Digital Commons Network^™

Spheroid Detection In 2d Images Using Circular Hough Transform, Priyanka Chaudhary

University of Kentucky Master's Theses

Three-dimensional endothelial cell sprouting assay (3D-ECSA) exhibits differentiation of endothelial cells into sprouting structures inside a 3D matrix of collagen I. It is a screening tool to study endothelial cell behavior and identification of angiogenesis inhibitors. The shape and size of an EC spheroid (aggregation of ~ 750 cells) is important with respect to its growth performance in presence of angiogenic stimulators. Apparently, tubules formed on malformed spheroids lack homogeneity in terms of density and length. This requires segregation of well formed spheroids from malformed ones to obtain better performance metrics. We aim to develop and validate an automated imaging …

Response Surface Optimization Of Crystal Violet Decolorization By Pellets Of Pyncnoporus Sanguineus., Siti Suhana Sulaiman

Student Works (2010-2019)

Ligninolytic enzymes of white-rot fungi have broad specificities and have been implicated in transformation and mineralization of organo-pollutant with chemical structure similar to lignin e.g. synthetic dyes. This study was carried out to optimize selected parameters for decolorization of Crystal violet by Pycnoporus sanguineus in shake flasks. The parameters studied were initial dye concentration (ppm), agitation speed (rpm) and process time. They were optimized using response surface methodology (RSM). Subsequent to the optimization, the decolorization process was scaled up in stirred tank reactor (STR). Effect of different geometry of impellers on the decolorization process was studied. Curved blade and angled …

Municipal Solid Waste Management In Selected Malaysian Islands., Nagendran Periaiah

Student Works (2010-2019)

Rapid developments and tourism related activities in Islands have increased the per capita waste generation that led to increased waste disposal at landfill. To date, islands in Malaysia are generating approximately 400 metric tons of MSW. Approximately 60% of the waste are collected and disposed off in non-sanitary landfills. The remaining 35 % were illegally burned/ dumped and 5 % were dumped into ocean. 100% of landfills in Malaysian islands operate as mere open-dumps that lack proper lining system and without leachate treatment facilities. The vicinities bordering non-sanitary landfill sites became highly polluted due to certain harmful gases/ leachate generated …

Adsorption Of Lead (Ii) By A Non-Living Algal Biomass., Mudher A Hussein

Student Works (2010-2019)

Conventional techniques for removing dissolved heavy metals are only practical and cost-effective when applied to high strength wastes with heavy metal ion concentrations greater than 100 ppm. The possibility of using a non-living algal biomass to solve this problem was studied. Lead(II) was used in this study because it has been reported to cause several disorders in human. The non-living algal biomass was obtained from the filamentous green alga Spirogyra neglecta. The effects of initial concentration and contact time, pH, and temperature on the adsorption of lead(II) by the non-living algal biomass were studied. The equilibrium isotherms and kinetics were …

Hazard Identification, Risk Assessment And Risk Control (Hirarc) In A Corrugated Box Manufacturer., Fraziel Barahim

Student Works (2010-2019)

Packaging is one of the biggest industries in the world. It involves paper, glass,metal, flexible and plastic. The corrugated paper packaging worldwide has been growing at 3% to 4% per annum. In line with the expansion of the corrugated paper packaging manufacturing, the potential hazards to human physical and health, property and the environment posed by its operations and production activities have created an increase in awareness and brought up safety issues amongst industry, government and public. The hazard identification and risk assessment plays a role in a number of areas in the safety management, including regulatory policies and guidelines, …

Municipal Solid Waste Management : A Comprehensive Study In Selangor., Fauziah Shahul Hamid

Student Works (2010-2019)

The disposal of 95% of the 1.4 million tonnes of MSW from Selangor, the fastest developing state in Malaysia, is rapidly exhausting landfill space and is also jeopardizing public health. Therefore, proper planning of waste management based on accurate information is essential. The objectives of this research are to collate data from landfills and to investigate the level of public awareness on waste management issues, to analyze the current pollution impacts of landfills and to propose viable options to improve the waste management system in the state. Nine non-sanitary landfills in Selangor were investigated for waste composition and quantification, detailed …

Effect Of Selected Physical And Chemical Parameters On Crystal Violet Decolorization By Immobilized Laccase., Nur Atiqah Ismail

Student Works (2010-2019)

Synthetic dyes are used for coloration of various materials like textiles, leather and food. Wastewater from dyeing industries constitutes a threat to the environment as many synthetic dyes are often toxic, mutagenic and carcinogenic. Besides, light absorption is hindered by the dyes run-off creating problems to photosynthetic aquatic plants and algae. Biodegradation of waste dyestuff with enzymes provides a viable alternative compared to the often expensive physical/chemical methods. Laccase from Trametes versicolor was chosen in this study as it exhibits low substrate specificity and high ability to oxidize many pollutants which suggested its potential in wastewater treatment and bioremediation. The …

Absorption Enhancement Of Msm Photodetector Structure With A Plasmonic Double Grating Structure, Chee Leong Tan, Volodymyr V. Lysak, Narottam Das, Ayman Karar, Kamal Alameh, Yong Lee

Research outputs pre 2011

We present finite difference time domain simulation to analyze the optical absorption enhancement of metal-semiconductor-metal photo detectors employing double plasmonic grating structures. Simulation results show that the combination of a subwavelength aperture and double nano-structured metal grating results in up to 25 times enhancement in optical absorption, in comparison to MSM photodetector structures employing only a subwavelength aperture. This improvement of the absorption enhancement is due to the coupling out function of the bottom grating structure which distributes the light to both side of the subwavelength aperture.

Wireless Acoustic Communications And Power Supply For In-Vivo Biomedical Devices, Graham Wild, Steven Hinckley

Research outputs pre 2011

Pacemakers are common biomedical devices used in the treatment of specific cardiovascular problems. Current research in biomedical engineering is investigating the use of so called brain pacemakers to regulate conditions such as Parkinson's and other neurological conditions. In this paper, we demonstrate the principle of acoustic communications and power harvesting, in vivo. The signals are intended to be used for fixed in vivo biomedical devices, such as pacemakers, were wired and wireless RF communications cannot be used. Results show the performance of the communications channel. The frequency response, transfer function and transient response (at resonance) of the communications channel were …

Investigation Of The Design Of A Bistable Micro-Chemical-Mechanical Device Utilizing Lateral Buckling, Susan Lyn Barnes

Honors Theses

The Gracias Laboratory at Johns Hopkins University has developed microgrippers which utilize chemically-actuated joints to be used in micro-surgery. These grippers, however, take up to thirty minutes to close fully when activated biochemicals in the human body. This is very problematic and could limit the use of the devices in surgery. It is the goal of this research to develop a gripper that uses theGracias Laboratory's existing joints in conjunction with mechanical components to decrease the closing time. The purpose of including the mechanical components is to induce a state of instability at which time a small perturbation would cause …

Advanced Mechanics Of Materials With Microstructure, Shreehari Elangovan

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

The study of advanced materials aimed at improving human life has been performed since time immemorial. Such studies have created everlasting and greatly revered monuments and have helped revolutionize transportation by ushering the age of lighter–than–air flying machines. Hence a study of the mechanical behavior of advanced materials can pave way for their use for mankind’s benefit. In this school of thought, the aim of this dissertation is to broadly perform two investigations. First, an efficient modeling approach is established to predict the elastic response of cellular materials with distributions of cell geometries. Cellular materials find important applications in structural …

Development Of A Biofidelic Material Model For Brain Tissue And Its Application To The Impact Response Of The Human Head, Sandeep Kulathu, David L. Littlefield

Early Career Technical Journal (ECTJ)

Proceedings of the ASME Early Career Technical Conference, October 1-2, 2010. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia

pp. 1-8

Asme Early Career Technical Journal (Complete Issue), Asme Ectc Coordinating Committee

Early Career Technical Journal (ECTJ)

Proceedings of the ASME Early Career Technical Conference, October 1-2, 2010. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia

Adaptive Multi Airbag Shoe Insert For Diabetic Foot Care, Vidya K. Nandikolla, Jenna Matthews, Marco P. Schoen, Suhas S. Pharkute, Uwe Reischl, Ajay Mahajan

Early Career Technical Journal (ECTJ)

Proceedings of the ASME Early Career Technical Conference, October 1-2, 2010. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia

pp. 124-129

Maskless Additive Manufacturing Of Micro Structures By Laser Sintering Of Nanoparticles, Vivekram Ramanathan

Masters Theses

"The focus of this study was to investigate an alternate microfabrication process of sintering nanoparticles using a patterned laser light to generate two dimensional (2D) and three dimensional (3D) geometries. With trends of producing electronic and medical devices using cheaper and faster technologies, a new procedure was developed to deposit and bond miniature patterns of silver nanoparticles onto silicon substrates.

The process consists of spraying silver nanoparticles onto the substrate while a patterned or modulated laser beam is focused onto the sprayed nanoparticles. These nanoparticles exposed under the modulated laser light undergo partial melting or sintering and adhere to the …

Decentralized Coordinated Ilc System Design And Transient Growth Control Using Iteration-Varying Filter, Qing Liu

Masters Theses

"In automation control area, with the increasing demand in task complexity and high control precision, coordination between systems is required. There are mainly two types of coordinated systems, decentralized and centralized. This thesis is focused on a large array of coordinated systems, and the decentralized structure is preferred. To achieve high control precision in a coordinated system, many existing approaches may work, and in the system performing the repeating process, Iterative Learning Control (ILC) is a useful approach. Therefore, in this thesis, a decentralized coordinated ILC system is proposed and analyzed. The proposed control system is especially useful in coordinating …

Synergy Between Biology And Systems Resilience, Ashik Chandra

Masters Theses

"Resilient systems have the ability to endure and successfully recover from disturbances by identifying problems and mobilizing the available resources to cope with the disturbance. Resiliency lets a system recover from disruptions, variations, and a degradation of expected working conditions. Biological systems are resilient. Immune systems are highly adaptive and scalable, with the ability to cope with multiple data sources, fuse information together, makes decisions, have multiple interacting agents, operate in a distributed manner over a multiple scales, and have a memory structure to facilitate learning. Ecosystems are resilient since they have the capacity to absorb disturbance and are able …

Fpga Implementation Of Pso Algorithm And Neural Networks, Parviz Palangpour

Masters Theses

"This thesis describes the Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) implementations of two powerful techniques of Computational Intelligence (CI), the Particle Swarm Optimization algorithm (PSO) and the Neural Network (NN). Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) is a popular population-based optimization algorithm. While PSO has been shown to perform well in a large variety of problems, PSO is typically implemented in software. Population-based optimization algorithms such as PSO are well suited for execution in parallel stages. This allows PSO to be implemented directly in hardware and achieve much faster execution times than possible in software. In this thesis, a pipelined architecture for hardware …

Biodiesel Production Using Supercritical Methanol, Dhaval Nitin Modi

Masters Theses

"The catalyst-free transesterification of oil (triglycerides) in supercritical methanol at a temperature and pressure above 239⁰C and 8.1MPa, respectively, provides a new way of producing biodiesel. High reaction temperature and pressure help to accelerate the transesterification because the supercritical methanol becomes non-polar and has enhanced contact with oil. The supercritical transesterification of soybean oil was carried out in a 170 ml volume high-pressure batch reactor. The pressure within the batch reactor was self-generated from heating the contents since no pumps were used. Transesterification of soybean oil with supercritical methanol readily produced biodiesel. Since the supercritical transesterification is carried out without …

Freeze Extrusion Fabrication Of 13-93 Bioactive Glass Scaffolds For Bone Repair, Nikhil D. Doiphode

Masters Theses

"We have investigated Freeze Extrusion Fabrication (FEF) of 13-93 bioactive glass to fabricate three dimensional scaffolds for bone tissue engineering. Bioactive glass paste was prepared for consistent extrusion through micro-nozzle and controlled porosity scaffolds were fabricated using additive manufacturing FEF. CAD models were prepared for different scaffold designs and computer controlled layer-by-layer deposition of pseudoplastic paste was carried out to in accordance. Liquid nitrogen assisted freezing of pastes was used for the consolidation of deposited layers. Post processing binder burnout and sintering schedules were designed for evaporation of organic binder and densification of glass. Sintering shrinkage was measured, and X-ray …

Distributed Spatiotemporal Detection For Chemical And Biological Threats Using Human Immune Mechanisms, Yatin Bodas

Masters Theses

"Ubiquitous detection of chemical and biological (CB) threats in an urban environment using widely distributed, low-cost, broad-spectrum sensors carried by public or on vehicles is extremely desirable and pertinent for homeland security. These distributed sensors should interoperate autonomously and adaptively to meet stringent operational and detection performance requirements. This research explores the use of scalable detection methodology, inspired by the human immune mechanisms to meet these challenges. An adaptive spatiotemporal control mechanism is proposed to organize the detection behavior of spatially dispersed sensors using peer-to-peer communication so that a shorter response time, higher probability of detection and lower false alarm …

Evaluation Of Variable Speed Limits Using A Genetic Algorithm Approach To Calibrate A Vissim Model, Brian Joseph Schaefer

Masters Theses

"The variable speed limit (VSL) system has been adopted on more and more roadways across the globe as an engineering tool for controlling traffic flow, particularly during congestion situations. An important and fundamental question raised among traffic engineers is: Are the costs of installing and operating variable speed limits really justified? In order to answer this question, this thesis measures the effectiveness of the VSL system applying the VISSIM microscopic simulation model to a non-recurrent congestion situation. For the analysis, a section of interstate was modeled in VISSIM and calibrated so that the simulated results closely reproduce the observed data …

Morphological Assessment Of Basic Multicellular Unit Resorption Parameters In Dogs Shows Additional Mechanisms Of Bisphosphonate Effects On Bone, Matthew R. Allen, Antonia M. Erickson, Xiang Wang, David B. Burr, R. Bruce Martin, Scott J. Hazelwood

Biomedical Engineering

Bisphosphonates (BPs) slow bone loss by reducing initiation of new basic multicellular units (BMUs). Whether or not BPs simply prevent osteoclasts from initiating new BMUs that resorb bone or also reduce the amount of bone they resorb at the BMU level is not clear. The goal of this study was to determine the effects of BPs on three morphological parameters of individual BMUs, resorption depth (Rs.De), area (Rs.Ar), and width (Rs.Wi). After 1 year of treatment with vehicle (VEH), alendronate (ALN; 0.10, 0.20, or 1.00 mg/kg/day), or risedronate (RIS; 0.05, 0.10, or 0.50 mg/kg/day), resorption cavity morphology was assessed in …

Computational Thinking Across The Curriculum: A Conceptual Framework, Amber Settle, Ljubomir Perkovic

Technical Reports

We describe a framework for implementing computational thinking in a broad variety of general education courses. The framework is designed to be used by faculty without formal training in information technology in order to understand and integrate computational thinking into their own general education courses. The framework includes examples of computational thinking in a variety of general education courses, as well as sample in-class activities, assignments, and other assessments for the courses. The examples in the different courses are related and differentiated using categories taken from Peter Denning’s Great Principles of Computing, so that similar types of computational thinking appearing …

Measuring The Elastic Modulus Of Polymers Using The Atomic Force Microscope, Daniel Hoffman

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

Testing a new method of nanoindentation using the atomic force microscope (AFM) was the purpose of this research. Nanoindentation is a useful technique to study the properties of materials on the sub-micron scale. The AFM has been used as a nanoindenter previously; however several parameters needed to obtain accurate results, including tip radius and cantilever sensitivity, can be difficult to determine. To solve this problem, a new method to determine the elastic modulus of a material using the atomic force microscope (AFM) has been proposed by Tang et al. This method models the cantilever and the sample as two springs …

Characterization Of Legacy Organic Carbon In A Culturally Eutrophic Lake : The Role Of The Historic Carbon Deposition In The Time Course And Extent Of Lake Recovery , Phillip A. Depetro

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

The time course of lake recovery after a reduction in external loading of nutrients is often controlled by conditions in the sediment. Remediation of eutrophication is hindered by the presence of legacy organic carbon deposits, that exert a demand on the terminal electron acceptors of the lake and contribute to problems such as internal nutrient recycling, absence of sediment macrofauna, and flux of toxic metal species into the water column. Being able to quantify the timing of a lake’s response requires determination of the magnitude and lability, i.e., the susceptibility to biodegradation, of the organic carbon within the legacy deposit. …

Characterizing The Effects Of Turbulence On Sediment Oxygen And Sediment Nitrate Demand Using Flow-Through Reactors, Brandon J. Ellefson

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

Onondaga Lake has received the municipal effluent and industrial waste from the city of Syracuse for more than a century. Historically, 75 metric tons of mercury were discharged to the lake by chlor-alkali facilities. These legacy deposits of mercury now exist primarily in the lake sediments. Under anoxic conditions, methylmercury is produced in the sediments and can be released to the overlying water. Natural sedimentation processes are continuously burying the mercury deeper into the sediments. Eventually, the mercury will be buried to a depth where it no longer has an impact on the overlying water. In the interim, electron acceptor …

Modeling Mechanical Response Of Heterogeneous Materials, Siladitya Pal

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

Heterogeneous materials are ubiquitous in nature and as synthetic materials. These materials provide unique combination of desirable mechanical properties emerging from its heterogeneities at different length scales. Future structural and technological applications will require the development of advanced light weight materials with superior strength and toughness. Cost effective design of the advanced high performance synthetic materials by tailoring their microstructure is the challenge facing the materials design community. Prior knowledge of structure-property relationships for these materials is imperative for optimal design. Thus, understanding such relationships for heterogeneous materials is of primary interest. Furthermore, computational burden is becoming critical concern in …

Structural And Surface Property Characterization Of Titanium Dioxide Nanotubes For Orthopedic Implants, Tolou Shokuhfar

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

This research focused on the to modification of the surface structure of titanium implants with nanostructured morphology of TiO₂ nanotubes and studied the interaction of nanotubes with osteoblast cells to understand the parameters that affect the cell growth. The electrical, mechanical, and structural properties of TiO₂ nanotubes were characterized to establish a better understanding on the properties of such nanoscale morphological structures.

To achieve the objectives of this research work I transformed the titanium and its alloys, either in bulk sheet form, bulk machined form, or thin film deposited on another substrate into a surface of titania nanotubes …

Sodium Hydroxide Pretreatment And Enzymatic Hydrolysis Of Coastal Bermuda Grass, Ziyu Wang, Deepak R. Keshwani, Arthur P. Redding, Jay J. Cheng

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Faculty Publications

Coastal Bermuda grass was pretreated with NaOH at concentrations from 0.5% to 3% (w/v) for a residence time from 15 to 90 minutes at 121 °C. The pretreatments were evaluated based on total lignin removal and production of total reducing sugars, glucose and xylose from enzymatic hydrolysis of the pretreated biomass. Up to 86% lignin removal was observed. The optimal NaOH pretreatment conditions at 121 °C for total reducing sugars production as well as glucose and xylose yields are 15 minutes and 0.75% NaOH. Under these optimal pretreatment conditions, total reducing sugars yield was about 71% of the theoretical maximum, …