Digital Commons Network^™

A Study Of The Effect Of Starch Content On The Water Absorption Of Pva/Starch Blends, Bushra H. Musa, Nahida J. Hameed

Engineering and Technology Journal

The present work aims to study physical tests such as the water absorption tests of PVA; PVA/corn starch blends at different mass percent (25, 30, 35, 40, and 50%) of corn starch after immersion in distilled water for ten minutes. The blends were also characterized by FTIR analysis, and an optical microscope. Casting method used to prepare samples. The results of water absorption exhibited that the weight losses of the sample increases the starch content rises in the PVA matrix. Also, it was found the highest value of the swelling ratio % at (50% PVA /50% Starch) blend, while minimum …

Fracture Toughness Of Glass Infiltrated (3y-Tzp/Al2o3) Composite, Sara N. Ibrahim, Shihab A. Zaidan, Mudhafar A. Mohammed

Engineering and Technology Journal

Five different 3 mol.% yttria-tetragonal zirconia polycrystals/alumina (3Y-TZP/Al2O3) -glass specimens have been fabricated by the glass infiltration method. graphite additives were added to the (3Y-TZP/20Wt.%Al2O3) to obtain porous structure. The ATZ (Alumina Toughened Zirconia) skeleton have prepared by the normal compaction method. The specimen had been infiltrated by the glass (18Wt.% lithium hydroxide, 72 wt. % feldspar, and 10Wt.% nano Titanium oxide) at 1185ᵒC. Results showed that the porosity of (3Y-TZP/Al2O3) composite was increased while bulk density decreased with increasing graphite additives. The elastic modulus of (3Y-TZP/Al2O3)-glass was decreased (159-109GPa) with increasing the amount of glass infiltrated. Hardness was constant …

Age Estimation In Short Speech Utterances Based On Bidirectional Gated-Recurrent Neural Networks, Ameer A. Badr, Alia K. Abdul-Hassan

Engineering and Technology Journal

Recently, age estimates from speech have received growing interest as they are important for many applications like custom call routing, targeted marketing, or user-profiling. In this work, an automatic system to estimate age in short speech utterances without depending on the text is proposed. From each utterance frame, four groups of features are extracted and then 10 statistical functionals are measured for each extracted dimension of the features, to be followed by dimensionality reduction using Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA). Finally, bidirectional Gated-Recurrent Neural Networks (G- RNNs) are used to predict speaker age. Experiments are conducted on the VoxCeleb1 dataset to …

License Plate Tilt Correction: A Review, Nada N. Kamal, Enas Tariq

Engineering and Technology Journal

Tilt correction is an essential step in the license plate recognition system (LPR). The main goal of this article is to provide a review of the various methods that are presented in the literature and used to correct different types of tilt that appear in the digital image of the license plates (LP). This theoretical survey will enable the researchers to have an overview of the available implemented tilt detection and correction algorithms. That’s how this review will simplify for the researchers the choice to determine which of the available rotation correction and detection algorithms to implement while designing their …

The Effect Of The Number Of Key-Frames On The Facial Emotion Recognition Accuracy, Suhaila N. Mohammed, Alia K. Abdul Hassan

Engineering and Technology Journal

Key-frame selection plays an important role in facial expression recognition systems. It helps in selecting the most representative frames that capture the different poses of the face. The effect of the number of selected keyframes has been studied in this paper to find its impact on the final accuracy of the emotion recognition system. Dynamic and static information is employed to select the most effective key-frames of the facial video with a short response time. Firstly, the absolute difference between the successive frames is used to reduce the number of frames and select the candidate ones which then contribute to …

Eye Diseases Classification Using Back Propagation Artificial Neural Network, Hanaa M. Ahmed, Shrooq R. Hameed

Engineering and Technology Journal

A human eye is a vital organ responsible for a person's vision. So, the early detection of eye diseases is essential. The objective of this paper deals with diagnosing of seven different external eye diseases that can be recognized by a human eye. These diseases cause problems either in eye pupil, in sclera of eye or in both or in eyelid. Color histogram and texture features extraction techniques with classification technique are used to achieve the goal of diagnosing external eye diseases. Hue Min Max Diff (HMMD) color space is used to extract color histogram and texture features which were …

Effect Of Pulse Electric Field On Water Characteristics As A Disinfection Function In Filtration Unit, Ghassan Abukhanafer, Alaa H. Al-Fatlawi, Hassan H. Joni

Engineering and Technology Journal

This paper studied the impact of the addition of pulse electric-filed low voltage (PEF-LV) in the filtration process by designing, constructing, and operating a pilot-scale. The Disinfectant process (DP) demonstrated several benefits in terms of efficiency and ease of application, without the use of any chemical additive. This system contains two pairs of silver mesh electrodes inside the filtration column test with a low pulse voltage for killing microorganisms. The parametric effects of DP performance, such as alternating current pulse frequency and the voltage applied were investigated. The effect of PEF-LV on the biological, physical, and chemical characteristic of water …

Thermal Investigations Of Double Pass Solar Air Heater With Two Types Of Porous Media Of Different Thermal Conductivity, Jalal M. Jalil, Shrooq J. Ali

Engineering and Technology Journal

This study describes an experimental investigation of the thermal efficiency of stainless steel mesh and steel wool as a porous medium in the lower channel of a double pass solar air heater. An experimental setup was planned and developed. Various types of porous media with high thermal conductivity and with different porosities have been tested. The effects of the porosity of wire mesh, the thermal conductivity of porous media, mass flow rate, and the intensity of radiation have been studied. Experimental results show that thermal efficiency with using porous media is greater than without using porous media. When used steel …

Genpix: A Diverse Dataset For Fake Image Detection, Guessoum Dalila, Benblidia Nadjia, Boumahdi Fatima, Remmide Mohamed Abdelkarim, Nouri Tarek-Amine, Bataouche Azeddine-Lotfi

Iraqi Journal for Computer Science and Mathematics

The rapid advancement of sophisticated generative models has intensified the need for robust fake image detection systems. However, many existing benchmark datasets suffer from limited diversity in content types and generation techniques, constraining the generalization ability of detection models. To address these limitations, we introduce GenPix (Generalized Pixels), a comprehensive dataset encompassing over 80,000 images spanning diverse categories, including faces, objects, and scenes, generated by multiple state-of-the-art models such as Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) and diffusion-based architectures. The dataset includes samples from different generation methods to ensure broad coverage of fake image characteristics.

GenPix provides a realistic evaluation environment that …

Investigating Nanoparticle Capture By Condensed Phase Coacervates And Their Mixtures, Sanjna A. Bhakta

Chemical and Biological Engineering ETDs

The thermoresponsive polymers elastin-like polypeptides (ELPs) and poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (PNIPAM) have served as a programmable bioseparation tool for applications in nanoparticle capture due to biocompatibility and tunable properties. This work investigates how the polymer composition of ELP and PNIPAM coacervates influences their phase behavior, structural morphology, and nanoparticle recruitment. In addition, the influence of interfacial interactions in nanoparticle recruitment using Tween 80 as a mechanistic probe was also investigated. Different mixtures of ELPs E1.40, E1.80, and E3 with PNIPAM14 and PNIPAM20 were used to characterize their phase behavior and analyze structural morphology using turbidity measurements and microscopy, respectively. Nanobead recruitment using …

Impact Of Gas Interactions With Nano Porous Geological Material In The Presence Of Water Vapor, Matthew D. Powell

Chemical and Biological Engineering ETDs

Predicting gas transport in nanoporous geological material requires understanding competitive adsorption and transport under humid conditions. However, most adsorption studies rely on single-component equilibrium measurements that do not capture these effects. This dissertation develops an experimental methodology to directly quantify multicomponent gas adsorption and breakthrough behavior under controlled relative humidity. The method was first applied to the Kr/Xe–N2–H2O system, where it resolved competitive adsorption behavior in humid porous media and produced a bivariate model relating noble gas adsorption to noble gas partial pressure and water saturation. The methodology was then extended to the CO2–N2 H2O system. Results showed that water …

Developing Simulation To Improve G3p3 Efficiencies, Andrew Gaudette

Mechanical Engineering ETDs

Concentrated solar power (CSP) systems offer a promising method of renewable energy generation by using heliostats to focus sunlight onto a falling particle receiver. At the National Solar Thermal Testing Facility (NSTTF), particles absorb and store solar energy for later power generation. A major source of efficiency loss is wind-driven particle escape through the receiver aperture. This thesis develops computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations to characterize wind flow around the G3P3 falling particle receiver and support future wind mitigation strategies. Numerical studies were conducted to establish an appropriate simulation methodology. Iteration studies showed that 2,000 iterations were sufficient for convergence, …

Development Of Dynamic Proof-Mass Configurations For Broadband Piezoelectric Energy Harvesting, Nico E. Galarza

Electrical and Computer Engineering ETDs

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate and develop dynamic proof-mass configurations for broadband piezoelectric energy harvesting. Conventional piezoelectric energy harvesters are typically limited by narrow operating bandwidths, restricting their performance under variable-frequency excitation. This research presents the design, fabrication, and experimental evaluation of multiple proof-mass concepts intended to increase the usable frequency range of cantilever-based piezoelectric energy harvesters. Several dynamic mass configurations were developed using additive manufacturing techniques and integrated with commercially available piezoelectric cantilevers. Experimental testing was conducted under controlled vibration conditions to characterize voltage response, resonant behavior, and bandwidth performance. The results demonstrate that dynamic proof-masses …

Synergizing Crowd Collaboration: Enhancing Crowdsourcing Matching Via Integration Of Matching Theory And Coalition Games, Rowan Aengus Kinney

Electrical and Computer Engineering ETDs

This paper tackles the challenges inherent in crowdsourcing dynamics by introducing the CROWDMATCH mechanism. Aimed at enabling crowdworkers to strategically select suitable crowdsourcers while contributing information to crowdsourcing tasks, CROWDMATCH considers incentives, information availability and cost, and the decisions of fellow crowdworkers to model the utility functions for both the crowdworkers and the crowdsourcers. Specifically, the paper presents an initial Approximate CROWDMATCH mechanism grounded in matching theory principles, eliminating externalities from crowdworkers’ decisions and enabling each entity to maximize its utility. Subsequently, the Accurate CROWDMATCH mechanism is introduced, being initiated by the outcome of the Approximate CROWDMATCH mechanism, and employing …

Investigating Light-Matter Interactions In Low-Dimensional Silicon Carbide, Nishan Shrestha

Mechanical Engineering ETDs

Recent advances in materials science have transformed the study and application of low-dimensional materials, with two-dimensional (2D) systems and nanoscale structures exhibiting properties beyond their bulk counterparts. Despite significant progress in materials such as graphene and silicon, the nanoscale exploration of silicon carbide (SiC) remains relatively underdeveloped, despite its critical importance in photonics and electronics and high temperature applications. Motivated by the transformative potential of nanoscale material design and the technological importance of SiC, this dissertation investigates structure and properties of low-dimensional silicon carbide structures. It explores the synthesis and optical properties of SiC nanosheets and nanowires using a variety …

Dynamic Reconstruction Engineering Of Anti-Corrosion Ni-Based Anodes For Alkaline Seawater Electrolysis, Yi-Gang Zhang, Wen-Wen Xu, Tian-Yu Zhang, Zhi-Yi Lu

Journal of Electrochemistry

Green hydrogen production via alkaline seawater electrolysis offers an environmentally sustainable and potentially cost-effective route to address both energy and climate challenges. Achieving long-term anode stability under complex ionic environments and industrial current densities remains a central bottleneck. Specifically, Ni-based anodes exhibit intense surface reconstruction during the oxygen evolution reaction, necessitating dynamic anti-corrosion strategies. This mini review systematically summarizes reconstruction engineering approaches to develop anti-corrosion Ni-based anodes of alkaline seawater electrolysis across increasingly complex ionic environments from simulated seawater to real seawater: (i) Cl^– dominated; (ii) Cl^– with co-existing oxyanions, and (iii) Cl^–  with co-existing Br^{– …}

Preparation And Performance Study Of In-Situ Self-Assembled Biphasic Smmn2O5-Nimn2O4 Composite Cathode, Neng-Chu Xia, Yu Zhou, Qin Wang, Jia-You Zhang, Chun Yu, Yang Zhang, Wan-Bing Guan, Jian-Xin Wang

Journal of Electrochemistry

Mullite-structured oxides exhibit excellent oxygen reduction reaction activity, possess a low thermal expansion coefficient due to their unique crystal structure, and can eliminate the need for a barrier layer and simplify the preparation process as they contain no alkaline earth elements. Thus, they hold great promise as novel cathode materials for solid oxide fuel cells. In this work, a mullite-spinel-structured SmMn₂O₅-NiMn₂O₄ (SMO-NMO) composite cathode was one-step synthesized via a solid-liquid composite route, and its in-situ self-assembly enabled good compatibility with the electrolyte without any barrier layer. Characterization results showed that the SMO:NMO = …

Mapping And Modeling Threat-Evoked Brain States After Early Life Adversity, Taylor W. Uselman

Biomedical Sciences ETDs

Early life adversity (ELA) increases lifelong neuropsychiatric vulnerability. Yet how ELA reorganizes brain-wide activity and circuit coordination across later experience remains unclear. This dissertation tests the hypothesis that ELA alters adult brain-wide activity and responses to threat through disrupted coordination among neural systems that regulate emotional experience, including prefrontal-limbic and monoaminergic systems. Longitudinal manganese-enhanced MRI of adult mice exposed to standard or fragmented early care, combined with computational processing and statistical modeling, quantified brain states before, during, and long after innate predator threat. These studies established that acute threat evokes large-scale, distributed brain activity that evolves over time. ELA potentiates …

Helmholtz Reciprocity In Bidirectional Y-Junction Couplers, Hosuk Lee

Optical Science and Engineering ETDs

This thesis explores the light propagation characteristics in Y-junction couplers based on the Helmholtz reciprocity principle. The Helmholtz reciprocity principle is a crucial concept in optical system design, and it has primarily been understood based on input-output symmetry. However, this study emphasizes reciprocity needs to consider the entire system, beyond the traditional input-output symmetry reciprocity interpretation. For this study, we specifically examined the direction-dependent asymmetrical outputs, in the Whistle-geometry Ring Laser (WRL) structure. And the WRL results cannot be fully explained by simple input-output symmetry for reciprocity. The Y-junction coupler in the WRL structure makes different output characteristics based on …

Non-Traditional Rare-Earth-Doped Oxide Glass As A Gain Medium, Jared S. Tolliver

Optical Science and Engineering ETDs

There is a need for mid-infrared(MIR) lasers in defense, medical, and environmental monitoring. A large part of this technological development is the study of gain media. One class of materials of special interest is glasses with a low maximum phonon energy. These have the fiberization and broad spectral features of glass, whereas glasses with high maximum phonon energy exhibit higher rates of multi-phonon relaxation and can be opaque in the MIR, both of which are detrimental to laser operation. Recent advances in container-less processing have allowed for the study of new glasses that aren’t possible with conventional fabrication techniques. One …

Assessment Of Anaerobic Co-Digestion Of High Strength Organic Feedstocks Diverted From Landfills, Sumaiya Sharmin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2020 - Present

The increasing generation of high-strength organic wastes such as food waste and fats, oils, and grease (FOG) presents challenges for landfill capacity and waste management. Anaerobic co-digestion offers a sustainable alternative by converting these wastes into renewable energy and nutrient-rich digestate. This study evaluated the co-digestion performance of single fruit waste residuals and mixed food waste with wastewater sludge to identify substrate combinations that maximize methane production while maintaining process stability. Laboratory-scale batch experiments were conducted under mesophilic conditions using thickened waste activated sludge (TWAS) with varying proportions of food waste and co-substrates, including seaweed, aquatic weed, grease trap waste, …

Enhanced Computational Modeling Of Photoionization And Streamer Formation, Anahita Alibalazadeh

Electrical and Computer Engineering ETDs

Photoionization is a key mechanism governing the formation and propagation of streamer discharges in air by generating electron-ion pairs ahead of the streamer front. Accurate and computationally efficient modeling of this non-local process is essential for reliable plasma simulations. However, the widely used Zheleznyak photoionization model relies on empirical assumptions and requires computationally expensive domain-wide integration.

This dissertation advances photoionization modeling in three ways. First, the classical integral model is enhanced by incorporating experimentally measured vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) emission spectra together with photoabsorption and photoionization cross-section data, enabling direct calculation of the photoionization source term as a function of pressure …

System Design And Validation Of Radio Astronomy Phased Arrays, Rebecca Shiu Haymore

Theses and Dissertations

Modern radio astronomy instruments require a wide field of view and high sensitivity. To this effect, BYU and Cornell University have developed the Advanced L-band Phased Array Camera for Astronomy (ALPACA), a fully cryogenic 69 dual-pol dipole array that produces 80 beams on the sky with 305 MHz instantaneous bandwidth centered on 1500 MHz. Integration testing has demonstrated proper beamforming and calibration, and ALPACA has been commissioned as an all-sky monitor to search for bright transients. Commissioning testing for ALPACA measured an element system noise temperature of 24 K and a beamformed system noise temperature of 17 K, making ALPACA …

Stop Blaming My Users: Illumination Of The Technocentric Mythos Bias, Ervin H. Frenzel, Richard Lightcap

Journal of Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

 Abstract -This conceptual essay addresses the need for systemic and systematic transdisciplinary analytical techniques within cybersecurity and technical security. This conceptual essay is contingent upon recognition that cybersecurity is not simply technical in nature, it does not need an adversary, and more importantly it is based upon systems engineering and systems thinking.  The essay contributes a socio-technical attribution chain and field-specific ontology/taxonomy which distinguish user-triggered events from root causes, latent conditions, technical debt, validation failures, governance failures, and attribution bias before assigning responsibility to end users. It systematically defines an ontology inclusive of developer technical debt, organizational debt arising from …

Adaptive Task-Driven Lidar Point Cloud Compression For Autonomous Driving, Su Hyun Kim

Master's Theses

Autonomous-driving systems generate large LiDAR point clouds, but compression can damage the sparse object-support structure needed by 3D detectors even when reconstructions appear visually plausible. This thesis asks whether adaptive LiDAR compression can preserve downstream detection better than uniform compression by allocating more fidelity to detector-relevant regions. The main study builds a mask-aware range-image codec with an encoder-decoder bottleneck, an importance head, and an adaptive quantization variant. It compares this adaptive variant package with a confirmed masked uniform baseline under one fixed RangeDet evaluation surface and one fixed KITTI validation subset. Two supporting studies bound the result: a projection-reconstruction PointPillars …

Development Of Proposed Airworthiness Certification Criteria For Interference-Tolerant Radio Altimeter Systems, Matheus B. Furstenberger

Student Works

Radio altimeters provide height-above-ground information to flight deck displays and multiple safety-critical aircraft systems, however legacy certification standards were not developed for high-power terrestrial wireless services operating in adjacent C-Band spectrum. This study addressed the absence of a consolidated airworthiness certification framework for interference-tolerant radio altimeter systems installed on Title 14 Code of Federal Regulations Part 25 transport category airplanes. An archival research synthesis was conducted using publicly available regulations, proposed and final rules, technical standard orders, advisory circulars, airworthiness directives, industry standards, spectrum-management documents, technical studies, and stakeholder comments. Qualitative content analysis and source triangulation were used to identify …

Sand Tank Experiments On The Seepage And Water Pressure Distribution During Single-Well Dewatering At The Bottom Of A Confined Aquifer, Wang Wenxue, Zhang Mengying, Li Yang, Fang Yuan, Zhao Shuli, Shen Mengjun

Coal Geology & Exploration

Background Depressurization through dewatering using inclined wells arranged at the aquifer bottom represents a crucial technical approach to the prevention and control of water-sand inrush disasters during coal mining beneath aquifers. However, the mechanisms underlying seepage-pressure interactions and water-preserved depressurization remain poorly understood. Methods Based on the water-yield properties of confined aquifers and the distribution characteristics of inclined wells for dewatering, this study developed a fan-shaped sand tank experimental system for simulating dewatering and seepage from confined aquifers. Using the experimental system, this study carried out seepage experiments using a partially penetrating well at the bottom of a confined aquifer …

Numerical Simulations And Dispersion Analysis Of 3d In-Seam Waves Based On Finite Difference Method On Curvilinear Grids, Liu Dan, Ren Zhiming

Coal Geology & Exploration

Background With the comprehensive advancement in intelligent coal mine construction, creating high-precision, transparent geological models of coal seams and their surrounding strata has emerged as a prerequisite for intelligent coal mining. The accurate identification of concealed geological anomalies, such as folds and faults, within coal seams represents a key challenge in safe coal mining. In-seam seismic exploration has become an important approach to detecting underground concealed structures owing to its advantages, including a considerable detection distance along coal seams, high precision, pronounced frequency dispersion effects, and facilitating the identification of waveform signatures. However, conventional methods for seam wave simulation are …

Evaluation Of Microwave Treatment Of Pfos-Laden Granular Activated Carbon, Rachel Melo Fonseca

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2020 - Present

This study investigated the microwave treatment as a potential regeneration approach for PFOS-laden granular activated carbon (GAC). PFOS was used as a model legacy PFAS, and calcium was selected to examine how inorganic constituents may influence PFAS loading and fluorine behavior during treatment. Microwave temperature profiling showed that GAC temperatures increased with treatment time and power level, reaching approximately 400-950°C. Selected microwave conditions reduced PFOS-derived extractable organic fluorine (EOF), with apparent EOF reduction increasing from 65.5% after 1 min to 96.8% after 4 min. Calcium increased PFOS-derived EOF loading before microwave treatment but did not show a consistent effect on …

Radiation Effects On The Amd Versal Running An Automatic Modulation Classification Model, Allan D. Howe

Theses and Dissertations

With the recent increase of interest into artificial intelligence (AI), graphics processing units (GPUs) have been used as the main hardware architecture for AI computation. Because of their high power consumption and large size, it is necessary to consider other architectures to perform AI computing in outer-space where size, weight, power, and cost (SWaP-C) are tightly constrained. One such architecture is the Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) Versal Adaptive Compute Acceleration Platform (ACAP), which can achieve acceptable AI throughput at a lower power and size compared to a GPU. As the Versal ACAP gets used in space applications, it is necessary …