Digital Commons Network^™

Engineering Of A Knowledge Management System For Relational Medical Diagnosis, Maria Carolina Herrera-Hernandez

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The increasingly high costs of health care in the U.S. have led the general public to search for different medical approaches. Since the 1990's, the use of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) has radically increased in the U.S. due to its approach to treat physical, mental, and emotional causes of illness. In 2009, the National Health Statistics reported the impact of CAM in the U.S. health care economy, with population expenditures of $14.8 billion out-of-pocket on natural Medicine and $12.4 billion out-of-pocket on visits to CAM providers as a complement to Western Medicine care.

CAM interconnects human functions to reach …

Determination Of Isotherms Of Enantiomers On A Chiral Stationary Phase Using Supercritical Fluid Chromatography, Wade Newlin Mack Ii

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Supercritical fluids provide a robust, tunable environment with favorable transport properties and enhanced solubility. Supercritical carbon dioxide is an environmentally friendly substance that has distinct advantages to traditional solvents used in large scale chemical processing. Ibuprofen is an enantiomeric drug that has been shown to fight prostate cancer and has been used as a mild Alzheimer's disease treatment in the S conformation. Purification of high value products with decreased hazardous material consumption is accomplished by employing supercritical fluid chromatography (SFC). Large scale, single enantiomer purification of pharmaceuticals is dependent on scale-up information. Equilibrium isotherms provide the necessary information to scale-up …

Comparative Life Cycle Assessments Of Lignocellulosic And Algae Biomass Conversion To Various Energy Products Through Different Pathways, Maria Juliana Pinilla

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Bioenergy has the potential to reduce the world's dependence on fossil fuels, and to decrease the CO2 emissions due to fossil combustion. Lignocellulosic and algae biomass have been presented as promising feedstocks for bioenergy production.

In this study, a comparative Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) has been developed to evaluate the environmental impacts associated with different energy products via different routes across the whole life of algal and lignocellulosic bioenergy. Results were compared per energy basis, the production of 1 million BTU of energy products.

For the development of the comparative algae biomass conversion LCA, algal biomass was converted to liquid …

Investigating The Role Of The Internet In Women And Minority Stem Participation: A Case Study Of Two Florida Engineering Programs, Arland Nguema Ndong

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Despite our awareness of the fascination modern humans have with the Internet, little is known about how and why colleges and universities create and maintain Websites. At the most general level, in this case study, I hypothesize that university Websites serve as communication and marketing tools in attracting students. At the most specific level, I postulate that civil engineering programs with Web pages depicting images of women and minorities would be more successful in recruiting and retaining women and students of color than civil engineering programs with Web pages displaying fewer or no images of women and minorities. The primary …

Remote Monitoring Of Bridges, Rajan Sen, Gray Mullins, Alberto Sagues, Julio Aguilar, Danny Winters

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

This report summarizes findings from a 24-month study in which the performance of cathodic protection systems for substructures of two interstate bridges was remotely monitored. The two bridges #860050 and #860054 are located on the “Alligator Alley” toll portion of eastbound I-75 in Broward County, FL. Each bridge spans two pilesupported piers inside a drainage canal. The seven steel H-piles supporting the piers are jacketed in concrete to a level just below the water surface and are cathodically protected by three magnesium anodes spaced uniformly over their submerged length.

Determination Of Ibuprofen Isotherm Using Supercritical Fluid Chromatography, Loi Ho

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Chromatography is widely used to determine physiochemical properties data including adsorption isotherm. In the separation of enantiomers through sorptive processes, supercritical fluids allow efficient and green alternatives to liquid solvent based systems. The isotherm information is vital in the development of operating policies and design of preparative chromatographic or moving bed separation schemes. Determination of sorption isotherms from experimental chromatographic elution data is automated and compared with different chromatogram model. Procedures were developed and validated for separation of R- and S- ibuprofen with supercritical 〖CO〗_2 and ethanol mixture as the mobile phase over a chiral stationary phase. The isotherms for …

Modeling And Surveillance Of Pandemic Influenza Outbreaks, Diana Prieto

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Pandemic outbreaks are unpredictable as to their virus strain, transmissibility, and impact on our quality of life. Hence, the decision support models for mitigation of pandemic outbreaks must be user-friendly and operational, and also incorporate valid estimates of disease transmissibility and severity. This dissertation research is aimed at 1) reviewing the existing pandemic simulation models to identify their implementation gaps with regard to usability and operability, and suggesting research remedies, 2) increasing operability of simulation models by calibrating them via an epidemiological model that estimates infection probabilities using viral shedding profiles of concurrent pandemic and seasonal influenza, and 3) developing …

Design, Synthesis And Test Of Reversible Circuits For Emerging Nanotechnologies, Himanshu Thapliyal

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Reversible circuits are similar to conventional logic circuits except that they are built from reversible gates. In reversible gates, there is a unique, one-to-one mapping between the inputs and outputs, not the case with conventional logic. Also, reversible gates require constant ancilla inputs for reconfiguration of gate functions and garbage outputs that help in keeping reversibility. Reversible circuits hold promise in futuristic computing technologies like quantum computing, quantum dot cellular automata, DNA computing, optical computing, etc. Thus, it is important to minimize parameters such as ancilla and garbage bits, quantum cost and delay in the design of reversible circuits.

The …

Fabrication And Characterization Of Novel 2sss Cigs Thin Film Solar Cells For Large-Scale Manufacturing, Keshavanand Jayadevan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A novel 2SSS (2 Step Solid Selenization) CIGS (Cu, In, Ga, Se) thin film solar cell recipe was developed which can be a replacement to the conventional co-deposition process usually employed for large-scale manufacturing. The co-deposition procedure is faced with multiple problems such as selenium incorporation, effective gallium incorporation in the absorber. It is a 2-step proprietary procedure with better control over growth mechanisms and material utilization for the absorber layer for the CIGS thin film solar cells. It makes use of solid selenium source as preferred by manufacturers. Each step of the 2-step procedure was dealt with separately for …

Catalytic Hydrodehalogenation And Hydrogenation Of Halogenated Aromatic Organic Contaminants For Application To Soil Remediation, Claire J. Osborn

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The objective of this research was to aid in the development of a new method for removing and destroying soil contaminants. In particular, 1,2,4,5-tetrachlorobenzene (TeCB) was selected for this research. Hydrodehalogenation (HDH) was paired with hydrogenation for remedially destroying TeCB without generating a secondary waste stream in a single batch reactor. Palladium- and rhodium-catalyzed HDH and hydrogenation were applied in a batch reactor at room temperature and moderate hydrogen pressure. Cyclohexane was formed as an end product with benzene as an intermediate reactant.

An analytical method was developed to measure TeCB, benzene, and cyclohexane in a solution of water and …

Analytical Methods To Support Risk Identification And Analysis In Healthcare Systems, Laila Nadime Cure Vellojin

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Healthcare systems require continuous monitoring of risk to prevent adverse events. Risk analysis is a time consuming activity that depends on the background of analysts and available data. Patient safety data is often incomplete and biased. This research proposes systematic approaches to monitor risk in healthcare using available patient safety data. The methodologies combine traditional healthcare risk analysis methods with safety theory concepts, in an innovative manner, to allocate available evidence to potential risk sources throughout the system. We propose the use of data mining to analyze near-miss reports and guide the identification of risk sources. In addition, we propose …

Stress Corrosion Cracking Evaluation Of Candidate High Strength Stainless Steels For Prestressed Concrete, Joseph Rogelio Fernandez

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Prestressed concrete piles are commonly used to support over-water highway bridges in marine environments. The reinforcing steel within will ultimately be degraded via corrosion damage due to the penetration of chloride ions from sea water. The service life of these structures is, in part, dictated by the time required to diffuse chloride ions through the concrete cover and subsequently corrode the steel. Therefore, by slowing the rate of diffusion or increasing the chloride threshold of the steel (or both) an increased service life can be expected. This thesis focuses on the latter whereby stainless steel reinforcing alternatives were investigated to …

Design And Testing Of A Motion Controlled Gait Enhancing Mobile Shoe (Gems) For Rehabilitation, Ismet Handzic

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Persons suffering central nervous system damage, such as a stroke, coma patients, or individuals that have suffered damage to the spinal cord, brainstem, cerebellum, and motor cortex, sometimes develop an asymmetric walking pattern where one leg does not fully swing backward. This uneven gait hinders these individuals in properly and efficiently moving through everyday life.

Previous research in humans and various animals has introduced a split belt treadmill to analyze possible rehabilitation, which can recreate a correct gait pattern by altering the speed of each track. Gait adaptation was achieved by having the split belt treadmill move each leg at …

Stress-Strain Management Of Heteroepitaxial Polycrystalline Silicon Carbide Films, Christopher William Locke

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Silicon carbide (SiC) is one of the hardest known materials and is also, by good fortune, a wide bandgap semiconductor. While the application of SiC for high-temperature and high-power electronics is fairly well known, its utility as a highly robust, chemically-inert material for microelectrical mechanical systems (MEMS) is only beginning to be well recognized. SiC can be grown on both native SiC substrates or on Si using heteroepitaxial growth methods which affords the possibility to use Si micromachining methods to fabricate advanced SiC MEMS devices.

The control of film stress in heteroepitaxial silicon carbide films grown on polysilicon-on-oxide substrates has …

Effectiveness Of In-Line Chlorination Of Gravity Flow Water Supply In Two Rural Communities In Panama, Kevin Orner

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

It is well established that water quality is directly linked to health. In-line chlorination is one technology that can be used in the developing world to potentially inactivate pathogens and improve water quality. The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of the Panamanian Ministry of Health's in-line PVC chlorinator under three different operating conditions in a rural water supply system. Free and total chlorine were measured entering the storage tank, leaving the storage tank, and at three households along the transmission line of the water system in the two rural indigenous communities of Calabazal and Quebrada Mina …

Sub-Cooled Pool Boiling Enhancement With Nanofluids, Elliott Charles Rice

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Phase-change heat transfer is an important process used in many engineering thermal designs. Boiling is an important phase change phenomena as it is a common heat transfer process in many thermal systems. Phase change processes are critical to thermodynamic cycles as most closed loop systems have an evaporator, in which the phase change process occurs. There are many applications/processes in which engineers employ the advantages of boiling heat transfer, as they seek to improve heat transfer performance. Recent research efforts have experimentally shown that nanofluids can have significantly better heat transfer properties than those of the pure base fluids, such …

Thermophysical Characterization Of Nanofluids Through Molecular Dynamic Simulations, John Shelton

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Using equilibrium molecular dynamics simulations, an analysis of the key thermophysical properties critical to heat transfer processes is performed. Replication of thermal conductivity and shear viscosity observations found in experimental investigations were performed using a theoretical nanopthesis-fluid system and a novel colloid-fluid interaction potential to investigate the key nanofluid parameters. Analysis of both the heat current (thermal conductivity) and stress (shear viscosity) autocorrelation functions have suggested that the dominant physical mechanisms for thermal and momentum transport arises from enhancements to the longitudinal and transverse acoustic modes energy transfer brought about by the increased mass ratio of the nanopthesis to the …

Pilot Assessment Of Novel Membrane Bioreactor Processes - Improvements In Biological Nutrient Removal And Membrane Operation, Shaleena Smith

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

With increasing water reuse applications and upcoming stringent regulations for treated wastewater effluent discharge, wastewater plants need to consider alternative technologies beyond conventional treatment processes. The new regulations, Numeric Nutrient Criteria (NNC), may regulate discharge nitrogen and phosphorus concentrations to as low as 0.5 mg/L as N and 10 μg/L as P respectively. To meet these target requirements, system retrofitting to incorporate chemical or advanced nutrient removal systems possibly with membrane technology will most likely be required. Although microfiltration/ultrafiltration membranes coupled with biological processes, otherwise known as membrane bioreactors (MBR), remove contaminants and suspended solids, nutrient removal is minimal to …

Polydimethylsiloxane Mechanical Properties Measured By Macroscopic Compression And Nanoindentation Techniques, Zhixin Wang

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis, the relationship between the elastic modulus of PDMS and the base/agent ratio (the amount of crosslinking) is studied. Reliable macroscopic compression test instrument was developed. Preload method was applied for the nanoindentation flat punch test to develop full contact.

In chapter 2, an easy instrument setup for macroscopic compression test is described. A series of PDMS samples with different base/agent ratios were tested using the macroscopic compression method. The relationship between PDMS elastic modulus and its base/agent ratio was established.

In chapter 3, PDMS nanoindentation DMA tests provide stable data with different test control models. The storage …

Growth And Characterization Of Thermoelectric Ba8Ga16Ge30 Type-I Clathrate Thin-Films Deposited By Pulsed Dual-Laser Ablation, Robert Harry Hyde

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The on-going interest in thermoelectric (TE) materials, in the form of bulk and films, motivates investigation of materials that exhibit low thermal conductivity and good electrical conductivity. Such materials are phonon-glass electron-crystals (PGEC), and the multi-component type-I clathrate Ba₈Ga₁₆Ge₃₀ is in this category. This work reports the first investigation of Ba₈Ga₁₆Ge₃₀ films grown by pulsed laser deposition (PLD).

This dissertation details the in-situ growth of polycrystalline type-I clathrate Ba₈Ga₁₆Ge₃₀ thin-films by pulsed laser ablation. Films deposited using conventional laser ablation produced films that contained a …

Modeling Of Solar-Powered Single-Effect Absorption Cooling System And Supermarket Refrigeration/Hvac System, Ammar Bahman

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis consists of two different research problems. In the first one, the aim is to model and simulate a solar-powered, single-effect, absorption refrigeration system using a flat-plate solar collector and LiBr-H₂O mixture as the working fluid. The cooling capacity and the coefficient of performance of the system are analyzed by varying all independent parameters, namely: evaporator pressure, condenser pressure, mass flow rate, LiBr concentration, and inlet generator temperature. The cooling performance of the system is compared with conventional vapor-compression systems for different refrigerants (R-134a, R-32, and R-22). The cooling performance is also assessed for a typical year …

Theoretical And Experimental Analysis Of Power And Cooling Cogeneration Utilizing Low Temperature Heat Sources, Gökmen Demirkaya

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Development of innovative thermodynamic cycles is important for the efficient utilization of low-temperature heat sources such as solar, geothermal, and waste heat sources. Binary mixtures exhibit variable boiling temperatures during the boiling process, which leads to a good thermal match between the heating fluid and working fluid for efficient heat source utilization. This study presents a theoretical and an experimental analysis of a combined power/cooling cycle, which combines the Rankine and absorption refrigeration cycles, uses ammonia-water mixture as the working fluid and produces power and refrigeration, while power is the primary goal. This cycle, also known as the Goswami Cycle, …

Anaerobic Membrane Bioreactor (Anmbr) For Treatment Of Landfill Leachate And Removal Of Micropollutants, Anh Tien Do

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

To date, most studies on the fate and removal of endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs) and pharmaceutical and personal care products (PPCPs) in wastewater focus on their fate in municipal wastewater treatment plants, and mostly under aerobic condition. There are limited studies related to anaerobic condition and (to our knowledge) no study on the removal of EDCs in landfill leachate by AnMBR. Moreover, for most studies under anaerobic condition, the removal of EDCs was only reported in the liquid phase; solid phase extraction was not reported, thereby preventing mass balance in the studies.

This research was conducted to investigate the potential …

Modeling Roadside Safety Hazards To Predict Annual Crash Cost To Encroaching Vehicles In Rural Road Networks, Isidro Delgado

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Roadside crashes account for a large portion of total fatal crashes that occur annually in the United States. About 30% of those fatalities are the result of single vehicle run-off-road crashes. A large proportion of these fatal crashes occur in rural roads when vehicles depart from the travel lane and collide with trees or other roadside safety hazards. Many of these run-off-road accidents occur in local roads that carry traffic volumes between 1,000 and 20,000 vehicles per day. Many of these roads are part of the jurisdiction of county authorities faced with the dilemma of having too many "potentially dangerous" …

Mechanistic Modeling Of Photocatalytic Water Disinfection, Omatoyo Kofi Dalrymple

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The main goal of this research was to develop a mechanism-based model for photocatalytic disinfection of bacteria in water using suspended catalyst pthesiss in batch reactors. The photocatalytic disinfection process occurs as a semiconductor photocatalyst, most commonly titanium dioxide (TiO₂), is irradiated with light of wavelength less than 380 nm to produce hydroxyl radicals and other highly reactive oxidants which can inactivate microorganisms. Photocatalytic disinfection involves a complex interaction of many fundamental mechanisms such as light absorption and scattering by semiconductor pthesiss, electrochemical surface reactions, and heterogeneous colloidal stability. Current models, based largely on chemical reacting systems, do …

Apparent Total Evaporative Resistance Values From Human Trials Over A Range Of Metabolic And Heat Stress Levels, Matthew David Dooris

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Failure to maintain thermal equilibrium can cause uncontrollable increases in body core temperature beyond critical upper limits. In selecting clothing, consideration must be given to the heat transfer properties of clothing that may restrict the cooling capacity of the human body under heat stress conditions, most importantly, apparent total evaporative resistance (R_e,T,_a). This study calculated and compared R_e,T,_a for five clothing ensembles under varying heat stress conditions, including three relative humidity (RH) levels and three stages of heat stress to determine if R_e,T,_a values varied or remained the same with …

Steady And Transient Heat Transfer For Jet Impingement On Patterned Surfaces, Mark Michael Dobbertean

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Free liquid-jet impingement is well researched due to its high heat transfer ability and ease of implementation. This study considers both the steady state and transient heating of a patterned plate under slot-free-liquid jet impingement. The primary working fluid was water (H2O) and the plate material considered was silicon. Calculations were done for Reynolds number (Re) ranging from 500 to 1000 and indentation depths from 0.000125 to 0.0005 m for three different surface configurations. The effect of using different plate materials and R-134a as the working fluid were explored for the rectangular step case. The distributions of the local and …

Thermal Integrity Profiling Instrumentation Development, Byron Keith Anderson

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis has shown that the development of the instrumentation necessary to provide in-situ thermal imaging for the determination of homogeneity of concrete is theoretically sound.

Drilled shafts are large diameter underground cast-in-place columns that necessarily rely on sound integrity to properly withstand imposed loadings. As a by-product of the most common construction techniques, the entire process is often completely blind whereby the excavation and concreting processes are conducted beneath the surface of the water table (or slurry level). This results in an inability to inspect the final product and in many cases allows anomalous inclusions (soil cave-ins, slurry pockets, …

Thermo-Mechanical Beam Element For Analyzing Stresses In Functionally Graded Materials, Simon Caraballo

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Modeling at the structural scale most often requires the use of beam and shell elements. This simplification reduces modeling complexity and computation requirements but sacrifices the accuracy of through-the-thickness information. Several studies have reported various design approaches for analyzing functionally graded material structures. One of these studies proposed a two-node beam element for functionally graded materials (FGMs) based on first order shear deformable (FOSD) theory. The derivation of governing equations included spatial temperature variation. However, only the constant temperature case was carried through in the element formulation. This investigation explore the effects of spatial temperature variation in the axial and …

Supercritical Fluid Aided Microencapsulation Of Dry Powders, Raquel Carvallo

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Coating of fine particles to produce tailored surface properties is currently a key development for supercritical fluids applications, in different areas such as: pharmaceutical, nutraceutical, cosmetic, agrochemical, electronic and specialty chemistry industries. During the encapsulation process the particles surface can be designed with specific properties by spreading a thin film coating material over the surface of the particles.

Chitosan, a natural polymer, was used in this work as the encapsulant material. Chitosan is biocompatible, biodegradable to normal body constituents, safe, non-toxic, bacteriostatic, anticancerogen, and versatile polymer. These attributes are among the properties that make Chitosan an attractive component of pharmaceutical …