Digital Commons Network^™

Delineation Of A Coal Combustion Residue Landfill And Underlying Karst Subsurface In Southwest Missouri Using Ert And Masw Surveys, Ruobai Zhao

Doctoral Dissertations

"The safe containment of coal combustion residual (CCR) in landfills was addressed by the U.S. Environment Protection Agency (EPA) CCR rule published in 2015. The new rule affects new and existing U.S. based CCR landfills in terms of implementing safeguard systems for safe disposal and contamination control. Electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) and multichannel analysis of surface waves (MASW) data were acquired across and in proximity to a CCR landfill in southwest Missouri, USA, with the intent to identify potential karst features and seepage pathways.

Electrical resistivity tomography data were acquired using an automated 8-channel resistivity meter and multichannel analysis of …

Spoilage Detection In Raspberry Fruit Based On Spectral Imaging Using Convolutional Neural Networks, Karthik Kuchangi Jothi Prakash

Dissertations

Effective spoilage detection of perishable food items like fruits and vegetables is essential for retailers who stock and sell large quantities of these items. This research is aimed at developing a non-destructive, rapid and accurate method which is based on Spectral Imaging (SI) used in tandem with Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) to predict whether the fruit is fresh or rotten. The study also aims to determine the number of days before which the fruit rots. This research employs a primary, quantitative and inductive methods to investigate the Deep Learning based approach to detect fruit spoilage. Raspberry fruit in particular has …

Environmental Risk, Resource And Production, Nancye Gannaway

Farm Systems and Economics published reports

Plan Prepare Prosper - workshop

Aims

• To identify and plan for projected changes in weather patterns and in the physical resources that underpin the productivity of the farm enterprise.
• To develop initiatives to manage observed and likely threats from the environment to farm enterprises.
• To support the achievement of long-term economic viability of land under production

Today's content will help develop risk management strategies for agricultural production systems.

A Comprehensive Review Of Fruit And Vegetable Classification Techniques, Khurram Hameed, Douglas Chai, Alexander Rassau

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Recent advancements in computer vision have enabled wide-ranging applications in every field of life. One such application area is fresh produce classification, but the classification of fruit and vegetable has proven to be a complex problem and needs to be further developed. Fruit and vegetable classification presents significant challenges due to interclass similarities and irregular intraclass characteristics. Selection of appropriate data acquisition sensors and feature representation approach is also crucial due to the huge diversity of the field. Fruit and vegetable classification methods have been developed for quality assessment and robotic harvesting but the current state-of-the-art has been developed for …

Technical And Economic Feasibility Of Utilizing Efficient Photovoltaic Systems To Power Rural Health Centres In The Federal Capital Territory (Fct) Of Nigeria, Jimento G. Aikhuele

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Delivering reliable electricity to rural health centres in Nigeria has long been a challenge. This study presents a technical and economic feasibility analysis involving a comparison between efficient solar photovoltaic systems, small gasoline generators, and the (unreliable) grid as power supply sources for rural health centres in Nigeria. Twenty-eight rural health centres were visited in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) in Nigeria whereupon an assessment was taken to know their energy needs and how these needs are met. Ibwa 1 Primary Health Centre (PHC), one of the health centres audited, was used as a case study for technical design and …

Cell Laden Hydrogel Microspheres Using 3d Printed Microfluidics, Sanika Nitin Suvarnapathaki

Theses - ALL

Cell laden hydrogel microspheres using 3D printed microfluidics

Abstract

By

Sanika Suvarnapathaki

Current tissue engineering therapies use macro-scale three dimensional (3D) scaffolds to treat tissue defects surgically. Uneven cell seeding and oxygen and media perfusion cause low cell viability in these macro-scale scaffolds. Microencapsulation, a technique of encapsulating cells in biocompatible polymers or hydrogels, has the potential to address these key issues, and therefore this technology has been used for numerous healthcare applications over the last two decades. Cell microencapsulation in hydrogels that mimic the tissue physiology and biochemistry has made it possible to use natural hydrogels like gelatin methacrylate …

Synthesis And Characterization Of Thermoresponsive Hydrogels Based On N-Isopropylacrylamide Crosslinked With 4,4′-Dihydroxybiphenyl Diacrylate, Shuo Tang, Martha Floy, Rohit Bhandari, Manjula Sunkara, Andrew J. Morris, Thomas D. Dziubla, J. Zach Hilt

Chemical and Materials Engineering Faculty Publications

A novel crosslinker [4,4′-dihydroxybiphenyl diacrylate (44BDA)] was developed, and a series of temperature-responsive hydrogels were synthesized through free radical polymerization of N-isopropylacrylamide (NIPAAm) with 44BDA. The temperature-responsive behavior of the resulting gels was characterized by swelling studies, and the lower critical solution temperature (LCST) of the hydrogels was characterized through differential scanning calorimetry. Increased content of 44BDA led to a decreased swelling ratio and shifted the LCST to lower temperatures. These novel hydrogels also displayed resiliency through multiple swelling–deswelling cycles, and their temperature responsiveness was reversible. The successful synthesis of NIPAAm-based hydrogels crosslinked with 44BDA has led to a …

Comparing Methods Of Targeting Obesity Interventions In Populations: An Agent-Based Simulation, Rahmatollah Beheshti, Mehdi Jalalpour, Thomas A. Glass

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

Social networks as well as neighborhood environments have been shown to effect obesity-related behaviors including energy intake and physical activity. Accordingly, harnessing social networks to improve targeting of obesity interventions may be promising to the extent this leads to social multiplier effects and wider diffusion of intervention impact on populations. However, the literature evaluating network-based interventions has been inconsistent. Computational methods like agent-based models (ABM) provide researchers with tools to experiment in a simulated environment. We develop an ABM to compare conventional targeting methods (random selection, based on individual obesity risk, and vulnerable areas) with network-based targeting methods. We adapt …

Impact Assessment Of Sewage Sludge To Ecological Environment, Thanh Tran

Manipal Journal of Science and Technology

Sewage sludge from wastewater treatment plants in Vietnam is facing a difficulty due to the significant increase of the volume of discharge to landfill and its impacts on environment. There have been many articles about the odour impact on people living around Binh Hung wastewater treatment plant; however, there is no clear research on the impact, when sewage sludge is discharged directly into the environment. This study was implemented with the change of sludge concentration and environmental conditions to assess the impact of mud through analytical ability to germinate and grow height of cucumber. Results showed that the ratio of …

Thermodynamic Limitations To Agricultural Productivity And Food Security: Livestock In Sub-Saharan Africa, Calvin Harman

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

By 2050, to feed a nearly tripling and more urbanized population in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) will require significant increases in crop productivity throughout the region’s agricultural systems, if a greater reliance on imports is to be avoided. Increases in crop yields to maximum potential productivity (closure of crop yield gaps) can produce more calories and protein, but may be insufficient to sustain the burgeoning human population according to recent analysis (van Ittersum et al., 2016). In this thesis, alternative management options (i.e. crop allocation and crop substitutions) are found to increase total energy productivity and the thermodynamic efficiency of food …

Cultivation Of Chlorella Sorokiniana Using Beef Feedlot Runoff Holding Pond Effluent, Mitchell Klaus Goedeken

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

A study was conducted to test the suitability of utilizing beef feedlot runoff holding pond effluent for cultivating algae. The algae strain used, Chlorella sorokiniana, was previously identified as a potential energy feedstock for cattle. The previous research was initiated in pursuit of a goal to develop a cycle of utilizing nutrients from beef manure to cultivate algae and then utilizing dewatered algae as a feed supplement for beef cattle.

Runoff holding pond effluent samples were collected from commercial beef production operations in Nebraska during spring 2016. Equal portions of samples from each cooperating farm were composited and then aliquoted …

Computational Investigation Of The Biomechanics Of Babywearing In Regards To Developmental Dysplasia Of The Hip, Gaurav Girish

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Developmental Dysplasia of the Hip (DDH) is a congenital condition where an infant’s hip socket is either loose or otherwise unstable. DDH causes a joint instability where the femoral head is not properly situated inside the acetabulum. Etiology of the condition is in part congenital and developmental, with a difference of DDH prevalence between ethnicities. Incidence of DDH is also in some part dependent on cultural practices and activities of the mother and child. The exact nature of this cultural incidence is not clearly understood. A computational approach is hypothesized to identify the impact of babywearing position on the healthy …

A Comparison Of Two Innovation Tools: Application On Smart Kitchen Design, Burcu Taşkın

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

The process is one of the significant issues of companies in innovative product design. The designers and the management deal with producing high quality products with the creativity in a short-term period. The researchers developed techniques to solve that problem as TRIZ. The TRIZ-based techniques aim to recover the gaps of the creative innovation to solve specific problems of technical products and technologies. However, the traditional innovation techniques are still preferred for the design process. This study conducted a comparative research on outcomes regarding the process of two design groups. The assignment is given to ten design students to identify …

Investigation And Engineering Of Polyketide Biosynthetic Pathways, Lei Sun

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This research is focused on investigation and engineering of natural product biosynthetic pathways for efficient production of pharmaceutically important molecules or generation of new bioactive molecules for drug development.

Natural products are an important source of therapeutics, such as chromomycin (anti-cancer), emodin (anti-inflammatory and anti-tumor) and sprolaxine (anti-Helicobacter pylori). Metabolic engineering of natural product biosynthetic pathways shows its promise for creating and producing valuable compounds with chemical diversity for drug discovery. One goal of this research is to create highly efficient strains to biosynthesize valuable natural products. The engineered Streptomyces roseiscleroticus strain constructed in this work showed higher …

Monitoring And Anticipating The Convergence Of Lighting Control Strategies, Nina Chaichi, Tugrul Unsal Daim

Engineering and Technology Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

IPC co-classification in conjunction with cross impact analysis has been used to identify technology convergence and its strength over specific period of time. In this study, we tried to monitor the convergence of lighting control strategies which yields energy efficiency from 2009 to 2013. Also, we tried to anticipate the trend of impacts for near future. We take new approach to utilize detailed information including rate of change of co-classified patents, number of patents in each class, and convergence strength between two classes over time and build possible scenarios to anticipate the convergence trend. In our new approach, convergence strength …

Exploring Wireless Technology Applications In Clinical Staff Response Time Reduction In Healthcare Facilities, Chase R. Johnson

Morehead State Theses and Dissertations

A thesis presented to the faculty of the College of Business and Technology at Morehead State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree Master of Science by Chase R. Johnson on November 13, 2017.

Life Cycle Analysis For Algae Biofuels-Using Local Situations To Factor In The Cost/Benefit Of High-End Products Along With Nutrient Remediation And Co2 Sequestration, John Korstad, Joe T. Moore

College of Science and Engineering Faculty Research and Scholarship

Algae as a feedstock for commercial biofuels is best suited for sunny and warm areas with abundant fresh, salt, or brackish water. Optimum areas worldwide are in the tropics. Logical areas in North America include the Southeast Gulf coast and perhaps New Mexico. Additional practical areas on smaller scale probably lie in metropolitan locations, especially near international airports. The cost-benefit of these endeavors can be enhanced when factors such as high-end products alongside collaboration with sewage treatment or other waste water remediation, industrial carbon dioxide sequestration, reduced transport distance of fuels, and other aspects of the local economy are taken …

An Evaluation Of The Water Lifting Limit Of A Manually Operated Suction Pump: Model Estimation And Laboratory Assessment, Katherine C. Marshall

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

With 663 million people still without access to an improved drinking water source, there is no room for complacency in the pursuit of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Target 6.1: “universal and equitable access to safe and affordable drinking water for all” by 2030 (WHO, 2017). All of the current efforts related to water supply service delivery will require continued enthusiasm in diligent implementation and thoughtful evaluation. This cannot be over-emphasized in relation to rural inhabitants of low-income countries (LICs), as they represent the largest percentage of those still reliant on unimproved drinking water sources. In that lies the motivation and …

Answering Food Insecurity: Serving The Community With Food And Knowledge Using Technology, Courtney Simpson

Purdue Journal of Service-Learning and International Engagement

The courses of Tech120, CGT110, and ENGT 180/181 and Red Gold at Purdue collaborated to design a robot that would plant and water a garden for a local community charter school. The students centered the project on the users’ needs for fresh food, nutrition education, and early exposure to STEM for children. The school, Anderson Preparatory Academy (APA), is comprised of many children who come from low-income families and are in the free or reduced lunch program. Inspired from “Farm Bot,” a similar system that allows for almost hands-free gardening, the “Boiler Bot” is designed to be scalable so children …

How Useful Is Gsv As An Environmental Observation Tool? An Analysis Of The Evidence So Far., Katherine Nesse, Leah Airt

SPU Works

Researchers in many disciplines have turned to Google Street View to replace pedestrian- or carbased in-person observation of streetscapes. It is most prevalent within the research literature on the relationship between neighborhood environments and public health but has been used as diverse as disaster recovery, ecology and wildlife habitat, and urban design. Evaluations of the tool have found that the results of GSV-based observation are similar to the results from in-person observation although the similarity depends on the type of characteristic being observed. Larger, permanent and discrete features showed more consistency between the two methods and smaller, transient and judgmental …

The Aspergillus Flavus Homeobox Gene, Hbx1, Is Required For Development And Aflatoxin Production, Jeffrey W. Cary, Pamela Y. Harris-Coward, Leslie Scharfenstein, Brian M. Mack, Perng-Kuang Chang, Qijian Wei, Matthew Lebar, Carol Carter-Wientjes, Rajtilak Majumdar, Chandrani Mitra, Sourav Banerjee, Anindya Chanda

Faculty Publications

Homeobox proteins, a class of well conserved transcription factors, regulate the expression of targeted genes, especially those involved in development. In filamentous fungi, homeobox genes are required for normal conidiogenesis and fruiting body formation. In the present study, we identified eight homeobox (hbx) genes in the aflatoxin-producing ascomycete, Aspergillus flavus, and determined their respective role in growth, conidiation and sclerotial production. Disruption of seven of the eight genes had little to no effect on fungal growth and development. However, disruption of the homeobox gene AFLA_069100, designated as hbx1, in two morphologically different A. flavus strains, CA14 and AF70, resulted in …

Microfluidic Biopsy Trapping Device For The Real-Time Monitoring Of The Tumor Microenvironment, Angela Holton

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The tumor microenvironment is composed of cellular and stromal components such as tumor cells, mesenchymal cells, immune cells, cancer associated fibroblasts and the supporting extracellular matrix. The tumor microenvironment provides crucial support for growth and progression of tumor cells and affects tumor response to therapeutic interventions. To better understand tumor biology and to develop effective cancer therapeutic agents it is important to develop preclinical platforms that can faithfully recapitulate the tumor microenvironment and the complex interaction between the tumor and its surrounding stromal elements. Drug studies performed in vitro with conventional two-dimensional cancer cell line models do not optimally represent …

Dermal Uptake Of Benzophenone-3 From Clothing, Glenn C. Morrison, Gabriel Bekö, Charles J. Weschler, Tobias Schripp, Tunga Salthammer, Jonathan Hill, Anna Maria Andersson, Jørn Toftum, Geo Clausen, Hanne Frederiksen

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Benzophenone-3 (also known as BP-3 or oxybenzone) is added to sunscreens, plastics, and some coatings to filter UV radiation. The suspected endocrine disruptor BP-3 has been detected in the air and settled dust of homes and is expected to redistribute from its original sources to other indoor compartments, including clothing. Given its physical and chemical properties, we hypothesized that dermal uptake from clothing could contribute to the body burden of this compound. First, cotton shirts were exposed to air at an elevated concentration of BP-3 for 32 days; the final air concentration was 4.4 μg/m3. Next, three participants wore the …

Understanding Sanitation Preferences: An Exploratory Study In The Sirohi District Of Rajasthan, Karen Mac

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Of all the countries in the world, India has the highest number of people practicing open defecation, causing adverse health outcomes from the unconfined spread of faecal matter. The Government of India is ambitiously aiming to end this practice through the construction of 12 million toilets by 2019, but historically, many toilets across India have gone unused. This study focused on understanding: (1) the reasons why people continue to openly defecate despite having toilets and (2) the requirements of a toilet that rural households would be willing to use. Along with 36 observations of household toilets, semi-structured group (n=8) and …

The Bridge Newsletter Winter 2017, Missouri University Of Science And Technology

The Bridge Newsletter

-Hands-on experience in concrete materials research and construction practices
-Making ACML progress
-Taos bridge project

Cross-Modal Recipe Retrieval With Rich Food Attributes, Jingjing Chen, Chong-Wah Ngo, Tat-Seng Chua

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Food is rich of visible (e.g., colour, shape) and procedural (e.g., cutting, cooking) attributes. Proper leveraging of these attributes, particularly the interplay among ingredients, cutting and cooking methods, for health-related applications has not been previously explored. This paper investigates cross-modal retrieval of recipes, specifically to retrieve a text-based recipe given a food picture as query. As similar ingredient composition can end up with wildly different dishes depending on the cooking and cutting procedures, the difficulty of retrieval originates from fine-grained recognition of rich attributes from pictures. With a multi-task deep learning model, this paper provides insights on the feasibility of …

Effects Of Nitrogen And Phosphorus Fertilizer And Topsoil Amendment On Native Plant Cover In Roadside Revegetation Projects, Heidi L. Hillhouse, Walter H. Schacht, Jonathan M. Soper, Carol E. Wienhold

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Faculty Publications

Establishing vegetation on roadsides following construction can be challenging, especially for relatively slow growing native species. Topsoil is generally removed during construction, and the surface soil following construction (“cut-slope soils”) is often compacted and low in nutrients, providing poor growing conditions for vegetation. Nebraska Department of Transportation (NDOT) protocols have historically called for nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) fertilization when planting roadside vegetation following construction, but these recommendations were developed for cool-season grass plantings and most current plantings use slower-establishing, native warmseason grasses that may benefit less than expected from current planting protocols. We evaluated the effects of nitrogen and …

Holistic Approach In Microalgae Conversion To Bioproducts And Biofuels Through Flash Hydrolysis, Ali Teymouri

Civil & Environmental Engineering Theses & Dissertations

In recent years, the demand for renewable energy, mainly biomass has increased. The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported that more than 13.3% of the total energy production in the first seven months of 2017 was produced from a biomass source. Among all biomass resources, microalgae has brought a lot of attention due to their numerous advantages such as higher growth rate and productivity compared with the conventional energy crops, higher energy conversion efficiency by photosynthesis, and less water requirement than terrestrial crops. However, its development is far behind industrial production. Several research efforts across the globe have been concerned with …

The Prospects Of Zinc As A Structural Material For Biodegradable Implants—A Review Paper, Galit Katarivas Levy, Jeremy Goldman, Eli Aghion

Michigan Tech Publications, Part 1

In the last decade, iron and magnesium, both pure and alloyed, have been extensively studied as potential biodegradable metals for medical applications. However, broad experience with these material systems has uncovered critical limitations in terms of their suitability for clinical applications. Recently, zinc and zinc-based alloys have been proposed as new additions to the list of degradable metals and as promising alternatives to magnesium and iron. The main byproduct of zinc metal corrosion, Zn²⁺, is highly regulated within physiological systems and plays a critical role in numerous fundamental cellular processes. Zn²⁺ released from an implant may suppress …

Organics To You - Optimization Of Produce Bins, Rassaniya Lerdphayakkarat, Chuan Chieh Lu, Jon Roschke, Juliana Suzuki, Jessie Truong

Engineering and Technology Management Student Projects

Organics to You (www.organicstoyou.org ) is a produce delivery company that focuses on bringing organic local food from local farms straight to the homes, schools, and businesses of its clients. Each week a "Small Bin" is created using different varieties of local produce from various farms. Customers receive a bin that contains 12-14 varieties of produce with 2-6 "servings" of each variety (e.g., 1 melon, 4 apples, 1 head of lettuce, 2 lbs potatoes, etc).

Our objective is to optimize the contents of the “Small Bin”. The decision we want to make is how much of each variety do …