as a void; thus, letting the dislocation bypass without any shear. On the other hand, oxides larger than 2 nm generate new dislocation segments around themselves. The depinning is similar to that of Orowan mechanism and the strengthening effect is likely to be greater for larger oxides. …

Efficient Catalytic Production Of Biodiesel Using Nano-Sized Sugar Beet Agro-Industrial Waste, Hosam H. Abdelhady, Hany A. Elazab, Emad M. Ewais, Mohamed Saber, Mohamed S. El-Deab

Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This paper addresses the use of agro-industrial residue as a promising heterogeneous catalyst for the efficient production of biodiesel. That is, CaO-rich Sugarbeet agro-industrial waste (smashed down to nano-size) shows superb catalytic activity for biodiesel production via transesterification process employing sunflower oil and methanol. Physicochemical properties of the proposed catalyst are probed by TGA–DTG, XRF, XRD, FT-IR, SEM, BET, and CO2-TPD techniques. Biodiesel conversion (%) of Ca. 93% is achieved under the optimal conditions (catalyst loading of 1 wt%, methanol/oil molar ratio of 4.5:1, refluxed at 75 °C for 60 min). The relatively short reaction time indicates the enhanced kinetics …

Embedded Spectral Descriptors: Learning The Point-Wise Correspondence Metric Via Siamese Neural Networks, Zhiyu Sun, Yusen He, Andrey Gritsenko, Amaury Lendasse, Stephen Baek

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

A Robust and Informative Local Shape Descriptor Plays an Important Role in Mesh Registration. in This Regard, Spectral Descriptors that Are based on the Spectrum of the Laplace-Beltrami Operator Have Been a Popular Subject of Research for the Last Decade Due to their Advantageous Properties, Such as Isometry Invariance. Despite Such, However, Spectral Descriptors Often Fail to Give a Correct Similarity Measure for Nonisometric Cases Where the Metric Distortion between the Models is Large. Hence, They Are Not Reliable for Correspondence Matching Problems When the Models Are Not Isometric. in This Paper, it is Proposed a Method to Improve the …

Function Based Brain Modeling And Simulation Of An Ischemic Region In Post-Stroke Patients Using The Bidomain, Alejandro Lopez-Rincon, Cesar Cantu, Gibran Etcheverry, Rogelio Soto, Shingo Shimoda

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Background. Several studies have shown that post-stroke patients develop divergent activity in the sensorimotor areas of the affected hemisphere of the brain compared to healthy people during motor tasks. Proper mathematical models will help us understand this activity and clarify the associated underlying mechanisms.

New Method. This research describes an anatomically based brain computer model in post-stroke patients. We simulate an ischemic region for arm motion using the bidomain approach. Two scenarios are considered: a healthy subject and a post-stroke patient with motion impairment. Next, we limit the volume of propagation considering only the sensorimotor area of the brain.

Comparison …

A Sequential Partial Information Bomber‐Defender Shooting Problem, Krishna Kalyanam, David W. Casbeer, Meir Pachter

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Impact Of Team Formation Approach On Teamwork Effectiveness And Performance In An Upper-Level Undergraduate Chemical Engineering Laboratory Course, Erick S. Vasquez, Matthew J. Dewitt, Zachary J. West, Michael J. Elsass

Chemical and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications

This study focuses on the impact of team formation approach on teamwork effectiveness and performance spanning three years of instruction of the chemical engineering unit operations laboratory, which is an upper-level undergraduate laboratory course. Team formation approaches changed each year, and assessment tools, including peer-assessment, academic performance, and course evaluations, were employed to evaluate team performance. Approaches included three cases: instructor-selected teams based on GPA with the objective of a similar cumulative average GPA for each team, student self-selected teams, and a combination of self-selected teams with instructor-selected teams for a final experiment. For the third case, new teams were …

Performance Evaluation Of Lightweight Normal And Geopolymer Foamed Concrete Using Palm Oil Fuel Ash As Partial Replacement Of Binder, M .E. Alnahhal Ahmed

Student Works (2020-2029)

Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) have a detrimental effect on the environment and this had led many researchers to search for other alternatives in the form of sustainable cementitious materials. The depletion of natural resources and dumping the industrial by-products and waste materials are serious concern to our environment. This research focusses on the performance of using a palm oil industrial by-product, namely, palm oil fuel ash (POFA), as a partial replacement for OPC and fly ash (FA) in lightweight normal foamed concrete and lightweight geopolymer foamed concrete, respectively. Thus, using 10, 20, and 30% POFA …

Challenges Of International Development Projects In Yemen: Perspective Of Public Work Project, Mohammed Lashuel Hassan Mohammed

Student Works (2020-2029)

International development projects are public projects that are created to support the economy and people’s life needs, mostly these types of projects target developing countries. These types of projects face challenges more than other projects due to many reasons. Accordingly, this research aims to explore the challenges that face international development projects in Yemen and conducted by the Public Work Project and highlight the most significant issues that face ID project as well to overcome these challenges. This research adopted the qualitative method by conducting ten semi-structured interviews with the PWP team and others stakeholders. The interview technique was selected …

Short-Term Electricity Price Forecasting In Deregulated Electricity Market Based On Enhanced Artificial Intelligence Techniques, Pourdaryaei Alireza

Student Works (2020-2029)

Electricity price forecasting is considered as one of prime factors for operation, planning and scheduling of price-setter market participants. However, possessing time variant, non-linear and non-stationary behaviors make the electricity price a complex signal. The main challenge in this area is providing highly accurate and efficient day-ahead price forecasting. A suitable feature selection technique, which is able to model the interacting features and nonlinearities of the forecast processes, is still required although researches have been performed for day-ahead forecasting. In this research, a hybrid electricity price forecasting methodology is proposed using two-stage feature selection method and optimization using adaptive neuro-fuzzy …

Development Of Integrated Zinc Oxide Nanorods Coated Glass Substrate Sensing Device, Mohd Yusof Haziezol Helmi

Student Works (2020-2029)

A simple and practical cost-effective integrated zinc oxide (ZnO) nanorods coated glass substrate sensing device for humidity and formaldehyde vapor sensing applications is reported. The developed sensor device is composed of a commercial light-emitting diode (LED) and photodiode that correspondingly served as light source and detector which precisely positioned on a 3D printed sensor platform. A receiver circuit and Arduino platform were employed for signal amplification and processing. A uniform ZnO nanorods coating were grown on the surface of glass substrate via hydrothermal method by controlling the growth durations and coating length. A standard reference for the optimum working condition …

Dry And Wet Torrefaction Of Microalgal Biomass For Biochar Production As Bioenergy Sources, Yong Yang Gan

Student Works (2020-2029)

Increasing population in global and living standards have risen the consumption of global energy. Thermochemical conversion approaches hold great potential for the biomass conversion into energy applications. Among these approaches, torrefaction is a promising technique to enhance the biomass properties, making it more practical and suitable in biofuel applications. In this study, two different species of microalgae (third generation biofuel feedstock) including Chlorella vulgaris ESP-31 and FSP-E were used as feedstocks for dry and wet torrefaction. Dry torrefaction of microalgae was performed at temperatures of 200, 250 and 300 ºC, and holding times of 15, 30, 45 and 60 min, …

Kinematic Analysis Of Forehand Drop Shot And Long Shot Services In Table Tennis, Ibrahim Norzuria

Student Works (2020-2029)

Table tennis is one of the most widely played sports in the world. A frequent hand movement is compulsory to execute stroke than other limbs, especially the projection of racket and ball speeds,which can help to improve players’ performance. Until now, research on table tennis serving is limited. Service was assumed important in table tennis because the effective serve may allow the serving player to have advantage and control over the game. The 3D dynamic analysis is the appropriate method to analyze a sport activity such as table tennis. Therefore, the aim of research was to determine the kinematic involved …

Electromechanics Modelling Of The Effects Of Myocardial Infarction On Left Ventricular Remodelling, Chin Neng Leong

Student Works (2020-2029)

Myocardial infarction (MI) is one of the diseases with the highest mortality rate. Following MI, myocardium experiences abrupt changes in its loading condition due to the presence of infarct. In response to such changes, myocytes undergo adaptations to maintain homeostasis. However, maladaptation can happen and lead to remodelling, in which the left ventricle (LV) gradually loses its function and eventually turns into heart failure. Nevertheless, the mechanisms underlying LV remodelling are still poorly understood. In this study, a generic LV model was developed, incorporating realistic fibre orientation and excitable contracting myocardium. It was demonstrated that the developed model is capable …

In-Situ Gold-Ceria Nanoparticles: Superior Optical Fluorescence Quenching Sensor For Dissolved Oxygen, Nader Shehata, Ishac Kandas, Effat Samir

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Cerium oxide (ceria) nanoparticles (NPs) have been proved to be an efficient optical fluorescent material through generating visible emission (~530 nm) under violet excitation. This feature allowed ceria NPs to be used as an optical sensor via the fluorescence quenching Technique. In this paper, the impact of in-situ embedded gold nanoparticles (Au NPs) inside ceria nanoparticles was studied. Then, gold–ceria NPs were used for sensing dissolved oxygen (DO) in aqueous media. It was observed that both fluorescence intensity and lifetime were changed due to increased concentration of DO. Added gold was found to enhance the sensitivity of ceria to DO …

Analysis Of Pro-Drop Errors In L2 English By L1 Spanish Speakers, Marcos R. Ynoa

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Although educators and linguists have described and studied L2 learner errors, often from the perspective of positive and negative transfer (Krashen, 1981), there is relatively little empirical data on the frequencies of L2 error types. Learner error rankings do exist (Donahue, 2001) (Cambridge learner corpus; (Nicholls, 1999)), but these rankings are often too general and may overlook specifics when it comes to particular language learner groups. The goal of our work is to develop a tool that can be used to explore error patterns, address educator needs, and help answer research questions in L2 language learning. The tool we have …

Ii-Vi Type-Ii Quantum Dot Superlattices For Novel Applications, Vasilios Deligiannakis

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In this thesis, we discuss the growth procedure and the characterization results obtained for epitaxially grown submonolayer type-II quantum dot superlattices made of II-VI semiconductors. We have investigated the spin dynamics of ZnSe layers with embedded type-II ZnTe quantum dots and the use of (Zn)CdTe/ZnCdSe QDs for intermediate band solar cell (IBSC). Samples with a higher quantum dot density exhibit longer electron spin lifetimes, up to ~1 ns at low temperatures. Tellurium isoelectronic centers, which form in the ZnSe spacer regions as a result of the growth conditions, were also probed. A new growth sequence for type-II (Zn)CdTe/ZnCdSe (QDs) was …

Multi-Level Fine-Scaled Sentiment Sensing With Ambivalence Handling, Zhaoxia Wang, Seng-Beng Ho, Erik Cambria

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Social media represent a rich source of information, such as critiques, feedback, and other opinions posted online by Internet users. Such information is typically a good reflection of users’ sentiments and attitudes towards various services, topics, or products. Sentiment analysis has become an increasingly important natural language processing (NLP) task to help users make sense of what is happening in the Internet blogosphere and it can be useful for companies as well as public organizations. However, most existing sentiment analysis techniques are only able to analyze data at the aggregate level, merely providing a binary classification (positive vs. negative), and …

Neural Approximate Dynamic Programming For On-Demand Ride-Pooling, Sanket Shah, Meghna Lowalekar, Pradeep Varakantham

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

On-demand ride-pooling (e.g., UberPool, LyftLine, GrabShare) has recently become popular because of its ability to lower costs for passengers while simultaneously increasing revenue for drivers and aggregation companies (e.g., Uber). Unlike in Taxi on Demand (ToD) services – where a vehicle is assigned one passenger at a time – in on-demand ride-pooling, each vehicle must simultaneously serve multiple passengers with heterogeneous origin and destination pairs without violating any quality constraints. To ensure near real-time response, existing solutions to the real-time ride-pooling problem are myopic in that they optimise the objective (e.g., maximise the number of passengers served) for the current …

Code Smells: A Synthetic Narrative Review, Peter Kokol Prof, Marko Kokol, Sašo Zagoranski

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

Code smells are symptoms of poor design and implementation choices, which might hinder comprehension, increase code complexity and fault-proneness and decrease maintainability of software systems. The aim of our study was to perform a triangulation of bibliometric and thematic analysis on code smell literature production. The search was performed on Scopus (Elsevier, Netherlands) database using the search string “code smells” which resulted in 442 publications. The Go-to statement was the first bad code smells identified in software engineering history in 1968. The literature production trend has been positive. The most productive countries were the United States, Italy and Brazil. Eight …

Biomedical Engineering: An Exploratory Analysis Of The Field, Meredith Ayers, Nestor Osorio

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

Technological advances have a significant impact in medical sciences. biomedical engineering, which is a multi-faceted field that includes engineering, biology, chemistry, computer science, and several areas of the medical sciences among others, is the topic of this study. With a humble beginning over a century ago and formally created in the early years of the 1960s, biomedical engineering has become a strong, highly competitive and productive field. Its literature has worldwide coverage with an accelerated increase after 2000.

In this study, the authors explore two issues: First, what constitute the subject domain of Biomedical Engineering and second with the use …

Sick Buildings, Poor Design And Public Heath, Dalia Shebl Said, Yasmin Shebl Said

Architecture and Planning Journal (APJ)

There is no doubt that there is a close relationship between health problems and housing conditions. According to the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates in developing countries those 2 million early and unexpected deaths, with close to half occurring among children less than 5 years old die from indoor air pollution and bad housing. Housing is an important determinant of health, and substandard housing is a major public health issue. Designing and bad orientation of housing are found to have significant effects on poor respiratory health especially in children, and increase an infectious disease thereby putting them at higher risk …

Architectural Renovation Of Stadiums As A New Vision For Sustainability Case Study (Renovation Of Castelão Arena Stadium, Brazil & Soldier Field Stadium, Chicago), Sherif Khashaba, Ghada Rehan

Architecture and Planning Journal (APJ)

By reviewing the current situation of some existing stadium buildings, many stadiums are not applicable to sustainability requirements, with the absence of the required principles in this field, where sustainability is considered now as one of the important current trends. Rehabilitation of existing Buildings considers a crucial contributor to most sustainable development aspects. It is a starting point for the redevelopment which promotes social, economic and environmental aspects of sustainability. Both FIFA and UEFA support the need for sustainable stadiums. They set out some of the objectives which can achieve sustainability in stadiums. These objectives include efficient use of energy, …

Achieving Visual Comfort In University Educational Spaces:A Design Framework For Responsive Kinetic Skin, Fatima Belok, Mostafa Rabea, Mohamad Hanafi, Ibtihal Y. El-Bastawissi

Architecture and Planning Journal (APJ)

Achieving human comfort in a space is an architectural necessity. Feeling comfort is related to the sense organs network, such as the eyes, ears, nose, tactile sensors, heat sensors and brain. In fact, last few decades has witnessed the integration of many technologies and trends into the field of responsive architecture; among which kinetic architecture has been significant. Thus, the aim of this thesis is to achieve visual comfort in educational spaces in universities, while arguing that a responsive kinetic skin is to be an effective mean for achievement. That should help refreshing student and enhancing their educational spaces visually, …

A Proposed New Contemporary Vernacular Architecture As An Expression Of The Spirit Of Age-Design Principles: A Case Study Of Ajloun, Jordan, Mohannad Tarrad, Diana Abu-Baker

Architecture and Planning Journal (APJ)

The development in technology and economy has led to rapid changes in architectural products. This development has effects, not only on the modern countries, but also on the developing countries, which are historically and culturally rich. Jordan is one of them. This paper investigates vernacular architecture and its approaches as conservative and interpretative attitude to explore the definition of vernacular architecture in contemporary architecture in Jordan. This was achieved by analyzing the 'Royal Academy for Nature Conservation’ building, which has been designed by the architect, Ammar Khammash. Royal Academy for Nature Conservation project has been nominated for Aga Khan Award. …

Forward To Enhancing Informal Transportation Stations In Crowded Cities, Mary Felix, Mostafa Elhefnawi

Architecture and Planning Journal (APJ)

By observing the planning of developing countries, it is clear that there are several factors that affect the movements and behaviors of transportation. One of these behaviors is the appearance of informal transportation modes, which move along certain paths to fulfil citizens’ needs. The phenomenon of informal transportation modes appears due to a lack of formal transportation modes existing, or a weakness in planning that does not consider the users’ needs or community behavior. This paper focuses on the location of informal transportation stops, which affect transportation movements and traffic jams, by observing and documenting the location and facilities of …

Carbon Neutral Urban Spaces Under Climate Change Case Study: Renovation Of Sidi Gaber Neighborhood In Alexandria, Egypt, Abdel Aziz Farouk Mohamed

Architecture and Planning Journal (APJ)

With growing pressure from the public on governments and organizations to address climate change, the term ‘carbon neutral’ has become increasingly used in recent years. Carbon neutral is an emerging definition that relates to measuring, reducing and offsetting carbon energy used by either a building or an organization as a whole. Buildings are a significant source of greenhouse gas emissions when they operated by fossil fuel energy resources. Sustainable urban development is essential issue to enhance the quality of life of city residents and to decrease the negative impact of conventional type of energy through using the renewable energy resources. …