Digital Commons Network^™

Evaluation Of Biosorption Activated Media Under Roadside Swales For Stormwater Quality Improvement And Harvesting, Andrew Charles Hood

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Stormwater runoff from highways is a source of pollution to surface water bodies and groundwater. This project develops a bio-detention treatment and harvesting system that is incorporated into roadside swales. The bio-detention system uses Bold & Gold™, a type of biosorption activated media (BAM), to remove nutrients from simulated highway runoff and then store the water in underground vaults for infiltration, controlled discharge, and/or irrigation and other non-potable applications. In order to design a bio-detention system, media characteristics and media/water quality relationships are required. Media characteristics determined through testing include: specific gravity, permeability, infiltration, maximum dry density, moisture content of …

Construction And Demolition Debris Recovery And Recycling In Orange County, Fl, Michael Stephen Toth Ii

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In 2008, the State of Florida established a recycling goal of 75% to be achieved by 2020. In response to the Florida goal Orange County (OC), Florida has made the development and implementation of an efficient strategy for landfill diversion of its solid waste a top priority. The Florida Department of Environmental Protection (FDEP) estimated that 23 % of municipal solid waste was generated by construction and demolition (C&D) activities in 2009, with only 30 percent of C&D debris being recycled. Therefore, OC decided to create a solid waste integrated resource plan (SWIRP) initially focused on the recovery and recycling …

Turbidity Removal Efficiency And Toxicity Issues Associated With The Chitosan-Based Dual Bio-Polymer Systems, Rylee Hernandez

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Stormwater runoff can be a great concern in the State of Florida due to the impact the quality of the runoff water can have on the natural water bodies. Stormwater runoff can carry pollutants and sediments which can cause both physical and biological risks in an aquatic ecosystem such as a lake, river, or pond. Polymers, namely the chitosan-based dual polymer system, can be used remove the sediment from this runoff to ensure the safety of the state’s water bodies. Three soils are used in this testing: AASTO soil classifications A-3(sandy soil) and A-2- 4 (silty-sand), and a soil with …

Incorporating Remotely Sensed Data Into Coastal Hydrodynamic Models: Parameterization Of Surface Roughness And Spatio-Temporal Validation Of Inundation Area, Stephen Conroy Medeiros

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation investigates the use of remotely sensed data in coastal tide and inundation models, specifically how these data could be more effectively integrated into model construction and performance assessment techniques. It includes a review of numerical wetting and drying algorithms, a method for constructing a seamless digital terrain model including the handling of tidal datums, an investigation into the accuracy of land use / land cover (LULC) based surface roughness parameterization schemes, an application of a cutting edge remotely sensed inundation detection method to assess the performance of a tidal model, and a preliminary investigation into using 3-dimensional airborne …

Thermally Annealled Plasmonic Nanostructures, Chaoming Wang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) is induced in metal nanoparticles by resonance between incident photons and conduction electrons in nanoparticles. For noble metal nanoparticles, LSPR can lead to strong absorbance of ultraviolet-violet light. Although it is well known that LSPR depends on the size and shape of nanoparticles, the inter-particle spacing, the dielectric properties of metal and the surrounding medium, the temperature dependence of LSPR is not well understood. By thermally annealing gold nanoparticle arrays formed by nanosphere lithography, a shift of LSPR peak upon heating has been shown. The thermal characteristics of the plasmonic nanoparticles have been further used …

Oxidative Effects Of Nanosecond Pulsed Electric Field Exposure In Cells And Cell-Free Media, Olga N. Pakhomova, Vera A. Khorokhorina, Angela M. Bowman, Raminta Rodaitė-Riševičienė, Gintautas Saulis, Shu Xiao, Andrei G. Pakhomov

Bioelectrics Publications

Nanosecond pulsed electric field (nsPEF) is a novel modality for permeabilization of membranous structures and intracellular delivery of xenobiotics. We hypothesized that oxidative effects of nsPEF could be a separate primary mechanism responsible for bioeffects. ROS production in cultured cells and media exposed to 300-ns PEF (1–13 kV/cm) was assessed by oxidation of 2′, 7′-dichlorodihydrofluoresein (H₂DCF), dihidroethidium (DHE), or Amplex Red. When a suspension of H₂DCF-loaded cells was subjected to nsPEF, the yield of fluorescent 2′,7′dichlorofluorescein (DCF) increased proportionally to the pulse number and cell density. DCF emission increased with time after exposure in nsPEF-sensitive Jurkat …

Nebraska Summary: S852 Case-Ih Maxxum 120, Nebraska Tractor Test Lab

Nebraska Tractor Tests

ABOUT THE TEST REPORT AND USE OF THE DATA The test data contained in this report are a tabulation of the results of a series of tests. Due to the restricted format of these pages, only a limited amount of data and not all of the tractor specifications are included. The full OECD report contains usually about 30 pages of data and specifications. The test data were obtained for each tractor under similar conditions and therefore, provide a means of comparison of performance based on a limited set of reported data. EXPLANATION OF THE TEST PROCEDURES Purpose The purpose of …

Nanosatellite Fabrication And Analysis, Sam Harrison, Patrick Scott, Victor Zapien

Mechanical Engineering Senior Theses

The advancements in technologies used in the aerospace industry have allowed universities to experiment with and develop small-scale satellites. Universities are taking advantage of the relatively low development costs of nanosatellite programs to give students experience in the field of spacecraft design. The purpose of Santa Clara University's team, Nanosatellite Fabrication and Analysis, is to create a process to expedite the design, analysis, and fabrication phase of nanosatellite structures for students working on future satellite missions. The objective is to design four baseline nanosatellite structures to accommodate a range of potential missions where the designs are simple enough to be …

Healthface: A Web-Based Remote Monitoring Interface For Medical Healthcare Systems Based On A Wireless Body Area Sensor Network, İsmai̇l Kirbaş, Cüneyt Bayilmiş

Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

The wireless body area sensor network (WBASN) is a type of wireless sensor network. The wireless sensor nodes in a WBASN are placed on, near, or within a human body. In a medical healthcare system, WBASNs continuously provide healthcare monitoring, especially of elderly or ill people, wherever the patient goes. Wireless nodes sense and process human vital signs such as heart rate, blood pressure, body temperature, and respiration. They then send collected data to a medical center via a base station in order for medical professionals to monitor the patient's health. In the medical center, doctors and caregivers need monitoring …

Differential Gene Expression In A Louisiana Strain Of Microalgae, John Joseph Tate

LSU Master's Theses

Considerable interest in alternative energy has stimulated research in biofuels, particularly microalgal biofuels. In particular, strains of algae that accumulate lipids to be used for biofuels must be adapted to outdoor growth and resistant to invasive species. Differential gene expression in a Louisiana algae/cyanobacteria co-culture consisting of approximately 97% Chlorella vulgaris and 3% Leptolyngbya sp. possessing these traits was examined. Possible reasons for the enhanced growth of the co-culture relative to a Chlorella monoculture were reviewed, including cyanobacterial symbiosis and chemicals produced by cyanobacteria or bacteria that could influence the growth of Chlorella. The co-culture and Chlorella monoculture were cultivated …

Development And Deployment Of A Bioreactor For The Removal Of Sulfate And Manganese From Circumneutral Coal Mine Drainage, C. B. Mastin, J. D. Edwards, Christopher D. Barton, Anastasios D. Karathanasis, Carmen T. Agouridis, Richard C. Warner

Forestry and Natural Resources Faculty Publications

Surface mining, in the form of contour mining and mountain-top removal, is a common means for retrieving coal in the Appalachian Coal Belt region of Kentucky. Overburden or excess spoil generated by these two methods is placed in valley fills. Traditionally Constructed fills have been shown to adversely impact headwater ecosystems via stream burial and through alterations to the hydrology, sediment supply, water quality and biological composition of downstream reaches. Mine drainages emanating from the toe of valley fills often contain elevated levels of total dissolved solids and heavy metals. Drainage chemistry from Guy Cove, a valley fill located in …

Evaluation Of Algae Concentration In Manure Based Media, Maira Freire Pecegueiro Do Amaral

Theses and Dissertations--Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering

Algae can be used to treat wastewater and manure while producing a feedstock for renewable energy. Algae require nutrients to achieve their maximum growth and manure could provide those nutrients, thereby reducing the cost of algae production and the impact of manure treatment. Algae concentration during cultivation is a critical variable that is difficult to measure due to the high concentration of suspended solids present in manure. This dissertation addresses methods to measure algae concentration in the presence of manure solids.

Quantifying the algae concentration gravimetrically or by optical density was unreliable due to manure solids interfering with the measurement. …

Development Of A Bi-Directional Electronics Platform For Advanced Neural Applications, Luca Abbati

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This work presents a high-voltage, high-precision bi-directional multi-channel system capable of stimulating neural activity through bi-phasic pulses of amplitude up to ∓50 V while recording very low-voltage responses as low as tens of microvolts. Most of the systems reported from the scientific community possess at least one of the following common limitations: low stimulation voltages, low gain capabilities, or insufficient bandwidth to acquire a wide range of different neural activities.

While systems can be found that present remarkable capabilities in one or more specific areas, a versatile system that performs over all these aspects is missing. Moreover, as many novel …

Down-Modulation Of Mica On Malignant Glioma Cells By Herpes Simplex Virus, Carl Irwin Odom

All ETDs from UAB

Glioblastoma Multiforme is a primary malignancy of the central nervous system and is fatal for patients despite surgical resection and radiotherapy. Oncolytic Herpes Simplex Virus (oHSV) vectors deleted of the γ134.5 neurovirulence gene are potential therapies for treating glioblastoma tumors. Although replication in permissive cells is considered the primary mechanism of oHSV mediated tumor clearance, there is evidence that the immune system is part of the tumor clearance mechanism during treatment with oncolytic viruses. Specifically, natural killer (NK) cells may be important for tumor clearance during oHSV therapy. NK cell activation relies partially on the stimulation of activating or inhibitory …

Investigating Potential Novel Angiogenic And Immunogenic Properties Of Heme Oxygenase-1, Carl Antonio Frizell

All ETDs from UAB

INVESTIGATING POTENTIAL NOVEL ANGIOGENIC AND IMMUNOGENIC PROPERTIES OF HEME OXYGENASE-1 According to the American Heart Association and Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, cardiovascular diseases comprise the primary causes of death in the United States. Heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1), an inducible microsomal enzyme, catalyzes the rate limiting step in heme degradation releasing equimolar amounts of biliverdin, iron and carbon monoxide. Importantly, the induction of HO-1 is an adaptive response that affords protection in these disease states and several others. Expression of HO-1 has been demonstrated in several disease states and pathophysiological processes, including ischemia-reperfusion, inflammation and organ transplantation. This protection is …

Evaluation Of Phosphorous And Nitrogen Removal In Alligator And Dairy Wastewater Via Lime And Bentonite Precipitation, Srikanth Bukkapatnam Tirumala

LSU Master's Theses

In many situations, the manure produced by confined animal feeding operations (CAFO) needs to be treated before being land applied in order to prevent negative impacts on the environment. Treatment methods are focused on reducing organics, recovering nitrogen and phosphorous. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the efficacy of burnt-lime (Ca(OH)2) and bentonite clay precipitation system of recovering phosphorous from dairy wastewater and alligator wastewater and trapping any possible emissions of ammonia (NH3). Wastewater samples of flush dairy manure from a collection pit, dairy wastewater from an anaerobic lagoon and alligator wastewater from an anaerobic lagoon were investigated …

Capturing Motion, Allison Marsh

Section 3: Imaging the Fast Moving

No abstract provided.

Biometric Alternatives To Captcha: Exploring Accessible Interface Options, Anita Foley

Dissertations

In the computing domain the relationship between accessibility and security is a complex and evolving one; accessibility attempts to ensure that as wide a range of individuals as possible are granted access to systems, whereas security attempts to restrict access only to individuals who are entitled to access those systems. A key security concern is to determine whether or not the system is being accessed by a software agent or a real human being, and a number of approaches have been developed to determine the answer to this question. This issue has been discussed throughout the history of computer science …

Investigation And Analysis Of Open Government Data In Ireland, And The Creation Of A Set Of Quality Guidelines To Aid Its Utility Within Mobile Application Development, Peadar Fitzpatrick

Dissertations

Governments are the custodians of vast amount of data. While some of this data may be sensitive in nature, in that it contains personal or confidential information, much of it is in the public interest. Recent years has seen the emergence of Open Government Data (OGD) where governments are now actively making their data available in open and electronically accessible formats. The motivation for the production of such data includes a desire to increase transparency but also a desire to realise the economic potential associated with re-use of this data. A key usage area for this data to date has …

Towards Universally Designed Assistive Technology E-Learning, Karl O'Keeffe

Dissertations

The aim of this dissertation is to provide Assistive Technology (AT) professionals involved in the area of education and training with a set of reusable technological tools and techniques that will enable them to increase the reach, efficiency, effectiveness and accessibility of their training through online delivery. There are a number of broadly accepted reasons why an organisation in any field might choose to make training available online or partially online (blended) rather than relying on traditional face to face methods. Of the four considered here and mentioned above, accessibility is the biggest concern in the context of AT. It …

Model Individualization For Real-Time Operator Functional State Assessment, Guangfan Zhang, Roger Xu, Wei Wang, Aaron A. Pepe, Feng Li, Jiang Li, Frederick Mckenzie, Tom Schnell, Nick Anderson, Dean Heitkamp

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Proper assessment of Operator Functional State (OFS) and appropriate workload modulation offer the potential to improve mission effectiveness and aviation safety in both overload and under-load conditions. Although a wide range of research has been devoted to building OFS assessment models, most of the models are based on group statistics and little or no research has been directed towards model individualization, i.e., tuning the group statistics based model for individual pilots. Moreover, little emphasis has been placed on monitoring whether the pilot is disengaged during low workload conditions. The primary focus of this research is to provide a real-time engagement …

Toward Automatic Subpixel Registration Of Unmanned Airborne Vehicle Images, Amr Hussein Yousef, Jiang Li, Mohammad Karim, Mark Allen Neifeld (Ed.), Amit Ashok (Ed.)

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Many applications require to register images within subpixel accuracy like computer vision especially super-resolution (SR) where the estimated subpixel shifts are very crucial in the reconstruction and restoration of SR images. In our work we have an optical sensor that is mounted on an unmanned airborne vehicle (UAV) and captures a set of images that contain sufficient overlapped area required to reconstruct a SR image. Due to the wind, The UAV may encounter rotational effects such as yaw, pitch and roll which can distort the acquired as well as processed images with shear, tilt or perspective distortions. In this paper …

Lipid Production From A Louisiana Native Chlorella Vulgaris/Leptolyngbya Sp. Co-Culture For Biofuel Applications, Rong Bai

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Over the last several decades, microalgae have garnered great interest for biofuel production mainly due to the high lipid productivity and minimum land competition with food crops. In this research, a Louisiana native Chlorella vulgaris/Leptolyngbya sp. co-culture was selected for lipid production. The goal of this work is to improve the lipid productivity and lipid composition of this co-culture via optimizing irradiance and nitrogen levels, lipid extraction method and modeling of pilot photobioreactor (HISTAR). Effects of irradiance and nitrate nitrogen levels on total lipid yield, neutral lipid portion, and fatty acid profile of non-aerated and aerated co-cultures were investigated in …

Biologically Dominated Engineered Coastal Breakwaters, Jon David Risinger

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Coastal land loss in Louisiana is occurring at astounding rates. New technologies for shoreline protection are needed that incorporate traditional engineering designs with natural systems (e.g., oyster reefs). Under optimal environmental conditions eastern Oysters (Crassotrea virginica) can biologically dominate artificial concrete reef structures used as coastal breakwaters within the intertidal zone. These reefs can also serve as oyster broodstock sanctuaries providing a nexus to the public oyster grounds benefiting the aquaculture industry. The use of biologically dominated, engineered breakwaters may provide a viable solution to coastal restoration and shoreline protection challenges. Biologically dominated coastal breakwaters can be integrated into coastal …

Experimental Investigations In Co2 Sequestration And Shale Caprock Integrity, Abiola Olukola Olabode

LSU Master's Theses

More than sixty percent (60%) of conventional hydrocarbon reservoirs which are potential CO2 repositories are sealed by tight shale caprock. The geochemical reactivity of shale caprock during CO2 diffusive transport needs to be included in the reservoir characterization of potential CO2 sequestration sites as slow reactive transport processes can either strengthen or degrade seal integrity over the long term. Several simulation results had predicted that influx-induced mineral dissolution/precipitation reactions within shale caprocks can continuously reduce micro-fracture networks, while pressure and effective-stress transformation first rapidly increase then progressively constrict them. This experimental work applied specific analytical techniques in investigating changes in …

Low-Cost Educational Optical Coherence Tomography System For Thickness Measurmentstomography System For Thickness Measurments, Joshua Barr, Paul V. Jansz, Steven Hinckley, Graham Wild

Research outputs 2012

We have developed an inexpensive rudimentary low coherence interferometer that can be used to measure sample thickness in the micron to mm range, and for exploring educational aspects of interferometry and optical coherence tomography.

Low Coherence Interferometry Modelling Using Combined Broadband Gaussian Light Sources, Paul Jansz, Graham Wild, Steven Richardson, Steven Hinckley

Research outputs 2012

Using a Low Coherence Interferometry (LCI) model, a comparison of broadband single-Gaussian and multi-Gaussian light sources has been undertaken. For single-Gaussian sources, the axial resolution improved with source bandwidth, confirming the coherence length relation that resolution for single Gaussian sources improves with increasing spectral bandwidth. However, narrow bandwidth light sources resulted in interferograms with overlapping strata peaks and the loss of individual strata information. For multiple-Gaussian sources with the same bandwidth, spectral side lobes increased, reducing A-scan reliability to show accurate layer information without eliminating the side lobes. The simulations show the conditions needed for resolution of strata information for …

Fabry-Perot-Based Surface Plasmon Resonance Sensors, Feng Xiao, Guangyuan Li, Kamal Alameh, Anshi Xu

Research outputs 2012

A new sensing approach based on the use of an optical Fabry-Pérot (FP) cavity in conjunction with surface plasmon resonance (SPR) is proposed and theoretically investigated. The impact of the SPR on the intensity and phase response of the proposed sensor structure is evaluated using a modified FP model that takes into account the SPR effect. Compared to the conventional optical-phase-detection-based Kretschmann configuration, the proposed sensing approach requires only the measurement of the output power spectrum over a narrow wavelength span of several nanometers to evaluate the phase responses of the sensor, making it more attractive for practical high-sensitivity sensing …

Visual Saliency Based On Fast Nonparametric Multidimensional Entropy Estimation, A. C. Ngo, G. Qiu, G. Underwood, Li-Minn Ang, K. P. Seng

Research outputs 2012

Bottom-up visual saliency can be computed through information theoretic models but existing methods face significant computational challenges. Whilst nonparametric methods suffer from the curse of dimensionality problem and are computationally expensive, parametric approaches have the difficulty of determining the shape parameters of the distribution models. This paper makes two contributions to information theoretic based visual saliency models. First, we formulate visual saliency as center surround conditional entropy which gives a direct and intuitive interpretation of the center surround mechanism under the information theoretic framework. Second, and more importantly, we introduce a fast nonparametric multidimensional entropy estimation solution to make information …

Graph Theory For Survivability Design In Communication Networks, Daryoush Habibi, Quoc Viet Phung

Research outputs 2012

Design of survivable communication networks has been a complex task. Without establishing network survivability, there can be severe consequences when a physical link fails. Network failures which may be caused by dig-ups, vehicle crashes, human errors, system malfunctions, fire, rodents, sabotage, natural disasters (e.g. floods, earthquakes, lightning storms), and some other factors, have occurred quite frequently and sometimes with unpredictable consequences. To tackle these, survivability measures in a communication network can be implemented at the service layer, the logical layer, the system layer, and the physical layer.