Civil and Environmental Engineering Commons^™

Virtual Accident Curb Risk Habituation In Workers By Restoring Sensory Responses To Real-World Warning, Namgyun Kim, Laurent Grégoire, Moein Razavi, Niya Yan, Changbum R. Ahn, Brian A. Anderson

Civil and Environmental Engineering and Engineering Mechanics Faculty Publications

In high-risk work environments, workers become habituated to hazards they frequently encounter, subsequently underestimating risk and engaging in unsafe behaviors. This phenomenon has been termed "risk habituation"and identified as a vital root cause of fatalities and injuries at workplaces. Providing an effective intervention that curbs workers' risk habituation is critical in preventing occupa-tional injuries and fatalities. However, there exists no empirically supported intervention for curbing risk habituation. To this end, here we investigated how experiencing an accident in a virtual reality (VR) environment affects workers' risk habituation toward repeatedly exposed workplace hazards. We examined an underlying mechanism of risk habituation …

Co-Culture Models Of Endothelial Cells, Macrophages, And Vascular Smooth Muscle Cells For The Study Of The Natural History Of Atherosclerosis, Martin Liu, Saurabhi Samant, Charu Hasini Vasa, Ryan M. Pedrigi, Usama Oguz, Sangjin Ryu, Timothy Wei, Daniel R. Anderson, Devandra K. Agrawal, Yiannis Chatzizisis

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

Background

This work aims to present a fast, affordable, and reproducible three-cell co-culture system that could represent the different cellular mechanisms of atherosclerosis, extending from atherogenesis to pathological intimal thickening.

Methods and results

We built four culture models: (i) Culture model #1 (representing normal arterial intima), where human coronary artery endothelial cells were added on top of Matrigel-coated collagen type I matrix, (ii) Culture model #2 (representing atherogenesis), which demonstrated the subendothelial accumulation and oxidative modification of low-density lipoproteins (LDL), (iii) Culture model #3 (representing intimal xanthomas), which demonstrated the monocyte adhesion to the endothelial cell monolayer, transmigration into the …

Application Of Neural Networks For Hydrologic Process Understanding At A Midwestern Watershed, Annushka Aliev, Sinan Rasiya Koya, Incheol Kim, Jongwan Eun, Elbert Traylor, Tirthankar Roy

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Faculty Publications

The Shell Creek Watershed (SCW) is a rural watershed in Nebraska with a history of chronic flooding. Beginning in 2005, a variety of conservation practices have been employed in the watershed. Those practices have since been credited with attenuating flood severity and improving water quality in SCW. This study investigated the impacts of 13 different controlling factors on flooding at SCW by using an artificial neural network (ANN)-based rainfall-runoff model. Additionally, flood frequency analysis and drought severity analysis were conducted. Special emphasis was placed on understanding how flood trends change in light of conservation practices to determine whether any relation …

Water Quality Engineering And Wastewater Treatment Ii, Yung-Tse Hung, Rehab Abdel Rahman, Hamidi Abdul Aziz, Issam A. Al-Khatib, Tsuyoshi Imai

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

In this respect, the modeling of the organic matter removal kinetics from municipal sewerage in horizontal subsurface flow CWs was carried out using a conventional first-order model and sigmoidal k-n model [[12]]. Water is an essential natural compound on earth; all life forms on our planet need water to function properly. The presented water management research in this Special Issue aimed to assess natural water quality in different areas, i.e., Brazil, Palestine, and China. [Extracted from the article]

Anaerobic Toluene Biodegradation Potential At A Superfund Site Where Toluene Biosynthesis Was Observed, George Carson

LSU Master's Theses

At a Superfund site near Baton Rouge, LA, the subsurface injection of molasses has been used to stimulate anerobic reductive dechlorination of halogenated organic compounds (e.g., 1,2-dichloroethane and vinyl chloride) present in the groundwater. Following some molasses injections, temporary accumulation of toluene and p-cresol was observed in the groundwater. Accumulation of these aromatic hydrocarbons, which were not detected in the molasses, has been attributed to anaerobic biotransformation of the amino acids phenylalanine and tyrosine. Experiments reported here were conducted in support of an effort to determine if toluene biodegrading bacteria were present in the area where anaerobic toluene accumulation was …

Studying The Compressive, Tensile And Flexural Properties Of Binary And Ternary Fiber-Reinforced Uhpc Using Experimental, Numerical And Multi-Target Digital Image Correlation Methods, Behrooz Dadmand, Hamed Sadaghian, Sahand Khalilzadehtabrizi, Masoud Pourbaba, Milad Shirdel, Amir Mirmiran

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Compressive, tensile, and flexural properties of ultra-high-performance concrete (UHPFRC) specimens were studied in this research. Binary and ternary combinations of micro steel (MS), round crimped (RC), crimped (C), hooked-end (H), and polypropylene (PP) fibers were used in overall ratios of 2% by volume of concrete. For this purpose, 100 x 200 mm cylindrical specimens, dog-bone specimens (length: 330 mm, width: 80 mm, thickness: 40 mm), and prismatic beams with a dimension of 100 x 100 x 500 mm (clear span: 450 mm) were cast and tested under compressive, tensile, and four-point bending tests (4PBT). A digital image correlation (DIC)-based method …

Real Depth-Correction In Ground Penetrating Radar Data Analysis For Bridge Deck Evaluation, Sepehr Pashoutani, Jinying Zhu

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Faculty Publications

When ground penetrating radar (GPR) is used for the non-destructive evaluation of concrete bridge decks, the rebar reflection amplitudes should be corrected for rebar depths to account for the geometric spreading and material attenuation of the electromagnetic wave in concrete. Most current depth-correction methods assume a constant EM wave velocity in the entire bridge deck and correct GPR amplitudes based on the two-way travel time (TWTT) instead of the actual rebar depth. In this paper, we proposed a depth-correction algorithm based on the real rebar depths. To compare different depth-correction methods, we used gprMax software to simulate GPR signals in …

Enhancing The Biological Oxidation Of H2s In A Sewer Pipe With Highly Conductive Concrete And Electricity-Producing Bacteria, Huy Thanh Vo, Tsuyoshi Imai, Masato Fukushima, Kanathip Promnuan, Tasuma Suzuki, Hiraku Sakuma, Takashi Hitomi, Yung-Tse Hung

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

Hydrogen sulfide (H2S) generated in sewer systems is problematic to public health and the environment, owing to its corrosive consequences, odor concerns, and poison control issues. In a previous work, conductive concrete, based on amorphous carbon with a mechanism that operates as a microbial fuel cell was investigated. The objective of the present study is to develop additional materials for highly conductive concrete, to mitigate the concentration of H2S in sewer pipes. Adsorption experiments were conducted to elucidate the role of the H2S reduction. Additionally, electricity-producing bacteria (EPB), isolated from a municipal wastewater treatment plant, were inoculated to improve the …

Greywater Treatment Using Integrated Sand Filtration With Ultrafiltration For Reuse, Aya El-Wattar

Theses and Dissertations

Membrane flux was observed and the two membrane sizes that achieved stable flux were chosen to be used in the later stages of the study. The chosen membranes were of 300 kDa and 400 kDa Molecular Weight Cutoff (MWCO).

The third phase of the study involved running the full system on synthetic greywater then on real greywater. The parameters investigated were COD, TSS, Turbidity and BOD₅. Total COD removal after sand filtration, 300kDa UF and 400 kDa UF was 65, 66 and 73.4% respectively. Total TSS removal after sand filtration, 300kDa UF and 400 kDa UF was 93.1, …

Dissecting Succulence: Crassulacean Acid Metabolism And Hydraulic Capacitance Are Independent Adaptations In Clusia Leaves, Alistair Leverett, Samantha Hartzell, Klaus Winter, Milton Garcia, Multiple Additional Authors

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Succulence is found across the world as an adaptation to water-limited niches. The fleshy organs of succulent plants develop via enlarged photosynthetic chlorenchyma and/or achlorophyllous water storage hydrenchyma cells. The precise mechanism by which anatomical traits contribute to drought tolerance is unclear, as the effect of succulence is multifaceted. Large cells are believed to provide space for nocturnal storage of malic acid fixed by crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM), whilst also buffering water potentials by elevating hydraulic capacitance (CFT). The effect of CAM and elevated CFT on growth and water conservation have not been compared, despite the assumption that these adaptations …

Soil Water Sensors For Irrigation Scheduling In The United States: A Systematic Review Of Literature, Sumon Datta, Saleh Taghvaeian

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

Soil water sensors (SWS) have been widely researched and practiced for irrigation scheduling. Due to popularity of this approach, there is a need for frequent reviews of the SWS literature to keep the researchers, extension professionals, and end-users updated and to help with defining and modifying future directions. In addition, existing literature reviews do not systematically report and summarize the results of previous studies. To address this gap, a systematic review was carried out to identify and analyze related literature published in the United States in the past two decades. Two focus areas were SWS accuracy assessment and SWS application …

Using Innovative Copper‑Loaded Activated Alumina (Cu/Aa) As The Catalyst For Catalytic Wet Peroxidation (Cwpo) Of Catechol, Vijayalakshmi Gosu, Archana Dhakar, Tian C. Zhang, Rao Y. Surampalli, Verraboina Ubbaramaiah

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Faculty Publications

In this study, copper-loaded activated alumina (Cu/AA) was synthesized and used for the CWPO of catechol (a representative refractory organic pollutant). Various characterization techniques were deployed to characterize the catalysts, e.g., activated alumina (AA), as well as pristine and spent 1% Cu/AA. The innovative 1% Cu/AA catalyst exhibited good thermal stability up to 1173 K with a marginal weight loss of 13%. The Cu species were well dispersed on the activated alumina framework with no significant cluster formation. Typically, the average copper particle size of 5 nm was dispersed on the AA framework. Catechol removal was observed to be 92% …

Evaluation Of Artificial Intelligence Algorithms With Sensor Data Assimilation In Estimating Crop Evapotranspiration And Crop Water Stress Index For Irrigation Water Management, Abia Katimbo, Daran Rudnick, Jingwen Zhang, Yufeng Ge, Kendall C. Dejonge, Trenton E. Franz, Yeyin Shi, Wei‑Zhen Liang, Xin Qiao, Derek M. Heeren, Isa Kabenge, Hope Njuki Nakabuye, Jiaming Duan

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

Irrigation water management using automated irrigation decision support system (IDSS) as a smart irrigation scheduling tool can improve water use efficiency and crop production, especially under circumstances of limited water supply. The current study evaluated the performance of different artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms and their ensembles in forecasting Crop Evapotranspiration (ET_c) and Crop Water Stress Index (CWSI) against calculated single crop coefficient FAO56 ET_c and Jackson’s theoretical CWSI, respectively. Soil moisture, canopy temperatures (T_c) and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) were all measured from irrigated and non-irrigated maize plots in West Central Nebraska during 2020 …

Damage Detection In Reinforced Concrete Member Using Local Time-Frequency Transform Applied To Vibration Measurements, Ning Liu, Thomas Schumacher, Yan Li, Lina Xu, Bo Wang

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Signal processing and analysis of structural vibration measurements are key components of structural damage detection (SDD) in structural health monitoring (SHM). The goal of signal processing is to extract subtle changes in the measured signals, which can be used to infer changes in structural parameters and damage. Time-frequency analysis is one of the most popular characterization methods for studying non-stationary vibration signals. In this article, the local time-frequency transform (LTFT) is applied and evaluated to calculate the time-domain signals because of its excellent time-frequency energy distribution properties. The LTFT matches the input data by the Fourier basis in an inverse …

The Effects Of Inaccurate And Missing Highway-Rail Grade Crossing Inventory Data On Crash Model Estimation And Crash Prediction, Aemal Khattak, M. Umer Farooq

Mid-America Transportation Center: Final Reports and Technical Briefs

ABSTRACT: Most highway-rail grade crossing (HRGC) crash models in the US rely on the Federal Railroad Administration’s (FRA) highway/rail crossing inventory database. Any errors and/or incomplete information in this database affects the estimated crash model parameters and subsequent crash predictions. Using 560 HRGCs in Nebraska, this study illustrates differences in crash predictions obtained from the FRA’s new (2020) Accident Prediction and Severity (APS) model when: 1) using the unaltered, original FRA HRGC inventory dataset as input, and 2) using a field-validated inventory dataset for those 560 HRGCs as input to the new APS model. Results showed that the predictions using …

Properties Of Cement Mortar Containing Recycled High-Density Polyethylene (Hdpe), Amany G. Micheal Prof., Esraa Torky, Merna Amir

Centre for Advanced Materials

Millions of tones of plastic waste are generated globally and only less than 10 per cent has been recycled. It is crucial to segregate and circulate plastic waste and repurposing it for countless other uses. There are many ways to repurpose and reuse these discarded plastics. One use that can be examined is the use of plastic as partial sand replacement in mortar. To contribute to this important and valid discourse, the research studies the mechanical and thermal properties of recycled HDPE mortar as an active way of integrating plastic waste into the construction industry to partially eliminate some of …

Globally Scalable Approach To Estimate Net Ecosystem Exchange Based On Remote Sensing, Meteorological Data, And Direct Measurements Of Eddy Covariance Sites, Ruslan Zhuravlev, Andrey Dara, André Luís Diniz Dos Santos, Oleg Demidov, George Burba

Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute: Faculty Publications

Despite a rapid development of Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) for carbon removal in recent years, the methods for evaluating NBS still have certain gaps. We propose an approach based on a combination of remote sensing data and meteorological variables to reconstruct the spatiotemporal variation of net ecosystem exchange from eddy-covariance stations. A Lagrangian particle dispersion model was used for upscaling satellite images and flux towers. We trained data-driven models based on kernel methods separately for each selected land-cover class. The results suggest that the proposed approach to quantifying carbon exchange on a medium-to-large scale by blending eddy covariance flux data with …

Role Of Social Determinants Of Health In Differential Respiratory Exposure And Health Outcomes Among Children, Jagadeesh Puvvula, Jill A. Poole, Yeongjin Gwon, Eleanor G. Rogan, Jesse E. Bell

Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute: Faculty Publications

Background Attributes defining the Social Determinants of Health (SDoH) are associated with disproportionate exposures to environmental hazards and differential health outcomes among communities. The dynamics between SDoH, disproportionate environmental exposures, and differential health outcomes are often specific to micro-geographic areas.

Methods This study focused on children less than 20 years of age who lived in Douglas County, Nebraska, during 2016–2019. To assess the role of SDoH in differential exposures, we evaluated the association between SDoH metrics and criteria pollutant concentrations and the association between SDoH and pediatric asthma exacerbations to quantify the role of SDoH in differential pediatric asthma outcomes. …

Production Of Lithium Carbonate From Geothermal Brine By Selective Extraction Of Lithium Using A Novel Ion Sieve Method, Ujjwal Pokharel, Sandeep Kumar

College of Engineering & Technology (Batten) Posters

The project implements a novel approach to extract lithium from a geothermal brine with minimal water loss. Production of high-capacity lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries for electric vehicles (EV) is believed to be the way to reduce dependence on fossil-fuel based vehicles. Currently, most of the lithium in the world comes from the mining of lithium or the evaporative/concentration of the brine. Mining is not environmentally friendly, and the evaporative process takes 12 months for the completion of the extraction process and results in a large amount of water loss which can lead to scarcity of water. The brines constitute 82% of …

Marshall, Il Brownfield/Superfund Site Project, Nathan Myers

2022 Fall Reports (Marshall, IL)

This course will examine modern public policymaking in the United States. We will examine the different forms that policy can take and how each branch of government can leave a lasting impact on policy. The course will investigate the environment in which policy in the U.S. is shaped and the key official and unofficial actors involved. The course will investigate how public policy issues are defined and earn a place on the policy agenda. The remainder of the course will focus on various criteria for evaluating policy: effectiveness, efficiency, equity, liberty, security, and resilience. The manner in which policy often …

Marshall Residential Development, Kimberly Smith

2022 Fall Reports (Marshall, IL)

Introduction and development of the design process through the exploration of abstract and realistic problem-solving applications. Design solutions are presented through the development of two- and three-dimensional presentation techniques.

Marshall, Il Housing Affordability Project, Nathan Myers

2022 Fall Reports (Marshall, IL)

This class is designed to provide a basic working understanding of statistical methods which are commonly used in the social sciences, including public administration. Students will learn the mathematical logic behind the procedures by calculating statistical formulas. Students will also gain proficiency in completing statistical procedures using Microsoft Excel (the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences, or SPSS, may also be used).

Integration Of Public Policy Into Civil Engineering Undergraduate Curricula: Review Of Civil Engineering Body Of Knowledge And Course Application, Michelle R. Oswald Beiler

Faculty Conference Papers and Presentations

The field of civil and environmental engineering directly ties with serving the needs of the public through infrastructure development and improvements in sustainable environments. Integrating this reciprocal connection between public policy and civil engineering into undergraduate civil engineering education is critical for the preparation of the next generation of engineers. This project, first, reviews the guidance of public policy in civil engineering programs, such as ASCE’s Civil Engineering Body of Knowledge. Then, a pedagogical application is presented that focuses on the integration of public policy concepts, methods, assessment tools and techniques in a required, upper level course in civil and …

Motor Vehicle Drivers' Knowledge Of Safely Traversing Highway-Rail Grade Crossings, Aemal Khattak, M. Umer Farooq, Abdul Farhan

Mid-America Transportation Center: Final Reports and Technical Briefs

This study investigates motor vehicle drivers’ socioeconomic, personality, and attitudinal factors associated with their knowledge of safely traversing highway-rail grade crossings (HRGCs). A survey of randomly selected Nebraska households solicited responses from licensed drivers (N= 980, response rate = 39 percent). Of the total thirty-one questions on the questionnaire, nine pertained to respondents’ knowledge of safely navigating HRGCs (e.g., what does a crossbuck sign require a driver to do when approaching a rail crossing?). Correct answers to the questions provided a measure of respondents’ knowledge of safely traversing HRGCs and led to their classification in five ordered categories. A random …

A Heterogeneity-Based Temporal Stability Assessment Of Pedestrian Crash Injury Severity Using An Aggregated Crash And Hospital Data Set, M. Umer Farooq, Aemal Khattak

Mid-America Transportation Center: Final Reports and Technical Briefs

This study utilized a unique approach to crash data analysis by examining the temporal stability of pedestrian crash injury severity and its contributory factors. Police-reported crash data and EMS-related injury data from Nebraska were obtained from 2014 to 2018, and random parameter ordered probit models for injury severity were estimated for each year to account for unobserved heterogeneity. Four discrete levels of injury severity were considered for model estimation: fatality, disabling injury/suspected serious injury, visible injury/possible injury, and no injury. Data were filtered based on several important variables of interest, such as pedestrian characteristics, crash characteristics, environmental and weather characteristics, …

A Simulation Way To Investigate The Reason For Congestion In Urban——A Case Study In Hohhot China, Junqing Wang, Hong Yang, Yuan Zhu, Qingwen Pu, Shunlai Cui

College of Engineering & Technology (Batten) Posters

In the case of high density traffic flow, traditional traffic data statistical analysis methods, which not only have certain errors and lead to inaccurate data, but also have many limitations such as labor consumption, can no longer meet the demand for traffic analysis. Drones for traffic data, based on an aerial bird's-eye view, no offset, and error-free complete statistics of urban road shooting section of all data, while greatly reducing cost consumption. A multi-dimensional simulation model is established for the UAV data to the Hohhot central urban area's road simulation platform. This project will test and explore multidimensional data in …

Investigating The Impacts Of Connected Vehicles On Driving Aggressiveness And Situational Awareness In Highway Crash Scenarios: A Driving Simulator Study, Abdalziz Alruwaili

College of Engineering & Technology (Batten) Posters

Psychological factors such as aggressiveness and situational awareness can impact driving performance. Connected vehicles (CV), equipped with advanced sensors and able to communicate safety messages to drivers, have the potential to influence driving performance by altering drivers’ aggressiveness and situational awareness. This paper aims to investigate the impacts of the CVs on driving aggressiveness and situational awareness in highway crash scenarios where a primary crash has already occurred, and a second crash may occur as a result. To achieve this goal, a driving simulator experiment was conducted, and questionnaires focused on driving aggressiveness and CV effectiveness were distributed. Structural equation …

Virtual Industry Visits, Cian Farrell

Articles

Cian Farrell of Technological University Dublin describes a virtual educational approach trialled during the Covid-19 pandemic to engage students during a period of remote learning and educate them on industry processes and practices. Virtual industry visits saw students receive online briefings and tours of manufacturing plants and construction sites from industry representatives to complement their taught modules. The virtual visits have continued since Covid restrictions eased as part of a hybrid approach to learning that increases student exposure to real-life projects. The initiative won the Institution of Structural Engineers Excellence in Structural Engineering Education Award in 2022.

The Impact Of Precipitation As An Adverse Weather Condition On Transportation Construction In South Dakota, Akosua Ofosua Okyere-Addo

Civil and Environmental Engineering Graduate Students Plan B Capstone Projects

This research assessed the impact of precipitation as an adverse weather condition on the transportation construction in South Dakota. A statistical survey of the data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration was conducted on 554 original stations, which was reduced to 433 stations of them were in South Dakota, then reduced to 170 stations with 30-year data coverage higher than 70 %. Eventually, the data were reduced further for pilot study purposes to a final 10 stations used for analysis in this study. The objective of this study is to examine potential precipitation thresholds towards determination of related adverse …

Survey Data: Optimising Retrofitted Insulation For Irish Residential Building Walls, Rakshit D. Muddu, Aimee Byrne, Anthony Robinson Dr.

Datasets

A survey was conducted to determine the preferred set point temperature and heating pattern among Irish households. The survey was sent to 237 people living across Ireland, out of which 32 respondents skipped the survey and 9 surveys were found to be incomplete. Amongst the counties in Ireland 71.1% respondents were from Dublin, 6.34% from Kildare, 5% from Meath, 5% from Wicklow and in all the remaining counties response rate was below 2%. Part 1: This section of the survey recorded information regarding characteristics of the building such as house type, wall type, insulation type, period the house was built. …