Digital Commons Network^™

Cloud Based Collaborative Road Surface Monitoring Using Deep Learning And Smartphones, Akshatha Ramesh

All Theses

Road accidents are one of the major causes of death in the United states of America. Vast majority of everyday deaths in US occur by road accidents. And poorly managed roads are one of the main reasons for it. Safety is the ultimate priority. Safety in this aspect can be ensured only with proper management of roads on a regular basis. Proper maintenance of road conditions can not only ensure safety but also increase rider comfort, fuel economy and provide better driving experience. Traditional methods of surveying is very time consuming, expensive, and require lot of human efforts. Existing methods …

In The Pines: Dung Beetle Community Composition In Longleaf Pine Habitat, Kelsea Lynn Young

All Theses

Dung beetle assemblages are recognized as ecological bioindicators, allowing us to monitor ecological impacts by observing community shifts. Acting as primary nutrient cyclers, they establish niche segregation by sometimes selecting dung based on species (e.g. coyote vs. deer) and by using dung in different ways (e.g. rollers vs. tunnelers). Longleaf pine savannahs are recognized as global hotspots for diversity. Species of dung beetles found within these ecosystems may differ substantially from those found in surrounding agricultural, residential or other forest land. Our objective was to investigate whether the exclusion of mammalian meso-predator exclusion impacts dung beetle abundance, species composition and …

A Computational Evaluation Of Turbulence Generators In Co-Axial Ground Heat Exchangers, Rohit Ashok Rao

All Theses

The heat transfer of ground heat exchangers used in geothermal heating and cooling of buildings partially depends on the velocity, or more specifically the Reynolds number (Re), of the fluid circulating inside the geothermal pipe. Higher Re induces higher heat exchange, which can be achieved with higher fluid velocity. However, the pumping energy necessary to achieve the high fluid velocity is significant. Alternatively, turbulence generators (turbulators) in the form of helical wings inserted inside the pipe can generate and maintain a turbulent flow even at small fluid velocities, thereby inducing higher heat transfer. However, the inclusion of helical turbulators creates …

Toward Carbon Neutrality: The Modeling And Implementation Of An Algal Carbon Capture System, Elizabeth Zanin Flanagan

All Theses

Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from anthropogenic sources are causing widespread ecological disruptions. The uptake of CO2 by aquatic photoautotrophs is one strategy for carbon capture to mitigate these emissions. The objectives of this thesis were to investigate carbonate chemistry and algal growth equations to improve MATLAB model predictive capability in a closed-reactor system and to develop, design, and evaluate a non-fossil fuel technology and strategy for operation of the Algal Carbon Capture System (ACCS). A dynamic growth model based on carbon-limited algal specific growth rate with Monod kinetics, considering CO2, bicarbonate (HCO3), and carbonate (CO32-) as substitutable substrates, provided the …

Parametric Study Of Orthogonal Pantographic Lattice With Non-Linear Torsional Resistance At Pivots, Mahendra Singh Bisht

All Theses

Pantographic lattices are cellular solids comprised of continuous beam fibers intersecting at periodically spaced pivots. The pivots are simulated in the discrete finite element beam model as torsional springs with varied torsional stiffness across orders of magnitude. An important functional performance feature of pantographic lattices is their ability to undergo large deformation without inducing large stresses at the pivots. There is a need for predictive models of this nonlinear behavior. In this study, parameter studies on the order of magnitude and nonlinear material behavior of the torsional stiffness at the pivots, combined with and without nonlinear geometric beam kinematic behavior …

User Perceptions And Stereotypic Responses To Gender And Age Of Voice Assistants, Heather Watkins

All Theses

Technologies such as voiced automation can aid older adults aging in place by assisting with basic home and health tasks in daily routines. However, currently available voice assistants have a common design - they are vastly represented as young and female. Prior work has shown that humans apply stereotypes to human-computer interactions similarly to human-human interactions. When these stereotypes are activated, users may lose trust or confidence in the device or stop using it all together. The purpose of this study was to investigate if users can detect age and gender cues of voiced automation and to understand the extent …

Dynamic Mechanical Behaviors Of Nacre-Inspired Graphene-Polymer Nanocomposites Depending On Internal Nanostructures, Cho Chun Chiang

All Theses

Nacre, a natural nanocomposite with a brick-and-mortar structure existing in the inner layer of mollusk shells, has been shown to optimize strength and toughness along the laminae (in-plane) direction. However, such natural materials more often experience impact load in the direction perpendicular to the layers (i.e., out-of-plane direction) from predators. The dynamic responses and deformation mechanisms of layered structures under impact load in the out-of-plane direction have been much less analyzed. The optimal design of protective material systems by leveraging the bioinspired structure has not yet been achieved. The main objective of this thesis is to investigate the dynamic mechanical …

The Art Of The Author: A Discussion Of Servants In The Castle Of Otranto, Laura Caroline Dunn

All Theses

The parts of this thesis work together to understand Walpole’s Prefaces, defend the presence of servants in the novel, and critique Manfred’s dismissal of the servants as merely comedic necessity for the sake of dramatic tension. Ultimately this thesis shows that while servants are comedic, their comedy has the larger function of providing illuminating details and prophetic information to the reader thereby mediating our understanding of key events and characters. This thesis finds that Walpole does not dismiss servants, but rather values them as essential to his design of creating tension intended to boost the reader’s excitement.

The Role Of Package Design Typicality On A Hand Sanitizer Purchase, Ami Lee Frierson

All Theses

ABSTRACTCategory visual codes are visible themes that appear across a category, defining what is typical for that category. In package design, these visual codes may include the shape, size, font, color, or material of the packaged products seen on shelves. Generally, research has shown that atypical designs do not stand out to consumers; they go unseen since consumers are only looking for specific characteristics within that category. However, many studies indicate that consumer perception of atypical package design is moderated by several other variables that influence purchase decision. In March 2020, the Food and Drug Administration passed a temporary policy …

Fragments Of The Self, Jessica Swank

All Theses

This body of work addresses humanity’s relationship with digital technology from a personal perspective. Through constructed photography and sculptural work, I point to the connections between humans, machines, and nature, emphasizing the blurred lines between each of these entities. By revealing overlaps and associations between them, I seek to reconcile digital connection and emotional connection. I believe reconciliation may come through the acknowledgment of digital technology’s influence, and the subversion of convenience for the sake of quality human connections.

The images within this series reside at the intersection of self-portraiture and documentary. A dialogue is formed between the subjects through …

Determining States Of Movement In Humans Using Minimally Processed Eeg Signals And Various Classification Methods, Maurice Barnett

All Theses

Electroencephalography (EEG) is a non-invasive technique used in both clinical and research settings to record neuronal signaling in the brain. The location of an EEG signal as well as the frequencies at which its neuronal constituents fire correlate with behavioral tasks, including discrete states of motor activity. Due to the number of channels and fine temporal resolution of EEG, a dense, high-dimensional dataset is collected. Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) is a treatment that has been suggested to improve motor functions of Parkinson’s disease and chronic stroke patients when stimulation occurs during a motor task. tDCS is commonly administered without …

Tradespace Exploration Of A Uav Conceptual Design Using Model-Based Systems Engineering, Ayan Srivastava

All Theses

The objective of this research is to apply model-based systems engineering approaches to the conceptual design of unmanned aerial vehicles. This is accomplished by evaluating the models of aircraft performance, extracting input and output parameters from the models, creating chains of models, and implementing the models in the MATLAB programming language. By following this process, it is possible to identify the global parameters that remain constant across models, the shared input parameters, the dependencies between models, and the feedback loops with the systems models.

The models are currently implemented in two files using Microsoft MS Excel, one is focused on …

Soil Moisture And Light Conditions Impact Digital And Visual Soil Color Assessments, Isabella Hill

All Theses

Determining soil color has traditionally been done visually, but inaccuracies with this method have been documented, including disagreement in evaluators, to differences in physical color books. Determining Munsell soil color in the field is also subject to environmental conditions, including soil water content (SWC) and light intensity. New digital spectral technology designed for determining soil color may offer accurate assessments regardless of human inaccuracies and environmental conditions. This research aimed to assess if visual observations differed from digital measurements of Munsell soil color as well as, the impacts of SWC and light on visual observations and digital measurements of soil …

Designing And Evaluating An Intervention To Target Functional Movement, Flexibility, And Strength In Paddle Whitewater Raft Guides, Leah Irwin

All Theses

According to the Outdoor Industry Association (2020), about 3.4 million people across the United States went whitewater-rafting in 2019. The majority of the research on whitewater rafting has focused on guest injuries, with less attention on the whitewater raft guides, who have an arduous job and are at risk for shoulder, back, and hip injuries. In addition to these injuries, rafting guides also experience bilateral imbalances from utilizing a dominant guiding side. One way to prevent these types of injuries and imbalances is to improve functional movement, strength, and range of motion (ROM). The goal of this study was to …

Visualizing Features From Deep Neural Networks Trained On Alzheimer’S Disease And Few-Shot Learning Models For Alzheimer’S Disease, John Reeder

All Theses

Alzheimer’s disease is an incurable neural disease, usually affecting the elderly. The afflicted suffer from cognitive impairments that get dramatically worse at each stage. Previous research on Alzheimer’s disease analysis in terms of classification leveraged statistical models such as support vector machines. However, statistical models such as support vector machines train the from numerical data instead of medical images. Today, convolutional neural networks (CNN) are widely considered as the one which can achieve the state-of-the- art image classification performance. However, due to their black box nature, there can be reluctance amongst medical professionals for their use. On the other hand, …

Does Naturalness Influence Positive Learning Outcomes During Environmental Education Field Trips?, Lydia Kiewra

All Theses

Environmental education (EE) field trip programs in the United States often take place in outdoor, natural settings. Such natural environments provide ample opportunity for hands-on and immersive learning to occur, which may allow for positive cognitive and moral development in children. However, recent research on the impact of more natural settings on youths’ academic success has produced mixed outcomes, suggesting that the relationship between levels of naturalness and student success is more complex than previously assumed. Utilizing student surveys collected during 283 EE field trip programs and remotely sensed land cover data, this study examines the relationship between levels of …

Celebrating And Practicing Aspects From Eastern- And Western-Centric Animation Styles, Alissa Annette Standerwick

All Theses

Animation styles in a modern world end up influencing the animation of other regions. This project, through animation, celebrates Eastern and Western differences in their animations. Rather than analyzing story differences, aspects of the habits formed by the region’s animators are analyzed and practiced. The formation of animation in respective cultures represents the local history of these regions. So to understand the aspects & technicalities of how animators animate per region, it is useful to understand how film, TV, & comic styles of an entire community impacted that area’s animation

Product Lifecycle Management - Application Of Patterning Methods To Gas Turbine Blades And Creation Of Learning Materials, David Procopio

All Theses

To compete in the global marketplace, companies need to embrace virtual design and manufacturing methods. Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) embodies both the workflow processes and tools to bring forth products from conception to design to fabrication to service to decommissioning, and to eventual recycling. In response to the growing demand for engineers and technicians with these critical skills, colleges and universities should introduce these virtual tools through seminars, software workshops, and computer laboratory sessions. Some of the opportunities in the PLM Center at Clemson University include short courses on PLM practices, focused software training sessions, hands-on exploration activities, and research …

Development And Application Of A Digital Twin For Chiller Plant Performance Assessment, Mihir Kale

All Theses

As the complexity of industrial equipment continues to increase, the management of the individual machines and integrated operations becomes difficult without computer tools. The availability of streaming data from manufacturing floors, plant operations, and deployed fleets can be overwhelming to analyze, although it provides opportunities to improve performance. The use of dedicated monitoring systems in the plant and field to troubleshoot machinery can be integrated within a product lifecycle management (PLM) architecture to offer greater features. PLM offers virtual processes and software tools for the design, analysis, monitoring, and support of engineering systems and products. Within this paradigm, a digital …

Gender Identity And Mental Health Among Undergraduate Students In The United States, Mckenzie Mcnamara

All Theses

This study explores the relationship between gender identity, challenges experienced by students, psychological distress, and suicide behavior for undergraduate students in the United States of America. The quantitative analysis utilizing the American College Health Association’s National College Health Assessment from Fall 2019, Spring 2020 and Fall 2020. The sample consisted of 78,296 undergraduate participants of which 65.9% identified as female, 30.5% identified as male, and 3.6% identified as non-binary students. The statistical analysis consisted of a multiple regression model controlling for variables of institution type. The major finding of this study is that non-binary undergraduate students had greater psychological distress …

Acceleration Skinning: Kinematics-Driven Cartoon Effects For Articulated Characters, Niranjan Kalyanasundaram

All Theses

Secondary effects are key to adding fluidity and style to animation. This thesis introduces the idea of “Acceleration Skinning” following a recent well-received technique, Velocity Skinning, to automatically create secondary motion in character animation by modifying the standard pipeline for skeletal rig skinning. These effects, which animators may refer to as squash and stretch or drag, attempt to create an illusion of inertia. In this thesis, I extend the Velocity Skinning technique to include acceleration for creating a wider gamut of cartoon effects. I explore three new deformers that make use of this Acceleration Skinning framework: followthrough, centripetal stretch, and …

Analysis Of Deep Learning Methods For Wired Ethernet Physical Layer Security Of Operational Technology, Lucas Torlay

All Theses

The cybersecurity of power systems is jeopardized by the threat of spoofing and man-in-the-middle style attacks due to a lack of physical layer device authentication techniques for operational technology (OT) communication networks. OT networks cannot support the active probing cybersecurity methods that are popular in information technology (IT) networks. Furthermore, both active and passive scanning techniques are susceptible to medium access control (MAC) address spoofing when operating at Layer 2 of the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model. This thesis aims to analyze the role of deep learning in passively authenticating Ethernet devices by their communication signals. This method operates at …

Fine Mapping Of Chilling Requirement And Bloom Date To Enable Marker-Assisted Breeding Of Climate Resilient Peach, Gizem Demirel

All Theses

Peach (Prunus persica (L.) Batsch) fruit is a delicious summer treat appreciated for its sweet, juicy, and aromatic taste all over the globe. With only 44 calories and zero fat per fruit, peach has a great popularity among consumers and producers for its nutritional and economic value. Peach production is threatened by unpredictable climate changes, rising temperatures that reduce winter chill, especially in the warmer growing areas, resulting in fruit and yield loss. Therefore, it is necessary to develop cultivars that are resilient to environmental changes. Peach breeding takes a long time, and this process can benefit from the …

Material Entropy, Lauren Bradshaw

All Theses

Although the sculptures of Material Entropy are not directly anthropomorphic, the corporeality of the materials is accentuated in rendering the entropic state of our ephemeral bodies. We often avoid thoughts concerning the anatomical systems that function beneath our skin as they reveal our mortality to be tangible. Clay is initially manipulated as a soft material, but once fired it gains permanence and loses the ongoing malleability of soft sculpture. Latex and fibers have been utilized in conjunction with ceramic in order to reveal the tension between dichotomies such as hard versus soft or internal versus external. The use of pantyhose …

Deriving Generalized Temperature-Dependent Material Models For Masonry Through Fire Tests And Machine Learning, Aditya Avinash Daware

All Theses

Masonry is one of the oldest and commonly used building materials in the construction industry. Among a variety of benefits, masonry provides low-cost construction, fire, and weather protection as well as thermal and sound insulation. In addition, masonry has superior material properties at elevated temperatures which is reflected by its slow degradation of its mechanical and thermal properties. Literature shows that we do not have a uniform material model that describes the mechanical degradation of masonry under fire conditions. As such, this limits the use of masonry in fire-based performance design of masonry structures. To bridge this knowledge gap, this …

Longleaf Pine Restoration In The South Carolina Sandhills Wiregrass Gap, Jacob W. Murray

All Theses

Longleaf pine restoration has been a topic of great concern and intrigue in the southeast and has taken on new fervor in recent decades as restoration methods continue to develop. Many landowners and forest managers are now pursuing ecological forestry and restoration ecology in great numbers as a new form of land management. However, niche regions can often be overlooked, as is the case with the Carolina Sandhills Wiregrass Gap, an area devoid of wiregrass and one that is on the outskirt regions of the historical longleaf pine range. Field studies were conducted pre- and post-harvest during two growing seasons …

Developing A Computational Model For A Novel, Peristaltic-Style Ventricular Assist Device, Colin Pender

All Theses

Single ventricle heart defects are a serious subset of congenital heart defects (CHDs) caused by the underdevelopment of one side of the heart. Many of these univentricular CHDs are treated with a combination of palliative surgeries, culminating in the Fontan procedure. These Fontan patients lack cardiac support between the systemic vascular return and pulmonary system. Several researchers have suggested a cavopulmonary assist device to reverse the hemodynamic decay experienced by these patients.A peristaltic-style flow pump could be a possible solution as a cavopulmonary assist device. Such a novel flow pump uses balloons to produce forward flow by squeezing a graft …

The Effect Of Vietnamese Refugees On Wages In The San Francisco Bay Area, Francisco Daniel Celis Villagrana

All Theses

The issue of whether immigration can adversely impact the earnings of domestic workers in the receiving region is a hotly contested one, even amongst economists. In this paper, I analyze the effects Vietnamese refugees had on wages in nine counties of the San Francisco Bay Area in the first half of the 1980s. I exploit the existence of exogenous variation in Vietnamese refugee settlements across the San Francisco Bay Area counties and use a difference-in-difference design with continuous treatment to obtain my results. I find the arrival of Vietnamese refugees has a statistically significant positive effect on wages. Increased consumption, …

Practical Target-Based Synchronization Strategies For Immutable Time-Series Data Tables, Bennett Andrew Meares

All Theses

As the Internet of Things and industrial monitoring of utilities grow, efficiently synchronizing immutable time-series data streams between databases becomes a pressing issue. Extracting data from critical production databases demands careful consideration of the stress imposed on the machines, so synchronization strategies are required to minimize the transfer of duplicate data and the load imposed on remote sources.

Literature on the synchronization problem is generalized to arbitrary tables and does not consider the characteristics of time-series data streams, so research was required to investigate methods to quickly synchronize source and target time-series data tables. This thesis examines immutable time-series scenarios …

Real-Time Battery Energy Storage Scheduling For An Educational Building, Armien Harrell

All Theses

Special electricity rates are offered by some utilities to incentivize certain energy consumption behaviors in an attempt to garner a cost effective demand profile to service. One area of concern for a utility is the maximum demand of a building during the times of day when electricity usage is typically at its peak. Regulated utilities are required to have the capacity to meet the electrical demand of customers, though, the peak demand of customers can oftentimes be relatively brief. Therefore, it is not cost effective for a utility to have generation units online to only cover momentary peak demands. Electricity …