Digital Commons Network^™

The Road To Regulation: A Literature Review Of The Influences On The Updated Silica Standards, Skye M. Medcraft

Capstone Experience: Master of Public Health

Silica is a hazardous compound that poses a risk to human health resulting from dust creating activities across various industries. Several agencies, including OSHA (Occupational Health and Safety Administration) and MSHA (Mine Safety and Health Administration) have adopted regulatory oversight of silica exposure in the workplace. As more research has been conducted on silica exposure, the health effects are becoming better described, which has led to the creation and updating of exposure regulations to protect worker health. The objective of this literature study is to review the data presented to the Department of Labor and discuss how the factors that …

Design And Testing Of A Vr Escape Room Game For Philippine Martial Law History, Eric Cesar Vidal, Jr., Johanna Marion R. Torres, Jesus Alvaro Pato, Kenneth King L. Ko

Department of Information Systems & Computer Science Faculty Publications

This paper presents a Virtual Reality Educational Escape Room game where players learn about the highly divisive Martial Law period in Philippine history. We describe the game’s general design and the results of a user test to evaluate the game in terms of VR presence, immersion, and overall usability.

Investigating The Performance Of Fibre Reinforced Plastic Repairs To Timber Marine Civil Structures At His Majesty’S Naval Base Devonport, Anna G. Walther

The Plymouth Student Scientist

This paper explores Fibre Reinforced Plastics (FRPs) as a composite repair method to restore and enhance mechanical properties of timber marine civil structures within the context of His Majesty’s Naval Base (HMNB) Devonport. To support this, timber composite specimens were manufactured and subjected to flexural and compressive strength tests. Comparisons are made to literature sources for initial predictions, in addition to hand calculations and Finite Element Analysis (FEA) models on SolidWorks. Data demonstrates that FRPs can be used as a cost-effective and beneficial method of repairing timber marine structures. Experimental data demonstrates an ability to restore compressive strength parallel to …

Vacuum-Assisted Resin Transfer Moulding (Vartm): Can Ultrasonic Vibration Decrease Fill Time, Increase Composite Properties, And Reduce Void Formation, Iulia D. Precup

The Plymouth Student Scientist

This study investigated the potential of ultrasonic vibration (28 kHz) to optimize the Vacuum-Assisted Resin Transfer Moulding (VARTM) process. The aim was to assess whether introducing ultrasonic vibration during the resin infusion phase could reduce fill time, improve mechanical properties, and minimize void formation in glass fibre-reinforced polyester composites. Two flexible tooling systems were compared: a reusable silicone membrane and a traditional vacuum bag. Composite plates were manufactured with and without ultrasonic vibration for both systems. Fill time was observed, and post-cured samples were subjected to mechanical testing for flexural modulus, flexural strength, and interlaminar shear strength (ILSS). Void content …

Scaling Wind Farm Layout Optimisation To Meet Uk Energy Demands, Grace Richardson

The Plymouth Student Scientist

This research aims to explore the Wind Farm Layout Optimisation Problem (WFLOP) through both single- and multi-objective optimisation, to show that it can be used to create farm layouts that provide enough power for all homes in the UK. We highlight the intricacies of the problem, including the application of different algorithms and models, and the challenges of scaling the models to achieve optimal results. We employ both a Hill Climbing Algorithm (HCA) and an evolutionary algorithm (NSGA-II) to obtain wind farm layouts, and compare these to the well-known results proposed by Mosetti et al. Moreover, we present a novel …

Design And Validation Of An Industrial Out-Of-Plane Permeability Test Rig Of Fibre Preforms For The Development Of Next Generation Aircraft Structures, Callum Park

The Plymouth Student Scientist

Despite composites comprising 50% of modern aircraft structures, the absence of a standardised method for measuring out-of-plane permeability frequently results in manufacturing defects in early-development aerospace components, directly impacting safety, manufacturing efficiency and costs. This study aimed to address this gap, by designing and commissioning a compact, vacuum-assisted, mass flow test rig, capable of evaluating the saturated out-of-plane permeability of a variety of materials. This design incorporated learnings from theory, previous studies and discussions with industry experts. E-glass, a Metyx unidirectional carbon and the Teijin ITS55 carbon were investigated, where E-glass exhibited the highest permeability of 1.88E-12m², while …

Ai-Driven Electromagnetic Design And Performance Prediction Of Microstrip Antennas, Eduardo Javier Vazquez

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis investigates the application of Deep Learning to automate and accelerate microstrip antenna inverse design. The initial investigation was to predict microstrip antenna performance from its geometry parametric input, and found out that forward prediction with adopted geometric representation results in ill-posed scenario, high ambiguity and unstable mapping. The study later mostly focuses on the inverse prediction by machine learning from S11 parameter input to predict antenna patch geometry parameters instead.

A dataset of 5,000 ANSYS HFSS simulated antennas (later filtered to 4,136 valid samples) was generated using cubic spine -described geometry profiles. Multiple neural architectures were adopted for …

Boundary-Layer Mechanisms In Flow Over Triangular Porous-Textured Flat Plates: A Computational Fluid Dynamics Study, Luis Angel Alvarez

Theses and Dissertations

Growing demand for energy-efficient vehicles drives research into flow control strategies that mitigate aerodynamic drag. Active devices such as morphing flaps or plasma actuators offer real-time authority but require external power. Passive concepts, including riblets, tubercles, porous coatings, and miniature vortex generators, reshape the boundary layer without additional energy input. We propose an integrated passive solution called Triangular Porous Texturing (TPT). TPT combines the two mechanisms: a periodic array of triangular prisms that generate controlled streamwise vortices, and an embedded porous matrix that locally adjusts pressure gradients near the wall. Acting synergistically, these features attenuate near-wall turbulence, redistribute momentum, and …

Property Management System, Abbas Kurnool

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

The real estate industry generates and manages large amounts of data, including tenant information, lease agreements, property maintenance schedules, and financial transactions. Reliance on traditional manual methods often results in inefficiencies, fragmented data, and delays in decision-making. To overcome these challenges, this project presents the design and implementation of a Real Estate Property Management System (REMS) for Future Properties, a company aiming to optimize its operations through digital transformation.

The proposed system is developed on Microsoft Dynamics 365 as the core platform, integrated with the Microsoft Power Platform tools (Power Apps, Power Automate, and Power Pages). This integrated framework provides …

Complementary Color Laser Illumination For Perceptual Contrast Enhancement In Structurally Colored Samples, Tomoshree Dash

All Theses

Structural color, a phenomenon arising from nanoscale interaction between light and materials, has the potential to unveil biological, chemical, physical, and mechanical characteristics of the sample. It enables direct visualization of the sample by human users with high spatiotemporal resolution. However, its impact is often constrained by challenges in the perceptual differentiation of subtle color variations. This thesis introduces complementary color laser illumination (C²LI) as an imaging technique that enhances color perception of the Human Visual System (HVS) by accessing the psychophysical non-linearities in chromatic color perception. C²LI offers a platform optimized for the HVS by …

Measurement-Based Dynamic Load Model Parameterization Via A Stacked Long Short-Term Memory - Deep Neural Network, Zach H. Smith

All Theses

Increases in distributed generation and changes to predominate load types in modern power systems are driving the need for updated or newly developed dynamic load models. Accurate load modeling is necessary for transmission planning and operation, post-mortem analysis, and inter-regional transfer studies. The most widely used dynamic load model is the WECC Composite Load (CMLD). The CMLD model is an aggregation of substation impedance, under voltage and frequency controls, dynamic motor loads, and static loads. Parameterizing dynamic load models, especially composite models with high parameter counts like the CMLD, is can be difficult. This work proposes a measurement-based, machine learning …

Digital Solutions For Bridging Language Barriers: Designing And Testing An App For Construction Spanish Safety Communication On Construction Jobsites, Adrian Cappella

All Theses

Language barriers between English-speaking supervisors and Spanish-speaking workers create safety risks on U.S. construction jobsites. Hispanic workers face higher injury and fatality rates, with miscommunication being a major contributing factor. Existing translation tools lack the accuracy, cultural context, and jobsite relevance needed for effective safety communication.

In this study a mobile application with construction-specific safety phrases in English and Spanish was designed and field tested. The research included a literature review, phrase collection and validation with industry experts, application development and design with a computer science collaborator, and usability testing with supervisors and workers. Surveys and field trials measured navigation, …

Capillary Imbibition Of Shear-Thinning Xanthan Gum Solutions, Aimee Sayster

All Theses

Capillary rise in confined geometries plays a critical role in numerous natural and industrial processes. While classical models such as the Lucas–Washburn equation accurately describe the dynamics of Newtonian fluids, they fail to capture the complex behavior of shear-thinning, non- Newtonian fluids whose viscosity varies with shear rate. This research investigates the capillary rise dynamics of shear-thinning xanthan gum polymer solutions in capillary tubes. The rheological behavior of each fluid is characterized using the Ellis model, which accounts for shear-thinning effects through three key parameters: zero-shear viscosity μ0, characteristic shear stress τ1/2 and viscosity index α. Experimental data was collected …

Understanding Policy Transfer Under Decomposition And Coordination: Sequential Reinforcement Learning With Relaxation-Based Feasibility Control, Aannand Lal

All Theses

This thesis investigates how decomposition and coordination (D&C) choices influence exploration, learning, and transfer in reinforcement learning (RL) based design frameworks. A unified methodology is developed to evaluate generality under decomposition and to demonstrate sequential coordination on a representative physical task. The generality study holds the underlying physics constant while varying problem presentation - specifically scalarization weights, objective orientations, and feasibility handling. A train-evaluate matrix is constructed in which each trained policy is assessed across all alternative decompositions. Set-based diagnostics quantify generality through exact-match identity, Jaccard similarity of distinct feasible states, total feasible coverage, and Pareto-front quality. Results show that …

Short-Arc Angles-Only Initial Orbit Determination For Leo And Geo Objects Using A Genetic Algorithm, Joseph R. Piini

Master's Theses

An ever-growing interest in utilizing space for scientific, commercial, and defense applications has led to an exponential rise in orbital debris recent years. With this sharp increase in space objects comes a greatly increased risk of potential collisions, necessitating an increase in Space Situational Awareness. In order to best mitigate the risk of future collisions in an increasingly congested space environment, it is crucial to be able to accurately determine the orbits of these new objects for trajectory tracking. This process is initial orbit determination (IOD), and is especially difficult when only observation angles are available for short observation times. …

Dynamic Modeling And Simulation Of A Power Generation Steam Rankine Cycle For A Fluoride Salt-Cooled High-Temperature Reactor Nuclear Power Plant, William R. Ton

Master's Theses

Nuclear Fluoride Salt-Cooled High-Temperature Reactors (FHRs) have the potential to greatly improve nuclear technology in terms of safety and cost. By combining molten salt coolant technology from the Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) and TRISO fuel technology from the Very High Temperature Gas Reactor (VHTR), FHRs may operate at significantly lower pressures than Light Water Reactors (LWRs) and with a more robust fuel source that is excellent at containing fission products. However, as no FHR has been built, there are still many design questions to address. This thesis uses transient computer modeling and simulation to investigate how an FHR could potentially …

Real Time Markerless 3d Hand Tracking For Intuitive Robotic Arm Control, Dylan G. Featherson

Master's Theses

This thesis presents a real-time, markerless motion-capture system for intuitive control of a multi-degree-of-freedom robotic arm. Using two synchronized RGB cameras and stereo-vision triangulation, the system reconstructs the three-dimensional position of a user’s hand without the need for physical markers or wearable sensors. The reconstructed 3D coordinates are mapped directly to the end-effector position of the Quanser QArm, a four-degree-of-freedom educational manipulator. Developed entirely in Python, the system integrates stereo camera calibration, 3D hand tracking with MediaPipe, coordinate transformation, and inverse kinematics into a unified real-time control pipeline operating at approximately 200 Hz. Calibration is performed through a checkerboard-based stereo …

Per- And Poly-Fluoroalkyl Substances Fate Across California Wastewater Treatment Plants: A Meta-Analysis Of Formation, Distribution, And Persistence, Elizabeth Reineke

Master's Theses

Per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are persistent contaminants that move through municipal and industrial wastewater systems with limited attenuation. As a result, they are increasingly detected in drinking water supplies. Despite growing regulatory concern, a systems-level understanding of PFAS behavior across multiple treatment facilities and watershed settings remains incomplete. This study compiled influent, effluent, and biosolids datasets from more than one hundred California wastewater treatment plants to evaluate PFAS occurrence, transformation, and partitioning across diverse treatment configurations. Analytical steps included calculating removal efficiencies, assessing precursor-to-product oxidation, evaluating co-contaminant correlations, and grouping facilities by process design to quantify configuration-specific fate patterns. …

Hallucination Techniques For Self-Supervised Synthetic Datasets For Mobile Robots, Wyatt D. Colburn

Master's Theses

Classical techniques in autonomous navigation struggle in tightly constrained spaces. Machine learning has been shown to perform better in these difficult environments but most techniques require large amounts of navigation experience for training. Using a new machine learning paradigm learning from hallucination (LfH), training data can be collected in a safe environment and not require supervision. Data is collected in real time while an agent performs a random walk in free space, supervision is not required as there are no obstacles for the robot to run into. After a random walk a post processing pipeline will hallucinate a safety corridor …

Bridging Cybersecurity Practice And Law: A Hands-On, Scenario-Based Curriculum Using The Nice Framework To Foster Skill Development, Colman Mcguan, Aadithyan Vijaya Raghavan, Komala M. Mandapati, Chansu Yu, Brian Ray, Debbie Jackson, Sathish Kumar

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

In an increasingly interconnected world, cybersecurity professionals play a pivotal role in safeguarding organizations from cyber threats. To secure their cyberspace, organizations are forced to adopt a cybersecurity framework such as the NIST National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education Workforce Framework for Cybersecurity (NICE Framework). Although these frameworks are a good starting point for businesses and offer critical information to identify, prevent, and respond to cyber incidents, they can be difficult to navigate and implement, particularly for small-medium businesses (SMBs). To help overcome this issue, this paper identifies the most frequent attack vectors to SMBs (Objective 1) and proposes a practical …

Multi-Modal Data-Efficient Learning For 3d Machine Vision, Zhimin Chen

All Dissertations

The rapid progress of 3D computer vision has enabled a wide range of applications in autonomous driving, robotics, and augmented reality. Despite this growth, training robust 3D perception models remains challenging due to limited labeled data, the complexity of integrating multiple modalities, and the inherently imbalanced and long-tailed nature of 3D datasets. This dissertation addresses these challenges by proposing data-efficient, multi-modal learning frameworks that improve the accuracy, generalization, and scalability of 3D scene understanding.

In the semi-supervised setting, this work presents novel approaches that combine limited annotations with large amounts of unlabeled data to enhance 3D object classification and retrieval. …

Robust Data-Driven Predictive Control Of Nonlinear Systems Under Modeling Uncertainty, Pegah Ghafghanbari

All Dissertations

Data-driven predictive control enables designing controllers directly from data, making it attractive for complex systems with hard-to-model dynamics. However, practical deployment is challenged by modeling inaccuracies and changing operating conditions. This dissertation develops predictive control frameworks that incorporate robustness and adaptability to address these issues in uncertain nonlinear systems.

The first part employs the Linear Parameter-Varying (LPV) framework, which represents nonlinear dynamics through simple linear form representation. To characterize the plant-model-mismatch often caused by limited data and numerical calculations, Bayesian Neural Networks (BNNs) are used, and their uncertainty estimates are integrated into two robust control approaches. The first is a …

Advancing Life Cycle Assessment Of Mass Timber: Environmental Performance, Circular Design And End-Of-Life Strategies, Muzan Williams Ijeoma

All Dissertations

Mass timber has emerged as a leading candidate for low-carbon construction, offering the dual benefits of reduced embodied emissions and biogenic carbon storage. Yet, fully realizing its sustainability potential requires a comprehensive and context-specific understanding of its environmental performance across the entire life cycle, from raw material production to building operation and beyond end-of-life (EoL). This dissertation advances life cycle assessment (LCA) practices for mass timber by addressing critical challenges across multiple phases of its life cycle. This dissertation is comprised of three published papers, and two submitted manuscripts. First, I conducted a critical review and meta-analysis of mass …

Hydrodynamics Of Perforated Heave Plates, Muhammad Usman

All Dissertations

Ocean waves are a clean and renewable energy source that can help reduce dependence on fossil fuels and combat climate change. To capture this energy, researchers have developed devices known as wave energy converters (WECs). One common type, called a two-body point absorber WEC, uses a buoy floating on the ocean surface connected to a submerged reaction plate, known as the heave plate, which lies underwater. The relative up-and-down motion between the buoy and the heave plate, driven by ocean waves, generates usable power via a power take-off (PTO) system. Traditionally, these submerged heave plates are solid structures. However, this …

Opposed-Piston Two Stroke Engine As A High Power Density Solution In Heavy Duty Applications: An Experimental Evaluation With Diesel And Ethanol, Ankur Bhatt

All Dissertations

With an increasing demand to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, the conventional powertrain technology is at a saturation point. There is reinvigorated research interest in alternative powertrain designs that offer potentially higher efficiencies and lower engine-out emissions compared to conventional powertrains. The opposed piston two-stroke (OP2S) engine is one such alternative engine architecture that has demonstrated a reduction in engine-out emissions and increased efficiency compared to conventional four-stroke diesel engines. Like any two-stroke engine, the scavenging process and the composition of the internal residuals are predominantly governed by the pressure differential between the intake and the exhaust ports. Without dedicated …

Comparative Assessment Of Lower Limb Neuromusculoskeletal Activation And Joint Kinematics In Normal And Impaired Gait, Jack Ryan Schule

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis evaluates whether accessible and affordable technologies can provide clinically significant, quantifiable gait analysis comparable to traditional marker-based motion capture systems. Modern high-end systems offer excellent accuracy but remain financially and logistically inaccessible to many clinicians and researchers. To address this gap, a framework was developed using markerless pose estimation using the model, MediaPipe, inertial measurement units (IMUs) processed through an Extended Kalman Filter (EKF), and surface electromyography (sEMG) to measure joint kinematics and neuromuscular activity during gait. An experiment was performed where data was collected from participants with both normal gait and pathologies including: Osgood–Schlatter disease, Plica Band …

Towards Trustworthy Federated Learning, Alina Basharat

Theses and Dissertations

Federated learning is a collaborative training model in which multiple clients optimize aglobal model by transmitting updates to a coordinating server while keeping raw data on-device, thereby reducing direct data exposure and enabling iterative global improvement. However, the iterative communication process is vulnerable to malicious attackers that either deliberately destroy the model or curious to infer raw data. Moreover, learning from multiple agents may result in unfair results. To enhance trustworthiness within this setting, we employ two-sided norm-based screening (TNBS) that removes both abnormally large and abnormally small updates, pair it with a q-fair objective to emphasize high-loss (disadvantaged) clients, …

Experimental Measurement Demonstration Of Initial And Steady-State Heights Of A Co2 Vertical Jet Fountain In Still Air, Brock Mcrae

Chemical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Atmospheric releases of heavier-than-air gases pose acute near-field hazards in low wind, yet the near-source behavior of vertical dense-gas jets in still air is sparsely documented. This thesis demonstrates a repeatable laboratory method for measuring the initial and steady-state rise heights of a carbon dioxide (CO₂) jet issued vertically from a floor nozzle in the CHRC ultra-low-speed wind tunnel under still-air conditions. Controlled mixtures (pure CO₂, 50/50 CO₂-air, 25/75 CO₂-air) were released at four flow rates (75, 100, 125, 150 LPM) with five repeats per condition. A fixed camera and tape-measure scale enabled video extraction of jet height using Kinovea …

Expanderizing Higher-Order Random Walks, Vedat Levi Alev, Shravas Rao

Computer Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

We study a variant of the down-up (also known as the Glauber dynamics) and up-down walks over an 𝑛-partite simplicial complex, which we call expanderized higher-order random walks—where the sequence of updated coordinates corresponds to the sequence of vertices visited by a random walk over an auxiliary expander graph 𝐻. When 𝐻 is the clique with self-loops on [𝑛], this random walk reduces to the usual down-up walk, and when 𝐻 is the directed cycle on [𝑛], this random walk reduces to the well-known systematic scan Glauber dynamics. We show that whenever the usual higher-order random walks satisfy a log-Sobolev …

Image And Signal Processing Methods For Clinical Decision Support: Reference-Based Lung Segmentation On Chest X-Rays And Ecg-Based Study Of Acute Hyperkalemia Using Machine Learning, Basavarajaiah Shanmukhayya Totada

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

ABSTRACT

Study-I: An Image Processing Pipeline for Reference Guided Lung Region Detection in Chest Radiographs with Shape Similarity Matching Accurate and reliable segmentation of the lung region in chest X-ray (CXR) images is essential for computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) systems, particularly in the early detection and monitoring of lung disorders. Traditional segmentation techniques often rely on manual annotations, limiting scalability and adaptability. The proposed reference-guided approach selects the most similar healthy CXRs dynamically, ensuring flexibility while benefiting from dataset-specific reference images. Building upon prior approaches that utilize shape similarity-based selection and SIFT-flow, this study introduces a fully automated segmentation pipeline that …