Digital Commons Network^™

Cellulose Nanofibers Use In Coated Paper, Finley Richmond

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Cellulose Nanofibers (CNF) are materials that can be obtained by the mechanical breakdown of natural fibers. CNF have the potential to be produced at low cost in a paper mill and may provide novel properties to paper, paper coatings, paints, or other products. However, suspensions have a complex rheology even at low solid contents. To be able to coat, pump, or mix CNF at moderate solids, it is critical to understand the rheology of these suspensions and how they flow in process equipment; current papers only report the rheology up to 6% solids. Few publications are available that describe the …

Fabrication Of A Thin Silver Nanowire Composite Film And Investigation Of A Patterning Technique., Richard S. Korte 1991-

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Electrically conductive polymers encompass an exciting field of research for applications in dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSC’s). DSSC’s possess several advantages over other types of solar cells. They offer the potential for high quantum efficiency, solar conversion efficiency approaching that of traditional silicon panels, rapid charge transfer kinetics for photo-excited electrons, mechanical flexibility, and cost efficient manufacturing processes. However, key drawbacks to their large scale production and performance lifetime lie in their reliance on costly indium tin oxide (ITO), fluorinated tin oxide (FTO), and platinum for electrode materials, and the mechanical fragility inherent to a liquid electrolyte layer component. Much of …

Fabrication And Characterization Of Antioxidant Loaded Liposomes., Brian Gettler

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Radiation exposure is both a major obstacle in space exploration and an occupational hazard for various careers causing DNA damage and ROS. In order to reduce the effects of radiation, the primary and most explored approach has been focused around mitigation in terms of exposure duration, exposure intensity, and shielding usage. In some situations none of these reduction strategies were viable and so the use of antioxidants is being explored as an alternate strategy for therapeutic purposes. One such antioxidant is curcumin, otherwise known as diferuloylmethane, is a component of turmeric with both antioxidant properties and anti-inflammatory properties. Another antioxidant …

Phase Transformation Studies Of Metal Oxides To Dichalcogenides In 1-D Structures., Dustin Ray Cummins 1987-

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Recently, the use of materials with nanoscale morphologies has expanded, particularly with applications in energy conversion, catalysis, and energy storage. One drawback to single crystalline nanomaterials, especially 1D nanowires, is the difficulty in synthesizing these compounds, as the material chemistry becomes more complicated. Metal oxide nanowires can be synthesized easily and can be produced in relatively large quantities. However, more complex materials, such as metal chalcogenides, cannot typically be synthesized using facile methods, and currently very few techniques involve scalable methods. Phase transformation of metal oxides nanowires to form metal sulfides and selenides by gas-solid reactions is one viable route …

Multilayer Electret Activated By Direct Contact Silicon Electrode., Mark M. Crain

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Electrets used in microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) devices are often formed by corona charging, where ionized gases are generated in an electric field to introduce a charge to the electret surface. The purpose of this study was to investigate a new technique for creating an electret from a plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) multilayer film of SiO2/Si3N4/SiO2 using a direct contact electrode of silicon. The electret formation takes advantage of deep traps in silicon nitride, which are known to develop from hydrogen interactions with silicon dangling bonds and, in some stoichiometries, nitrogen dangling bonds. The electret activation process has been …

Temporal Contextual Descriptors And Applications To Emotion Analysis., Haythem Balti

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The current trends in technology suggest that the next generation of services and devices allows smarter customization and automatic context recognition. Computers learn the behavior of the users and can offer them customized services depending on the context, location, and preferences. One of the most important challenges in human-machine interaction is the proper understanding of human emotions by machines and automated systems. In the recent years, the progress made in machine learning and pattern recognition led to the development of algorithms that are able to learn the detection and identification of human emotions from experience. These algorithms use different modalities …

Project Management And Its Relation To Long-Term Project Success : An Empirically Based Theoretical Framework., Youssef Ait Boudlal 1969-

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Companies implement effective project management to successfully operate in turbulent market cycles and ensure the success of their endeavors. Project management is indispensable for most industrial sectors and is employed in a variety of for-profit and non-profit organizations. It can be considered as a management method that contributes value to a variety of organizations. Many practitioners and researchers have attempted to identify the causes of project failure, the factors of project success, and the criteria to gauge this success. There has been little agreement on what constitutes project success. In response to the widespread debate surrounding project success, several lists …

Sdsf : Social-Networking Trust Based Distributed Data Storage And Co-Operative Information Fusion., Phani Chakravarthy Polina

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

As of 2014, about 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are created each day, and 90% of the data in the world was created in the last two years alone. The storage of this data can be on external hard drives, on unused space in peer-to-peer (P2P) networks or using the more currently popular approach of storing in the Cloud. When the users store their data in the Cloud, the entire data is exposed to the administrators of the services who can view and possibly misuse the data. With the growing popularity and usage of Cloud storage services like Google Drive, …

Shape/Image Registration For Medical Imaging : Novel Algorithms And Applications., Ahmed Magdy Shalaby 1982-

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation looks at two different categories of the registration approaches: Shape registration, and Image registration. It also considers the applications of these approaches into the medical imaging field. Shape registration is an important problem in computer vision, computer graphics and medical imaging. It has been handled in different manners in many applications like shapebased segmentation, shape recognition, and tracking. Image registration is the process of overlaying two or more images of the same scene taken at different times, from different viewpoints, and/or by different sensors. Many image processing applications like remote sensing, fusion of medical images, and computer-aided surgery …

The Effect Of Infrastructure Changes On Railway Operations., Martin J.R. Schmidt 1966-

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This paper makes use of standard simulation programs in combination with the tools of applied statistics to simulate railway operations. The purpose of the use of this tool is to evaluate and compare different possible kinds of railway infrastructure, like different types of signaling procedures, different network configuration or operational procedures. A railway system is a logistic network and because of the demand for improved railway operation, much work has been undertaken lately in this scientific field. However the author postulates the hypothesis based on a literature review that in a lot of these works there is a lack of …

The Development Of A Laminated Copolyester Electric Guitar, Addison S. Karnes

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is an investigation of the fabrication and assembly methodologies employed in the development of a proof-of-principle prototype electric guitar composed of laminated copolyester. The objective of the project was to develop the processes and procedures to create an optimized physical and visual bond between layers to minimize vibratory dissipation, thus maximizing sustain. A high speed CNC router, abrasive waterjet, laser engraver-cutter, as well as various manual fabrication and assembly methods were investigated in the construction of the guitar prototypes. The lamination processes explored include low-temperature, heat-assisted pressure bonding, solvent and chemical welding, and contact adhesives. The project concluded …

Ensemble Learning Method For Hidden Markov Models., Anis Hamdi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

For complex classification systems, data are gathered from various sources and potentially have different representations. Thus, data may have large intra-class variations. In fact, modeling each data class with a single model might lead to poor generalization. The classification error can be more severe for temporal data where each sample is represented by a sequence of observations. Thus, there is a need for building a classification system that takes into account the variations within each class in the data. This dissertation introduces an ensemble learning method for temporal data that uses a mixture of Hidden Markov Model (HMM) classifiers. We …

A Non-Invasive Image Based System For Early Diagnosis Of Prostate Cancer., Ahmad Abdusalam Firjani Firjani Naef

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Prostate cancer is the second most fatal cancer experienced by American males. The average American male has a 16.15% chance of developing prostate cancer, which is 8.38% higher than lung cancer, the second most likely cancer. The current in-vitro techniques that are based on analyzing a patients blood and urine have several limitations concerning their accuracy. In addition, the prostate Specific Antigen (PSA) blood-based test, has a high chance of false positive diagnosis, ranging from 28%-58%. Yet, biopsy remains the gold standard for the assessment of prostate cancer, but only as the last resort because of its invasive nature, high …

Avatar Captcha : Telling Computers And Humans Apart Via Face Classification And Mouse Dynamics., Darryl Felix D’Souza

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Bots are malicious, automated computer programs that execute malicious scripts and predefined functions on an affected computer. They pose cybersecurity threats and are one of the most sophisticated and common types of cybercrime tools today. They spread viruses, generate spam, steal personal sensitive information, rig online polls and commit other types of online crime and fraud. They sneak into unprotected systems through the Internet by seeking vulnerable entry points. They access the system’s resources like a human user does. Now the question arises how do we counter this? How do we prevent bots and on the other hand allow human …

Evaluating The Effectiveness And Hydrological Performance Of Green Infrastructure Stormwater Control Measures., Hamidreza Kazemi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Louisville and Jefferson County Metropolitan Sewer District (MSD) has developed a Long-Term Control Plan (LTCP) to address the combined sewer overflow (CSO) issue through a combination of gray and green infrastructure (GI) stormwater management practices in the city of Louisville. In support of this effort, the MSD installed a series of GI stormwater control measures (SCMs) to abate the CSO volumes in an urban sewershed basin. This research is focused on monitoring and evaluating the individual hydrological performance, which included infiltration and exfiltration processes, of two permeable pavement systems over a two year study period. It also assess the …

Early-Age Hydration Studies Of Portland Cement, Fengjuan Liu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Our current knowledge on cement hydration during setting is based on the discrete observation of hydrated paste. An advanced micro/nano-level technique which can perform the in-situ observation on the continuous hydration of cement paste is demanded. In this study, Raman spectroscopy (RS) was chosen as such a method to continuously investigate wet pastes. The objective of this research is to explore the hydration process and microstructural development of fresh pastes with this technique. This research was conducted in three phases. First, the RS analysis was used to continuously observe the cement hydration from 20 minutes after mixing to 9 hours. …

Investigation Of Transmission Loss Through Double Wall Structures With Varying Small Air Gaps Using Modal Analysis., Richard Michael Phillips 1988-

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Noise reduction testing is completed for two single steel plate constructions with different thicknesses and for two double wall constructions with different air gap thicknesses that include the same two plates used in the single plate constructions. Results compare favorably with known theory and experimental results from previous literature. These favorable comparisons include the direct relationship between mass per unit area and transmission loss for single plate constructions, the presence of a noise reduction valley near the mass-air-mass frequency, the dependency of the mass-air-mass frequency on the air gap thickness, and the existence of a bridge frequency. Despite the similarities …

Identification, Indexing, And Retrieval Of Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation (Cpr) Video Scenes Of Simulated Medical Crisis., Surangkana Rawungyot

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Medical simulations, where uncommon clinical situations can be replicated, have proved to provide a more comprehensive training. Simulations involve the use of patient simulators, which are lifelike mannequins. After each session, the physician must manually review and annotate the recordings and then debrief the trainees. This process can be tedious and retrieval of specific video segments should be automated. In this dissertation, we propose a machine learning based approach to detect and classify scenes that involve rhythmic activities such as Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) from training video sessions simulating medical crises. This applications requires different preprocessing techniques from other video applications. …

Transient Heat Transfer Between A Magnetocaloric Packed Particle Bed And Stagnant Interstitial Fluid., Michael G. Schroeder 1988-

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In the field of magnetocaloric heat pumps, many system models have been made. What most of these models lack is heat transfer occurring while there is no fluid motion. It is the objective of this paper to analytically determine and experimentally verify heat transfer with no bulk fluid motion. The addition of a pure dwell period to the typical magnetocaloric cycle was shown to have a positive performance impact in specific conditions. These conditions correspond to regenerators that are heat transfer rate limited in operation. The heat transfer mechanism for this particular case was shown to be pure conduction via …

Cavitation In Vial Drop Subjected To Mechanical Shock, Houman Babazadehrokni

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Cavitation is a phenomenon that occurs when the local pressure falls down below the critical pressure. Previous work from the Randolph lab demonstrated that protein aggregates can form when a vial of therapeutic solution is dropped onto a hard surface. The process by which this occurs is most likely shock induced cavitation. During this process, hot spots can be created with temperatures and pressures reaching thousands of Kelvin and hundreds of atmospheres, respectively, leading to degradation of protein therapeutics. This work will extend previous efforts by exploring differences generated by change in vial materials, solutions, drop methods and fill volumes. …

Statistical Scheduling Of Economic Dispatch And Energy Reserves Of Hybrid Power Systems With High Renewable Energy Penetration, Yi Gu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A statistical scheduling approach to economic dispatch and energy reserves is proposed in this paper. The proposed approach focuses on minimizing the overall power operating cost with considerations of renewable energy uncertainty and power system security. A hybrid power system generates electricity from both conventional and renewable energy sources. In such a system, it is challenging and yet an open question on the scheduling of economic dispatch together with energy reserves, due to renewable energy generation uncertainty, and spatially wide distribution of energy resources. The hybrid power system scheduling is formulated as a convex programming problem to minimize power operating …

Condition Monitoring System Of Wind Turbine Generators, Khaled Bubaker Abdusamad

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The development and implementation of the condition monitoring systems (CMS) play a significant role in overcoming the number of failures in the wind turbine generators that result from the harsh operation conditions, such as over temperature, particularly when turbines are deployed offshore. In order to increase the reliability of the wind energy industry, monitoring the operation conditions of wind generators is essential to detect the immediate faults rapidly and perform appropriate preventative maintenance. CMS helps to avoid failures, decrease the potential shutdowns while running, reduce the maintenance and operation costs and maintain wind turbines protected. The knowledge of wind turbine …

Solar Power Deployment: Forecasting And Planning, Mohana Shandal Alanazi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The rapid growth of Photovoltaic (PV) technology has been very visible over the past decade. Recently, the penetration of PV plants to the existing grid has significantly increased. Such increase in the integration of solar energy has brought attention to the solar irradiance forecasting. This thesis presents a thorough research of PV technology, how solar power can be forecasted, and PV planning under uncertainty.

Over the last decade, the PV was one of the fastest growing renewable energy technologies. However, the PV system output varies based on weather conditions. Due to the variability and the uncertainty of solar power, the …

Hosting Capacity Calculations In Power Systems, Mansoor T. Alturki

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The aim of this thesis is to investigate and calculate Hosting Capacity in power systems to identify the maximum amount of renewable energy resources that can be deployed. After connecting distributed generation to distribution system, the performance index of the distribution system will improve or deteriorate. The point which is between the acceptable deterioration and unacceptable deterioration is the hosting capacity. This research is specifically concerned with the effect of increasing distributed generation on the performance index in distribution networks and finding the maximum point of the acceptable deterioration.

The hosting capacity is the amount of distributed generation that can …

Studying Eye Gaze Of Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders In Interaction With A Social Robot, Huanghao Feng

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs) experience deficits in verbal and nonverbal communication skills including motor control, emotional facial expressions, and eye gaze attention. In this thesis, we focus on studying the feasibility and effectiveness of using a social robot, called NAO, at modeling and improving the social responses and behaviors of children with autism. In our investigation, we designed and developed two protocols to fulfill this mission. Since eye contact and gaze responses are important non-verbal cues in human's social communication and as the majority of individuals with ASD have difficulties regulating their gaze responses, in this thesis we …

Real-Time Bio Sensing Using Micro-Channel Encapsulated Mems Resonators, Ayesha Iqbal

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This work presents a label-free bio-molecular detection technique based on realtime monitoring of the resonant frequency of micromechanical thermal-piezoresistive rotational mode disk resonators encapsulated in microfluidic channels. Mass loading via adsorption of molecular layers on the surface of such devices results in a frequency shift. In order to provide a reliable platform for sample-resonator interactions and to protect the resonators from contaminants, the resonators were encapsulated in PDMS-based microfluidic channels. Micro-channel encapsulation also allows insulation of electrical signals from the analyte solution. To characterize the performance of such devices as real-time label-free bio-molecular detectors, the strong non-covalent binding of Avidin …

Fabrication And Characterization Of Small Scale Photo-Electro-Chemical Solar Cells, Xin Li

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents fabrication and characterization of a small scale photoelectro-chemical (PEC) solar cell.

The cell consists of a p-type silicon cathode with an etched micro-cavity that houses the zinc chloride electrolyte solution, and the cavity is covered by a sheet of zinc acting as the anode. The cell operates using a semiconductor-electrolyte junction instead of the p-n junction of a conventional solid state solar cell. The silicon electrode is fabricated by controlled wet etching so that the bottom of the micro-cavity becomes a very thin membrane, which allows photons to penetrate and reach the semiconductorelectrolyte interface for the generation …

A Comparison Of Two Method For Dg Optimizing In Power System, Yu Li

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this paper, we mainly focus on using new method to solve the DG problem in order to reducing the loss. We start from comparing two new method. We list out the mathematics theory of the two methods. And then, we using a 33 bus modeling to show which method has a better function on reducing the loss for system. After that, we take the better method to reducing the loss for two cases (14 bus , 34 bus modeling). At last, we conclude the result of the research and give some comment on the future works.

Thermal And Structural Modeling Of Electrochromics On Glass, Mahesh B. Manandhar

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Advanced glazing is a type of window glazing that interacts with the surrounding environment to change its thermal and optical properties to create a more comfortable and energy efficient indoor environment. Electrochromics are one type of such advanced glazing materials that change their properties in response to an externally applied voltage controllable by the user or by automation.

The effectiveness of electrochromics depends upon how well it can keep off extreme temperature conditions from outdoors all year round as well as how structurally stable it can remain at such conditions. This research investigates the use of COMSOL, a finite element …

One-Sided Transparency : A Revolution In Visualization., Robert Curtin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Colorectal cancer is one of the leading causes of death in the world. Colonoscopy, the traditional procedure for detecting colorectal cancer, is very effective. It does have downsides, however - it is invasive, uncomfortable for the patient, and not available to some patients with certain conditions. Virtual colonoscopy has been developed in order to address these issues. A virtual colonoscopy (VC) is a non-invasive method for performing a colonoscopy by using medical imaging data to create a virtual representation of the colon. Previous virtual colonoscopy methods include fly-through, fly-over, flattening, and the unfolded cube method. Fly-through moves the camera through …