Disaster response and surveillance operations will increasingly incorporate Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV)s due to their cost-effectiveness and maneuverability. This trend has driven the research on small-sized quadcopters for varying indoor applications. Small-sized quadcopters' payload and computational capacity limit the usage of complex vision-based collision avoidance algorithms that are employed by...
Machine learning applied to computer architecture has rapidly transitioned from a theoretical novelty to being a driving force behind design, control, and simulation in practically all components. These machine-learning-based methodologies are further notable for their scalability to increasingly complex design challenges, which has allowed these methodologies to surpass the prior...
The engineering community is increasingly moving towards the design of seismic force-resisting systems that limit post-earthquake damage and reduce downtime to increase urban resiliency. For example, structural spines can be used to provide an elastic load path to impose a more uniform drift distribution with building height, thereby reducing the...
Understanding the interplay between energy and water is central to effective natural resource management. With enough energy it is possible to secure sufficient water, with enough water it is possible to produce nearly boundless energy. The sun is the engine which drives the availability of both these resources; nearly every...
As one of the most popular data types, the point cloud is widely used in various appli- cations, including computer vision, computer graphics and robotics. The capability to directly measure 3D point clouds is invaluable in those applications as depth information could remove a lot of the segmentation ambiguities in...
Machine learning has enabled significant advancements in diverse fields, yet, with a few exceptions, has had limited impact on computer architecture. Recent work, however, has begun to explore broader application to design, optimization, and simulation. Notably, machine-learning-based strategies often surpass prior state-of-the-art analytical, heuristic, and human-expert approaches. This thesis first...
Cross-laminated timber (CLT) is revolutionizing the use of wood in the construction sector of North America as a solution for walls and diaphragms in mid-rise or even high-rise timber structures on account of its environmental advantages, high strength-to-weight ratio, fire-safety performance, and propensity for prefabrication. However, considering the hygroscopic nature...
Public housing (PH) provides a substantial portion of the housing in both developed and less developed countries, and the demand for it is increasing. The PH projects, however, are facing many challenges that are affecting their performance and cause their failures. The United States has demolished large portions of their...
The story of Leo Szilard has not been told in its full complexity. This is especially so of the role imagination played in Szilard’s worldview. Szilard, like many other scientists in the mid-twentieth century, worked on the Manhattan Project. Like these other wartime participants, the work and relationships formed during...
The goal of the work in this dissertation was to identify alternative soil amendments to improve plant growth and yield during establishment of highbush blueberry (Vaccinium hybrid). Woody materials, such as sawdust and wood chips, have a high carbon to nitrogen (C:N) ratio and low water holding capacity, which can...