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Description
Mobile app development has been the fastest growing software development since the release of the iPhone in 2007 and the creation of the App Store in 2008. After the rise in popularity of the smartphone and mobile app development, businesses started to shift from browser-based software to mobile platforms. There are multiple reasons that any company would want to reach out in the mobile environment, including attracting new customers, creating a better experience, expanding their brand, being more accessible, and overall growth. Developers started to build new platforms that would make it easy for not only their own company but anyone else to develop new applications at a faster pace. Today there are three different ways to create a mobile application: a native app, a hybrid app, and a web app. At DriveTime, we spent time researching and developing possible options for how we could make a mobile application to expand our user involvement. Our conclusion was to use a hybrid application that would incorporate our already existing web app and relaunch it as a native app. I took over this project for DriveTime and planned to implement two new features for their mobile application. Using Apache Cordova, I dived into the Software Development Life Cycle to create and deploy a Rate and Review feature and Push Notification functionality. In the end, I was only able to implement the Rate and Review feature due to some unexpected delays in development. I assumed all roles of a standard Agile development team to understand all of the different aspects that go into planning, creating, and publishing software.
ContributorsAnderson, Jacob Scott (Author) / Balasooriya, Janaka (Thesis director) / Irwin, Don (Committee member) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
Description
This thesis examines the usefulness of cryptocurrency and provides a research-backed conclusion on the future of this digital currency. This starts with a look into the history of fiat moneys: how they were originally created, how they were implemented in past governments, and the resulting interactions between the currency and its users. The countries that were chosen for exploration demonstrate a few common trends throughout their execution of fiat currency. It is through the relationships dating all the way back to the Ancient Romans to the recent problems in Venezuela that provide a well-rounded scope of the issues. However, there have also been a few instances in which fiat currency has been successfully integrated, which furthers the advocacy towards an eventual implementation of government-regulated cryptocurrency.
This leads into an examination on the history of one cryptocurrency in particular, Bitcoin. This analysis includes the effects of the cryptomarket and the impact that it has had on various economies. Additionally, the blockchain is explored by first defining what it is and then its potential and current uses not only in the cryptomarket industry, but others as well. This includes a focus on the real estate market as well as banking. Using knowledge gained about the history of fiat money, cryptocurrencies, and the usefulness of the blockchain, this thesis compares the history of fiat currencies with the current implementation of cryptocurrency. Furthermore, the pros and cons of the possible implementation of cryptocurrency helps to provide an outlook on whether it can eventually be government regulated.
This leads into an examination on the history of one cryptocurrency in particular, Bitcoin. This analysis includes the effects of the cryptomarket and the impact that it has had on various economies. Additionally, the blockchain is explored by first defining what it is and then its potential and current uses not only in the cryptomarket industry, but others as well. This includes a focus on the real estate market as well as banking. Using knowledge gained about the history of fiat money, cryptocurrencies, and the usefulness of the blockchain, this thesis compares the history of fiat currencies with the current implementation of cryptocurrency. Furthermore, the pros and cons of the possible implementation of cryptocurrency helps to provide an outlook on whether it can eventually be government regulated.
ContributorsKaplan, Samuel Alexander (Co-author) / Vincetic, Nicholas (Co-author) / Niebuhr, Robert (Thesis director) / McDaniel, Cara (Committee member) / Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
Description
An experimental investigation was conducted to calculate the aerodynamic drag on a cyclist wearing different types of clothing. The different outfits worn for this experiment were a professional skinsuit, a professional cycling kit, a t-shirt and shorts, and a long-sleeved flannel and jeans. The aerodynamic drag was ultimately found using the coast down method, a process in which a cyclist increases their speed to a chosen maximum threshold, and upon reaching this speed, ceases the pedal stroke and maintains the aero position until the bicycle comes to a stop. The data was gathered using an AeroPod, speed sensor, and GPS unit. The data gathered was imported into Excel for data analysis. The average CdA values at race speed (26-30 ft/s) for the skinsuit, cycling kit, t-shirt and shorts, and flannel were calculated to be 4.180 ft2, 3.668 ft2, 4.884 ft2, and 4.223 ft2, respectively. These race speed averages were found using data from three separate Ironman Triathlons. The cycling kit was found to be the most aerodynamic at the race speed. The results of this study reveal that cycling apparel can only be optimized for a small range of speeds and cycling outside of this optimal range delays the initiation of the reduction of boundary layer separation, thus resulting in more critical time spent in the flow transition region. The skinsuit’s performance was more aerodynamically efficient than the cycling kit at speeds greater than 36.8 mph. The cycling kit is more aerodynamic for speeds slower than 36.8 mph. The slickness of the skinsuit was found to be detrimental to the cyclist’s aerodynamic drag, as the lack of roughness on the skinsuit prevented the initiation of turbulent flow, which results in a decrease in drag. Overall, the experiment confirmed the hypothesis that a cyclist is more aerodynamic when wearing cycling apparel as opposed to casual, loose-fitting clothing.
ContributorsGlynn, Julia Daniel (Co-author) / Duffy, Kyle (Co-author) / Takahashi, Timothy (Thesis director) / Bergmann, Ande (Committee member) / Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Program (Contributor) / Department of Information Systems (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-12
Description
In this update to the ESPBot, we have introduced new libraries for a small OLED display and a beeper. This functionality can be easily expanded to multiple beepers and displays, but requires more GPIO pins, or for the user to not use some of the infrared sensors or the ultrasonic sensor. We have also relocated some of the pins. The display can be updated to display 1 of 4 predefined shapes, or to display user-defined text. New shapes can be added by defining new methods within display.ino and calling the appropriate functions while parsing the JSON data in viple.ino. The beeper can be controlled by user-defined input to play any frequency for any amount of time. There is also a function added to play the happy birthday song. More songs can be added by defining new methods within beeper.ino and calling the appropriate functions while parsing the JSON data in viple.ino. More functionality can be added to allow the user to input a list of frequencies along with a list of time so the user can define their own songs or sequences on the fly.
ContributorsWelfert, Monica Michelle (Co-author) / Nguyen, Van (Co-author) / Chen, Yinong (Thesis director) / Nakamura, Mutsumi (Committee member) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor, Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-12
Description
This thesis project explains what thermal interface materials (TIMs) are, what they are used for, and how to measure their properties. Thermal interface materials are typically either a grease like paste or a soft polymer pad that is placed between two solids to increase the heat transfer rate. Solids in contact with each other experience a very large thermal contact resistance, this creates a thermal bottleneck which severely decreases the heat transfer from one solid to another. To solve this, particles with a high thermal conductivity are used as filler material in either a grease or polymer. A common application for TIMs is in computer components, where a TIM is used to remove the heat generated from computer chips. These materials allow for computer chips to run faster without overheating or throttling performance. However, further improvements to TIMs are still desired, which are needed for more powerful computer chips. In this work, a Stepped Bar Apparatus (SBA) is used to evaluate the thermal properties of TIMs. The SBA is based on Fourier’s Law of one-dimensional heat transfer. This work explains the fundamentals of the SBA measurement, and develops a reliable way to confirm the SBA’s measurement consistency through the use of reference samples. Furthermore, this work evaluates the effects of volume fraction and magnetic alignment on the performance of nickel flakes mixed into a polymer to create a soft TIM composite pad. Magnets are used to align the nickel flakes into a column like arrangement in the direction that heat will travel. Magnetic alignment increases the thermal conductivity of the composite pads, and has peak performance at low compression.
ContributorsHart, Matthew (Author) / Rykaczewski, Konrad (Thesis director) / Wang, Robert (Committee member) / Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-12
Description
Ad hoc wireless networks present several interesting problems, one of which is Medium Access Control (MAC). Medium Access Control is a fundamental problem deciding who get to transmit next. MAC protocols for ad hoc wireless networks must also be distributed, because the network is multi-hop. The 802.11 Wi-Fi protocol is often used in ad hoc networking. An alternative protocol, REACT, uses the metaphor of an auction to compute airtime allocations for each node, then realizes those allocations by tuning the contention window parameter using a tuning protocol called SALT. 802.11 is inherently unfair due to how it returns the contention window to its minimum size after successfully transmitting, while REACT’s distributed auction nature allows nodes to negotiate an allocation where all nodes get a fair portion of the airtime. A common application in the network is audio streaming. Audio streams are dependent on having good Quality of Service (QoS) metrics, such as delay or jitter, due to their real-time nature.
Experiments were conducted to determine the performance of REACT/SALT compared to 802.11 in a streaming audio application on a physical wireless testbed, w-iLab.t. Four experiments were designed, using four different wireless node topologies, and QoS metrics were collected using Qosium. REACT performs better in these these topologies, when the mean value is calculated across each run. For the butterfly and star topology, the variance was higher for REACT even though the mean was lower. In the hidden terminal and exposed node topology, the performance of REACT was much better than 802.11 and converged more tightly, but had drops in quality occasionally.
Experiments were conducted to determine the performance of REACT/SALT compared to 802.11 in a streaming audio application on a physical wireless testbed, w-iLab.t. Four experiments were designed, using four different wireless node topologies, and QoS metrics were collected using Qosium. REACT performs better in these these topologies, when the mean value is calculated across each run. For the butterfly and star topology, the variance was higher for REACT even though the mean was lower. In the hidden terminal and exposed node topology, the performance of REACT was much better than 802.11 and converged more tightly, but had drops in quality occasionally.
ContributorsKulenkamp, Daniel (Author) / Syrotiuk, Violet R. (Thesis director) / Colbourn, Charles J. (Committee member) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor, Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-12
Description
This paper describes the development of a software tool used to automate the preliminary design of aircraft wing structure. By taking wing planform and aircraft weight as inputs, the tool is able to predict loads that will be experienced by the wing. An iterative process is then used to select optimal material thicknesses for each section of the design to minimize total structural weight. The load analysis checks for tensile failure as well as Euler buckling when considering if a given wing structure is valid. After running a variety of test cases with the tool it was found that wing structure of small-scale aircraft is predominantly buckling driven. This is problematic because commonly used weight estimation equations are based on large scale aircraft with strength driven wing designs. Thus, if these equations are applied to smaller aircraft, resulting weight estimates are often much lower than reality. The use of a physics-based approach to preliminary sizing could greatly improve the accuracy of weight predictions and accelerate the design process.
ContributorsKolesov, Nikolay (Author) / Takahashi, Timothy (Thesis director) / Patel, Jay (Committee member) / Kosaraju, Srinivas (Committee member) / Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-12
Description
An understanding of aerodynamics is crucial for automobile performance and efficiency. There are many types of “add-on” aerodynamic devices for cars including wings, splitters, and vortex generators. While these have been studied extensively, rear spoilers have not, and their effects are not as widely known. A Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and wind tunnel study was performed to study the effects of spoilers on vehicle aerodynamics and performance. Vehicle aerodynamics is geometry dependent, meaning what applies to one car may or may not apply on another. So, the Scion FRS was chosen as the test vehicle because it is has the “classic” sports car configuration with a long hood, short rear, and 2+2 passenger cabin while also being widely sold with a plethora of aftermarket aerodynamic modifications available. Due to computing and licensing restrictions, only a 2D CFD simulation was performed in ANSYS Fluent 19.1. A surface model of the centerline of the car was created in SolidWorks and imported into ANSYS, where the domain was created. A mesh convergence study was run to determine the optimum mesh size, and Realizable k-epsilon was the chosen physics model. The wind tunnel lacked equipment to record quantifiable data, so the wind tunnel was utilized for flow visualization on a 1/24 scale car model to compare with the CFD.
0° spoilers reduced the wake area behind the car, decreasing pressure drag but also decreasing underbody flow, causing a reduction in drag and downforce. Angled spoilers increased the wake area behind the car, increasing pressure drag but also increasing underbody flow, causing an increase in drag and downforce. Longer spoilers increased these effects compared to shorter spoilers, and short spoilers at different angles did not create significantly different effects. 0° spoilers would be best suited for cases that prioritize fuel economy or straight-line acceleration and speed due to the drag reduction, while angled spoilers would be best suited for cars requiring downforce. The angle and length of spoiler would depend on the downforce needed, which is dependent on the track.
0° spoilers reduced the wake area behind the car, decreasing pressure drag but also decreasing underbody flow, causing a reduction in drag and downforce. Angled spoilers increased the wake area behind the car, increasing pressure drag but also increasing underbody flow, causing an increase in drag and downforce. Longer spoilers increased these effects compared to shorter spoilers, and short spoilers at different angles did not create significantly different effects. 0° spoilers would be best suited for cases that prioritize fuel economy or straight-line acceleration and speed due to the drag reduction, while angled spoilers would be best suited for cars requiring downforce. The angle and length of spoiler would depend on the downforce needed, which is dependent on the track.
ContributorsNie, Alexander (Author) / Wells, Valana (Thesis director) / Huang, Huei-Ping (Committee member) / Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-12
iLieDown - Improved Display Orientation For Handheld Devices Using Convolutional Neural Networks.pdf
Description
91% of smartphone and tablet users experience a problem with their device screen being oriented the wrong way during use [11]. In [11], the authors proposed iRotate, a previous solution which uses computer vision to solve the orientation problem. We propose iLieDown, an improved method of automatically rotating smartphones, tablets, and other device displays. This paper introduces a new algorithm to correctly orient the display relative to the user’s face using a convolutional neural network (CNN). The CNN model is trained to predict the rotation of faces in various environments through data augmentation, uses a confidence threshold, and analyzes multiple images to be accurate and robust. iLieDown is battery and CPU efficient, causes no noticeable lag to the user during use, and is 6x more accurate than iRotate.
ContributorsTallman, Riley Paul (Author) / Yang, Yezhou (Thesis director) / Fang, Zhiyuan (Committee member) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor, Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-12
Description
With the advancement of modern technology, antibiotics and vaccinations have allowed humans to live longer. Deadly infections like strep throat and measles are now considered an inconvenience. The main reason for this phenomenon is the medical revolution of the 20th century. Although Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin in 1929, the full potential of antibiotics was not recognized until the 1940’s. This decade marked the commercialization of penicillin and opened possibilities for new classes of medications like corticosteroids. By the 21st century, pharmaceutical companies perfected the craft of antibiotics and designed them to treat specific infections. Consequently, as humans live longer, chronic illness has become more prevalent in contemporary society. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), chronic diseases are the “leading cause of mortality in the world representing 60% of all deaths”. Contrary to popular opinion, chronic diseases are more prevalent in developed nations such as Europe and America. By 2025, it is estimated that nearly half of the American population (49%) “will be affected by a chronic disease”.
My personal experience with chronic illness served as inspiration for my thesis. At the age of five, I was diagnosed with severe asthma. The following year, I was hospitalized with pneumonia for nearly a month. Despite my health issues, I had a supportive family and grew up relatively well. During my freshman year of college, I hardly experienced any respiratory or allergy problems. Unfortunately, this time period was very short-lived. Due to rapid expansion, the natural flora and fauna of the desert has changed significantly within the last decade. Throughout the remainder of my undergraduate experience, I had a series of respiratory relapses that resulted in numerous medical withdrawals. In addition to health problems, I discovered the college environment poses unique challenges for students with chronic illnesses. Ultimately, this led me to delve deeper into this topic for my thesis.
My personal experience with chronic illness served as inspiration for my thesis. At the age of five, I was diagnosed with severe asthma. The following year, I was hospitalized with pneumonia for nearly a month. Despite my health issues, I had a supportive family and grew up relatively well. During my freshman year of college, I hardly experienced any respiratory or allergy problems. Unfortunately, this time period was very short-lived. Due to rapid expansion, the natural flora and fauna of the desert has changed significantly within the last decade. Throughout the remainder of my undergraduate experience, I had a series of respiratory relapses that resulted in numerous medical withdrawals. In addition to health problems, I discovered the college environment poses unique challenges for students with chronic illnesses. Ultimately, this led me to delve deeper into this topic for my thesis.
ContributorsWhite, Monique Diane (Author) / Rigoni, Adam (Thesis director) / Delaney, Shanna (Committee member) / School of Art (Contributor) / Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05