Engineering Commons^™

Quantification Of Intervertebral Disc Strain From High-Resolution Ultrasound Imaging During Dynamic Loading, Diya Sakhrani

Discovery Undergraduate Interdisciplinary Research Internship

High-resolution ultrasound imaging employs high-frequency sound waves that can be used to noninvasively visualize the structures within the body, facilitating medical diagnosis without the need for open surgery. The widespread utilization of ultrasound is attributed to its affordability, non-invasive characteristics, and use of non-ionizing radiation. Nevertheless, ultrasound is prone to artifacts originating from the surrounding environment, gas-liquid interfaces, or dense tissue. These artifacts are common in ultrasound images and can cause dropout, noise, and degraded resolution. In this study we analyzed intervertebral disc (IVD) strain during two axial compression testing cycles of bovine intervertebral discs with a 2-dimensional direct deformation …

Characterizing Intervertebral Disc Strain Under Dynamic Loading Conditions Using Ultrasound Texture Analysis, Radhika Kulkarni

Discovery Undergraduate Interdisciplinary Research Internship

Herniated discs in the spine are a significant patient burden, with potential links to lower back and leg discomfort and a considerable impact on daily life. These discs, located between spinal vertebrae, are comprised of the annulus fibrosus (AF) and the nucleus pulposus (NP). Herniations happen when the NP protrudes through a full-thickness annular tear, possibly compressing spinal nerves. The mechanical factors underlying herniated discs are poorly understood, necessitating research into these mechanisms and accessible diagnostic techniques. Our study employs high-resolution ultrasound and texture correlation to quantify strain patterns in intervertebral discs during dynamic loading.

A motion segment from the …

Closing The Gap: Leveraging Aes-Ni To Balance Adversarial Advantage And Honest User Performance In Argon2i, Nicholas Harrell, Nathaniel Krakauer

CERIAS Technical Reports

The challenge of providing data privacy and integrity while maintaining efficient performance for honest users is a persistent concern in cryptography. Attackers exploit advances in parallel hardware and custom circuit hardware to gain an advantage over regular users. One such method is the use of Application-Specific Integrated Circuits (ASICs) to optimize key derivation function (KDF) algorithms, giving adversaries a significant advantage in password guessing and recovery attacks. Other examples include using graphical processing units (GPUs) and field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). We propose a focused approach to close the gap between adversarial advantage and honest user performance by leveraging the …

Dielectric/Impedance Spectroscopy For In-Line Measurement Of Moisture Content, Sophie Zhou

Discovery Undergraduate Interdisciplinary Research Internship

Pharmaceutical production requires strict moisture content control in order to ensure quality, stability, and efficacy of medicinal products. Moisture content can be manually tested but a rapid and reliable solution for real-time moisture content monitoring was necessary to improve overall efficiency in pharmaceutical manufacturing. This research delved into the practicality of using electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) as a dependable technique to determine moisture content. By investigating the electrical properties of materials, we established a robust connection between shifts in electrical properties with variations in moisture levels. We employed an equivalent circuit model to unveil the underlying mechanism which provided valuable …

Scanning Electron Microscopy Analysis Of Murine Renal, Aortic, And Cardiac Tissue, Sarah E. Grev, Luke E. Schepers, Jennifer Anderson, Craig J. Goergen

Discovery Undergraduate Interdisciplinary Research Internship

Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) is a tool that provides detailed insight into objects invisible to the human eye. As the name suggests, an electron beam is used to create an image down to the nanometer scale. The beam focuses on the surface of a sample using lenses in the electron column. In this project, we use SEM to study three types of murine tissue. First, we examine the glomerulus, found in the kidney, that is primarily responsible for filtering blood. Following a left renal vein (LRV) stenosis, SEM is used to observe changes to the glomeruli. Differences in the left …

Methods To Study Activity Dependent Protein Synthesis In Autism Spectrum Disorder, Megan Webb, Karin F K Ejendal, Tamara L. Kinzer-Ursem

Discovery Undergraduate Interdisciplinary Research Internship

It is estimated by the World Health Organization that 1 in 100 children have autism spectrum disorder (ASD), a condition characterized by neurological differences that may impact a person’s learning or behavior. Clinically, ASD symptoms are alleviated with behavioral or pharmacological therapies, however, not all patients respond to these interventions. Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is a promising treatment of Parkinson’s disease that could also be effective in treating ASD. SynGAP1 is a protein involved in neuronal action that is crucial for regulating synaptic plasticity. Mutations in the SYNGAP1 gene causing haploinsufficiency can result in the manifestation of ASD symptoms. This …

Performance Evaluation And Thermal Management Solutions For A Sustainable Microsized Hydrogen-Powered Turbo-Shaft Engine, Nikolai Baranov

Discovery Undergraduate Interdisciplinary Research Internship

Analyzing the aerospace and automotive industries, there is a transition to sustainable energy generation. Aiming to bridge industrial emissions with the worldwide net zero goal by 2050, one widely considered solution for long-range drones and small aircraft is compact turbo-shaft engines combusting clean hydrogen gas to produce shaft work. The small size and energy-dense fuel allow for a universal powerplant with high specific power output that fits a wide variety of existing solutions. One such micro-sized turboshaft internal combustion engine was created to test the potential power output, thermal management, and combustor optimization of the existing stainless steel assembly. The …

Improving Developers' Understanding Of Regex Denial Of Service Tools Through Anti-Patterns And Fix Strategies, Sk Adnan Hassan, Zainab Aamir, Dongyoon Lee, James C. Davis, Francisco Servant

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Regular expressions are used for diverse purposes, including input validation and firewalls. Unfortunately, they can also lead to a security vulnerability called ReDoS (Regular Expression Denial of Service), caused by a super-linear worst-case execution time during regex matching. Due to the severity and prevalence of ReDoS, past work proposed automatic tools to detect and fix regexes. Although these tools were evaluated in automatic experiments, their usability has not yet been studied; usability has not been a focus of prior work. Our insight is that the usability of existing tools to detect and fix regexes will improve if we complement them …

An Empirical Study Of Pre-Trained Model Reuse In The Hugging Face Deep Learning Model Registry, Wenxin Jiang, Nicholas Synovic, Matt Hyatt, Taylor R. Schorlemmer, Rohan Sethi, Yung-Hsiang Lu, George K. Thiruvathukal, James C. Davis

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) are being adopted as components in software systems. Creating and specializing DNNs from scratch has grown increasingly difficult as state-of-the-art architectures grow more complex. Following the path of traditional software engineering, machine learning engineers have begun to reuse large-scale pre-trained models (PTMs) and fine-tune these models for downstream tasks. Prior works have studied reuse practices for traditional software packages to guide software engineers towards better package maintenance and dependency management. We lack a similar foundation of knowledge to guide behaviors in pre-trained model ecosystems.

In this work, we present the first empirical investigation of PTM reuse. …

Engineering Technology Programs And Technical Standards: Investigating Library Access And Course Integration, Margaret Phillips, Paul B Mcpherson, Danielle Leclerc

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

Due to ABET accreditation requirements and industry expectations, integrating technical standards into Engineering Technology (ET) curricula is crucial for student success. However, previous studies have shown that faculty report access and knowledge challenges in working to integrate standards into ET course content. Additionally, academic librarians have long acknowledged there are many issues with providing access to standards to campus users, such as high costs and extensive digital rights management (DRM) restrictions. The purpose of this study is to conduct an environmental scan of library websites at institutions with ET programs to investigate library-provided access to standards and to survey ET …

Investigation Of Fiber Orientation And Mechanical Properties Of Pyrolysis Recycled Carbon-Fiber Reinforced Thermoset Composite, Reva N. Simmons, Harry Lee, Garam Kim

Discovery Undergraduate Interdisciplinary Research Internship

With increasing demand of carbon fiber reinforced fiber thermoset composites, establishing a sustainable cycle for these materials becomes crucial. Pyrolysis is a process of reclaiming carbon fiber from thermoset composites by thermally degrading the polymer at high temperatures allowing the fibers to be extracted. Carbon fiber reclaimed through current pyrolysis processes for thermoset composites typically loses its original shape and orientation, making it difficult to reorganize the fibers. This study investigated the feasibility of maintaining the fiber orientations for continuous fiber reinforced thermoset composite during pyrolysis by stitching the carbon fiber layup to a conformable copper mesh during the manufacturing …