Mechanical Engineering Commons^™

Swimming Of Pelagic Snails: Kinematics And Fluid Dynamics, Ferhat Karakas

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Pteropods (also known as sea butterflies or sea angels), are holoplanktonic marine snails which swim by flapping a pair of extremely flexible wings. The wings are modified from the molluscan foot and the wing motions are supported by the fluid pressure without any rigid support. Sea angels (gymnosome pteropods) are completely naked; in contrast, sea butterflies (thecosome pteropods) have negatively buoyant aragonite shells which vary in geometry and size among different species. Pteropods are seasonally abundant in the ocean, and an important food source for the other zooplanktons, fishes, and whales. Though studies have been conducted regarding their biology, ecology, …

Portable Fluorescence Illuminator, Katherine Hui, Emran Baryal, Emmett Lambert

Mechanical Engineering

This Final Design Review (FDR) document outlines the senior design project implemented by a team of three mechanical engineering students at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo for a professor in the biochemistry and chemistry department, Dr. Javin Oza. The project involved designing and manufacturing a portable ultraviolet fluorescence illuminator that will indicate the fluorescent glow of biomaterials for viewing purposes. The goal was to create a portable product out of recyclable material that can be used in field applications and increase accessibility to affordable science equipment. The initial sponsor and user interviews, technical background research, product research, and …

Model-Based Network Reconstruction From Cascade Dynamics, Katherine Irena Chwistek

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Network representation provides a natural framework for the study of real world complex systems. From social networks and animal groups to interneuronal communications and power grid systems, complex patterns of interaction can be captured and modeled using networks in a simple mathematical form. In many cases, however, a faithful network representation of the system is not readily available. For this reason, network reconstruction has become a growing topic of interest in recent years, the goal of which is to discover the hidden interaction patterns among individuals by fitting input-output data from multiple experiments to candidate network topologies.

During a cascade, …

Atv Dynamics And Pediatric Rider Safety, James T. Auxier Ii

Theses and Dissertations--Biomedical Engineering

It has been observed through numerous academic and governmental agency studies that pediatric all-terrain vehicle ridership carries significant risk of injury and death. While no doubt valuable to safety, the post-hoc approach employed in these studies does little to explain the why and how behind the risk factors. Furthermore, there has been no prolonged, widespread, organized, and concerted effort to reconstruct and catalog the details and causes of the large (20,000+) number of ATV-related injuries that occur each year as has been done for road-based motor vehicle accidents. This dissertation takes the opposite approach from a meta-analysis and instead examines …

Automatic Seeder, Zachary Bunting, Nicholas Muscarella, Trevor Tout, Dalton Denny

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Our Senior Design Project is the construction and implementation of an automatic seeder that is to be used in the agricultural industry. The automatic seeder is being designed to eliminate prevalent issues within the process of planting seeds by hand, such as labor requirements and inconsistent operations. The seeder is meant to reduce time spent on planting seeds and place them in an efficient manner for optimal growth conditions.

This project will require several specific research questions to be addressed in the form of application and good usability. We will investigate the method of planting the seed, the conveyor track …

Correlating The Physicochemical Properties Of Magnesium Stearate With Tablet Dissolution And Lubrication, Julie L. Calahan

Theses and Dissertations--Pharmacy

Magnesium stearate (MgSt) is the most commonly used pharmaceutical excipient and is present in over half the tablet formulations on the market. In spite of its popularity as an effective lubricant, it has been repeatedly recognized that there is significant variability between MgSt samples, which can cause inconsistent lubrication between batches of MgSt. The hypothesis of this research is that the batch-to-batch variability in tablet lubrication and dissolution observed in tablet formulations containing different MgSt samples can be correlated with differences in MgSt physicochemical properties (fatty acid salt composition, crystal hydrate form, particle size and surface area). Developing correlations between …

Automated And Standardized Tools For Realistic, Generic Musculoskeletal Model Development, Trevor Rees Moon

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports

Human movement is an instinctive yet challenging task that involves complex interactions between the neuromusculoskeletal system and its interaction with the surrounding environment. One key obstacle in the understanding of human locomotion is the availability and validity of experimental data or computational models. Corresponding measurements describing the relationships of the nervous and musculoskeletal systems and their dynamics are highly variable. Likewise, computational models and musculoskeletal models in particular are vitally dependent on these measurements to define model behavior and mechanics. These measurements are often sparse and disparate due to unsystematic data collection containing variable methodologies and reporting conventions. To date, …