Digital Commons Network^™

Carbon Dioxide Capture From Flue Gases, Mohamed Rashid Al Rashid

Theses

Global warming and climate change are believed to be caused by the greenhouse effect. CO₂ has been regarded as the main contributor to global climate change which directly results in serious environmental problems. Half of the anthropogenic CO₂ emission sources are emitted from the combustion of fossil fuels in industries and power plants worldwide. The absorption behavior of Carbon dioxide from flue gases can be studied using conventional absorber and polymeric hollow fiber membrane contractors. An industrial absorber data was compared with simulated data using hollow fiber membrane contractor using the gPROMs software package. In this analysis, with …

Demonstration Of Microcantilever Array With Simultaneous Readout Using An In-Plane Photonic Transduction Method, Seunghyun Kim, Gregory P. Nordin, Ryan Anderson, Weisheng Hu, Yusheng Qian, Jiguo Song, Jong Wook Noh

Faculty Publications

We demonstrate a microcantilever array with an in-plane photonic transduction method for simultaneous readout of each microcantilever. The array is fabricated on a silicon-on-insulator substrate. Rib waveguides in conjunction with a compact waveguide splitter network comprised of trench-based splitters and trench-based bends route light from a single optical input to each microcantilever on the chip. Light propagates down a rib waveguide integrated into the microcantilever and, at the free end of the microcantilever, crosses a small gap. Light is captured in static asymmetric multimode waveguides that terminate in Y-branches, the outputs of which are imaged onto an InGaAs line scan …

Explicit Finite Element Modeling Of Knee Mechanics During Simulated Dynamic Activities, Mark A. Baldwin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The natural knee is one of the most commonly injured joints in the body due to relatively high loads and motions that can lead to debilitating degenerative diseases such as osteoarthritis. Total knee arthroplasty is a clinically successful method for eliminating pain in the osteoarthritic knee, but is subject to complications that can affect patient satisfaction and long-term implant performance. The work presented in this dissertation is a demonstration of how anatomic three-dimensional (3D) computational knee models can be an effective alternative for investigating knee mechanics when compared to the cost and time prohibitive nature of in-vivo and in-vitro methods. …

Influence Of Magnesium Nitrate On The Corrosion Performance Of Sol-Gel Coated Aa2024-T3 Aluminium Alloy, Rajath Varma, Brendan Duffy, John Cassidy

Articles

Traditional anti-corrosion technology has relied heavily on using reducible metal species, predominantly hexavalent chromium (Cr(VI)), for protecting reactive metal alloys such as aluminium which is extensively used in the aerospace sector. However, the impending changes in the use of Cr(VI) in Europe and the United States have forced aerospace manufacturers to examine alternative materials for protecting aluminium. One of the most promising alternatives being investigated are organosilane based sol-gels containing anticorrosion additives. In this work the anti-corrosion properties of magnesium (II) nitrate (Mg(NO3)2) as a inhibitor was investigated at different concentrations (0.1% - 1.0 wt %) in a methyltriethoxysilane (MTEOS) …

Ensemble Of Classifiers Based Data Fusion Of Eeg And Mri For Diagnosis Of Neurodegenerative Disorders, Tejash Patel

Theses and Dissertations

The prevalence of Alzheimer's disease (AD), Parkinson's disease (PD), and mild cognitive impairment (MCI) are rising at an alarming rate as the average age of the population increases, especially in developing nations. The efficacy of the new medical treatments critically depends on the ability to diagnose these diseases at the earliest stages. To facilitate the availability of early diagnosis in community hospitals, an accurate, inexpensive, and noninvasive diagnostic tool must be made available. As biomarkers, the event related potentials (ERP) of the electroencephalogram (EEG) - which has previously shown promise in automated diagnosis - in addition to volumetric magnetic resonance …

Data Fusion Based Optimal Eeg Electrode Selection For Early Diagnosis Of Alzheimer's Disease, Brian Balut

Theses and Dissertations

As medicinal and technological advances lengthen the average human life span, diseases affecting the elderly such as Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease are seeing increasingly growing numbers, especially in developed countries. As a result, the necessity for an accurate, inexpensive, noninvasive means of diagnosis becomes particularly important, since such a method is not readily available to the general population. One biomarker that has recently showed promise is the analysis of the electroencephalogram (EEG).

Over the course of two studies, more than 130 subjects have been recruited providing information from 16-19 EEG electrodes for each subject. These signals have been decomposed …

Quad General Tree Drawing Algorithm And General Trees Characterization: Towards An Environment For The Experimental Study On General Tree Drawing Algorithms, Chu Yao

Theses and Dissertations

Information visualization produces (interactive) visual representations of abstract data to reinforce human cognition and perception; thus enabling the viewer to gain knowledge about the internal structure of the data and causal relationships in it. The visualization of information hierarchies is concerned with the presentation of abstract hierarchical information about relationships between various entities. It has many applications in diverse domains such as software engineering, information systems, biology, and chemistry. Information hierarchies are typically modeled by an abstract tree, where vertices are entities and edges represent relationships between entities. The aim of visualizing tree drawings is to automatically produce drawings of …

The Effect Of Rotation And Temperature On The Inhibition Performance Of Cashew (Anacardium Occidentale L.) Nut Shell Liquid On Co2 Corrosion Of Carbon Steel, J Mutasingwa

Tanzania Journal of Engineering and Technology (TJET)

A natural extract of cashew nut shells, Cashew Nut Shell Liquid (CNSL) was investigated as a corrosion inhibitor for carbon steel in 3% NaCl solutions saturated with CO2 gas using electrochemical techniques (i.e. potentiodynamic polarization and ac-impedance). The investigation was performed at different temperatures under static and dynamic conditions using a Rotating Disk Electrode (RDE). It was found that CNSL reduces the electrochemical processes taking place on carbon steel undergoing corrosion. The percentage inhibitor efficiency increases with increase in CNSL concentration and decreases with rise in temperature. Better performance at low CNSL concentration was registered under dynamic conditions and room …

Potential Use Of Waterguard As A Disinfectant For Domestic Water Use, Yohana L

Tanzania Journal of Engineering and Technology (TJET)

been identified as an alternative method for treatment of domestic drinking water. The aim of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of Water Guard in disinfecting drinking water from different sources drawn from Kinondoni district, Dar es Salaam as well as to establish appropriate dosage that can be used during the treatment. Results showed that, a dose of 4.0mL per 20 litrer of water guard is sufficient for disinfection of urban water sources. The above prescribed doses provide 100% disinfection efficiency with residue chlorine of less than 0.3mg/l. Water with turbidity values of 30-35 NTU, chlorine dosage of 8mL/20 …

The Multivariate Statistical Analysis Of Abiotic Parameters Of The Lake Tanganyika Sub Catchment, Hudson Nkotagu

Tanzania Journal of Engineering and Technology (TJET)

Results from multivariate statistical analysis of abiotic parameters conducted during the dry season at 20 accessible sites on 8 rivers, 2 lakes and a dam covering the Lake Tanganyika sub catchment are discussed. Standard methods were used to determine the levels of abiotic parameters from water samples. Physical parameters including DO, EC, Eh, turbidity, temperature, pH and secchi transparency were measured in situ while chlorophyll a was determined in the laboratory. Nutrients such as NO3-, SiO2, PO4 3- and Fe2+ were determined along with HCO3-. Factor analysis resulted in four factors including increased primary productivity, redox conditions, dissolution, and reduction …

Synthesis And Characterization Of Polymer Brushes For Controlled Adsorption Of Proteins, Olha Hoy

All Dissertations

Performance of biomedical devices to a large extent depends on the interactions between the device surface and the biological liquids/protein molecules. To achieve controllable interactions between the device and biomolecules and still retain the required mechanical strength on the whole, modification of the surface is often done.
In the present study surface properties were modified through a polymer brush approach. After the modification, surfaces gain tunability toward protein adsorption. Mixed polymer brushes consisting of protein repelling and protein attractive components were used, with a 'grafting to' method employed for the synthesis of polymer layers. First, poly(ethylene glycol), the protein repelling …

Nanoantenna Array-Induced Fluorescence Enhancement And Reduced Lifetimes, Reuben M. Bakker, V. P. Drachev, Zhengtong Liu, Hsiao-Kuan Yuan, Rasmus H. Pedersen, Alexandra Boltasseva, Jiji Chen, Joseph Irudayaraj, Alexander V. Kildishev, V. M. Shalaev

Birck and NCN Publications

Enhanced fluorescence is observed from dye molecules interacting with optical nanoantenna arrays. Elliptical gold dimers form individual nanoantennae with tunable plasmon resonances depending upon the geometry of the two particles and the size of the gap between them. A fluorescent dye, Rhodamine 800, is uniformly embedded in a dielectric host that coats the nanoantennae. The nanoantennae act to enhance the dye absorption. In turn, emission from the dye drives the plasmon resonance of the antennae; the nanoantennae act to enhance the fluorescence signal and change the angular distribution of emission. These effects depend upon the overlap of the plasmon resonance …

The Development Of Hyaluronic Acid Biomaterials For Vascular Tissue Engineering, Samir Ibrahim

All Dissertations

Current vascular implant materials poorly interact with medial smooth muscle cells (SMCs) allowing the permanent loss of vascular elastin, eliminated by trauma or disease, a crucial element in maintaining the natural biomechanics of the blood vessel and overall vascular homeostasis. In addition, these materials insufficiently recruit vascular endothelial cells (ECs) to form a normally functional, confluent endothelium that acts as the interface between the blood and vascular tissue and regulates numerous vital vascular processes. As a result, the restenosis, or re-occlusion, rate within these devices has remained fairly high stimulating the investigation of numerous new materials capable of providing the …

A Modified Surface Energy Balance For Modeling Evapotranspiration And Canopy Resistance, Luis O. Lagos

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

A modified surface energy balance (SEB) model based on the Shuttleworth-Wallace and Choudhury-Monteith methods was developed to estimate evaporation from soil covered by crop residue, and transpiration from crop canopies. The model describes the energy balance and flux resistances for partially-vegetated and residue-covered surfaces. Physical and biochemical energy storage terms and lateral fluxes are neglected in the model. Net radiation is one of the inputs in the SEB model and provides the energy needed for soil evaporation, crop transpiration and heat transfer through the canopy, soil/residue surfaces and the atmosphere.

A sensitivity analysis of the SEB model parameters showed that …

Development Of An Inexpensive, Haptic Graphical Display Device, David Burch

Theses and Dissertations

A finger-worn haptic device capable of rendering 2-D graphics through vibrotactile feedback is presented. The device development is presented from its initial stages of being a stylus design using a photo-interrupter optical sensor and pager-motor actuator to a small case worn on the finger using a RGB color sensor and a piezoelectric actuator. Testing of the latest prototype design shows that it has a spatial sensitivity (<2mm) comparable to natural touch (~1mm) and can be used to output a variety of vibrotactile textures. The design can be expanded for a multiple finger, independent device, while remaining affordable (<$100) and highly portable (<500g).

Nondestructive Evaluation Of Aircraft Composites Using Terahertz Time Domain Spectroscopy, Christopher D. Stoik

Theses and Dissertations

Terahertz (THz) time domain spectroscopy (TDS) was assessed as a nondestructive evaluation technique for aircraft composites. Material properties of glass fiber composite were measured using both transmission and reflection configuration. The interaction of THz with a glass fiber composite was then analyzed, including the effects of scattering, absorption, and the index of refraction, as well as effective medium approximations. THz TDS, in both transmission and reflection configuration, was used to study composite damage, including voids, delaminations, mechanical damage, and heat damage. Measurement of the material properties on samples with localized heat damage showed that burning did not change the refractive …

Assessing Water Quality Modeling In Subtropical Regions Based On A Case Study Of The Aguamilpa Reservoir, Oliver Obregon

Theses and Dissertations

The shortage of water in Mexico has made public and private institutions look at reservoirs as an alternative solution for present and future water supply. However, eighty percent of the existing reservoirs in Mexico are contaminated at some level, many severely. Water quality models are water-management tools used to diagnose water quality problems and the impact of various environmental conditions. They can be effective in assessing various measures of remediation leading to improved water quality. In most of the cases such water quality models have been successfully applied in reservoirs located in temperate climates. However, the use of water quality …

Department Of Biological Systems Engineering Newsletter, Volume 4, Number 2, December 2008

BSE Department Magazine

Environmental Management Research
From the Department Head
Meet the Faculty
Alumni News
Comings and Goings
Alumna Profile
In Memoriam
Museum Hand-picked for HELP
Urban Water Quality
Summer Graduates
Distinguished Fellowship Awards
Partners in Pollution Prevention Interns
Quarter-scale Tractor Competition
Scholarships and Ice Cream
BSE faculty develop Odor Footprint Tool By Crystal Powers
Ethanol Co-product Storage and Utilization Conference, by John Hay
Biological Systems Engineering Department Hall of Fame: Don Eret and Ned Meier
International Symposium
Faculty and Staff News
University Service Awards
ASABE Annual Meeting

Creating Tomorrow, Fall 2008, College Of Engineering

College of Engineering Magazines

Annual magazine for the College of Engineering at Utah State University.

Integrated Science Assessment For Oxides Of Nitrogen And Sulfur – Ecological Criteria, United States Environmental Protection Agency

United States Environmental Protection Agency: Publications

This Integrated Science Assessment (ISA) is a synthesis and evaluation of the most policy-relevant science that forms the scientific foundation for the review of the secondary (welfare-based) national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) for oxides of nitrogen (NO_x) and oxides of sulfur (SO_x). The Clean Air Act definition of welfare effects includes, but is not limited to, effects on soils, water, wildlife, vegetation, visibility, weather, and climate, as well as effects on man-made materials, economic values, and personal comfort and well-being. The current secondary NAAQS for SO_x, set in 1973, is a 3-hour average …

Hydrodynamic Loading Of Microcantilevers Oscillating Near Rigid Walls, Ryan C. Tung, Jana Anirban, Arvind Raman

Birck and NCN Publications

The vibrations of microcantilevers in atomic force microscopes (AFMs) or radio frequency (RF) switches are strongly influenced by the viscous hydrodynamics of the surrounding fluid in the vicinity of a rigid wall. While prior efforts to model this hydrodynamic loading have focused on squeeze film damping effects at high Knudsen and squeeze numbers, the regimes of low Knudsen and squeeze numbers are also very important for which squeeze film models need to be discarded in favor of unsteady Stokes hydrodynamics. We extend the work of Green and Sader [Phys Fluids 17, 073102 (2005); J. Appl. Phys. 98, 114913 (2005)] and …

Simulation Of Nanostructured Electrodes For Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cells, Sanjeev M. Rao, Yangchuan Xing

Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Aligned carbon nanotubes (CNTs) with Pt uniformly deposited on them are being considered in fabricating the catalyst layer of polymer electrolyte membrane (PEM) fuel cell electrodes. When coated with a proton conducting polymer (e.g., Nafion) on the Pt/CNTs, each Pt/CNT acts as a nanoelectrode and a collection of such nanoelectrodes constitutes the proposed nanostructured electrodes. Computer modeling was performed for the cathode side, in which both multicomponent and Knudsen diffusion were taken into account. the effect of the nanoelectrode lengths was also studied with catalyst layer thicknesses of 2, 4, 6, and 10 μm. It was observed that shorter lengths …

Bioflocculation For Control Of Wastewater Pond Microalgae, Daniel Thomas Frost

Master's Theses

Investigates several hypotheses regarding the use of bioflocculation as a harvesting method for wastewater pond microalgae. Research performed on pilot-scale high rate ponds (HRPs) on the California Central Coast.

Comparison Of Electrically Mediated And Liposome-Complexed Plasmid Dna Delivery To The Skin, Loree C. Heller, Mark J. Jaroszeski, Domenico Coppola, Richard Heller

Bioelectrics Publications

BACKGROUND: Electroporation is an established technique for enhancing plasmid delivery to many tissues in vivo, including the skin. We have previously demonstrated efficient delivery of plasmid DNA to the skin utilizing a custom-built four-plate electrode. The experiments described here further evaluate cutaneous plasmid delivery using in vivo electroporation. Plasmid expression levels are compared to those after liposome mediated delivery.

METHODS: Enhanced electrically-mediated delivery, and less extensively, liposome complexed delivery, of a plasmid encoding the reporter luciferase was tested in rodent skin. Expression kinetics and tissue damage were explored as well as testing in a second rodent model.

RESULTS: Experiments …

The Effect Of Montmorillonite Nanoclay On Mechanical And Barrier Properties Of Mung Bean Starch Films, Bianca Stiller

All Theses

Starch is an interesting biodegradable polymer due to its excellent film forming properties, availability, and low cost. On the other hand, starch films are often limited by their poor mechanical properties, and water resistance. The addition of montmorillonite clays have improved these properties in both petroleum and biodegradable films.
The objective of the research was to determine the effect of montmorillonite clay on the mechanical and barrier properties on mung bean starch films.
The addition of 5% clay yielded the optimum balance between mechanical and barrier properties of these composite films with improved tensile strength (TS) of 20.8763± 0.789 MPa, …

Translating Terms Of The Functional Basis Into Biologically Meaningful Keywords, Hyunmin Cheong, L. H. Shu, Robert B. Stone, Daniel A. Mcadams

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Biology has long been recognized as an excellent source of analogies and stimuli for engineering design. Previous work focused on the systematic identification of relevant biological analogies by searching for instances of functional keywords in biological information in natural language format. This past work revealed that engineering keywords couldn't always be used to identify the most relevant biological analogies, as the vocabularies between biology and engineering are sufficiently distinct. Therefore, a method of identifying biologically meaningful keywords that correspond to engineering keywords was developed. Here, we apply and refine this method by generating biologically meaningful keywords for the terms of …

A Retrospective On Twenty Years Of The Design Theory And Methodology Conference, Jacquelyn K. Stroble, Robert L. Nagel, Kerry R. Poppa, Matt Robert Bohm, Robert B. Stone

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Since its birth from the Design Automation Conference (DAC) and the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) twenty years ago, the Design Theory and Methodology (DTM) Conference has accepted 769 papers for presentation in a total of 179 tracks. Papers have covered advances in design theory and methods as well as design education, decision making, product development, collaborative endeavors, case studies, information processing, computational methods and industrial applications. through the years tracks have evolved to better define existing research topics and branched to spawn new areas of interest. This paper presents a retrospective of the past twenty years …

Gene Order Phylogeny Of The Genus Prochlorococcus, Haiwei Luo, Jian Shi, William Arndt, Jijun Tang, Robert Friedman

Faculty Publications

Background
Using gene order as a phylogenetic character has the potential to resolve previously unresolved species relationships. This character was used to resolve the evolutionary history within the genus Prochlorococcus, a group of marine cyanobacteria.

Methodology/Principal Findings
Orthologous gene sets and their genomic positions were identified from 12 species of Prochlorococcus and 1 outgroup species of Synechococcus. From this data, inversion and breakpoint distance-based phylogenetic trees were computed by GRAPPA and FastME. Statistical support of the resulting topology was obtained by application of a 50% jackknife resampling technique. The result was consistent and congruent with nucleotide sequence-based and gene-content based …

A Special-Purpose Architecture For Solving The Breakpoint Median Problem, Jason D. Bakos, Panormitis E. Elenis

Faculty Publications

In this paper, we describe the design for a co-processor for whole-genome phylogenetic reconstruction. Our current design performs a parallelized breakpoint median computation, which is an expensive component of the overall application. When implemented on a field-programmable gate array (FPGA), our hardware breakpoint median achieves a maximum speedup of 1005times over software. When the coprocessor is used to accelerate the entire reconstruction procedure, we achieve a maximum application speedup of 417times. The results in this paper suggest that FPGA-based acceleration is a promising approach for computationally expensive phylogenetic problems, in spite of the fact that the involved algorithms are based …

A Novel Method For Characterization Of Peripheral Nerve Fiber Size Distributions By Group Delay, Robert B. Szlavik

Biomedical Engineering

The ability to determine the characteristics of peripheral nerve fiber size distributions would provide additional information to clinicians for the diagnosis of specific pathologies of the peripheral nervous system. Investigation of these conditions, using electrodiagnostic techniques, is advantageous in the sense that such techniques tend to be minimally invasive yet provide valuable diagnostic information. One of the principal electrodiagnostic tools available to the clinician is the nerve conduction velocity test. While the peripheral nerve conduction velocity test can provide useful information to the clinician regarding the viability of the nerve under study, it is a single-parameter test that yields no …