Engineering Commons^™

An Engineering Approach For Evaluating The Lifetime Experience Of Sex Trafficking Victimization, Kimberly Starr Nagulpelli

Dissertations

This research is an original approach that applies industrial engineering and operations research tools to the sociological problem of sex trafficking victimization. Such an approach enables quantitative evaluation of the impacts on an individual’s lifetime by anti-trafficking efforts and public policies.

A fully interconnected, lifetime model for the experience of sex trafficking victimization is defined as the result of a comprehensive review of literature. Beginning with victimization risk, the defined model is an anticipatory tool to understand the incidences and consequences to individuals during their lifetime. This research develops the model further into a Discrete-Time Markov Chain (DTMC) with definitions …

Novel Model Of Cerebrospinal Fluid Dynamics Based On Hemodynamically Driven Cyclic Brain Compliance Variation, Bruno A. Mantilla

Dissertations

This study provides a novel explanation for the CerebrQ-Spinal Fluid (CSF) flow pattern observed in phase contrast cine-MRJ studies. CSF dynamics has been traditionally explained as a bulk flow from the site of production to the site of absorption. Studies done with phase contrast cine-MRI show a more complex CSF movement, that is not explainable by the bulk flow paradigm. This study describes a mechanism explaining how the energy delivered by the heart in each cycle is responsible not only for the blood flow, but also for the CSF circulation. This mechanism is based on a cyclic variation of brain …

Heavy Metal Adsorption On Iron Oxide And Iron Oxide-Coated Silica : Macroscopic, Spectroscopic, And Modeling Studies, Ying Xu

Dissertations

To accurately model metal mobility and bioavailability in soils and sediments, systematic sorption studies are needed using representative and well-characterized minerals. Two important surfaces are iron oxide and silica, which are ubiquitous and associated with one another in the environment playing important roles in metal distribution. The objectives of this research are to develop models for predicting speciation and mobility of toxic trace metal ions in groundwater, soils, and sediments when competing ions are present. A model system for soils and sediments, iron oxide-coated silica, was synthesized; the degree of coatings was highly sensitive to the particle size of silica …