Search results

Title: Taking Time, Risk and Cost out of Drug Discovery (Fall 2001) ENPRO 351: Taking_Time_Risk_and_Cost_Out_of_Drug_Discovery_ENPRO351_Fall2001_Final_Presentation
Creator: Dalmia, Manoj, Hong, Yugenia, Sresty, Padma, Hung, Paul, Morrison, Edward, Johnson, Stephen, Mcguire, Brian, Patel, Sarjan, Patel, Monali, Bhatt, Ajay
Date: 2001, 2001-12
Description: Professor Chapman has invented an x-ray procedure that greatly extends the technique's ability to diagnose tumors (mammogram improvement) and...
Show moreProfessor Chapman has invented an x-ray procedure that greatly extends the technique's ability to diagnose tumors (mammogram improvement) and see problems in soft tissue, such as cartilage. He collaborates with Brookhaven National Laboratory, Argonne National Laboratory, Rush Medical College, and several other universities. The potential for enhancement of public health and quality of life through this technology is significant. The team will have the opportunity to analyze and help IIT pursue one or two different paths to commercialization. The current state of development of the technique limits its application to a high-energy beam line at Argonne. Thus, Project Path One involves developing a business plan for a service that would be created in conjunction with Argonne and accessed through the Advanced Photon Source. Project Path Two involves developing equipment that could be installed in a clinic or hospital. The first project can be implemented without significant technology extension, while the second project requires a technological breakthrough to reduce the size and cost of the equipment. The long-term impact will be greater for the second project, because of the potential diffusion of a system throughout the healthcare industry. The scope of the two project paths involve: (1) Understanding the capability relative to current technology; (2) Relating that technical advantage to a patient benefit; (3) Developing understanding of the economics of the alternatives; (4) Preparing commercialization strategies; (5) Performing market research; (6) Developing a business plan; (7) Creating an implementation plan for Project Path One; (8) Developing an equipment development alliance for Project Path Two; and (9) Developing a financing plan and product development strategy for Project Path Two. It is anticipated that the scope of this project may require it to continue over more than one semester. This IPRO team will find this experience highly rewarding, because of its potential for benefiting many people who require medical diagnostic imaging procedures.
Sponsorship: IIT Collaboratory for Interprofessional Studies
Project Plan for ENPRO 351: Taking Time, Risk and Cost out of Drug Discovery for the Fall 2001 semester
Show less

Title: SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS: INFLUENCE OF INFLUENT VARIABLES ON A WRP MODEL
Creator: Wang, Xiaolong
Date: 2015, 2015-07
Description: Balancing between cost and effluent quality at the Calumet water reclamation plants (WRP) is important. Influent quality has strong effects on...
Show moreBalancing between cost and effluent quality at the Calumet water reclamation plants (WRP) is important. Influent quality has strong effects on effluent quality. In this study, based on a simulation model, the influence of influent parameters on effluent ammonia concentration is identified by sensitivity analysis methods. Nine sensitivity analysis methods, including two mathematical methods, five statistical methods, and two graphical methods, are presented. Using different sensitivity analysis, most results presented all main effects have stronger effects than interactions among input variables on the output. Water temperature is always the most important parameter; the most important interaction effect is between water temperature and SS. Key words: Sensitivity analysis; water reclamation plants; design of experiments; simulation model; influent water quality; effluent ammonia
M.S. in Environmental Engineering, July 2015
Show less

Title: CONTROLLED ARCHITECTURE OF HYDROGELS TO ALLOW VASCULARIZATION
Creator: Somo, Sami I.
Date: 2014, 2014-05
Description: Vascularization within biomaterial scaffolds is essential for engineered tissues. A sintering method is investigated in which spherical 106...
Show moreVascularization within biomaterial scaffolds is essential for engineered tissues. A sintering method is investigated in which spherical 106-125 micron poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) microspheres are used to create porous poly(ethylene glycol diacrylate) (PEGDA) hydrogels with varying interconnectivity for vascularized tissue invasion. The sintering method resulting in interconnectivity levels that increased with sintering time and temperature. Mechanical testing on hydrogels showed increasing interconnectivity of hydrogels decreases the elastic modulus. A rodent subcutaneous model was used to evaluate influence of hydrogel interconnectivity on in vivo response at 3 and 6 weeks. There was significant difference in tissue invasion between the groups at the two different time points. At week 3, higher interconnectivity hydrogels had twice as much invasion depth compared with the lower interconnectivity. The higher interconnectivity hydrogels had complete vascularization at 3 weeks. In conclusion, a technique for preparation of porous hydrogels with controlled pore interconnectivity has been developed and evaluated. This method has been used to show that higher interconnectivity enables deeper vascularized tissue ingrowth and thus holds great potential for tissue engineering applications.
M.S. in Chemical Engineering, May 2014
Show less

Title: CYBER-PHYSICAL SYSTEM FOR A WATER RECLAMATION PLANT: BALANCING AERATION, ENERGY, AND WATER QUALITY TO MAINTAIN PROCESS RESILIENCE
Creator: Zhu, Junjie
Date: 2015, 2015-07
Description: Aeration accounts for a large fraction of energy consumption in conventional water reclamation plants (WRPs). Although process operations at...
Show moreAeration accounts for a large fraction of energy consumption in conventional water reclamation plants (WRPs). Although process operations at older WRPs can satisfy effluent permit requirements, they typically operate with excess aeration. More effective process controls at older WRPs can be challenging as operators work to balance higher energy costs and more stringent effluent limitations while managing fluctuating loads. Therefore, understandings of process resilience or ability to quickly return to original operation conditions at a WRP are important. A state-of-art WRP should maintain process resilience to deal with different kinds of perturbations even after optimization of energy demands. This work was to evaluate the applicability and feasibility of cyber-physical system (CPS) for improving operation at Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago (MWRDGC) Calumet WRP. In this work, a process model was developed and used to better understand the conditions of current Calumet WRP, with additional valuable information from two dissolved oxygen field measurements. Meanwhile, a classification system was developed to reveal the pattern of historical influent scenario based on cluster analysis and cross-tabulation analysis. Based on the results from the classification, typical process control options were investigated. To ensure the feasibility of information acquisition, the reliability and flexibility of soft sensors were assessed to typical influent conditions. Finally, the process resilience was investigated to better balance influent perturbations, energy demands, and effluent quality for long-term operations. These investigations and evaluations show that although the energy demands change as the influent conditions and process controls, in general, aeration savings could be up to 50% from the level of current consumption; with a more xix complex process controls, the saving could be up to 70% in relatively steady-state conditions and at least 40% in relatively challenging transient conditions. The soft sensors can provide reliable and flexible performance on target predictions. The plant can still maintain at a similar level of process resilience after 50% aeration saving, even during long-term perturbations. Overall, this work shows that it is well feasible to provide more cost-effective operations at the Calumet WRP, and meanwhile influent perturbations, effluent quality, and process resilience are well in balance. Keywords: Energy, aeration, effluent quality, perturbation, resilience, water reclamation plant.
Ph.D. in Environmental Engineering, July 2015
Show less

Title: HEAT PUMPS IN DRINKING WATER UTILITY BUILDINGS
Creator: Colomer Pons, Ana Maria
Date: 2012-07-12, 2012-07
Description: In the United States each person consumes about 70 million BTUs per year in the residential sector, a tendency that is constantly growing...
Show moreIn the United States each person consumes about 70 million BTUs per year in the residential sector, a tendency that is constantly growing because of technology and society growth (EIA, 2011). The United States Department of Energy (USDOE, 1988) reported that heat pumps are energy efficient devices that can provide heating and cooling in residential and industrial buildings and also in households. According to Bernier (2006) heat pumps offer many advantages such as decreased space needs, higher efficiencies, and lower maintenance costs, and that is why they have been implemented in many regions throughout the United States as well as in many European countries. However, their use is many times hindered due to the high initial costs relative to conventional heating air conditioning ventilating systems (HVAC), technologies that are widely known and have been used for many years. The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the performance, economic feasibility, and greenhouse gas emission reduction of implementing heat pump devices in drinking water plants for heating and cooling needs inside the building. The proposed system is similar to groundwater heat pumps (described in an upcoming section) but instead of groundwater the heat pump relies on drinking water that has been treated in the plant and it is ready for its use. Groundwater has one main advantage because it is at a constant temperature year round (NRC, 2005) which gives the heat pump system stability in its behavior. Moreover, it is at a higher temperature than air in winter, and at a lower temperature than air in summer, which makes it an excellent candidate for heat transfer purposes in the refrigeration cycle. The four cases studies described in this work examine medium and high efficiency heat pumps installed in existing plants and new plants. Because drinking water is readily available after its treatment, the cost of drilling and grouting is avoided and this high quality water also avoids most of the problems related to quality of water such as scaling or fouling. This system gives a return of investment that is in all cases lower than six years. emissions are reduced by about 50 per cent because the use of a much more efficient device produces less for each kWh of heating or cooling delivered in the building.
M.S. in Environmental Engineering, July 2012
Show less

Title: AN ASSESSMENT OF HEAT PUMP APPLICATION AT WATER TREATMENT FACILITIES-THAT USE SURFACE WATER
Creator: Yan, Wenpeng
Date: 2012-07-17, 2012-07
Description: Energy-efficient heat pumps have been applied in the United States and other regions of the world for decades. Geothermal heat pumps have been...
Show moreEnergy-efficient heat pumps have been applied in the United States and other regions of the world for decades. Geothermal heat pumps have been used, but their application is not wide spread due to the high cost of drilling and installing a ground loop. An alternative choice for space conditioning at municipal water utilities is a surface water source heat pump. Because treated surface water is readily available and it exists in a relatively narrow temperature range it could be useful heat transfer fluid. In this project the economic benefits and greenhouse gas emissions of a heat pump system for a building in NE Illinois are analyzed. Heating and cooling requirements for a hypothetical a 1000 m2 space at a drinking water treatment plant are considered. The analysis includes initial, operating and maintenance costs as well as greenhouse gas emissions, between a heat pump system and a conventional natural gas furnace and air-conditioner. The cost savings in this project for the heat pump system were from $39900 to $41511 over the life cycle of the system depending on the different efficiency level of the heat pump system. Surprisingly the initial cost of the standard efficiency heat pump system is lower than the conventional NGAC system. There is no need to take time to make up the additional initial cost. Surface water heat pumps operating at different efficiency level produce less greenhouse gas than the conventional NGAC system. The CO2 emission reduction could be as high as 73%.
M.S. in Environmental Engineering, July 2012
Show less

Title: #MeToo: What Urged Users to Post?
Creator: Hirsh, Rachel Anna
Date: 2023
Description: In this dissertation, I explore the motivations that compelled individuals to share their stories during the #MeToo movement, an unprecedented...
Show moreIn this dissertation, I explore the motivations that compelled individuals to share their stories during the #MeToo movement, an unprecedented digital phenomenon that thrust discussions of sexual harassment and assault into the public sphere. The central research question guiding this study was, "What urged users to post during the #MeToo movement?," which worked to uncover why and how the movement became so widespread.. Research demonstrates that when people are sexually harassed or assaulted, often times they do not come forward (Hlavka, 2014). Spencer et al. shares some of the common reasons women do not come forward are that they don’t classify their harassment or assault as a big enough deal, they do not know who or how to report it, they are afraid, they were drunk, they are ashamed, they don’t want to get their assailant in trouble, or they blame themselves (2017). However, those reasons fell by the wayside, as so many people came forward during the #MeToo movement. This paper aims to figure out why that was and how we can continuously get survivors to come forward. This paper also asks the question, did people come forward to share testimony, be part of a movement, or both?Two distinct hypotheses were formulated to unpack the complex dynamics at play The first hypothesis posited that users who engaged with central nodes, encompassing key figures within the #MeToo movement, original contributors, celebrities, and influencers, were more inclined to hold a positive outlook on the movement as a progressive step for women. This data was collected through a quantitative survey, and the analysis yielded inconclusive results, with 79.15% of the sample population expressing support for the movement while only 54.17% reported following central nodes. Qualitative interviews further underscored the multifaceted nature of motivations.The second hypothesis posited that individuals were more inclined to share their personal experiences of harassment or assault online when they observed weak ties within their social networks, such as acquaintances or friends of friends, sharing their own stories. The findings from survey data revealed that 68.87% of participants witnessed weak ties sharing personal experiences or using the #MeToo hashtag on their social media platforms. Qualitative interviews unanimously highlighted the significant influence of observing friends or weak ties posting about their experiences, further underscoring the diversity of motivators behind #MeToo participation.These findings shed light on the multifaceted nature of online activism and the pivotal role of personal networks in shaping the movement's trajectory. In essence, this research demonstrates that while the motivations for user participation in the #MeToo movement are diverse and complex, the presence of weak ties, or distant social relationships or relationships with infrequent interactions, within social networks emerges as a critical influence.
Show less

Title: Improving Niobium Superconducting Radio-Frequency Cavities by Studying Tantalum
Creator: Helfrich, Halle
Date: 2023
Description: Niobium superconducting radio-frequency (SRF) cavities are widely used accelerating structures. Improvements in both quality factor, Q0, and...
Show moreNiobium superconducting radio-frequency (SRF) cavities are widely used accelerating structures. Improvements in both quality factor, Q0, and maximum accelerating gradient, Eacc, have been made to SRF cavities by introducing new processing techniques. These breakthroughs include processes such as nitrogen doping(N-Doping) and infusion, electrochemical polishing (EP) and High Pressure Rinsing (HPR). [1] There is still abundant opportunity to improve the cavities or, rather, the material they’re primarily composed of: niobium. A focus here is the role the native oxide of Nb plays in SRF cavity performance. The values of interest in a given cavity are its quality factor Q0, maximum accelerating gradient Eacc and surface resistance Rs . This work characterizes Nb and Ta foils prepared under identical conditions using X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) to compare surface oxides and better understand RF loss mechanisms in Nb SRF cavities and qubits. It is well established that Ta qubits experience much longer coherence times than Nb qubits, which is probably due to the larger RF losses in Nb oxide. By studying Tantalum, an element similar to Niobium, the mechanisms of the losses that originate in the oxide and suboxide layers present on the surface of Nb cavities might finally be unlocked. We find noticeable differences in the oxides of Nb and Ta formed by air exposure of clean foils. In particular, Ta does not display the TaO2 suboxide in XPS, while Nb commonly shows NbO2. This suggests that suboxides are an additional contributor of RF losses. We also suggest that thin Ta film coatings of Nb SRF cavities may be a way of increasing Q0. It is in the interest of the accelerator community to fully understand the surface impurities present in Nb SRF cavities so that strategies for mitigating the effects can be proposed.
Show less

Title: Mental Health Stigma and Care-Seeking in First Generation Indian Immigrants
Creator: Shah, Binoy
Date: 2019
Description: Objective: Immigrants from India face unique obstacles, including migration related factors and cultural pressures, that may contribute to...
Show moreObjective: Immigrants from India face unique obstacles, including migration related factors and cultural pressures, that may contribute to underutilization of mental health treatment services. The present thesis examined paths between mental health stigma and care-seeking in a sample of first-generation Indian immigrants, with a specific emphasis on the influences of acculturation and parental autonomy support. Method: A sample of 201 first-generation immigrants from India was ascertained using MTurk. Path analysis was conducted to examine the relationships between public stigma of mental illness, disclosure, mental health care-seeking, parental autonomy support, and bi-directional acculturation. Results: Final model was supported by good fit indicators. Greater public stigma was associated with reduced care-seeking, but greater disclosure was associated with increased care-seeking. Interestingly, parental autonomy support, mainstream acculturation, and heritage acculturation facilitated disclosure but had no discernible impact on public stigma. Conclusions: In contrast to traditional anti-stigma strategies that focus on reducing public stigma, present results suggest that it may be more beneficial to facilitate care-seeking by targeting disclosure of status. In turn, disclosure may be promoted by facilitating autonomy supportive social networks and bi-directional acculturation.
Show less

Title: Incorporating Real-Time Estimates of Physiological States in Artificial Pancreas Systems
Creator: Sevil, Mert
Date: 2020
Description: Type-1 diabetes is a chronic disease that has a negative impact on the life of a person with diabetes causing other chronic diseases, reducing...
Show moreType-1 diabetes is a chronic disease that has a negative impact on the life of a person with diabetes causing other chronic diseases, reducing the quality of life, and the possibility of causing dangerous reductions in blood glucose levels that may lead to coma or death. More than 100 million U.S. adults are now living with diabetes or pre-diabetes. Diabetes is one of the most expensive public health problems in the U.S. at $327 billion in 2017. Thus, alternative solutions or novel proposals are crucial to more effective treatments and cure. Artificial pancreas systems are one of the common treatment techniques of Type-1 Diabetes, which reduce the risk of diabetes-related complications and make diabetics' lives easier and make it convenient. Artificial pancreas systems aim to maintain blood glucose concentrations in a tighter target blood glucose range, which is a challenging problem. Several factors affect blood glucose concentrations including intensity of exercise, type of exercise, acute psychological stress and the physical state of a person with diabetes. These factors are unknown disturbances for artificial pancreas control systems. In this project, a single non-invasive wrist-worn device is used to obtain different biosignals in-real time. Biosignals are utilized with the development energy expenditure estimation model, psychological stress detection and physical state classification models. Several machine learning methods are tested and validated until the best classification and estimation accuracy is achieved for each estimate. Obtained models are incorporated with the current artificial pancreas design to improve its glycemic control performance. The controller is aware of such measurable disturbances with the proposed method, which allows for providing accurate and timely control action. Additional estimates are utilized to improve blood glucose concentration prediction model accuracy. Clinical trials are used to test and validate the proposed work. In summary, the presented work illustrates different machine learning techniques and algorithms that can enhance automated insulin delivery by a multivariable artificial pancreas system and enhance the quality of life of people with Type 1 diabetes.
Show less

Title: INFLUENCE OF TIE STRENGTH ON HOSTILITY IN SOCIAL MEDIA
Creator: Radfar, Bahar
Date: 2019
Description: Online anti-social behavior, such as cyberbullying, harassment, and trolling, is a widespread problem that threatens free discussion and has...
Show moreOnline anti-social behavior, such as cyberbullying, harassment, and trolling, is a widespread problem that threatens free discussion and has negative physical and mental health consequences for victims and communities.While prior work has proposed automated methods to identify toxic situation such as hostility, they only focused on individual words. While only a bag of keywords is applied to detect hostility, this is not enough as words might have different meaning based on the relationship between participants of the discussion. In this paper, we considered the friendship between the sender and the target of a hostile conversation. First, we studied the characteristic of different types of relationship. Then, we set our goal to be more accurate hostility detection with reduced wrong red flags.Thus, we aim to detect both the presence and intensity of hostile comments based on linguistic and social features from our well-defined relationships. To evaluate our approach, we introduce a corpus of over 12K annotated Twitter tweets from over +170,000 tweets. Next, we extracted useful features such as relationship type and length of the tweet to feed into our Long Short Term Memory(LSTM) and Logistic Regression(LR) classifier. By considering the relationship type in the classifier model we improved the hostility detection AUC by close to 5 % comparing to the baseline method. Also, the F-1 score increased by 4 % as well.
Show less

Title: Cohousing Dallas
Creator: Justin, Vaughan
Date: 2010-05-01, 2010-05-01
Description: 20 Households participated in the process of creating this Cohousing proposal. Cohousing is a type of collaborative housing in which residents...
Show more20 Households participated in the process of creating this Cohousing proposal. Cohousing is a type of collaborative housing in which residents actively participate in the design and operation of their own neighborhoods. The interactions with the participants included conversations and questionnaires aimed at bringing forth desired qualities of a residence and a larger community. The design proposal of this project attempts to reflect the individualities and shared qualities of its future cohabitants.
Show less

Title: GAME THEORY BASED LOCATION-AWARE CHARGING SOLUTIONS FOR NETWORKED ELECTRIC VEHICLES
Creator: Laha, Aurobinda
Date: 2020
Description: The recent explosive adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) has sparked considerable interest of...
Show moreThe recent explosive adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) has sparked considerable interest of academia in developing efficient charging schemes. Supported by the advanced vehicle-to-grid (V2G) network, vehicles and charging stations can respectively make better charging and pricing decisions via real-time information sharing. In this research, we study the charging problem in an intelligent transportation system (ITS), which consists of smart-grid enabled charging stations and networked EVs. Each vehicle aims to select a station with the lowest charging cost by considering the charging prices and its location while the objective of a charging station is to maximize its revenue given the charging strategy of the vehicles. We employ a multileader multi-follower Stackelberg game to model the interplay between the vehicles and charging stations, in which the location factor plays an important role. We show that there exists a unique equilibrium for the followers’ subgame played by the vehicles, while the stations are able to reach an equilibrium of their subgame with respect to the charging prices. Therefore, the Nash equilibrium of the Stackelberg game is achievable through the proposed charging scheme. We further evaluate the price of anarchy (PoA) of the proposed charging scheme by using a centralized optimization model, in which a modified matching algorithm is applied. In state-of-the-art research works, PHEVs tend to charge or discharge to a smart grid individually. In our extended work, we also consider the discharging scenarios for PHEVs, which is generally during the peak hours of a micro-grid system. We propose that by leveraging the cooperation between charging and discharging PHEVs, the grid will be able to properly disperse the charging load in the load valley and discharging during the load peak hours. As a consequence, the electricity load will be well balanced. In this process, the PHEVs also receive greater benefit, thus serving the PHEV charging and discharging cooperation as a win-win strategy for both the grid and the PHEV users. We formulate and resolve the PHEV charging and discharging cooperation in the framework of a coalition game. Finally, simulation results confirm the uniqueness of the equilibrium in both the game strategies. A performance comparison between the proposed distributed and centralized strategy with existing solutions are presented. We also provide the results of the coalition game when both charging and discharging PHEVs are present in the network. The proper management of charging and discharging of EVs poses one of the most challenging and interesting issues in our research. We aim to provide a complete demand response management solution to PHEVs and micro-grids in a real-time scenario.
Show less

Title: 3D reconstruction of lake surface using camera and lidar sensor fusion
Creator: Khan, Shahrukh
Date: 2020
Description: Global Navigation Satellite System Reflectometry (GNSS-R) relies upon detecting the GNSS signals reflected off a surface and then analyzing...
Show moreGlobal Navigation Satellite System Reflectometry (GNSS-R) relies upon detecting the GNSS signals reflected off a surface and then analyzing the reflected signal to obtain surface characteristics. GNSS-R has become one of the many additional applications of the readily available GNSS signals, alongside more traditional remote sensing of ionospheric monitoring, beyond the intended GNSS purposes of providing position, navigation, and timing estimation. In previous work, GPS signals reflected off Lake Michigan in Chicago have been collected using a specially designed portable sensor suite. The data collected is then analyzed to differentiate between surface ice and water conditions, as well as obtain other characteristic information such as surface reflectivity. The goal is to provide a way for remote sensing of seasonal ice formation beyond just satellite imagery which can be affected by cloud cover. To confirm the validity of the GNSS-R results there needs to be a separate reference against which to compare. This work demonstrates the sensor fusion between camera and lidar to reconstruct the lake surface, to provide that truth reference for comparison against the results of the GPS reflectometry signal processing. For this setup, the camera provides visual information about the lake surface, while the lidar provides distance information with respect to the sensor suite. Combining the data from the two sensors allows backward projection of the camera image to reconstruct the lake surface and its features. The backward projection relies upon knowledge of the camera's intrinsic properties alongside distance information of the features captured by the camera. Each pixel of the camera image is then transformed to its 3D position relative to the sensor system. This produces a 3D map of the lake surface, as captured by the sensors. The estimated point at which the GPS signal reflects off the surface, the specular point, is calculated by the satellite position at the time of interest and the receiver location. This point is then mapped onto the reconstructed surface to identify the exact location where the signal reflected and compare the surface visually to the results from the signal analysis.Time-varying camera-lidar-specular-point maps of the data campaigns conducted for this project are created for comparison with the GPS signal analysis. Multiple data campaigns were performed during which the Lake Michigan surface had surface ice, water or a mixture of the two. The lake surface is reconstructed for different timestamps, using the appropriate image frame and lidar frame. Combining chronologically, the changes in the lake surface can then be observed along with the movement of the specular point, due to the movement of the GPS satellites. Any satellites passing over a boundary between water and ice on the lake surface are identified and time stamped, to then be compared to the GPS signal analysis results.
Show less

Title: Application-Oriented Scheduling for Optimizing Information Freshness in Wireless Networks
Creator: Yin, Bo
Date: 2020
Description: Recent years have witnessed a significant advancement of networking technologies as well as the proliferation of mobile devices. Due to the...
Show moreRecent years have witnessed a significant advancement of networking technologies as well as the proliferation of mobile devices. Due to the convergence of pervasive connectivity and ubiquitous computing, Internet of Things (IoT) systems are becoming increasingly information-centric. For those IoT devices, wireless communication is the dominant way to exchange information. The development of IoT has spawned a plethora of real-time applications, boosting the demand for timely information updates. Age of Information (AoI) has recently been introduced to quantify the freshness of the knowledge the controller has about the remote information sources. Due to its sheer novelty in capturing the timeliness requirements of various applications, AoI has sparked tremendous interest and been studied in many communication systems. This thesis aims at an exploratory study on how to characterize the essence of wireless scheduling for effective information freshness from the decision-making perspectives through two representative application scenarios, information retrieval and information integration. For the former, request-aware proactive scheduling policies in both static and dynamic request patterns are developed, which target at minimizing time-average effective AoI (EAoI). For the latter, an experience-driven scheduling framework based on deep reinforcement learning techniques is investigated to minimize the time-average AoI in the presence of correlated information sources. Future research directions are also discussed to present possible extensions of this thesis work to a broader range of network scenarios.
Show less

Title: Transitional Refugee Community: Design Strategy for Dry/Arid Regions
Creator: Nakalembe, Hanifah
Date: 2010-05-01, 2010-05-01
Description: The proposed master’s project is the exploration of how architectural planning and design can improve and increase efficiency in transitional...
Show moreThe proposed master’s project is the exploration of how architectural planning and design can improve and increase efficiency in transitional housing during emergency relief and/or conflict related situations. The project proposal developed through design exploration of several prototypes that would not only be minimal but will also be culturally and climatically adaptive among other things. After a thorough select ion process, concentration was given to arid/dry climate and the area select ed for study was Darfur, Sudan.
Show less

Title: Captured Moments: A Concept for a K-12 Urban School
Creator: Twardowski, Jacqueline
Date: 2012, 2012-05
Description: The inspiration to develop a vertical urban school originates from rising urban density and the lack of interconnection and identity in some...
Show moreThe inspiration to develop a vertical urban school originates from rising urban density and the lack of interconnection and identity in some urban environments. The urban condition is a construct of rhythm, memory, and the sensory. This condition is illuminated through the dense activity and interaction of city life. This scheme embraces the layers of activity and vibrancies inherent in the operation of schools and cities.
Show less

Title: Regeneration
Creator: Yun, Sungkook
Date: 2012-04-24, 2012-05
Description: I want to make the senior center to allow the elderly to discover new places and new uses for them, to watch the activities of others between...
Show moreI want to make the senior center to allow the elderly to discover new places and new uses for them, to watch the activities of others between social spaces that can promote interaction among users, and to exercise like care services itself along the dynamic circulations. I also make the massing of the building that act as a landmark to bring the excitement of the welfare center not just to the users but also to passersby for regenerating people and the context as well.
Show less

Title: Rehabilitation of "Kumbharwada", Dharavi Slums, Mumbai
Creator: Purandare, Bhakti
Date: 2010-05-01, 2010-05-01
Description: Within the slums of India small and unventilated dwellings serve as multipurpose spaces where a families live as well as manufactures pottery...
Show moreWithin the slums of India small and unventilated dwellings serve as multipurpose spaces where a families live as well as manufactures pottery products. In terms of production mechanisms, potter’s depend on conventional kilns which are shared between families. They use cotton dust, rags /wastes and diesel & oil soaked cotton as firing fuel which is serious cause of population & health hazards.
Show less

Title: CHARACTERIZATION AND MODELING OF A COMMERCIAL NATIONWIDE WI-FI HOTSPOT NETWORK
Creator: Divgi, Gautam
Date: 2014, 2014-12
Description: We present a thorough analysis of a commercial nationwide Wi-Fi hotspot network. The analysis is approached in two ways, characterization and...
Show moreWe present a thorough analysis of a commercial nationwide Wi-Fi hotspot network. The analysis is approached in two ways, characterization and modeling. First we characterize the network from a ve month long log of user activ- ity and traffic collected by a wireless network service provider operating hotspots in restaurants, serviced apartments, hotels and airports all over Australia. The users are categorized based on their account time limits to analyze the impact of account strati cation on the overall user behavior. A similarity index is developed to com- pare two data sets. This is used to quantitatively measure how similar or different various types of accounts are. The user population in the network is found to be highly uctuating, hence user speci c, population independent metrics are proposed to manage this transience. We also introduce metrics to measure account time and data utilization. We then follow through with detailed modeling of session and traffic parame- ters. We develop the truncated loglogistic (T-LL) distribution which can model light and heavy tailed data using a modi cation of Lavalette's law. A novel method to t the T-LL distribution to data by minimizing a goodness-of- t metric is presented. The T-LL distribution and the tting method are subsequently used to model session and traffic parameters of the network based on the categorization methodology de- veloped previously. We address concerns about the speci city of the model by using it to model other publicly available Wi-Fi network traces. The property of the introduced T-LL distribution to model both light and heavy tailed data makes it uniquely quali ed for modeling web le sizes. Thus we extend the applicability of the introduced model by tting it to publicly available web le size data. The T-LL models outperform those of the Pareto and lognormal distributions used to model such data currently.
Ph.D. in Computer Science, December 2014
Show less

repository.iit

Search the repository

Pages

Pages