Digital Commons Network^™

Investigating Block Mask Lithography Variation Using Finite-Difference Time-Domain Simulation, Daiji Kawamura

Theses

Simulation work has long been realized as a method for analyzing semiconductor processing expediently and cost-effectively. As technology advancements strive to meet increasingly stringent parameter constraints, difficult issues arise. In this paper, challenges in block mask lithography will be discussed with the aid of using simulation packages developed by Panoramic Technology®. Halo formation utilizes a 20-30° tilt-angle implantation [1]. The block mask defines the geometries of the resist opening to allow implantation of atoms to extend into the channel region. Due to designed resolution scaling and tolerance in conjunction with substrate topography, there can be undesired influence on the electrical …

Web-Based Medical Imaging Simulation System For Education And Research, Xiping Li

Open Access Dissertations

In this work, a major effort has been made to establish an Internet accessible system for medical imaging simulation as a convenient service under the cloud computing environment. First, an Internet accessible, medical imaging education platform has been developed. It includes teaching and dynamic assessment tracking system for five commonly used imaging modalities. The system is integrated by the open source MySQL database software that manages updating materials and also tracks students’ learning engagements, which allow the reliability and appropriateness of the on-line teaching material and assessment methods to be optimized. The evaluation results have shown increased learning gains promisingly. …

The Effects Of Simulation On Junior Level Baccalaureate Nursing Students' Self-Efficacy And Intrinsic Motivation, Michelle E. Dykes

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Nursing education is experiencing a generational phenomenon with student enrollment spanning three generations. Classrooms cultures are changing today and include some Baby Boomers and large numbers of Generation X, Generation Y, and second-degree seeking students. These culturally diverse groups of students have unique sets of learning characteristics. Given the current challenges of growing student diversity, balancing budgets, and meeting faculty shortages, nursing schools are pressed to find alternative teaching methods that are not only cost and labor saving but also effective and equitable for the diverse student groups. This quantitative, experimental research design study explored the effects of the alternative …

Modelling Β2ar Regulation, Sharat J. Vayttaden

Dissertations & Theses (Open Access)

The β2 adrenergic receptor (β2AR) regulates smooth muscle relaxation in the vasculature and airways. Long- and Short-acting β-agonists (LABAs/SABAs) are widely used in treatment of chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder (COPD) and asthma. Despite their widespread clinical use we do not understand well the dominant β2AR regulatory pathways that are stimulated during therapy and bring about tachyphylaxis, which is the loss of drug effects. Thus, an understanding of how the β2AR responds to various β-agonists is crucial to their rational use. Towards that end we have developed deterministic models that explore the mechanism of drug- induced β2AR regulation. These mathematical models …

A Dynamic Inventory Optimization Method Applied To Printer Fleet Management, Surya Saripalli

Theses

Current optimization methods for inventory management of toner cartridges for printer fleets typically focus on aggregate cartridge demand. However, with the development of printer technology, toner consumption algorithms are being developed which can accurately quantify the amount of toner that has been consumed over time, based on print job characteristics. This research introduces a dynamic inventory optimization approach for a fleet of printers over a rolling time horizon. Given, the consumption algorithm for the printer system, the cumulative toner consumed per cartridge per printer can be tracked. A forecasting method is developed which utilizes this toner consumption data for individual …

Effects Of Non-Planar Distortions In Porphyrin Compounds On Their Properties And Functionality, Raid Haddad

Chemical and Biological Engineering ETDs

Porphyrins and related compounds are ubiquitous in nature, performing diverse functions including solar energy transduction, electron transport, molecular transport and storage, and catalysis. Due to their unique photophysical and chemical properties, they are excellent candidates for application as photosensitizers, catalysts, photocatalysts, molecular electronics and opto-electronics. Several properties of porphyrins are sensitive to small variations in their structure, and this dissertation investigates the effects of out-of-plane distortions of the macrocycle on optical properties, reactivity to axial ligands, and substituent rotation. The structure-functions relationships are examined using molecular simulations, UV-visible absorption spectroscopy, resonance Raman spectroscopy, and normal-coordinate structural decomposition (NSD) analysis of …

Design And Development Of A Sustainability Toolkit For Simulation Modeling And Analysis, Xi Zhou

Theses

A simulation-based sustainability toolkit is developed in this research, in order to efficiently provide the capability of modeling and evaluating the sustainability related performance measures in systems of interest. As sustainability related issues, such as energy consumption, emissions, and waste generation are becoming a more integrated part of operational and long-term planning decisions, simulation modeling is needed to analyze the system performance not only from the traditional system performance measures such as productivity and efficiency, but also taking into account the environmental impacts within the studied system in order to aid in decision-making. This research introduces the concept and general …

Evaluation Of Cfd Based Hemolysis Prediction Methods, Oyuna Myagmar

Theses

Accurate quantitative evaluation of shear stress-related hemolysis (destruction of red blood cells) could be used to improve blood handling devices, including left ventricular assist devices (LVAD). Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) predicts the fluid dynamics of complex pump geometry and has been used to track the shear stress history of red blood cells as they travel through these devices. Several models that predict the relationship between hemolysis, shear stress and exposure time have been used to evaluate the hemolysis in the pumps. However, the prediction accuracy has not reached the satisfactory level. The goal of my thesis is to investigate the …

Anticipating U.S. Population-Level Health And Economic Impacts Using Discrete-Event Simulation To Guide Health Policy Decisions, Odette Reifsnider

All Dissertations

This dissertation presents two applications of discrete-event simulation (DES) to represent clinical processes: (1) a model to quantify the risk of the maternal obese and diabetic intrauterine environment influence on progression to adult obesity and diabetes, and (2) a model to evaluate health and economic outcomes of different smoking cessation strategies. The first application considers the public health impact of the diabetic and obese intrauterine environment's effect on the prevalence of diabetes and obesity across subsequent generations. We first develop a preliminary DES model to investigate and characterize the epidemiology of diabetes during pregnancy and birth outcomes related to maternal …

Simulation Modeling And Analysis Of A Multi-Resource Medical Clinic., Bo Sun

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Healthy for Life is a relatively new University of Louisville medical clinic which attempts to stem the epidemic of childhood obesity. This program offers a range of face-to-face services for overweight children. The main problem addressed by this research is the no show rate (nearly 50%) of the clinic. There are two goals of this thesis. One is to increase the staff utilization; the other is to decrease the waiting time. In this thesis, we study two potential methods to solve this problem. One involves using multiple resources for every visit; the other involves overbooking the patients. Two simulation models …

Using Discrete Event Computer Simulation To Analyze The Effects Of Proposed Changes To Personnel In A Hospital Medical Laboratory, Gerardo Morales

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

A discrete event computer simulation is used to model a portion of the medical laboratory at Doctors Hospital at Renaissance in order to assess the current situation as well as to review the planed personnel changes. The area under observation is the section in which the processor(s) receive, label and distribute the patient samples. There are four cases modeled in the simulation: The main focus is to determine if one or two processors are needed per shift and if the high level of phone calls poses a significant delay to the processors’ workflow. The simulation results indicate that having two …

Reflective Redo Within A Three-Dimensional Simulation And Its Influence On Student Metacognition, Reflection, And Learning, Jon M. Scoresby

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The objective of this study was to investigate the effects on a student’s metacognition, reflection, and learning in a specifically designed educational simulation supported by unique technology. The simulation allows players’ actions to be recorded for the purpose of review to identify mistakes. The simulation also allows students to start at and redo actions while fixing previous mistakes instead of starting over at the beginning of a new scenario. When starting at the mistake or point of failure, as identified by a facilitator, during the redo of the initial saved scenario, students reflect on the actions performed during the initial …

Evaluation Of Capital Investment And Cash Flows For Alternative Switchgrass Feedstock Supply Chain Configurations, Jie Chen

Masters Theses

Biofuels have been widely recognized as a potential renewable energy source, and the United States’ government has been interested in producing ethanol from lignocellulosic biomass such as switchgrass. To evaluate whether lignocellulosic biomass based biofuels production is economically feasible, this paper estimated the capital investment outlays, operation costs, and net present value for investment in alternative switchgrass feedstock supply chain configurations in East Tennessee a 25 million gallon per year ethanol biorefinery. Two scenarios are analyzed in the study. The conventional hay harvest scenario includes the production, harvest, storage and transportation of biomass feedstocks from the fields to the biorefinery. …

A Water Distribution And Treatment Simulation For Testing Cyber Security Enhancements For Water Sector Scada Systems., Justin Robert Adams

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems are used by many critical infrastructures including electric power production and distribution, water and waste water treatment, rail transportation, and gas and oil distribution. Originally isolated proprietary systems, SCADA systems are increasingly connected to enterprise networks and the Internet and today use commercial hardware and software. As a result SCADA systems now face serious cyber-security threats. The need for testing and evaluation of developed cyber-security solutions presents a challenge since evaluation on actual systems is usually not possible and building complete physical testbeds is costly. This thesis presents the design and development of …

Using Simulation Techniques To Improve The Client Flow Of The Kentucky Cabinet For Health And Family Services., Russell Edward Harpring

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The client flow of the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services is a complex process that deals with a high volume of clients on any given beginning half of the month. A simulation model of an average busy day in the system was built using the Arena Simulation package. Methods for creating a simulation using Arena are included in this work. Statistics were generated from a number of different sources to create an accurate representation of the model. The simulation model shows long wait times for clients coming into the system to receive benefits. Working with a state budget …

Agent-Based Under Hood Packing, Karthik Ravindranath

All Theses

Improving vehicle performance and passenger comfort has been a prime engineering concern and focus of research for many years in automotive design. Turning to high-performance components in an effort to improve vehicle performance alone is often not enough and their placement and interactions with other components should also be an integral part of the improvement process. With the advancement in hybrid electric vehicle technology, the packing of components under the hood is ever more essential and challenging. Under hood packing is a multi-objective optimization problem with many, and mostly conflicting objectives. A non-deterministic multi-objective evolutionary algorithm needs to be integrated …

Methods Development And Force Field Evaluation For Molecular Simulations Of Interactions Between Structured Peptides And Functionalized Material Surfaces, Galen Collier

All Dissertations

The process of protein adsorption to material surfaces is highly complex and it is one of the most fundamental concepts upon which progress in the field of bioengineering is based. The strategic design of material surfaces for optimal utility in specific biological environments is absolutely dependent upon a thorough understanding of the mechanisms underlying protein adsorption, yet there is still a very limited understanding of these mechanisms. The primary reason for this lack of understanding is that protein adsorption is a dynamic process which occurs at the atomic and macromolecular scale, where experimental analyses provide a view that is static …

Development Of An Optimal Replenishment Policy For Human Capital Inventory, Bruce A Holt

Doctoral Dissertations

A unique approach is developed for evaluating Human Capital (workforce) requirements. With this approach, new ways of measuring personnel availability are proposed and available to ensure that an organization remains ready to provide timely, relevant, and accurate products and services in support of its strategic objectives over its planning horizon. The development of this analysis and methodology was established as an alternative approach to existing studies for determining appropriate hiring and attrition rates and to maintain appropriate personnel levels of effectiveness to support existing and future missions.

The contribution of this research is a prescribed method for the strategic analyst …

A Forward Dynamics Simulation Study Of Increasing Load On The Anterior Cruciate Ligament Of The Knee, For Young Women Performing Recreational Drop Jump Activities., Julia Kar

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Anterior Cruciate Ligament (ACL) injuries are among the most common injuries incurred by both recreational and professional athletes. ACL injuries often occur during popular contact sports like basketball, football, volleyball and baseball, and non-contact activities like aerobics, jogging and running. Non-contact actions like jumping, sprinting and sidecutting that involve sudden or rapid changes in motion may lead to ACL injuries. At the instance of an injury, the knee joint muscles and ligaments typically undergo extremely high loads. The ACL, which is an integral part of the knee joint undergo high strain rates and rapid energy absorption, and consequently get injured. …

Biomass V2.0: A New Tool For Bioprocess Simulation, Y Phan-Thien

All Theses

A simulation software (BioMASS - Biological Modeling and Simulation Software) was upgraded from the previous version and provided with additional enhancements. Several new bioprocess configurations and their subroutines have been added. The additional processes included continuous stirred tank reactor (CSTR) with biomass recycle, and CSTR with additional stream in the second stage. The primary goal in the development of BioMASS v2.0 was to provide users with a ready-to-use, expressive visual modeling tools. In this new version, output from simulation can be visualized in graphics. Printing, exporting, and saving file options also are available. In summary, BioMASS v2.0 offers an effective …

A Simulation Environment For A Personal Portable Power System, Shane Leland Morrison

Theses and Dissertations

With the increased requirements for personal portable power systems to be more capable and better matched to the load and the mission, manufacturers have become interested in improved methods for predicting the performance of these systems. Personal portable power systems must meet challenging energy and portability requirements that require better predictive knowledge of these systems in integrated systems with realistic mission scenarios. This thesis presents the development of a modeling and simulation environment to further expand and predict the needs and requirements of personal portable power systems. The proposed personal portable power system is a diverse system consisting of energy …

Optical-Wimax Hybrid Networks, Abdou R. A. Ahmed

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The emergence of bandwidth-intensive Internet services, such as
circuit-quality voice transfer and interactive video gaming, create
a high demand for a very qualified next-generation access network.
In addition to high bandwidth, these future access networks should
also provide improved network availability, flexibility, mobility,
reliability, failure protection, quality of service (QoS) support
and cost-effective access. The integration between optical networks
and Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMAX) is a
promising solution for future access networks. Accordingly, a few
different architectures and MAC protocol components have recently
been proposed for the integration between the Ethernet Passive
Optical Network (EPON) and WiMAX. However, …

Push The Button//Start The Show, Davin K. Knight

CGU MFA Theses

My work is based in mediation and simulation via machines. The pieces in this exhibition are hybrids of object and image, dealing directly with the process of rearranging information. They are frenetic optical renderings of time, space, light, and motion. They are signs without clear indication, formal without express composition and flat without abandoning illusionistic space. Please see Download button in top right corner for the full statement.

Modeling The Workflow Of One Primary Care Physician-Nurse Team., Abigail R. Wooldridge 1988-

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Primary care has been identified as a vital part of the healthcare system in the U.S., and one that operates in a challenging, unique environment. Primary care sees a wide variety of patients and is undergoing a series of major transformations simultaneously. As a result, primary care would greatly benefit from a systemic approach to the analysis of its workflows. Discrete-event simulation has been identified as a good tool to evaluate complex healthcare systems. The existing primary care DES models focus on the physician. Also, those models are limited in (a) their usefulness to produce generic models that can easily …

Evaluation System Design And Academic Performance Analysis Using Clustering And Simulation, Volkan Cakir

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The starting point of this study was to understand the possible causes of evaluation system change in a military academic environment. With that motivation the objectives of this study were defined as examining student profiles in a military academy, establishing the nature of academic performance, comparing student groups that were identified by course scores, analyzing student performance changes over time and developing a manageable evaluation system and curriculum by comparing different scenarios.

An analysis was performed on the literature on academic performance prediction, cluster analysis methodologies and their development, and specifically summarized cluster analytic academic performance studies where these two …

Broadband Pumping Effects On The Diode Pumped Alkali Laser, Paul Nathaniel Jones

Theses and Dissertations

This research seeks to gain greater insight on the mechanics of The Diode Pumped Alkali Laser through analytic modeling techniques. This work is an extension to a previous model developed by Dr. Gordon Hager, and focuses on the addition of pump-beam bandwidth. Specifically, it seeks to determine the effect that broadband pumping has on laser performance. The model incorporates all the fundamental parameters within the laser system, including alkali concentrations, collision partner concentrations, pump bandwidth, length and temperature of gain medium, transmission, and reflectivity. Baseline operating conditions set Rubidium (Rb) concentrations ranging from 10¹² - 10¹⁴ atoms/cm^{3 …}

Discrete Event Simulation Manual: Manufacturing Applications, Brian T. Hughes

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Simulation, specifically discrete event simulation, is a useful tool for industrial and manufacturing engineers when dealing with system analysis. Currently, manufacturing engineers are only exposed to simulation for only a few weeks of their curriculum at Cal Poly. A series of labs are directed by a teacher’s assistant on how to complete a successful simulation experiment. However, there is no text available for student use during this demanding learning period. The simulation learning process involves learning a software program called ProModel, which students with little experience are expected to code, run, and interpret data from complex systems. By creating a …

Integration Of Aeroservoelastic Properties Into The Nasa Dryden F/A-18 Simulator Using Flight Data From The Active Aeroelastic Wing Program, Alexander Wong Chin

Master's Theses

Aircraft structures have varying stiffness levels making them flexible. Consequently, this elastic property becomes increasingly important at high speeds affecting the flight dynamics of the aircraft. In high speed aircraft such as the F/A-18, elastic structural properties must be accounted for to ensure confidence in predicted flight dynamics in order to avoid adverse aeroelastic phenomena throughout flight.

Data from the F/A-18 Active Aeroelastic Wing (AAW) program was used to create aeroservoelastic (ASE) models at varying flight conditions. The discretized ASE models were integrated into the NASA Dryden F/A-18 simulator in parallel with the traditional 6-DOF (degrees-of-freedom) flight dynamics calculations to …

Design Of A Test Loop For Performance Testing Of Steam Turbines Under A Variety Of Operating Conditions, Jonathan Guerrette

Theses

The steam turbine is one of the most widely used energy conversion devices in the world, providing shaft power for electricity production, chemical processing, and HVAC systems. There are new opportunities in growing renewable and combined cycle applications. End-users are asking for energy efficiency improvements that require manufacturers to renew their experimentally verified design methods. A structured design approach was carried out along three integrated research thrusts. The first two thrusts, Turbine Performance Prediction and Measurement Planning, were carried out with the aim of supporting the theoretical modeling required for the third thrust, System Modeling. The primary use of the …

An Analysis Of Multimodal Sensor Fusion For Target Detection In An Urban Environment, Brian M. Flusche

Theses

This work makes a compelling case for simulation as an attractive tool in designing cutting-edge remote sensing systems to generate the sheer volume of data required for a reasonable trade study. The generalized approach presented here allows multimodal system designers to tailor target and sensor parameters for their particular scenarios of interest via synthetic image generation tools, ensuring that resources are best allocated while sensors are still in the design phase. Additionally, sensor operators can use the customizable process showcased here to optimize image collection parameters for existing sensors. In the remote sensing community, polarimetric capabilities are often seen as …