Statistical, Nonlinear, and Soft Matter Physics Commons^™

Reducing Food Scarcity: The Benefits Of Urban Farming, S.A. Claudell, Emilio Mejia

Journal of Nonprofit Innovation

Urban farming can enhance the lives of communities and help reduce food scarcity. This paper presents a conceptual prototype of an efficient urban farming community that can be scaled for a single apartment building or an entire community across all global geoeconomics regions, including densely populated cities and rural, developing towns and communities. When deployed in coordination with smart crop choices, local farm support, and efficient transportation then the result isn’t just sustainability, but also increasing fresh produce accessibility, optimizing nutritional value, eliminating the use of ‘forever chemicals’, reducing transportation costs, and fostering global environmental benefits.

Imagine Doris, who is …

The Future Is Now In Twisted Coil Polymer Actuators (Tcpa), Ryan Ronquillo

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis aimed to fabricate and test twisted coiled polymer actuators (TCPA) to understand the mechanical and thermal aspects of this artificial muscle fiber. The purpose of this thesis was to find a linear relationship using the LVDT sensor, fabricating TCPA fibers, and interpreting the data. The project tested whether nylon/polymer could be used as a better artificial muscle fiber.

This research accomplished three goals: (1) designing and fabricating a system capable of creating supercoiled muscle fibers consistently, (2) calibrating the Linear Variable Differential Transformer (LVDT) and Core, and (3) analyzing/interpreting the data of the Twisted Coiled Polymer Actuators (TCPA) …

A High-Precision Electron Emission Model: Computational Methods For Nanoscale Structures, Alister J. Tencate

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The high-intensity, high-brightness and precision frontiers for charged particle beams are an increasingly important focus for study. Electron microscopy has demonstrated high quality beams from a single nanotip emitter, and cathodes of structured nanoscale arrays show promise as ultracold electron sources. Optimization of the cathode design for precision applications necessitates a detailed treatment of the interplay between the structure geometry, quantum mechanical emission mechanism, and electromagnetic interactions between the emitted electrons and the boundary interface. This dissertation details the numerical tools developed to simulate these processes efficiently with enough fidelity to be accurate even in the ultracold regime.

Conventional simulation …

Frontiers In The Self-Assembly Of Charged Macromolecules, Khatcher O. Margossian

Doctoral Dissertations

The self-assembly of charged macromolecules forms the basis of all life on earth. From the synthesis and replication of nucleic acids, to the association of DNA to chromatin, to the targeting of RNA to various cellular compartments, to the astonishingly consistent folding of proteins, all life depends on the physics of the organization and dynamics of charged polymers. In this dissertation, I address several of the newest challenges in the assembly of these types of materials. First, I describe the exciting new physics of the complexation between polyzwitterions and polyelectrolytes. These materials open new questions and possibilities within the context …

Performance Analysis Of The Dominant Mode Rejection Beamformer, Enlong Hu

Dissertations

In array signal processing over challenging environments, due to the non-stationarity nature of data, it is difficult to obtain enough number of data snapshots to construct an adaptive beamformer (ABF) for detecting weak signal embedded in strong interferences. One type of adaptive method targeting for such applications is the dominant mode rejection (DMR) method, which uses a reshaped eigen-decomposition of sample covariance matrix (SCM) to define a subspace containing the dominant interferers to be rejected, thereby allowing it to detect weak signal in the presence of strong interferences. The DMR weight vector takes a form similar to the adaptive minimum …

Intracavity Phase Interferometry Based Fiber Sensors, Luke Jameson Horstman

Optical Science and Engineering ETDs

Intracavity Phase Interferometry (IPI) is a detection technique that exploits the inherent sensitivity of a laser's frequency to the parameters of its cavity. Intracavity interferometry is orders of magnitude more sensitive than its extracavity alternatives. This dissertation improves on previous free-space proof-of-concept designs. By implementing the technique in fiber optics, using optical parametric oscillation, and investigating non-Hermitian quantum mechanics and dispersion tailoring enhancement techniques, IPI has become more applicable and sensitive. Ring and linear IPI configurations were realized in this work, both operating as bidirectional fiber optical parametric oscillators. The benefit of using externally pumped synchronous optical parametric oscillation is …

Design And Control Of A Peristaltic Pump To Simulate Left Atrial Pressure In A Conductive Silicone Model, Jeremy Collins

Mechanical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

According to the CDC, atrial fibrillation is responsible for more than 454,000 hospitalizations and approximately 158,000 deaths per year. A common treatment for atrial fibrillation is catheter ablation, a process in which a long flexible tube is guided through the femoral artery and to the source of arrhythmia in the heart, where it measures the electrical potential at various locations and converts problematic heart tissue to scar tissue via ablation. This paper details the design and control of a low-cost ($400) peristaltic pump system using repetitive control to replicate blood pressure in the left atrium in a conductive silicone model …

Countering Internet Packet Classifiers To Improve User Online Privacy, Sina Fathi-Kazerooni

Dissertations

Internet traffic classification or packet classification is the act of classifying packets using the extracted statistical data from the transmitted packets on a computer network. Internet traffic classification is an essential tool for Internet service providers to manage network traffic, provide users with the intended quality of service (QoS), and perform surveillance. QoS measures prioritize a network's traffic type over other traffic based on preset criteria; for instance, it gives higher priority or bandwidth to video traffic over website browsing traffic. Internet packet classification methods are also used for automated intrusion detection. They analyze incoming traffic patterns and identify malicious …

Analyses Of Densely Crosslinked Phenolic Systems Using Low Field Nmr, Jigneshkumar Patel

Doctoral Dissertations

A uniform dispersion of reactants is necessary to achieve a complete reaction involving multi-components, especially for the crosslinking of rigid high-performance materials. In these reactions, miscibility is crucial for curing efficiency. This miscibility is typically enhanced by adding a third component, a plasticizer. For the reaction of the highly crystalline crosslinking agent hexamethylenetetramine (HMTA) with a strongly hydrogen-bonded phenol formaldehyde resin, furfural has been traditionally used as the plasticizer. However, the reason for its effectiveness is not clear. In this doctoral thesis work, miscibility and crosslinking efficiency of plasticizers in phenolic curing reactions are studied by thermal analysis and spectroscopic …

Poincare Recurrence And Spectral Cascades In Three-Dimensional Quantum Turbulence, George Vahala, Jeffrey Yepez, Linda L. Vahala, Min Soe, Bo Zhang, Sean Ziegeler

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

The time evolution of the ground state wave function of a zero-temperature Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) gas is well described by the Hamiltonian Gross-Pitaevskii (GP) equation. Using a set of appropriately interleaved unitary collision-stream operators, a qubit lattice gas algorithm is devised, which on taking moments, recovers the Gross-Pitaevskii (GP) equation under diffusion ordering (time scales as length²). Unexpectedly, there is a class of initial states whose Poincaré recurrence time is extremely short and which, as the grid resolution is increased, scales with diffusion ordering (and not as length³). The spectral results of J. Yepez et al. …

Probability Density Functions For Snir In Ds-Cdma, David W. Matolak

Faculty Publications

Analytical expressions for the probability density function of block-wise signal-to-noise-plus-interference ratio for both synchronous and asynchronous direct-sequence spread spectrum code-division multiple access systems are developed, for equal average energy signals on the Gaussian and Rayleigh flat fading channels. Using the standard Gaussian approximation for multi-user interference, accurate density approximations are obtained, which agree very well with computer simulation results.

Entopic Lattice Boltzmann Representations Required To Recover Navier Stokes Flows, Brian Keating, George Vahala, Jeffrey Yepez, Min Soe, Linda L. Vahala

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

There are two disparate formulations of the entropic lattice Boltzmann scheme: one of these theories revolves around the analog of the discrete Boltzmann H function of standard extensive statistical mechanics, while the other revolves around the nonextensive Tsallis entropy. It is shown here that it is the nonenforcement of the pressure tensor moment constraints that lead to extremizations of entropy resulting in Tsallis-like forms. However, with the imposition of the pressure tensor moment constraint, as is fundamentally necessary for the recovery of the Navier-Stokes equations, it is proved that the entropy function must be of the discrete Boltzmann form. Three-dimensional …

Thermal Lattice Boltzmann Simulation For Multispecies Fluid Equilibration, Linda L. Vahala, Darren Wah, George Vahala, Jonathan Carter, Pavol Pavlo

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

The equilibration rate for multispecies fluids is examined using thermal lattice Boltzmann simulations. Two-dimensional free-decay simulations are performed for effects of velocity shear layer turbulence on sharp temperature profiles. In particular, parameters are so chosen that the lighter species is turbulent while the heavier species is laminar-and so its vorticity layers would simply decay and diffuse in time. With species coupling, however, there is velocity equilibration followed by the final relaxation to one large co- and one large counter-rotating vortex. The temperature equilibration proceeds on a slower time scale and is in good agreement with the theoretical order of magnitude …

Nlo Waveguide "And" Switch And Method Therefor, John J. Kester, Iyad A. Dajani, Peter M. Ranon, Thomas G. Alley

AFIT Patents

Method and apparatus are provided for NLO switching by first providing a phase-matched SHG grating which outputs a reinforced SHG beam only when two input beams of frequency (ω) are present in two modes of such wg. The so encoded NLO switch is operated by directing at least two input pulsed laser beams of frequency (ω) into the two modes of the wg to generate a reinforced pulsed output SHG beam and output same from the wg in an NLO switching process. The two input beams desirably have a separate pulse train and the spatial and temporal overlap of the …