Digital Commons Network^™

Exploring Water Filtration Methods For Implementation In Rural Mozambique, Cole Glasson

Senior Honors Theses

Of Mozambicans living in rural areas, nearly two-thirds are without access to clean drinking water sources, leading to waterborne diseases and diarrhea. Thus, a great need exists for an effective and sustainable water treatment solution for rural Mozambicans. Boiling, solar disinfection, and membrane-based processes are analyzed with respect to their effectiveness and economic sustainability in an attempt to propose a solution to those living in rural Mozambique. The most sustainable option is membrane-based processes, with two particular systems showing the most promise: Skyhydrant™ and LifeStraw®. These two ultrafiltration system are extremely effective at retaining almost all forms of bacterial and …

Eeg During Motor Tasks In Stroke: The Effects Of Remote Ischemic Conditioning And Fatigue On Brain Activity, Priya Balasubramanian

Dissertations (1934 -)

This dissertation aimed to use electroencephalography (EEG) to identify the effects of fatigue and remote ischemic conditioning on brain activity. Lesions due to stroke directly or indirectly affect regions of the brain and the descending corticospinal pathways. Cortical reorganization and alternate descending neural pathways are used during recovery from stroke as compensation mechanisms for motor deficits. These mechanisms exacerbate the deficits by worsening the ability to terminate muscle activity, individuate muscles for fine motor control and minimize abnormal muscle synergy and coactivation patterns to conserve resources during movement. Even though imaging and muscle activation studies have documented the existence and …

Post Aerobic Digestion (Pad) Is A Solids Sidestream Nutrient Removal Process That Utilizes Native Carbon: Performance And Key Operational Parameters From Two Full-Scale Pad Reactors, Patrick J. Mcnamara, Fabrizio Sabba, Eric Redmond, Patrick Dunlap, Thomas Worley-Morse, Christopher Marks, Leon Downing

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

Nutrient management is a critical issue for Water Resource Recovery Facilities, and sidestream treatment technologies to reduce nutrient loads often focus on liquid sidestreams and require external carbon sources. Post aerobic digestion (PAD), whereby an aerobic digester follows an anaerobic digester, treats a solids stream (i.e., anaerobic digester effluent) to reduce nitrogen loads. Volatile solids reduction occurs in this process with residual organic compounds serving as a native carbon source for denitrification. While this process has been evaluated at the lab-scale, information on operational parameters that affect full-scale performance is limited. We evaluated two separate full-scale PAD reactors …

The Case For Large-Scale Carbon Capture And Utilization In Louisiana, Gloria Mullins

Honors Capstones

No abstract provided.

Me-Em Enewsbrief, March 2022, Department Of Mechanical Engineering-Engineering Mechanics, Michigan Technological University

Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering eNewsBrief

No abstract provided.

Deep Learning Based Generative Materials Design, Yong Zhao

Theses and Dissertations

Discovery of novel functional materials is playing an increasingly important role in many key industries such as lithium batteries for electric vehicles and cell phones. However experimental tinkering of existing materials or Density Functional Theory (DFT) based screening of known crystal structures, two of the major current materials design approaches, are both severely constrained by the limited scale (around 250,000 in ICSD database) and diversity of existing materials and the lack of a sufficient number of materials with annotated properties. How to generate a large number of physically feasible, stable, and synthesizable crystal materials and build accurate property prediction models …

Biomechanical Analysis Of Athletes Sprinting With Varying Degrees Of Resistance, Michaela Ott

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

Utilizing resistance methods for sprinters is a common approach to their training. In this study, six athletes from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Women’s Track and Field Team ran a series of sprints using a resistance machine to collect data regarding the change in power output, stride length, level of trunk tilt with respect to the ground, and acceleration throughout a distance of ten meters when different amounts of resistant forces were applied to the athlete. It was hypothesized that as resistance increased, power output would increase, stride length would decrease, the runners would become more horizontal resulting in a larger …

Polyaniline/Cobalt Nanoparticle Composite Films, Rifat Mahbub

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Polymer nanocomposites have been gaining attention because of the enhanced properties of the element materials it can offer. These composites have been used in biological sector as well as quantum computing and memory devices. These are also used as different kind of sensors. Polymer composites incorporated with magnetic nanoparticles can modify the magnetic property of the nanoparticles and that has huge potential to be used in different sort of applications.

This work aims to develop a polymeric nanocomposite incorporating a conducting polymer and magnetic nanoparticles. The influence of the conducting polymer on the magnetic property of the nanoparticles was investigated. …

Catalytic Cracking Of Oxygenated Polymer Waste Via Zeolite Catalysts, Andrew Jaeschke

Theses and Dissertations

Plastic recycling has been a prevalent issue since the commercialization of plastics due to lack of adoption and insufficient technology. There are many different types of plastics used in modern day society; however, majority of recycling efforts are focused solely on polyethylene terephthalate (PET) and polyethylene plastics. Some of these overlooked plastics include polyols and polyurethanes, which can be found in a variety of applications including furniture stuffing, adhesives, and insulation foams. Recently, plastic research has turned to catalytic cracking units as a means of plastic recyclability. Catalytic cracking of hydrocarbons is a field dominated by zeolites catalysts, especially ZSM-5. …

Engineering And Optimization Of An Aav Based Viral Vector To Limit The In-Vitro Expression Of Sars-Cov-2 Spike-Protein, Ronald Anderson Smithwick

Theses and Dissertations

Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Corona Virus-2, also known as SARS-CoV-2, is a newly emerged respiratory viral pathogen. The outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 started in Wuhan, China, in late 2019 and rapidly transformed into a pandemic. Several vaccines have been developed and are available to the public on an unprecedented timeline, protecting individuals from a severe infection and saving precious lives. However, none of the vaccines can provide a sterile immunity, and the SARS-CoV-2 transmission cycle continues. Additionally, because of the mutation-prone RNA genome and immunological selection pressure, SARS-CoV-2 is rapidly mutating, especially the Spike(S) protein, and new viral strains are arising …

Classification Of Acoustic Emission Data Into Load Steps Using An Artificial Neural Network, Allen Ross

Theses and Dissertations

The average age of bridges in South Carolina is approaching 40 years, very close to the 50-year service life. Almost 11% of the bridges in South Carolina are rated as structurally deficient, greater than the national average of 7.5% (South 2021). Health monitoring is the concept that in-situ sensors can continuously monitor civil structures and send real time signals of damage. This process allows for automation and could save time and money on the inspection and load rating of bridges. Health monitoring requires sensors that provide uninterrupted data without sacrificing the functionality of the bridge. A prime candidate for this …

In Vitro And In Vivo Studies Of Mediator Kinase, Lili Wang

Theses and Dissertations

This project addresses the molecular and in vivo activities of transcriptionregulating module CKM, comprised of CDK8 (or CDK19) kinases, Cyclin C, MED12 and MED13. Our lab has found that CDK8/19 potentiates NFkB-induced transcription. In this study, we confirmed that both CDK8 and CDK19 regulate gene expression in kinasedependent manner. CDK8 and CDK19 are not required for NFkB-induced transcription, which also occurs in HEK293-dKO (CDK8 and CDK19 double knockout) cells, but such transcription becomes CDK8/19-dependent upon re-expression of CDK8 or CDK19 in dKO. Surprisingly. pre-treatment with a CDK8/19 inhibitor decreases the effect of CDK8/19 on NFkB-induced transcription.

In another set of …

Interrogating The Role Of Ing4 In Hematopoietic Stem Cells And Cancer, Zanshé Thompson

Theses and Dissertations

We recently identified the tumor suppressor, Ing4, as a critical regulator of hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) homeostasis. The mis-regulation of Ing4 in human cancers has also been shown to lend malignant cells specific advantages that support carcinogenesis and tumor progression. This activity is, in part, due to Ing4 mediated regulation of overlapping signaling pathways that regulate stem cell activity and cancer cells, including NF-B and c-Myc. In a two-part study, we have investigated the role of Ing4 in murine hematopoiesis and human malignancies. While the specific mechanisms of stem cell self-renewal, maintenance, and differentiation are poorly characterized, we have determined …

Application Of Red Cabbage Anthocyanins As Ph-Sensitive Pigments In Smart Food Packaging And Sensors, Reza Abedi-Firoozjah, Shima Yousefi, Mahshid Heydari, Faezeh Seyedfatehi, Shima Jafarzadeh, Reza Mohammadi, Milad Rouhi, Farhad Garavand

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Anthocyanins are excellent antioxidant/antimicrobial agents as well as pH-sensitive indicators that provide new prospects to foster innovative smart packaging systems due to their ability to improve food shelf life and detect physicochemical and biological changes in packaged food. Compared with anthocyanins from other natural sources, red cabbage anthocyanins (RCAs) are of great interest in food packaging because they represent an acceptable color spectrum over a broad range of pH values. The current review addressed the recent advances in the application of RCAs in smart bio-based food packaging systems and sensors. This review was prepared based on the scientific reports found …

Water Storage Analysis And Design Portfolio For Nocaima, Colombia, Philip Bortz, Lola Martin Uribe, Claudia Newell, Gisselle Paz-Ortiz

Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering Senior Theses

In partnership with Santa Clara University Frugal Innovation Hub and the Institución Universitaria of Politécnico Grancolombiano, the project aims to provide a single household, self-managed, water storage solution for residents of rural Nocaima, Colombia. Currently, the impacts of climate change and the lack of a sufficient community water system threaten the water security of rural Nocaima and the livelihoods of its residents. Proposed are two rainwater collection and storage systems, one including slow sand filtration and tank storage system, and the other a retention pond that will not be filtered. Components of the solutions include collection, storage, and filtration systems, …

Supetai Well Water Purification, Claire Russon, Geovanni Usher, Nicole Valdivia

Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering Senior Theses

The rural Kenyan community of Oldonya Rasha had depended on water from a distant spring of unknown quality from which there have been reports of typhoid. A non-governmental organization, Sabore’s Well, built the centrally-located Supetai Well with the intention of solving the lack of accessible potable water, but due to high fluoride levels in the groundwater, this water source is unsafe. The team designed a water treatment system to be integrated into the existing well infrastructure that removes fluoride and pathogens to meet Kenyan and World Health Organization (WHO) water quality standards. The design includes dosage of alum and soda …

Aerial Radiation Detection Identification And Measurement System Detector Material Comparison Study, Benjamin C. Troxell, Kacey D. Mcgee, Christina L. Dugan

Faculty Publications

The 20th Chemical Biological Radiological Nuclear and Explosives Command (CBRNE) currently utilizes an airborne sodium iodide gamma and beta detection system to map radiation fields over large areas of interest. The 20th CBRNE explored emergent detector technologies utilizing two detection materials; thallium-activated cesium iodide and high purity germanium (HPGe). These detectors were simulated at various altitudes and compared to background measurements. The sodium iodide detector failed to provide isotopic discrimination at distance. The thallium-activated cesium iodide CsI(Tl) detector provided sufficient absolute efficiency and energy resolution to identify isotopics at distance. The HPGe detector provided the best energy resolution. However, current …

Pseudo-Modal Expansions For Generating Random Electromagnetic Beams, Milo W. Hyde Iv, Olga Korotkova

Faculty Publications

Excerpt: We derive two pseudo-modal expansions that provide insight into the structure of stationary electromagnetic sources and can be used for their physical realization and in computer simulations. Both expansions are derived from the vectorial version of Bochner’s theorem of functional analysis.

Biomechanical And Psychological Predictors Of Failure In The Air Force Physical Fitness Test, Jeffrey Turner, Brent T. Langhals, Torrey J. Wagner

Faculty Publications

Physical fitness is a pillar of U.S. Air Force (USAF) readiness and ensures that Airmen can fulfill their assigned mission and be fit to deploy in any environment. The USAF assesses the fitness of service members on a periodic basis, and discharge can result from failed assessments. In this study, a 21-feature dataset was analyzed related to 223 active-duty Airmen who participated in a comprehensive mental and social health survey, body composition assessment, and physical performance battery. Graphical analysis revealed pass/fail trends related to body composition and obesity. Logistic regression and limited-capacity neural network algorithms were then applied to predict …

Date-Leaf Carbon Particles For Green Enhanced Oil Recovery, Bashirul Haq, Md Abdul Aziz, Dhafer Al Shehri, Nasiru Salahu Muhammed, Shaik Inayath Basha, Abbas Saeed Hakeem, Mohammed Ameen Ahmed Qasem, Mohammed Lardhi, Stefan Iglauer

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Green enhanced oil recovery (GEOR) is an environmentally friendly enhanced oil recovery (EOR) process involving the injection of green fluids to improve macroscopic and microscopic sweep efficiencies while boosting tertiary oil production. Carbon nanomaterials such as graphene, carbon nanotube (CNT), and carbon dots have gained interest for their superior ability to increase oil recovery. These particles have been successfully tested in EOR, although they are expensive and do not extend to GEOR. In addition, the application of carbon particles in the GEOR method is not well understood yet, requiring thorough documentation. The goals of this work are to develop carbon …

Noninvasive In Vivo Optoacoustic Imaging Of Alcohol Use Disorder Using A Mouse Model Of Alcohol Use Disorder, Augustine Meombe Mbolle

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research has two parts. The first part focuses on the use of photoacoustic imaging (PAI) to study alcohol-induced effects in the cerebral vasculature of selectively bred alcohol-preferring mice. Part two extends the application of PAI by developing a novel Photoacoustic imaging guided system for repetitive low intensity focused ultrasound (PAI-LIFU) stimulation treatment for alcohol use disorder in crossed high alcohol preferring (cHAP) mice.

Photoacoustic imaging is an emerging hybrid non-invasive optical imaging modality which relies on optical absorption contrast to visualize deep tissue structures and function. It combines the high contrast associated with pure optical imaging and the high …

Block Copolymer Directed Self-Assembly: Exploring The Efficacy Of Applications In Semiconductor Fabrication, Jakin Bryce Delony

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Over the course of the past 80 years, semiconductor devices have become increasingly ubiquitous in everyday life.From constructing mainframes that encompassed entire rooms during the 1940s, to inventing personal computers in the 1980s, to developing progressively faster smartphones and wearable technology in the 2010s, the primary driving force behind the Digital Revolution has been increasing transistor counts, and thus computing power, via incremental improvements in optical lithography. In 1965, Intel co-founder Gordon Moore boldly predicted that the transistor density of semiconductor devices would double approximately every 18-24 months. While this prediction -- now colloquially referred to as Moore's Law -- …

Monitoring The Hydrologic And Water Quality Performance Of A Subsurface Gravel Wetland, Catherine Sullivan

Master's Theses (2009 -)

Managing stormwater is a crucial task for many communities that are required to mitigate the harmful effects of pollution from urban runoff. Subsurface gravel wetlands are an emerging type of green infrastructure that can be used to manage stormwater through the capture and slow release of runoff. These wetland systems are unique to other types of green infrastructure in that they have a distinct fully saturated gravel layer below an occasionally saturated soil layer. While there is substantial literature on the performance of different types of green infrastructure, such as bioretention, bioswales, and permeable pavements, there is a lack of …

Wet Detention Pond Phosphorus Cycling Dynamics: Evaluation Of Pond Performance And Application Of The General Lake Model, Caitlin Lulay

Master's Theses (2009 -)

Anthropogenic activities degrade surface water quality by increasing nutrient input to the watershed which is transported via stormwater runoff and accumulated in waterbodies leading to eutrophication. Wet detention ponds are a means of mitigating the impacts of these non-point source pollutants, such as phosphorus (P), through treatment mechanisms such as sediment settling and biological uptake. While these wet detention ponds are designed to serve as P sinks, they have the potential to serve as P sources as well due to release mechanisms such as sediment resuspension and algal decay. Many existing models used in the design and performance evaluation of …

Process- And Product-Related Foulants In Virus Filtration, Solomon Isu, Xianghong Qian, Andrew L. Zydney, S. Ranil Wickramasinghe

Biomedical Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Regulatory authorities place stringent guidelines on the removal of contaminants during the manufacture of biopharmaceutical products. Monoclonal antibodies, Fc-fusion proteins, and other mammalian cell-derived biotherapeutics are heterogeneous molecules that are validated based on the production process and not on molecular homogeneity. Validation of clearance of potential contamination by viruses is a major challenge during the downstream purification of these therapeutics. Virus filtration is a single-use, size-based separation process in which the contaminating virus particles are retained while the therapeutic molecules pass through the membrane pores. Virus filtration is routinely used as part of the overall virus clearance strategy. Compromised performance …

Pre-Training Graph Neural Networks For Link Prediction In Biomedical Networks, Yahui Long, Min Wu, Yong Liu, Yuan Fang, Chee Kong Kwoh, Jiawei Luo, Xiaoli Li

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Motivation: Graphs or networks are widely utilized to model the interactions between different entities (e.g., proteins, drugs, etc) for biomedical applications. Predicting potential links in biomedical networks is important for understanding the pathological mechanisms of various complex human diseases, as well as screening compound targets for drug discovery. Graph neural networks (GNNs) have been designed for link prediction in various biomedical networks, which rely on the node features extracted from different data sources, e.g., sequence, structure and network data. However, it is challenging to effectively integrate these data sources and automatically extract features for different link prediction tasks. Results: In …

Bistability And Switching Behavior In Moving Animal Groups, Daniel Strömbom, Stephanie Nickerson, Catherine Futterman, Alyssa Difazio, Cameron Costello, Kolbjørn Tunstrøm

Northeast Journal of Complex Systems (NEJCS)

Moving animal groups such as schools of fish and flocks of birds frequently switch between different group structures. Standard models of collective motion have been used successfully to explain how stable groups form via local interactions between individuals, but they are typically unable to produce groups that exhibit spontaneous switching. We are only aware of one model, constructed for barred flagtail fish that are known to rely on alignment and attraction to organize their collective motion, that has been shown to generate this type of behavior in 2D (or 3D). Interestingly, another species of fish, golden shiners, do exhibit switching …

Soft Magnetic Composite Substrates For Rf/Microwave Applications, Poonam Lathiya

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Novel soft magnetic ferrite materials will play a crucial role in next-generation over one trillion sensors (also known as “trillion sensor economy) related to 5G communications and internet of things, as these materials can achieve improved wireless power and signal transfer efficiency with high operation frequency. In this work, Ni-Cu-Zn and Ni-Co-Zn ferrites with high permeability, high permittivity, and low magnetic and dielectric losses were prepared for RF and microwave device applications. Frequency dispersion of RF complex permeability of Ni-Cu-Zn ferrites prepared under different applied hydraulic pressures and durations have been thoroughly investigated. The Ni0.35Cu0.19Zn0.46Fe2O4 ferrites were prepared by conventional …

Finding Signal In The Noise: High-Fidelity, Quantitative, Optical Blood Perfusion Imaging With Interference, Abdul Mohaimen Safi

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

For label-free, non-invasive, wide field-of-view (FOV) imaging/monitoring of blood flow, speckle-based approaches are gaining popularity. However, to obtain quantitative flow information, speckle techniques rely on the multi-exposure scheme which requires complex, bulky, and expensive instrumentation, limiting its application to preclinical studies. This dissertation directly addresses these issues. In the first part of this dissertation, we report a novel single shot synthetic multi-exposure speckle imaging (syMESI) method to synthetically produce multi-exposure images from one short single exposure speckle image using spatial binning/averaging. We demonstrate that syMESI can reimagine conventional hardware based MESI, with low-cost single exposure laser speckle imaging (LSCI) instrumentation. …

Volume Introduction, I. Glenn Cohen, Timo Minssen, W. Nicholson Price Ii, Christopher Robertson, Carmel Shachar

Other Publications

Medical devices have historically been less regulated than their drug and biologic counterparts. A benefit of this less demanding regulatory regime is facilitating innovation by making new devices available to consumers in a timely fashion. Nevertheless, there is increasing concern that this approach raises serious public health and safety concerns. The Institute of Medicine in 2011 published a critique of the American pathway allowing moderate-risk devices to be brought to the market through the less-rigorous 501(k) pathway,1 flagging a need for increased postmarket review and surveillance. High-profile recalls of medical devices, such as vaginal mesh products, along with reports globally …