Engineering Commons^™

A Mixed Integer Programming Framework For The Fuel Optimal Guidance Of Complex Spacecraft Rendezvous And Proximity Operation Missions, Andrew S. Levalley

Theses and Dissertations

Space is a contested, congested, and competitive environment where space situational awareness (SSA) is a key factor in the long term sustainability of space as a national interest. Space-based SSA conducted by inspector satellites is critical to the detecting, tracking, and attribution of actions in space. Thus, space-based fuel-optimal maneuvers are essential to increasing mission life and improving the capability of inspector satellites working to characterize resident space objects (RSOs) in geosynchronous orbit (GEO). Additionally, on-orbit inspection missions can be characterized by multiple waypoint visits where an inspector is accomplishing a set of proximity operation mission objectives through the visit …

Identification Of New Glutamate Decarboxylases From Streptomyces For Efficient Production Of Γ-Aminobutyric Acid In Engineered Escherichia Coli, Haina Yuan, Hongbo Wang, Ozkan Fidan, Yong Qin, Gongnian Xiao, Jixun Zhan

Biological Engineering Faculty Publications

Background

Gamma (γ)-Aminobutyric acid (GABA) as a bioactive compound is used extensively in functional foods, pharmaceuticals and agro-industry. It can be biosynthesized via decarboxylation of monosodium glutamate (MSG) or L-glutamic acid (L-Glu) by glutamate decarboxylase (GAD; EC4.1.1.15). GADs have been identified from a variety of microbial sources, such as Escherichia coli and lactic acid bacteria. However, no GADs from Streptomyces have been characterized. The present study is aimed to identify new GADs from Streptomyces strains and establish an efficient bioproduction platform for GABA in E. coli using these enzymes.

Results

By sequencing and analyzing the genomes of three Streptomycesstrains, …

Investigating Air Pollution And Equity Impacts Of A Proposed Transportation Improvement Program For Tampa, Talha Kemal Kocak

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Transportation infrastructure is important for human mobility and population well-being. However, it can also have detrimental impacts on health and equity, including through increased air pollution and its unequal social distribution. There is a need for better understanding of these impacts and for better approaches that improve health and equity outcomes of transportation planning programs. In this study, we are investigating the air pollution and health equity impacts of an ongoing large-scale metropolitan transportation improvement program, Tampa Bay Next (TBNext). Specific objectives are: 1) to characterize and quantify the air pollution levels and population exposures resulting from the roadway expansion …

A Faculty Retreat Model Featuring Collaborative And Active Learning, Yeow Siow, Michael Scott, Houshang Darabi, Farzad Mashayek

ASEE IL-IN Section Conference

A workshop-style, active-learning model was recently implemented in a Mechanical and Industrial Engineering (MIE) department retreat prior to the start of the Fall 2018 term. The department is currently undergoing a curriculum redesign, and a special committee was created to design the talking points for the retreat. Among the concerns were: meaning of grades, expectation of grade distribution, adoption of teaching pedagogies that align with the department goals, and definition of teaching excellence. Opinions were divided, and many felt strongly about each topic. New and non-tenure-track faculty were initially assigned as scribe or presenter, so as to encourage participation. A …

A Model For Incorporating Undergraduate Research Into An Engineering Curriculum, Douglas Stamps

ASEE IL-IN Section Conference

A model is described for incorporating undergraduate research into an engineering curriculum through a vertically integrated design sequence. The sequence is composed of five courses: one each during the spring semester of the freshmen through junior years and two courses during the senior year. Each course offers skills that provide scaffolding for students to contribute to a team performing an engineering design project or research project. Teams are composed of freshmen through seniors (i.e., vertically integrated) and led by seniors. A strength of the model for undergraduate research is that upper level students can mentor lower level students, which allows …

International Aviation Collaboration In A Study Abroad Program, Brian Kozak, Peng Hao Wang

ASEE IL-IN Section Conference

Aviation is a global industry. As we continue to push the boundaries of technical advancements and operational efficiency in the aviation industry, the reliance on the global workforce will continue to increase. In the United States of America, the majority of educational establishments focus mainly in the education and training of students for the US aviation industry. The narrow focus significantly limits the amount of exposure and opportunities available to the students of these educational establishments. In order to improve global exposure and provide students with opportunities outside of the US aviation industry, the authors of the paper successfully established …

Writing Children’S Stories To Improve Engineering Student’S Communication With Non-Engineering Audiences, Benjamin D. Mcpheron, Katelyn J. Butler

ASEE IL-IN Section Conference

One of the biggest challenges for students in science and engineering is communicating technical information to a non-technical audience. Students may struggle because they are not adept writers, because they cannot divorce the ideas from the jargon, or because they simply don't understand the material well enough to explain it to someone else. To attempt to address this issue, this study proposes the use of children’s stories to help students practice writing for a target, non-technical audience. To measure the efficacy of this method, junior level engineering students in an electronics course in Fall 2018 were asked to write children’s …

Application Of Computational Tools To Spaghetti-Based Truss Bridge Design, Jin Xu, Jiliang Li, Nuri Zeytinoglu, Jinyuan Zhai

ASEE IL-IN Section Conference

Application of Computational Tools to Spaghetti-Based Truss Design

Statics and Strength of Materials are two foundational courses for Mechanical/Civil Engineering. In order to assist students in better understanding and applying concepts to a meaningful design task, SolidWorks and theoretical calculation were used for a spaghetti-bridge design contest with the constraints of given maximum weight and allowable support-material weight. As the first step of this iterative designing process, both extrude feature and structural member were introduced to model planar bridge trusses. Then SolidWorks’ Statics module was used to run FEA analysis of the structural performance in efforts to optimize the …

Innovative Remote Smart Home For Immersive Engagement, Kevin B. Martin, Abul Azad, Mohammed Adnan Shareef, Mrinal Roy

ASEE IL-IN Section Conference

An openly accessible, remotely operated smart home will be demonstrated as a tool for students to learn about residential energy usage and environmental impacts. Specifically, the demonstration unit provides classrooms an engaging experience that teaches students about energy efficiency technologies and how their behavior will have an impact on energy usage and the environment. It is expected that as students become aware of and understand how various energy efficiency technologies work barriers to their adoption will be lowered. The use of a web accessible, remote laboratory dramatically reduces lab setup time and equipment cost/space requirements for educators. Special attention is …

Development Of A Set Of Pre-Class Videos For Electromagnetic Theory, Benjamin Mcpheron, Josiah D. Kunz

ASEE IL-IN Section Conference

One important aspect of experiential learning is allowing students time to reflect on new concepts before the application of the material. Most commonly, this is attempted by assigning readings from a textbook, but research suggests that few students complete these readings. This discouraging fact has prompted the use of other resources, such as videos, to supplement pre-class readings in order to introduce new material. Previous work has been completed by this author to produce pre-class videos for use in an introductory circuits course. This paper extends that work to the development of pre-class videos for a senior level electrical engineering …

Interactive Simulations In Signals And Systems, Anthony Richardson

ASEE IL-IN Section Conference

Several interactive simulations that promote a better understanding of concepts traditionally encountered in an undergraduate Signals and Systems course are described. The simulations were developed to support the text “Signals & Systems: Theory and Applications” by Ulaby and Yagle. The text and all simulation programs are available for free download (ss2.eecs.umich.edu) as part of the Free Electrical Engineering Textbook Initiative from the University of Michigan.

All simulations use graphical control elements that allow the student to interact with the simulation. Many of the simulations use either real audio or image data so that the student can vary parameters of the …

Design Of A Carburizing Treatment Of Steel Base Gear In The Materials Science Course, Jiliang Li, Jin Xu, Nuri Zeytinoglu, Jinyuan Zhai

ASEE IL-IN Section Conference

Diffusion PDE Application to Carburizing Treatment of Steel Base Gear

An introductory materials-science course is required in the mechanical engineering curriculum of many universities. This article describes an example effort to incorporate programming, diffusion transfer, heat treatment process and mechanical-property determination as an integral part of the materials-science course instruction. This effort was undertaken in order to give students additional experience in Fick’s 1^st and 2^nd laws and in-depth understanding of physics and mathematics involved in diffusion analysis. We chose to focus on Fick’s second law because its applications are not restricted to the materials-science field [1]. As …

Providing A Meaningful Lab Experience For A Manufacturing Processes Course, Kevin Molyet

ASEE IL-IN Section Conference

No abstract provided.

Introducing Concept Maps In Undergraduate Thermodynamics, Jessie Lofton

ASEE IL-IN Section Conference

Concept maps, also called mind maps, are a widely utilized educational tool. While numerous studies cite the benefits of concept mapping as a tool for student learning, the use of concept maps is more common in non-engineering disciplines. This study examines student perceptions and academic performance in an undergraduate, introductory Thermodynamics course for students majoring in Mechanical Engineering. The pedagogical approach includes incorporating student-developed concept maps, as well as an interactive study tool for First Law analysis. Qualitative and quantitative results are presented. Results are limited to a single institution and a small sample size of students. Future work will …

Course And Exam Statistics In Electrical Engineering, D Blandford, Mark Randall, Jessica Lofton

ASEE IL-IN Section Conference

This paper examines the course and national exam records for about fifty students in electrical engineering. The data includes the following: SAT/ACT scores, high school math and science grades, high school GPA, high school class rank, and grades for math, science, and engineering courses in the first two years of the major for undergraduates in electrical engineering. The data is analyzed seeking a correlation with success in the major which is measured by the cumulative GPA at or near graduation.

Two types of correlation data are presented. First, correlation with individual data items and success in the major is established. …

A Critical Look At Mechanical Engineering Curriculum: Assessing The Need, Yeow Siow, Jamison Szwalek, Jonathan Komperda, Houshang Darabi, Farzad Mashayek

ASEE IL-IN Section Conference

Since the Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act in 1862, the U.S. higher education system has been serving the industrial world, and engineering study is the epitome of this ideal: Serve those who will practice it in the immediate future. The mechanical engineering curricula have long been evolving to meet the demand of the changing economy, and it may soon be due for a major update. This paper aims to present an initial effort to explore the need for a systematic redesign, or reform, of the mechanical engineering curriculum at [Institution X], where curricular changes during the past five decades have been …

Student Success And Retention From The Perspectives Of Engineering Students And Faculty, Amy Chan-Hilton

ASEE IL-IN Section Conference

Student retention and success is a complex issue, with many factors that impact an individual student’s retention and these factors varying across all of our students. At the University of Southern Indiana (USI), efforts within engineering, as well as across the college and university, have included intentional academic support services (such as expanded advising and tutoring services) and student development programs and extracurricular activities to foster student communities and a student’s sense of belonging. In addition, evidence indicates that implementing curricular changes across an engineering program and within specific courses, such as implementing active learning, instructional innovations, and high-impact practices, …

Theoretical Investigation Of The Ring Opening Of Cyclohexane On Ir(111) And Pt(111), Kushal Ghale

LSU Master's Theses

Diesel engines have higher fuel efficiency and can burn cleaner than gasoline engines. To enhance quality of diesel fuels as measured by the cetane number (CN), the removal of aromatic compounds is necessary. A potentially highly efficient approach would be to convert aromatics to saturated cycloparaffin, followed by selective ring opening to linear or branched alkanes, to increase the CN. Here the focus of the project is to study the mechanism of metal-catalyzed ring opening (RO) of cyclohexane (denoted CHA, or c-C₆H₁₂) through theoretical and computational modeling. CHA, a simplest cycloparaffin, is used as probe molecule …

String Out And Compressibility Effect On Pressure Rise In A Shut-In Well, Nicholas Henry

LSU Master's Theses

Gas kick migration experiments were performed in a small-scale well prototype model of annular geometry to analyze the behavior of gas kicks in highly non-Newtonian fluids. The objective was to isolate and estimate the effects system compressibility and bubble string out have on the pressure build up in a situation in which a gas kick rises through a noncirculating drilling mud in a vertical well.

The experiments consisted of 2 tests. The first test measured the apparent compressibility of the liquid phase of the experiment – that phase which simulated the drilling mud in a gas kick situation. The second …

Improvement Of Thermal Technical Characteristics Of Wall Ceramic Material Based On Low-Sorted Lyssovid Suglinks And Modified Liquid Glass, Anvar Ishanovich Adilkhodjayev, I.M. Mahamataliev, A.T. Ilyasov

Journal of Tashkent Institute of Railway Engineers

Application of low-grade loesslike loams (NLS) in the production of effective wall ceramics requires development of methods of increase of frost-resistance of ceramic porizovannoy matrix. It can be attained by adjusting of porosity of structure. In the Tashkent architectural-build institute possibility of making of an effective wall ceramic material is studied on the basis of NLS with the use of dobavki- ash-taking away of Angrenskoy TES and modified liquid glass as a modifier of porous structure. It is set that introduction of addition ash-taking away in an amount 25 % from mass of NLS and burning at the temperature of …

The Risk Of Ballast Graphic Towards Pozzles Moving Frequency, Sh.Sh. Abdukamilov, A.Yu. Mamadaliyev

Journal of Tashkent Institute of Railway Engineers

A special place in identifying the features of the vibrational process of ballast material, it is necessary to take, first of all, the nature of the process of oscillations. Its identification helps to determine the causes of their occurrence, which is very important for assessing the influence of oscillations on the properties and state of the ballast layer. Knowledge of the nature of the oscillatory process makes it possible in the future to simulate it in laboratory conditions to determine the degree of decrease in strength properties of ballast material, clogged sands under the influence of vibrodynamic load, during the …

Problem Of A Particle Solid Particles With A Ground Surface Airflow Formed Due To High-Speed Train Movement, Sh.S. Fayzibayev, R.Sh. Isanov, M.Sh. Valiyev

Journal of Tashkent Institute of Railway Engineers

The paper deals with the problem of entrainment of particles by air flow with increasing speed of a high-speed train. We have obtained solutions to the problem in the case when the particles in the section have the shape of a trapezoid. If the speed of a high-speed train increases at the end of the train, a whirlwind may occur, which we will study

Theoretical Aspects Of Structural And Simulation Modeling Of The Macrostructure Of Composite Building Materials, Anvar Ishanovich Adilkhodjayev, I.M. Mahamataliev, S.S. Shaumarov

Journal of Tashkent Institute of Railway Engineers

At the present time, the description of the joint work of multi-component, high-quality concretes in the framework of the structural and simulation modeling of cement composites is a very topical task of building materials science. In the context of the solution of the above problems, theoretical aspects of structural and simulation modeling are presented on the example of the developed program "Concrete-technology", which allows to predict the strength properties of multicomponent high-quality concrete at the macro structural level.

A Robust Decision Support Leader-Follower Framework For Design Of Contamination Warning System In Water Distribution Network, Mohammad S. Khorshidi, Mohammad Reza Nikoo, Elham Ebrahimi, Mojtaba Sadegh

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

In recent years, several models have been proposed to inoculate Water Distribution Systems (WDS) against impacts of accidental and/or intentional compromised water quality through optimal deployment of online monitoring sensors in the network, which is referred to as Contamination Warning Systems (CWS). Translating such modeling efforts to real-world practice is, however, a challenge as different involved parties may pursue conflicting goals and modeling-based recommendations may not justify all stakeholders’ criteria. It is, hence, pivotal to develop conflict resolution methodologies to support engagement of different stakeholders in securing a safe water distribution. The decision making structure for CWS design is often …

Review Of Educational Technology: Closing The Gap Between Modern Technology And The College Engineering Classroom, David Pinkerton, Krishna Pakala

Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper aggregates information from past and current studies regarding the implementation of technology in engineering classrooms and identifies the most promising ideas, technologies, and techniques. This paper provides insight into best practices for implementing technologies to improve the education of engineering students. This paper provides recommendations to adopt non-traditional teaching methods. Educational tools and techniques are evaluated on the basis of: Adoption and Assimilation, Access, Community, Intellectual Presence, Student Perception, and Development of Social and Professional Skills. Best practices are highlighted with descriptions of the technologies and techniques that were found most promising.

Threats To Adhesive/Dentin Interfacial Integrity And Next Generation Bio-Enabled Multifunctional Adhesives, Paulette Spencer, Qiang Ye, Linyong Song, Ranganathan Parthasarathy, Kyle Boone, Anil Misra, Candan Tamerler

Civil and Architectural Engineering Faculty Research

Nearly 100 million of the 170 million composite and amalgam restorations placed annually in the United States are replacements for failed restorations. The primary reason both composite and amalgam restorations fail is recurrent decay, for which composite restorations experience a 2.0–3.5-fold increase compared to amalgam. Recurrent decay is a pernicious problem—the standard treatment is replacement of defective composites with larger restorations that will also fail, initiating a cycle of ever-larger restorations that can lead to root canals, and eventually, to tooth loss. Unlike amalgam, composite lacks the inherent capability to seal discrepancies at the restorative material/tooth interface. The low-viscosity adhesive …

A Flexible, Natural Deduction, Automated Reasoner For Quick Deployment Of Non-Classical Logic, Trisha Mukhopadhyay

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Automated Theorem Provers (ATP) are software programs which carry out inferences over logico-mathematical systems, often with the goal of finding proofs to some given theorem. ATP systems are enormously powerful computer programs, capable of solving immensely difficult problems. Currently, many automated theorem provers exist like E, vampire, SPASS, ACL2, Coq etc. However, all the available theorem provers have some common problems: (1) Current ATP systems tend not to try to find proofs entirely on their own. They need help from human experts to supply lemmas, guide the proof, etc. (2) There is not a single proof system available which provides …

Axitinib Loaded Plga Nanoparticles For Age-Related Macular Degeneration, Priya P. Narvekar

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Despite of all the research going on for the treatment of ocular diseases, age-related macular degeneration (AMD) remains one of the serious vision threatening disease worldwide. Choroidal neovascularization, a pathophysiological characteristic of wet AMD, is the growth of anomalous blood vessels in the eye choroidal layer. Neovascularization is a key factor in AMD and thus anti-angiogenic therapy is beneficial in reducing the development of new abnormal blood vessels to prevent progression of AMD. Axitinib, multi-receptor tyrosine kinase inhibitor, is a small molecule that works by blocking vascular endothelial growth factor receptors (VEGFR) and platelet derived growth factor receptors (PDGFR) responsible …

Design And Development Of A Wireless Eeg System Integrated Into A Football Helmet, Akshay V. Dunakhe

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In the United States, approximately 2.8 million Traumatic Brain Injuries (TBI) occur annually. Out of these 2.8 million occurrences, 280,000 injuries are caused by sports and recreational activities. The actual number can be significantly higher since mild TBI are often unrecorded. These injuries not only cause physical damage to players, but they are also one of the leading causes of a player’s retirement from a sports career. While working with TBIs, it is vital to detect the concussion at its first occurrence, termed as a “primary concussion.” If the primary concussion goes undetected, the player may continue to play the …

Sustainability In An It Context, Dikran Kassabian

Sustainability Research & Practice Seminar Presentations

No abstract provided.