Browsing by Author "Paige, Frederick Eugene"

Now showing 1 - 7 of 7
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    Design of Energy Dashboard Display to Promote Energy-Data Literacy
    James, Joseph Andrew (Virginia Tech, 2021-09-14)
    In many US homes, 15% of the energy that can be saved is hidden beneath complex mathematical calculations. Hidden energy savings can be revealed by converting mathematical calculations to data visualizations, creating a story for residents to see how they are consuming energy. Cloud-based data visualization platforms offer the ability to appropriately communicate complex building energy data to a broad set of stakeholders. Unfortunately, proprietary solutions are too expensive and open-source options lack standardization for cloud-based energy monitoring. This study aims to create a comprehensive energy dashboard display to increase residents' energy awareness of how energy is consumed throughout their homes. But before energy dashboards can be created, a content analysis of current visualization chart types used on utility bills and energy monitoring devices were discovered to see how energy data has been visualized in the energy domain. Next, a literature review was conducted to reveal other visualization chart types outside of the energy domain that could be used to visualize energy data. The content analysis results identified eight visualization chart types that are used on utility bills and energy monitoring devices. In addition, the literature review uncovered eight additional visualization chart types that have the functionality to visualize energy data. Next, the visualization chart types were combined with data modeling design techniques to create prototype energy dashboard displays to communicate energy insights to residents. Soon utility companies will begin to provide data visualizations for the majority of their customers. The insights from this study can help to inform and lead the development of commercially used data visualizations. In addition, this research can provide utility companies with a blueprint on how to share energy consumption data with customers.
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    Evaluation of Markerless Motion Capture to Assess Physical Exposures During Material Handling Tasks
    Ojelade, Aanuoluwapo Ezekiel (Virginia Tech, 2024-03-12)
    Manual material handling (MMH) tasks are associated with the development of work-related musculoskeletal disorders (WMSDs). Minimizing the frequency and intensity of handling objects is an ideal solution, yet MMH remains an integral part of many industry sectors, including manufacturing, construction, warehousing, and distribution. Physical exposure assessment can help identify high-risk tasks, guide the development and evaluation of ergonomic interventions, and contribute to understanding exposure-risk relationships. Physical exposure can be evaluated using self-assessment, observational methods, and direct measurements. Nevertheless, implementing these methods in situ can be challenging, time consuming, expensive, and infeasible or inaccurate in many cases. Thus, there is a critical need to improve physical exposure assessments to protect workers and save costs. This dissertation assessed the accuracy of a markerless motion capture system (MMC) to quantify physical exposures during MMH tasks using three studies. Specifically, the first study investigated the performance of an MMC system, together with machine learning algorithms, for classifying diverse MMH tasks during a simulated complex job. In the second study, the feasibility of predicting dynamic hand forces was determined, using alternative measures, such as kinematics from MMC and/or in-sole pressure systems, coupled with a machine learning algorithm. Finally, in the third study, we systematically evaluated MMC for assessing biomechanical demands, by comparing outputs from a full-body musculoskeletal model driven by kinematic and kinetics from gold standard input and estimates derived from the MMC and in-sole pressure measurement system. Overall, the findings of these studies demonstrated the potential of using MMC to classify several common occupational tasks and to estimate the associated biomechanical demands for a given worker (automatically and with minimal physical contact). Additionally, the methods developed here can help stakeholders rapidly assess an individual worker's exposure to physical demands during diverse tasks.
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    Improving the Design of Civil Infrastructure Messages for the Public
    Grinton Jr, Charlie Wendell (Virginia Tech, 2024-09-18)
    Civil infrastructure serves as the driving force behind the evolution of a safe, sustainable, and efficient environment. However, the way information about civil infrastructure has been communicated to the public has been insufficient. Since every human is intrinsically different, designing, and dispersing information about civil infrastructure that accommodates everyone, while also being direct and concise has been a challenge for policymakers and other federal, state, local, and tribal civil engineering stakeholders. Though there has been a plethora of research conducted on message design and communication in other disciplines, little research has been done in the US that focuses on designing more accessible, actionable civil infrastructure messages. The objective of this research was to investigate how to improve the accessibility of civil infrastructure messages and communication infrastructure to enhance the public's ability to make daily infrastructure decisions. This research study utilized quantitative and qualitative methods to analyze and discuss various ways that civil infrastructure messages can be improved. Results from this study are based on the exploration of three different ways in which civil infrastructure messaging can be improved: policy, transportation/roadway safety, and emergency response. Data sources include eight publicly accessible energy policies from 1978-2022, a publicly available dataset of more than 75 thousand WEAs, and a dataset retrieved from Shealy et al. (2020), which collected data on 300 Virginia drivers in both rural and urban areas. A descriptive policy analysis and Flesch-Kincaid readability test were conducted to historically analyze energy policies and understand their accessibility impacts for research question 1; a brain activation network analysis was conducted and nodal network measures (i.e., network density, degree centrality) were used to investigate the cognitive response Virginia drivers had for various types of non-traditional traffic safety messages for research question 2; and sentiment analysis, emotion detection analysis, as well as a two-phased qualitative coding analysis (i.e., in-vivo coding, focused coding) were conducted to investigate how WEAs can be better designed to increase public attention and engagement for research question 3. The findings from this study demonstrate how emotional content that is present in tweets authored by community members affected by the natural disaster event can be incorporated into the WEA template. The findings from research question 1 identified potential issues with accessibility and energy policy. Also, the findings from this study describe the content included in the parallel documents that federal agencies use to communicate the most important information of a policy. The findings from research question 2 demonstrate that while the various types of non-traditional traffic safety messages produced variances in cognitive response, messages that included negative emotional content or statistics should be further explored on their impact on evoking safer driving behaviors. The findings from research question 3 reported on how emotional content could be incorporated into the template design of WEAs. The implications from this dissertation provide valuable insights for policymakers, civil engineers, transportation engineers, and emergency response stakeholders and the conclusions set the stage for future research to improve the design of more accessible civil infrastructure messages.
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    Investigating Gentrification and the Role of Green Infrastructure
    Newcomb, Morgan Ji Hae (Virginia Tech, 2024-08-30)
    Increased human-centric requirements could turn the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program (LEED) into a sustainable development tool for cities through mitigation of gentrification. Green building rating systems, like LEED, were designed with environmental sustainability in mind. Sustainability holistically however is about preserving the environment, economics, and equity. A scoping literature review confirmed that LEED is used for energy efficiency and greening developments (preserving the environment). However, research also revealed that LEED has potential to mitigate gentrification (preserving economics and equity) if credits were adjusted, or the program was paired with policy, to have increased focus on affordability, maintaining local culture, and preventing resident displacement. Further conclusions based on literature could not be made due to a gap in research surrounding LEED programs and gentrification. Gentrification is a contemporary event that occurs from any type of land development; but more quantitative research surrounding gentrification-related variables could help guide LEED and policies towards what metrics would likely help reduce resident displacement. A longitudinal case study of Arlington County, Virginia paired with spatial modeling was performed with census-level data. The results demonstrated how LEED impacts onto gentrification-related variables could be measured. Accompanying census-level data with localized surveys in future studies could then provide more context to how gentrification impacts specific neighborhoods. This research establishes a methodological foundation for future studies to analyze these complex relationships between third-party green certification programs and gentrification. The code and related datasets for this study were uploaded to the Open Science Framework (OSF) (DOI 10.17605/OSF.IO/G3HCV) to help foster those next steps for not just other researchers in this space, but also localities. Localities, which currently utilize LEED and related programs in their development policies, could adapt this framework to help establish social and economic assistance programs to aid in making a more sustainable environment for residents without adjusting LEED itself.
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    Lessons Learned in Energy Efficiency of Mini-Split HVAC Systems in Affordable Housing
    Ebrahim, Fatemah Mohammad (Virginia Tech, 2021-02-10)
    The road to energy-efficient housing is not without cracks and potholes. Many building stakeholders have pointed to the discrepancies that exist between simulated and measured efficiency results, where some have called it a post-occupancy gap, others have called it an energy efficiency information gap. The research presented in this thesis addresses that gap by detailing the results of two exploratory case studies of affordable housing projects in Virginia across three manuscripts. The data utilized in the first manuscript includes measured data collected at the second level through the NEXI energy monitoring and feedback device, wherein we used descriptive statistics to investigate the impact of temperature on energy use over different timeframes. We had anticipated our findings may not all be consistent with previously existing studies. We found this to be true in many cases, but we also discovered interesting contradictions to our assumptions. This study thereby investigates the gap in energy performance within net-zero buildings and contributes to the existing body of literature by presenting the findings of this unique study. The data utilized in Manuscript 2 and Manuscript 3 was utility data, which was reported as end-of-use monthly consumption values. We were able to investigate the impact of 3 different HVAC systems energy use by evaluating the energy and cost performance before and after the installation of newer, more efficient systems. We found that although all systems were performing below anticipated standards, the one-stage system outperformed in terms of efficiency, and the second-stage system outperformed in terms of cost. The findings in these studies emphasize the importance of energy education for residents to achieve greater efficiency gains.
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    Understanding Student Interactions Through Learning Analytics from an Online Engineering Case Study Course
    West, Paige Meredith (Virginia Tech, 2021-05-14)
    Student interactions in learning environments are vital for learning development. The growth of online learning in higher education has led stakeholders to question how to identify student interactions with course material and increase the quality and value of the learning experience. This research focused on leveraging existing learning analytics from the Canvas Learning Management System (LMS) to identify course interactions and make data-informed course design decisions. Learning analytics were collected from 113 students in three course sections of an online construction management course. Three surveys were also distributed to each course section to gather the students' perceptions of the learning methods and their interactions for assistance. An exploratory graphical analysis visually depicted student interactions in the online course through the students' hourly and weekly interaction levels, page visits, and discussion board activity. A paired t-test was used to statistically compare the survey responses on the students' perceptions of the learning methods. The learning analytics results showed the students' interaction levels peaked in the afternoon and evening hours, and their weekly interactions and page visits lessened after the midterm exam. Additionally, based on Pearson's correlation test, the discussion board interactions significantly correlated with student performance. Lastly, the surveys showed that students found watching the lecture videos and reading the lecture slides to be the most helpful methods when learning the course material. These results have important implications for online stakeholders as learning analytics and student perceptions can inform online course design to facilitate student, instructor, and content interactions.
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    Understanding the Dimensions of International Engineering Programs in Higher Education: A Qualitative Study with Faculty and Students
    Baugher, Brooke Erin (Virginia Tech, 2023-07-06)
    Universities across the United States have integrated international experiences into their engineering students' education. International engineering programs provide learning and professional opportunities for participating faculty and students while aiding international partners in their own efforts. These programs are unique from traditional engineering courses and projects and generate outcomes desired for engineers entering the workforce including professional skills, critical thinking skills, and a strong understanding of their target audiences. While individual programs have explored the impacts of their programs on their students and their resulting project outcomes, there are significant gaps when considering the following: 1) how are programs structured, 2) what are the intended learning outcomes, 3) why do faculty participate in these programs, 4) how are relationships formed and maintained with international partners, and 5) what barriers exist that limit international engineering programs? To address these gaps, I interviewed 25 program faculty and 40 students. Through qualitative analysis of these interviews, I found that programs shared a common consideration for the program's focus on student learning or achieving international partner goals. Programs approached both structure and learning outcomes with either more emphasis on one or the other; balancing these two goals was a challenge for most programs. Faculty were motivated to participate in international engineering programs by their own intrinsic values, however, many felt limited when in traditional tenure track positions. Students tended to reflect more deeply and from a systems perspective the more exposure and time in a program. Students who engaged in either multiple programs or longer participation within a program tended to reflect their experiences contributed more to their current and future career plans. Partners were typically developed initially through personal relationships of the faculty members or through third-party organizations that specialize in international work. Maintaining relationships was highly varied between programs, but a common deficit among programs was the ability to evaluate project outcomes with partners in a numerical way. The examination of these questions about international engineering programs provides a foundation of knowledge for future programs to build on and for existing programs to compare their approaches. This is a critical step to implementing these types of programs in a more widespread and intentional way.