The concept of construction industrialization, first raised in the 1960s, refers to the transfer of on-site construction work to an off-site factory to improve quality and reduce cost, time, and safety issues. In some countries, industrialization of construction projects is highly recommended and promoted by governments and local construction institutions...
As managers of agricultural and natural resources are confronted with uncertainties in global change impacts, the complexities associated with the interconnected cycling of nitrogen, carbon, and water present daunting management challenges. Existing models provide detailed information on specific sub-systems (e.g., land, air, water, and economics). An increasing awareness of the...
Atmospheric pressure plasma is non-thermal at millimeter to micrometer separations. It represents an alternative low exergy initiator of many chemical reactions. In many instances heat, light or sound are not efficient providers of the necessary energy to overcome chemical activation barriers. The focus of this research is applying dc nonthermal...
The scarcity of wireless spectrum resources and the overwhelming demand for wireless broadband resources have prompted industry, government agencies and academia within the wireless communities to develop and come up with effective solutions that can make additional spectrum available for broadband data. As part of these ongoing efforts, cognitive radio...
This dissertation presents novel, field-activated smart material systems for the actuation and control of autonomous robots. Smart materials, a type of material whose properties can be changed with an external stimuli, represent a promising direction to expand upon existing robotic control and actuation methods, particularly in the sub-fields of soft...
Transport phenomena specially the ones that occur in the various engineering disciplines such as tissue engineering and natural environment are often complex to analyze mostly due to the dynamic and geometric complexities; as such, they have been the subject of an active and intense area of research in past decades....
The climate of the Pacific Northwest is in flux, and existing forest ecosystems are stressed and poised to shift in fundamental ways, with or without human intervention. This dissertation probes the nature of forest responses to environmental change through investigations of morphology and genetics of three species of alder co-occurring...
Merge conflicts have long plagued software development. With larger and more dispersed teams comes greater risk of developers working on the same code at the same time. While merge conflicts are known to be painful, their exact impact on software is still largely unknown. Are merge conflicts an isolated problem,...