Computational Engineering Commons^™

Clinical Coverage Of An Archetype Repository Over Snomed-Ct., Sheng Yu, Damon Berry, Jesus Bisbal

Articles

Clinical archetypes provide a means for health professionals to design what should be communicated as part of an Electronic Health Record (EHR). An ever-growing number of archetype definitions follow this health information modelling approach, and this international archetype resource will eventually cover a large number of clinical concepts. On the other hand, clinical terminology systems that can be referenced by archetypes also have a wide coverage over many types of health-care information.

No existing work measures the clinical content coverage of archetypes using terminology systems as a metric. Archetype authors require guidance to identify under-covered clinical areas that may need …

Data Exploration Interface For Digital Forensics, Varun Dontula

LSU New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The fast capacity growth of cheap storage devices presents an ever-growing problem of scale for digital forensic investigations. One aspect of scale problem in the forensic process is the need for new approaches to visually presenting and analyzing large amounts of data. Current generation of tools universally employ three basic GUI components—trees, tables, and viewers—to present all relevant information. This approach is not scalable as increasing the size of the input data leads to a proportional increase in the amount of data presented to the analyst.

We present an alternative approach, which leverages data visualization techniques to provide a more …

A Google Earth-Based Framework For Visualization Of The Chesapeake Bay Operational Forecast System, Gary Lawson

Computational Modeling & Simulation Engineering Theses & Dissertations

For the persons who live near and travel the waters of the Chesapeake Bay, the data provided by the Chesapeake Bay Operational Forecast System (CBOFS) is invaluable. The information provided includes measurements and forecasts of surface wind velocity, water current velocity, salinity levels, water level, and temperature. Currently, this information is freely available on the CBQ_FS website hosted by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). It is offered as Nowcast, measured data, and Forecast data and is visualized using 2D images which describe a subset of the data in an easy to read chart. However, if the data were …

Architecture For A Flexible And Scalable Simulation Engine, Robert C. Holcomb Jr.

Computational Modeling & Simulation Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Simulation is used by many different industries to gain insight on actions and decisions that may be too dangerous or costly to perform in reality. Although the use of computers to assist with modeling and simulation has been studied for quite a while, computer infrastructure, hardware, and capabilities are changing at a rapid pace. Computer software once written is difficult and costly to change, especially in order to take advantage of the advances in computer hardware. This thesis focuses on the design and implementation of a software simulation architecture that allows flexibility in the modeling conducted and scalability in the …

Accurate Estimation Of Isoform And Gene Expression Levels From Next Generation Sequencing Data, Marius Nicolae

Master's Theses

Massively parallel transcriptome sequencing is quickly replacing microarrays as the technology of choice for performing gene expression profiling due to its wider dynamic range and digital quantitation capabilities. However, accurate estimation of expression levels from sequencing data remains challenging due to the short read length delivered by current sequencing technologies and still poorly understood protocol- and technology-specific biases.

To date, two main transcriptome sequencing protocols have been proposed in the literature. The most commonly used one, referred to as RNA-Seq, generates short (single or paired) sequencing tags from the ends of randomly generated cDNA fragments. An alternative protocol, referred to …

Wii Remote-Based Collaborative Interfaces For Music, Adriano Baratè, Luca A. Ludovico, Davide Andrea Mauro

Computer Sciences and Electrical Engineering Faculty Research

Wii Remote is the main controller for Nintendo's Wii con- sole. Thanks to the use of accelerometer and optical sensor technology, it presents motion sensing capability, which implies gesture recognition and intuitive pointing. Such a controller is user-friendly, inexpensive and easily available, due to growing Wii console's popularity. These features make Wii Remote a good device to create and manipulate both music and audio in a home entertainment environment. In this paper, the most interesting characteristics of the controller will be reviewed. A case study will be presented, namely the creation of a virtual music instrument to be controlled in …

Testing, Modelling And Validation Of Numerical Model Capable Of Predicting Stress Fields Throughout Polyurethane Foam, Conor Briody, Barry Duignan, Stephen Jerrams

Conference Papers

Wheelchair seating systems are specialised for a number of reasons as users can have impaired mobility, which increases the possibility of pressure build up. These areas of high pressure frequently occur in the trunk region under the bony prominences known as the Ischial Tuberosities (IT), pressure ulcers may occur consequently. Polyurethane foam has been in use for some time in wheelchair seating systems as it exhibits good pressure relieving capabilities in most cases. However, little quantitative research has gone into foamed polymers, in comparison with conventional elastomeric materials. This lack of knowledge can ultimately lead to more time being spent …

Quantitative Characterization Of Microstructure Features For 1st Generation Advanced High Strength Steels, Margarita Vidrio, Ellen Liu, Donsheng Li, Kyoo Sil Choi, Xin Sun

STAR Program Research Presentations

The role of Advanced High Strength Steels (AHSS) in the automotive industry is important because of its affordability and excellent mechanical properties. The 1st generation of AHSS achieves its preferred combination of strength and ductility by embedding harder martensite grains into softer ferritic matrix. Ductility and strength of these steels are important to safety, formability, application, and life. However, a noticeable degree of inconsistent forming behaviors has been observed in the 1st generation AHSS in production, which seems to be related to the microstructure-level inhomogeneity. The objective of this project is to grain fundamental understandings on how different microstructure level …

Design Optimization Using Cad Parameterization Through Capri, William Emerson Brock V

Masters Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Design optimization is one of the many areas of Computational Engineering that is directly applicable to almost any engineering endeavor. The design cycle is a multi-step process, beginning with a Computer Aided Design (CAD) model and ending with an optimized version of that model relative to some objective function. This is accomplished by parameterizing the model, through one of many different algorithms, and finding the ideal value of those parameters with respect to the specified objective. The purpose of this research is to explore the use of a Computational Analysis PRogramming Interface (CAPRI) for utilizing CAD parameters in design optimization …

An Adaptive Hybrid Mesh Generation Method For Complex Geometries, Cameron Thomas Druyor

Masters Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

An adaptive hybrid mesh generation method is described to automatically provide spatial discretizations suitable for computational fluid dynamics or other 2D solver applications. This method employs a hierarchical grid generation technique to create a background mesh, an extrusion-type method for inserting boundary layers, and an unstructured triangulation to stitch between the boundary layers and background mesh. This method provides appropriate mesh resolution based on geometry segments from a file, and has the capability of adapting the background mesh based on a spacing field generated from solution data or some other arbitrary source. By combining multiple approaches to the grid generation …

Generation And Optimization Of Spacing Fields, Max David Collao

Masters Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Meshes are used to discretize space for computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations. Mesh adaptation through refinement and smoothing can improve the accuracy of the CFD solution. In order to perform adaptive refinement or smoothing a spacing field is needed to define the desired edge sized in mesh. The objectives of this research are to generate spacing fields from existing CFD solutions and optimize this spacing information for efficient use by programs to perform adaptive refinement or smoothing. All work was done on 2D meshes with the intention of gaining knowledge and experience for later application to 3D meshes. The program …

Computational Design For Electromagnetic Simulations, Ryan Steven Glasby

Masters Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

An automatic computational procedure has been developed to efficiently and accurately design the shape of complicated electromagnetic objects. These electromagnetic objects can be simulated for operation at high frequencies (~10 GHz), and can be comprised of dissimilar materials. The automated design procedure consists of linking together an original electromagnetic field simulation tool, an original adjoint routine for obtaining sensitivity derivatives, and an original grid-smoothing tool with an existing optimization package. The electromagnetic field simulation software employs a temporally and spatially higher-order accurate Streamline Upwind/Petrov-Galerkin finite-element method that numerically solves Maxwell’s equations in the time domain using implicit time stepping. The …

Comparison Of Two Methods For Two Dimensional Unstructured Mesh Adaptation With Elliptic Smoothing, Matthew David O'Connell

Masters Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

A new mesh adaptation method for unstructured grids is presented. The technique uses virtual control volumes that are iteratively manipulated to conform the mesh to match either a Riemannianmetric tensor field or an equal distribution of scalar weights. Forcing functions similar to those used for structured grids are employed such that the resulting meshes can be compared with those generated using the new adaptation method. Several test cases using analytic functions to drive the mesh adaptation are also presented and compared with the new method. Mesh adaptation results driven by computed flow field information are also compared to those adapted …

Characterization Of Parallel Application Runtime Sensitivity On Multi-Core High Performance Computing Systems, Padma Priya Veeraraghavan

Purdue Polytechnic Masters Theses

A commonly seen behavior of parallel applications is that their runtime is influenced by network communication load. The way a parallel application is run in a network and the presence of other applications and processes in the network can contribute to a wide range of variations in the runtime. Therefore, in order to achieve consistent and optimal runtimes, it is important to understand and characterize the runtime sensitivity of parallel applications with respect to execution under the presence of network communication load.

In this research, runtime sensitivities for various parallel applications were studied by applying additional network communication load. In …

The Ergo Knife Manufacturability Project: A Prosthetic Device, Caleb Sarris

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Millions of Americans’ upper extremities have been rendered useless or amputated due to injury or illness. Without strength and dexterity in the hand or wrist, these people are in need of tools to help them in everyday activities. The Ergo Knife offers these individuals a way to cope with this way of life as a device that can assist them, primarily in food consumption and can also be expanded to many other applications. The purpose of this project is to further develop the Ergo Knife so that it can better assist these individuals and improve the necessary processes used to …

Cal Poly Wow: Week Of Welcome’S Leader Android Application, Eric Cerney

Computer Engineering

The Week of Welcome Android application aims to improve the efficiency and ease at which Orientation Leaders function during the week long program designed to aid in new student
assimilation to the San Luis Obispo campus and community. It focuses on four utilities combined in
one easy location that Leaders use on a regular basis. They are maps, the online guidebook, budget keeper, and contact list. These four utilities are commonly used by Leaders in their day to day
guidance of new students, making one single application with each tool very desirable to the WOW Program.

Currently there are no …

Chinese To English Introductory Cover Letter Generator, Jason L. Stine

Liberal Arts and Engineering Studies

The Chinese to English Introductory Cover Letter Generator allows Chinese computer users who know little to no English automatically generate a self-introductory cover letter in good English. As an example, professors in English-speaking countries are increasingly receiving emails from students abroad in countries like China, and these students often need to introduce themselves in order to support their reasons for their message. Unfortunately, more often than not these letters contain poorly written English. This software aims to help solve this issue. Using a combination of a “sentence template” system and intelligent natural language processing software, the program assembles each paragraph …

An Evaluation Of The Eeg Alpha-To-Theta And Theta-To-Alpha Band Ratios As Indexes Of Mental Workload, Bujar Raufi, Luca Longo

Articles

Many research works indicate that EEG bands, specifically the alpha and theta bands, have been potentially helpful cognitive load indicators. However, minimal research exists to validate this claim. This study aims to assess and analyze the impact of the alpha-to-theta and the theta-to-alpha band ratios on supporting the creation of models capable of discriminating self-reported perceptions of mental workload. A dataset of raw EEG data was utilized in which 48 subjects performed a resting activity and an induced task demanding exercise in the form of a multitasking SIMKAP test. Band ratios were devised from frontal and parietal electrode clusters. …

A Web-Oriented Multi-Layer Model To Interact With Theatrical Performances, A Baratè, G. Haus, L A. Ludovico, Davide Andrea Mauro

Computer Sciences and Electrical Engineering Faculty Research

This paper presents an innovative approach to online fruition

of theater performances. Web applications like traditional viewers are

already available for the wide audience of Internet users. Our proposal

aims at adding both interactivity and multi-layer fruition, and a way

to manipulate and create new media. The premise to reach these goals

is digitizing a number of heterogeneous materials in order to describe a

single performance comprehensively, e.g. different video and audio-takes

from different perspectives, and a number of related materials such as

scripts, fashion plates, playbills, etc. The format we adopt to encode

such information is based on the …

Interoperation For Lazy And Eager Evaluation, William Jeffrey Faught

Master's Theses

Programmers forgo existing solutions to problems in other programming lan- guages where software interoperation proves too cumbersome; they remake so- lutions, rather than reuse them. To facilitate reuse, interoperation must resolve language incompatibilities transparently. To address part of this problem, we present a model of computation that resolves incompatible lazy and eager eval- uation strategies using dual notions of evaluation contexts and values to mirror the lazy evaluation strategy in the eager one. This method could be extended to resolve incompatible evaluation strategies for any pair of languages with common expressions.

Investigation And Comparison Of Proportional Navigation Guidance And Beam Rider Guidance, Ertac Olgun

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Air defense has an increasing importance in today's wars. To gain the advantage in air combat, pursuit interceptor aircraft, which use Air-to-Air Missiles (AAMs), have become more and more significant. However, these are not sufficient alone. The importance of Surface-to-Air Missiles (SAMs) also can not be ignored in air defense.

SAMs can use different tactical navigation guidance methods. Of these, two of the more important guidance methods are Proportional Navigation Guidance and Beam Rider Guidance, which are investigated in this thesis. To understand the idea better, a brief description and discussion of missiles are provided. Parts of the guided missiles …

Performance Analysis For Wimax Wireless Systems With Multiple Receive Antennas, Selcuk Taskin

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Broadband wireless access has become the best way to meet the growing demand for fast Internet connections. WiMAX is one of the most promising broadband access technologies that allows fast deployment as well as low maintenance costs. WiMAX allows efficient use available bandwidth by using orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) which is an efficient multi-carrier modulation technique. Diversity is a method for improving the reliability of a signal in fading environments by using two or more communication channels and is usually achieved by multiple antenna techniques.

In this thesis, receiver side diversity combining methods are studied and the performance of …

Modeling The Contagion Effect Of Foreclosures Within The Real Estate Market By Use Of Agent-Based Modeling And Simulation, Marshall William Gangel

Computational Modeling & Simulation Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Over the last several years, the US financial and real estate markets have experienced a significant recession. During this downturn, the number of real estate foreclosures rose drastically. Recent studies have empirically demonstrated a reduction in real estate values due to foreclosures. The observed reduction in the average value of real estate properties has been labeled the foreclosure contagion effect. The foreclosure contagion effect impacts healthy neighboring properties that surround the foreclosed property as a function of time and distance.

This study uses an agent-based modeling and simulation (ABMS} approach to explore the contagion effect of foreclosures. For this research, …

Electronic Warfare By Using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, Aydin Meric

Electrical & Computer Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Technology continues to evolve rapidly by the day. Developments in technology should be followed closely if a country wants to become more powerful. Nowadays nobody can afford to ignore the importance of Electronic Warfare and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) in military applications. Both of them play a crucial role in military operations that they can change the course of a war.

There are different kinds of Electronic Warfare methods that can be applied according to the situations and any evolving circumstances. In the beginning Electronic Warfare was used mainly for defensive purposes, but these days Electronic Warfare is used for …

Solving The Vehicle Re-Identification Problem By Using Neural Networks, Tanweer Rashid

Computational Modeling & Simulation Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Vehicle re-identification is the process by which vehicle attributes measured at one point on a road network are compared to vehicle attributes measured at another point in an effort to match vehicles without using any unique identifiers such as license plate numbers. A match is made if the two measurements are estimated to belong to the same vehicle. Vehicle attributes can be sensor readings such as loop induction signatures, or they can also be actual vehicle characteristics such as length, weight, number of axles, etc. This research makes use of vehicle length, travel time, axle spacing and axle weights for …

Unstructured Grid Technologies For Hydrodynamic Applications With Bodies In Relative Motion And Mesh Deformation, Lei Ji

Masters Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Unstructured grid technologies for hydrodynamic applications with bodies in relative motion and mesh deformation are presented. A parallel universal mesh deformation scheme is developed to manage deforming surface and volume grids for both aerodynamic and hydrodynamic applications. The approach is universal and independent of grid type. Also, it requires minimal inter-processor communication and is thus perfectly suitable to a parallel platform. The original scheme of Allen (2006) has difficulty deforming volume grids in regions near concave geometry features and for abrupt grid resolution changes. Several modifications are proposed to overcome these problems. Grid quality can be improved significantly by adding …

Enhancing Simulation Composability And Interoperability Using Conceptual/Semantic/Ontological Models, Andreas Tolk, John A. Miller

Computational Modeling & Simulation Engineering Faculty Publications

(First paragraph) Two emerging trends in Modeling and Simulation (M&S) are beginning to dovetail in a potentially highly productive manner, namely conceptual modeling and semantic modeling. Conceptual modeling has existed for several decades, but its importance has risen to the forefront in the last decade (Taylor and Robinson, 2006; Robinson, 2007). Also, during the last decade, progress on the Semantic Web has begun to influence M&S, with the development of general modeling ontologies (Miller et al, 2004), as well as ontologies for modeling particular domains (Durak, 2006). An ontology, which is a formal specification of a conceptualization (Gruber et al, …

Human-Computer Interaction And Human Mental Workload: Assessing Cognitive Engagement In The World Wide Web, Luca Longo

Books/Book Chapters

Assessing the cognitive engagement of a user while seeking and consuming information over the World Wide Web is a key challenge for studying the quality of interactions. Indicators of cognitive engagement are useful for enhancing usability of interfaces, designing adaptable systems but also for analysing user behaviour and performance. For this purpose, we aim to adopt the multifaceted concept of Human Mental Workload, mainly applied in psychology and cognitive sciences, to study individual performance and user engagement in the context of Web. We aim to design a framework in which mental workload can be measured, analysed and explained. This will …

Computational Modeling Of Low Velocity Impact Loading Of Composite With And Without Electrospun Nanofiber, Abu Hasnath Rasel

Theses

The objective of this work is the computational study of composite laminates under high velocity impact loadings. Even with the blessings of modern technology, manufacturing and testing of composites do not always seem to be cost effective. To keep pace with the fast moving global market, a new tool is absolutely necessary that can give reliable results quickly. Over the last decades computational study became a strong and effective tool for the researchers for testing composite materials in a virtual world. The virtual model and the material system of the test specimen can be built in a computer using different …

Polynomial Extension Operators. Part Iii, Leszek Demkowicz, Jay Gopalakrishnan, Joachim Schöberl

Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Publications and Presentations

In this concluding part of a series of papers on tetrahedral polynomial extension operators, the existence of a polynomial extension operator in the Sobolev space H(div) is proven constructively. Specifically, on any tetrahedron K, given a function w on the boundary ∂K that is a polynomial on each face, the extension operator applied to w gives a vector function whose components are polynomials of at most the same degree in the tetrahedron. The vector function is an extension in the sense that the trace of its normal component on the boundary ∂K coincides with w. Furthermore, the extension operator is …