Digital Commons Network^™

2025, Significant Natural Disasters And Global Carbon Capture, Utilization, And Storage—Annual Progress Report, Shangli Shi, Yun Hang Hu

Michigan Tech Publications

This annual review summarizes the progress of carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) technologies in 2025. During this year, the growth rate of atmospheric CO2 concentrations slowed, yet anthropogenic CO2 emissions continued to rise. At the same time, the increasing frequency of severe natural disasters underscored the urgency of climate action and further intensified global efforts to advance CCUS deployment. Scientific interest in CCUS expanded markedly, with the annual number of related publications increasing by 18.5% compared with 2024, reaching 63935. Meanwhile, the total number of operational commercial CCUS facilities worldwide grew by 54%, accompanied by an approximate 25% increase …

A Review Of Magnesium-Based Stents: Manufacturing Strategies And Future Trends, Amir Motaharinia, Amir Sanati Nezhad, Jeremy Goldman, H. R. Bakhsheshi-Rad, J. Drelich

Michigan Tech Publications

Coronary artery disease is often treated with vascular stents to restore the blood flow. Recently, there has been growing interest in biodegradable metal stents, especially those made from magnesium (Mg). This review starts by explaining the complex pathophysiology of atherosclerosis and the current treatment options. It then discusses stents, including their potential benefits, capabilities, and limitations, as they represent the gold standard for percutaneous coronary intervention in treating atherosclerosis. Given the vital role of stents, we provide a thorough review of the manufacturing techniques involved, such as wire forming, subtractive manufacturing, and additive manufacturing, with a specific focus on stents …

Experimental Measurements Of The Forces Acting On A Submerged Beam Using High-Speed Videography, Madelyn Burrell

Masters Theses

The interaction of structures and fluids is highly relevant in many fields but difficult to accurately and reliably characterize. This study demonstrates a novel method of simplifying such problems by analyzing the structural deformations directly, without needing to explicitly solve for the fluid aspect. Six cantilever beams of varying properties were submerged in still water and released from an initial deflection at the free end: the cases consisted of three beam shapes (one of uniform width, one with a narrower free end, and one with a wider free end), with an end mass attached or detached. High-speed videography was utilized …

High-Surface-Area Ficus Leaf-Extracted Cuo-Zno-Nio Ternary Nanocomposites For Rapid Adsorption-Assisted Uv-A Degradation Of Direct Blue 15, Kafa’A H. Ali, Mohammed A. Atiya, Ahmed K. Hassan

Karbala International Journal of Modern Science

Direct Blue 15 (DB15) is a long-lasting synthetic dye that pollutes water and is difficult to remove during wastewater treatment. Conventional treatments fail to remove DB15 adequately due to rapid electron-hole recombination, which necessitates photocatalysts with reduced recombination rates for effective dye removal. The study aims to synthesize and evaluate a CuO-ZnO-NiO ternary system as an integrated adsorption and UV-A photocatalysis platform for DB15 removal. Ficus leaf-extracted CuO-ZnO-NiO nanocomposites with four Cu:Zn:Ni ratios (1:1:1, 1:1:2, 1:2:1, 2:1:1) were prepared by co-precipitation, followed by extensive chemical and physical characterization and dye-removal performance measurements. The CuO-ZnO-NiO nanocomposite exhibited hexagonal zinc oxide, cubic …

Valorization Of Ductile Cast Iron Solid Waste As A High-Performance Adsorbent For Crystal Violet Removal: Characterization, Optimization, And Mechanistic Insights, Ibrahim Ibrahim Mr., Abdel Mohsen Turky Dr., Nasser Mostafa Prof., Mai H. Roushdy

Chemical Engineering

Industrial textile wastewater containing synthetic dyes cause serious environmental and health risk, whereas ductile cast iron (DCI) foundries generate over 500 000 tons of waste annually. This study utilizes DCI solid waste as an adsorbent to remove the crystal violet (CV) dye from wastewater. Techniques (XRF, XRD, BET, SEM-EDX, FTIR, TGA-DTG, zeta potential) proved that the waste contains 88.0 wt% periclase (MgO) with nanoscale, high surface area, and abundant surface hydroxyl groups. Response surface methodology showed that the most significant parameters were the adsorbent dose and time contact. The optimal conditions give 93.7% removal efficiency at initial concentration: 38.7 mg …

Symmetries Of Legged Locomotion: Theory And Applications In Animals And Robots, Jiayu Ding

Dissertations - ALL

Legged locomotion in animals and robots is naturally modeled as a hybrid dynamical system: smooth body evolution is repeatedly interrupted by discrete contact events such as touchdown and liftoff. Although symmetry is a powerful organizing principle in smooth dynamical systems, a comparably systematic symmetry framework for hybrid legged locomotion remains underdeveloped. This dissertation develops such a framework for a scoped class of periodic hybrid locomotion models and uses it to relate theoretical gait analysis, animal locomotion studies, and robotic gait generation. The dissertation first extends symmetry notions from autonomous dynamics to hybrid legged systems and distinguishes symmetries of the hybrid …

Beyond Accuracy: Machine Learning Models For Predicting Presence Of Permanent Molar Caries In U.S. Children And Adolescents With Fairness Consideration, Pritam Deb, Lin Li, Christina R. Scherrer

Faculty Articles

Background

Although predictors of dental caries have been previously explored, a comprehensive understanding of factors influencing permanent‐molar decay in U.S. children and adolescents, especially with respect to racial and ethnic biases remains limited. This study aims to develop and evaluate machine‐learning (ML) models incorporating algorithmic fairness to predict caries in permanent molars.

Methods

Data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) were analyzed, using the 2011–2014 cycles for training and validation and the 2015–2016 cycle for testing. The primary outcome was decayed, missing, and filled teeth (DMFT) in at least one permanent molar, dichotomized to represent the presence …

Hyposense: Multimodal Physiologic And Voc Wearable For Early Hypoglycemia Detection, Nidhi R. Patel

Honors Theses

Hypoglycemia remains a significant safety concern for insulin-dependent individuals, especially when blood glucose declines rapidly during exercise, sleep, or periods of impaired hypoglycemia awareness. Current continuous glucose monitors and automated insulin delivery systems have helped to improve diabetes management, but these technologies primarily respond to glucose trends after they have already started and may not actually provide sufficient warning before symptoms occur. This thesis describes the development of HypoSense, a noninvasive wrist worn wearable concept that is designed to support earlier hypoglycemia risk detection through multimodal physiologic and volatile organic compound emission sensing. HypoSense combines volatile organic compounds/gas sensing with …

The Design And Optimization Of A Styrene Production Plant, Kaylee Hardenstein, Amanda Anderson

Honors Theses

This thesis presents the design and economic optimization of a Styrene Production Plant targeting a capacity of 100,000 tonnes/yr at a product purity of 99.8 wt%. The process relies on the dehydrogenation of ethylbenzene in a packed-bed reactor system. Downstream separation is achieved through a series of cooling, phase separation, and distillation operations to recover styrene while recycling unreacted ethylbenzene and recovering valuable byproducts.

A base case design was developed and evaluated using a process simulation software, Aspen Plus V14, and an economic analysis. Sensitivity analysis identified the styrene market price and ethylbenzene raw material cost as the dominant factors …

Hydrogeochemistry Of Natural Acid Rock Drainage In The Tobacco Root Mountains Of Southwest Montana And Implications For Restoration, Josie Grigsby

Honors Theses

This study investigates the hydrogeochemistry of the East Fork of the South Boulder River (EFSBR) in the northern Tobacco Root Mountains, Madison County, Montana. The upper 5 km of the main stem of the EFSBR is acidic (pH < 5.5), and dissolved concentrations of several trace metals including Al, Cd, Cu, and Zn exceed chronic aquatic life standards by 2-3 orders of magnitude. Unsurprisingly, the EFSBR appears to be devoid of trout. Since no mining has taken place at the source areas of the acidic headwater streams, this phenomenon is referred to as Natural Acid Rock Drainage (NARD). High mountains (up to 10,500’) bounding the EFSBR valley harbor a number of potential small rock glaciers and other periglacial features that appear to influence the hydrogeology and chemistry of the watershed. The steady flow of cold water in the hot summer months, during the same time period that neighboring drainages are drying up, is hypothesized to be sourced from melting ground ice high in the headwater catchment. Additionally, rock glaciers can act as efficient chemical reactors where they exist in conjunction with acid-generating mineralized bedrock, affecting the severity of acidic drainage and associated metal concentrations. Neutralization of the acidic water by alkaline tributaries results in the precipitation of aluminum hydroxysulfate (basaluminite), which covers the streambed with a vivid white mineral coating and can act as a natural sink through adsorption of other toxic metals to its surface. Pristine catchments exhibiting NARD can provide water quality data and serve as reference sites for restoration projects at sites experiencing Acid Mine Drainage where historical data does not exist. As climate change continues to alter the natural environment, especially in polar and high elevation regions, severity and instances of NARD are predicted to continue to increase on a global scale. A deeper understanding of the processes driving NARD from studies focused on areas such as the EFSBR will provide guidance for protecting vulnerable aquatic ecosystems and managing water resources in mountain communities into the future, as well as insights into necessary changes to established remediation methods in watersheds experiencing acid mine drainage.

Modeling Individual Self-Protective Behavior During Epidemics, Geonsik Yu, Michael J. Garee, Mario Ventresca, Yuehwern Yih

Faculty Publications

Protecting public health from infectious diseases requires collective action, as individual behaviors—such as vaccination and mask-wearing—directly influence disease dynamics. During the COVID-19 pandemic, unexpected public responses often undermined the effectiveness of interventions, highlighting the need to understand collective behavioral patterns and motivations to design more effective mitigation strategies. This study presents an agent-based simulation model that captures how individuals adjust self-protective behaviors based on evolving opinions about disease risk and examines how these decisions interact with external factors, such as public health interventions, to shape collective outcomes. To improve the representativeness of the simulated population, multiple datasets were integrated to …

Brine Solidification And Metals Sequestration Using Lignocellulosics, Frank Kvietok

World of Coal Ash Proceedings

Coal ash has historically been used as a convenient, on-site solidification material for brines generated from flue gas desulfurization at power plants. As alternate utilization scenarios are developed for coal ash, lignocellulosic (wood-based) sorbents can serve as a highly efficient substitute for the solidification process. Results will be shared for a variety of different brine types: thermally reduced, thermally reduced and neutralized, and reverse osmosis. In addition to solidification performance, which demonstrated a 3-4x mass of liquid vs mass of sorbent factor, studies were conducted to quantify the strength of binding to the wood-based sorbent for a broad range of …

Lessons Learned: Commissioning An Fgd Wastewater Treatment System, Bella Triolet, Mckale Grant, Louis Manigault

World of Coal Ash Proceedings

Stantec recently supported commissioning a flue gas desulfurization (FGD) Wastewater Treatment System in accordance with the 2020 Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Effluent Limitations Guidelines (ELG) Rule, which requires that coal fired power plants meet their more stringent requirements by December 31, 2025. With the addition of the 2024 EPA ELG Rule, coal fired power plants will now be expected to move to zero liquid discharge (ZLD) systems or permanently cease coal combustion by 2034. Due to this change, it is likely that coal fired power plants will be looking to design and install ZLD systems within the next decade. While …

Cloud-Deployed Rna-Seq Analytics For Identifying Imaging And Therapeutic Targets In Chemotherapy-Induced Toxicities, Zhimu Wang

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Chemotherapy has significantly improved cancer survival rates; however, many anticancer agents induce severe acute and chronic side effects that substantially reduce patient quality of life and limit therapeutic efficacy. Despite their clinical importance, the molecular mechanisms underlying chemotherapy-induced toxicities across different organs remain incompletely understood, in part due to the lack of integrated, scalable, and accessible analytical platforms capable of synthesizing large transcriptomic datasets across tissues and experimental models.

This thesis describes the development of a cloud-deployed RNA-seq analytics platform designed to identify candidate imaging biomarkers and therapeutic targets associated with chemotherapy induced toxicities. The platform integrates large-scale transcriptomic datasets …

An Integrated Artificial Intelligence–Circular Economy Framework For Sustainable Industrial Waste Management System: Case Study From The Carpet Industry Supply Chain, Noha Mostafa

Mechanical Engineering

Waste management has become a critical issue in industry due to its environmental and  economic impact. This urges societies to move towards circular economy and sustainability in managing wastes to achieve economic, social and environmental benefits that cannot be achieved by using traditional disposal methods. Artificial intelligence technologies can play an effective role in developing systems and applications that help in realizing circular economy approaches. This research explores using circular economy in the carpet industry with a focus on being eco-friendly and achieving operational excellence. Circular economy aims to use resources efficiently within a reduce, reuse, recycle paradigm. Critical literature …

Establishing Sustainable Vegetation On A Challenging Legacy Ccr Site, Derek Oosterhouse, Blake Arthur

World of Coal Ash Proceedings

American Electric Power (AEP) is closing and restoring a legacy Coal Combustion Residuals (CCR) site in Ohio that once held a power plant that pioneered innovative steam generation technology. The plant was closed in 1975. Today, the legacy CCR site is being transformed back to natural, sustainable vegetation. To comply with and close the Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plan (SWPPP) permit, permanent stabilization is required on the site. AEP, one of the largest electric companies in the country, holds a core principle to respect the environment through creative sustainable solutions. AEP connected with Profile Products, the world’s largest manufacturer and supplier …

A Cost-Effective, Low-Impact Remedial Approach For Metals: Utilizing Phyto-Enhancement To Accelerate Ph Adjustment Of Shallow Groundwater, Jerry Wylie, Thomas Colton

World of Coal Ash Proceedings

SynTerra will present a unique, low-cost, low-impact approach to metals remediation in shallow groundwater at a former industrial site located in the Atlantic Coastal Plain. The approach employs pH adjustment of groundwater using agricultural lime coupled with the use of daikon radish to augment lime contact time and to increase depth of soil augmentation. This method is designed to be a more sustainable, less resource-intensive, and less technically challenging remedial alternative with lower estimated overall costs. The primary corrective action—source removal—has been completed. However, the oxidation of residual sulfide-bearing minerals has resulted in persistent low-pH groundwater, which increases the solubility …

Toward Vehicle-Agnostic Driving Signatures For Cognitive Impairment Prediction From Naturalistic Driving Data, Aadarsha Gopala Reddy

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

This thesis studies whether naturalistic driving data can help predict binary Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR) status while accounting for differences across vehicles. The final analytic dataset comprised 26,968 participant-weeks from 304 participants. Weekly driving features were derived from real-world telematics data and combined with four demographic covariates. Primary model comparisons used leave-one-participant-out (LOGO) cross-validation, with one individual held out at a time and pooled participant-level metrics used as the main reporting surface.

The main comparison includes six model families evaluated on the same dataset under a shared LOGO framework. Performance remained modest overall. GRU-DANN had the highest participant-level ROC AUC …

Largest 2-Regular Subgraphs In Complete S-Partite Graphs, Yiyang Jiang

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

In this thesis, we focus on the class of complete $S$-partite graphs, for $S$ an undirected graph possibly with self-loops, and address the problem of finding largest $2$-regular subgraphs of these graphs, which can be formulated as an integer linear program. Roughly speaking, a complete $S$-partite graph is obtained by replacing every single node of $S$ with a number of nodes, preserving the edge/non-edge relations of $S$. Our motivation in studying largest $2$-regular subgraphs is rooted in the structural systems theory, particularly in the problem of finding largest subnetworks that can sustain controllability or asymptotic stability of the corresponding subsystems. …

Phytomining Potential Of Native Rocky Mountain Plants, Halle Cogley

Honors Theses

Standard mining practices of the past have left valuable, critical minerals remaining within mine waste and tailings piles. Phytoremediation, or the use of plants to uptake and store heavy metals, has grown in popularity for these sites. A new technology, phytomining, is being developed that not only offers the benefits of phytoremediation but also allows a new pathway to extract and generate revenue from these untouched critical minerals. Certain plants have been identified as hyperaccumulators with the ability to bioaccumulate a high level of certain minerals in their plant tissue. This study explored different species of native plants within the …

Engagement Modeling And Inference For Risk-Aware Path Planning Under Adversarial Uncertainty, Grant Stagg

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation develops methods for planning safe and efficient trajectories for autonomous vehicles operating in environments containing adversarial and environmental threats with uncertain parameters. The central objective is to quantify and control the risk of adverse events--such as interception or detection--when threat characteristics are imperfectly known. To address this challenge, probabilistic weapon engagement zone (PEZ) models are introduced to estimate the likelihood of violating adversarial engagement constraints under uncertainty in pursuer state and capabilities. Multiple computational strategies are developed for PEZ evaluation, including first-order sensitivity-based approximations, Monte Carlo estimation, and neural-network surrogate models. These approaches enable rapid engagement-probability assessment and …

Optimization Of Refolding, Purification, And Analytical Characterization Of Proinsulin(F25d) Soluble Antigen Array Immunotherapy, Abigail Richardson

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Type 1 Diabetes (T1D) is characterized by autoreactive immune responses to insulin and its precursor, proinsulin. Soluble antigen arrays (SAgAs) displaying the metabolically inactive proinsulin variant, proinsulin(F25D), represent a promising antigen‑specific immunotherapy candidate for T1D. However, the production of these platforms is hindered by substantial practical challenges, including protein aggregation, inefficient refolding, and the lack of sensitive analytical tools to verify quality and dosage. This work establishes an integrated, scalable pipeline for the purification, conjugation, and quantification of a proinsulin(F25D) SAgA. First, we optimized the refolding of recombinant methionine-proinsulin(F25D) (M-PI(F25D)) from inclusion bodies using controlled buffer systems and created a …

Voltage-Sensor–Targeting Modulators Of Iks: Identifying Critical Functional Groups Of C28 Via Electrophysiology And Sar Modeling, Jiacheng Huang

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

I_Ks (KCNQ1/KCNE1) channels are essential for cardiac repolarization, and their dysfunction contributes to arrhythmogenic disorders such as Long QT Syndrome type 1 (LQT1). Pharmacological activation of I_Ks has therefore emerged as a promising therapeutic strategy. C28, a recently identified voltage-sensor–targeting activator, has been shown to markedly shift KCNQ1/KCNE1 voltage dependence and enhance current amplitude, validating the voltage-sensing domain (VSD) as a druggable site. However, the structural determinants that underlie C28’s activity remain incompletely understood. In this study, we aimed to identify critical functional groups of C28 by screening a structurally diverse set of C28-like analogs and evaluating their …

Standardization Of Coal Ash Testing, Classification, And Harvesting, Benjamin Gallagher, Chris Frishcosy, Eric Hageman

World of Coal Ash Proceedings

Standards such as product specifications, test methods, practices and guides play a crucial role in supporting both commerce and science. Standardization helps build consistency and reliability whether it pertains to the performance of an ingredient in a product or in the measurement of a material characteristic. Coal combustion products, such as coal ash and synthetic gypsum, exhibit unique characteristics and many standard have been developed to characterize these materials and support their beneficial use. ASTM is a voluntary, consensus-based organization, and publishes many standards related to coal combustion products. Currently, there are seven ASTM standards related to chemical analysis of …

Lessons Learned From Managing Ash Pond Closure Waters, Danny Stephens, Tom Geeza, Phil Benson, Ashwin Ranna

World of Coal Ash Proceedings

The water management issues created by ash pond closure are complex and can create technology selection and operational management challenges. Ash dewatering activities produce highly variable effluents, depending on ash composition, aging, and dewatering and stormwater management techniques. Effluent limitations can also be highly variable, depending upon the size of the receiving body and the anticipated composition of the effluent stream. The user often faces competing risks: installing an unnecessarily complex and expensive treatment plant, being limited on closure activities by limitations in water treatment capabilities, or both. This paper presents several lessons learned from assessing ash closure water management …

Analysis Of Dynamic Difficulty Scaling Ai In Video Games, Tyrese W. Walker

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

Video games are a popular form of interactive media and, since their inception, have become one of the largest forms of media consumed. As such, they have evolved greatly from their humble beginnings into much more complex experiences, and adjusting the difficulty level to suit the needs of the player has become common practice. While there are simple ways to do so, the best games often feature a dynamic difficulty-scaling system that adapts to the player. Classics like Resident Evil and Left 4 Dead are excellent examples of innovative dynamic scaling design. By analyzing the strongest elements of these works, …

Leveraging Information Theory And Ecological Network Analysis To Monitor Communication Networks In A Student Aerospace Team, Christine Sessions

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Effective communication is a critical component of successful collaboration in group projects and team settings. However, systematically tracking and analyzing team communications can be challenging, especially in complex, multi-member teams such as those found in the aerospace industry. This paper explores an information-theoretic approach that leverages encoding techniques and graph theory to analyze communication networks within a university’s multi-year, student-led cubesat design project (Project COMET). By utilizing Shannon Entropy as a measure of information flow, encoding communication patterns, and analyzing Ecological Network Analysis parameters, this research aims to understand how an Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University student project team evolves over the …

Ais26s: Ai In Biomedicine, Shiqian Shen

Paul English Applied Artificial Intelligence (AI) Institute Publications

This presentation explores the role of artificial intelligence in advancing biomedical research and clinical practice from the perspective of a physician-scientist. Dr. Shiqian Shen discusses current challenges in neuroscience and medicine, including limitations in human observation, data analysis, and decision-making across complex biological systems. The talk highlights how AI-driven approaches such as computer vision, neural signal processing, and large-scale data modeling can improve the understanding of disease mechanisms, enhance experimental workflows, and enable more precise, patient-centered care. Specific applications include automated classification of neural activity, behavioral analysis in animal models, and multimodal data integration. A key concept introduced is “shadow …

Designing Enhanced Nonlinearity In Plasmonic Devices With Epsilon-Near-Zero Films, Kevin Tran Le

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (MS) Theses

The growing demand for energy-efficient optical information processing motivates compact nonlinear photonic devices that can operate at low power. Silicon photonics is a mature platform for linear optical functions, but nonlinear operation remains challenging because of its weak Kerr response, two-photon absorption at telecommunication wavelengths, and limited compatibility with deeply subwavelength plasmonic confinement. This thesis computationally investigates epsilon-near-zero thin films integrated into plasmonic waveguide architectures as a route toward stronger light–matter interaction in compact nonlinear devices.

Two waveguide geometries are examined: a hybrid metal-insulator-metal plasmonic slab waveguide incorporating an ultrathin indium tin oxide epsilon-near-zero layer (5–50 nm), and a dielectric-loaded …

The Expectation Of Pain: Effects On Threshold, Tolerance, And Perception, Emma Paulus

Mechanical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Brain activity in pain-related regions of the cortex is thought to be influenced by interactions between expectations and incoming sensory information. However, the subjective experience of pain based on expectation has not been thoroughly explored. By changing visual and auditory cues to set expectation levels, a relationship between unconscious expectation of pain and actual sensory pain experienced was characterized. With IRB approval, volunteers were randomly and blindly grouped into low and high pain expectancy groups. Each group completed a survey about initial pain expectations before the muscle stimulation tolerance test, followed by a survey about actual pain perception after the …