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Co-Registered Photoacoustic And Ultrasound Tomographic Imaging Of Human Colorectal And Ovarian Cancer: Light Delivery, System Development, And Clinical Study, Guang Yang

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Ovarian cancer remains the deadliest of all the gynecological malignancies. Conventional screening tests, including pelvic examination, transvaginal ultrasound (TVUS), and blood testing for cancer antigen 125 (CA-125), lack sufficient specificity for early ovarian cancer diagnosis. Imaging modalities such as computed tomography (CT), positron emission tomography (PET), and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) have been used for surgical guidance. However, all of these modalities have limitations in detecting small lesions. Globally, colorectal cancer is the second most commonly diagnosed malignancy and the fourth most common cause of cancer mortality. Accurate staging and post-treatment surveillance of this prevalent disease are critical because treatment …

Understanding And Improving Adult Stem Cells For Cartilage Tissue Engineering, Dakota Katz

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Articular cartilage allows for near frictionless joint movement; however, when damaged the tissue has very little capacity for self-repair. Tissue engineering can be used to both repair damaged articular cartilage and as an in vitro model for joint disease. Commonly used cell sources for tissue engineering are adipose-derived and bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells (ASCs and MSCs) because they can be patient matched, expand rapidly in culture, and have multipotent differentiation potential. However, donor-to-donor variability of differentiation potential can mask the results of in vitro experiments and ASCs and MSCs only retain their multipotency for a limited number of passages. …

Continuous-Time And Complex Growth Transforms For Analog Computing And Optimization, Oindrila Chatterjee

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Analog computing is a promising and practical candidate for solving complex computational problems involving algebraic and differential equations. At the fundamental level, an analog computing framework can be viewed as a dynamical system that evolves following fundamental physical principles, like energy minimization, to solve a computing task. Additionally, conservation laws, such as conservation of charge, energy, or mass, provide a natural way to couple and constrain spatially separated variables. Taking a cue from these observations, in this dissertation, I have explored a novel dynamical system-based computing framework that exploits naturally occurring analog conservation constraints to solve a variety of optimization …

Nucleation Studies In Barium Silicate Glasses And Soda-Lime Silicate Glass, Xinsheng Xia

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Controlling nucleation is key for the manufacture of glasses and glass-ceramics. It has been observed by different researchers in many silicate glasses that at low temperatures the critical work of cluster formation (i.e. the nucleation barrier) slowly rises rather than decreasing with decreasing temperature. However, this experimental observation is in contradiction with nucleation theories. In this dissertation, crystal nucleation was studied in BaO·2SiO2, 5BaO·8SiO2, and Na2O·2CaO·3SiO2 glasses. The main research topics include measurements of the nucleation rate, the structural evolution of the glass, and the low-temperature nucleation behavior. A special focus is given to the low-temperature nucleation anomaly. In total, …

Elucidating And Leveraging Dynamics-Function Relationships In Neural Circuits Through Modeling And Optimal Control, Sruti Mallik

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

A fundamental research question in neuroscience pertains to understanding how neural networks through their activity encode and decode information. In this research, we build on methods from theoretical domains such as control theory, dynamical systems analysis and reinforcement learning to investigate such questions. Our objective is two-fold: first, to use methods from engineering to identify specific objectives that neural circuits might be optimizing through their spatiotemporal activity patterns, and second, to draw motivation from neuroscience to formulate new engineering principles such as synthesis of dynamical networks for decentralized control applications. We specifically take a top-down, optimization driven approach in our …

Space Opens Its Doors To Unexpected Players, One Of Them Paraguay, Macarena Carrizosa

Capstones

Paraguay successfully sent its first native satellite into orbit in 2021, proving how essential and accessible the industry has become, even for developing countries. This article looks at how knowledge and technology transfer programs combined with a lower cost of entry helped Paraguay reach its first major milestone in the space industry, having its own satellite.

A Timeline Of Discovery And Current Research On Primary Open-Angle Glaucoma And Emergence Of Potentially Permanent Treatment Solutions, Yonosuke Dejesus, Guadalupe Moreno Ceballos

Spectra Undergraduate Research Journal

This research examines the timeline of the discovery and research of Primary Open-Angle Glaucoma (POAG). By reviewing the literature on genetic and molecular mechanisms, we aim to emphasize a long-term treatment solution (iSTENT) to mitigate intraocular pressure (IOP) related to POAG etiology and disease progression. POAG is a multifactorial, autosomal dominant, adult-onset eye disease wherein the optic nerve cells become damaged due to a buildup of excess aqueous humor, resulting in increased IOP. Consequently, POAG leads to progressive loss of peripheral vision and is the leading cause of blindness in the US. Due to the multifactorial nature of glaucoma’s inheritance …

Assessment Of The Effects Of Airflow Conditions Related To Hop Drying, David Mabie

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

Hops have been utilized by brewers for centuries to contribute bitterness, antimicrobial preservation and desirable aromatic profiles to beer. The hop cone is a small, lightweight, high moisture content flower which produces lupulin glands containing resins and essential oils that contribute desirable characteristics to beer. Due to the high harvest moisture content (75% wet basis), hops must be rapidly dried to properly preserve them for future processing and brewing. While hops have been dried for centuries, most literature from the past century has focused on drying to minimizing loss to the resin or physical cone structure. The objectives of this …

Synthesis And Biomedical Applications Of Functional Polymers, Jianxun Ding, Di Li, Jingxiao Chen, Chao Zhao, Parisa Pour Shahid Saeed Abadi

Michigan Tech Publications, Part 1

No abstract provided.

Thermal Properties Of 18f-Fdg Uptake And Imaging In Positron Emission Tomography Scans Of Cancerous Cells, Carleigh R. Eagle

PANDION: The Osprey Journal of Research and Ideas

Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scans can utilize a radioactive tracer, in this case 2-deoxy2-[fluorine-18] fluoro-D-glucose (¹⁸F-FDG), to visualize malignant tumors in cancer patients. The uptake was compared to glucose to understand the difference in thermal properties, which contribute to the ability to image the cancerous cells. The uptake of ¹⁸F-FDG by cancer cells and the imaging process of positron emission tomography were reviewed from a thermodynamic perspective. Gastrointestinal and neurological imaging techniques were reviewed to understand the role of PET imaging in different areas of the human body.

Ronald E. Mcnair Scholars Program Profiles And Abstracts 2021, Mcnair Scholars Program

McNair Symposium

This is the complete event program and provides presentation abstracts and biographies of McNair scholars and their mentors.

Sound Trapping In An Open Resonator, Lujun Huang, Yan Kei Chiang, Sibo Huang, Chen Shen, Fu Deng, Yi Cheng, Bin Jia, Yong Li, David A. Powell, Andrey E. Miroshnichenko

Henry M. Rowan College of Engineering Departmental Research

The ability of sound energy confinement with high-quality factor resonance is of vital importance for acoustic devices requiring high intensity and hypersensitivity in biological ultrasonics, enhanced collimated sound emission (i.e. sound laser) and high-resolution sensing. However, structures reported so far have been experimentally demonstrated with a limited quality factor of acoustic resonances, up to several tens in an open resonator. The emergence of bound states in the continuum makes it possible to realize high quality factor acoustic modes. Here, we report the theoretical design and experimental demonstration of acoustic bound states in the continuum supported by a single open resonator. …

A Single Cell Pair Mechanical Interrogation Platform To Study Cell–Cell Adhesion Mechanics, Amir Monemianesfahani

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

Cell-cell adhesion complexes are macromolecular adhesive organelles that integrate cells into tissues. Perturbations of the cell-cell adhesion structure or relatedmechanotransduction pathways lead to pathological conditions such as skin and heart diseases, arthritis, and cancer. Mechanical stretching has been used to stimulate the mechanotransduction process originating from the cell-cell adhesion and cell-extracellular matrix (ECM) complexes. The current techniques, however, have limitations on their ability to measure the cell-cell adhesion force directly and quantitatively. These methods use a monolayer of cells, which makes it impossible to quantify the forces within a single cell-cell adhesion complex. Other methods using single cells or cell …

Quantum Grover's Oracles With Symmetry Boolean Functions, Peng Gao

Dissertations and Theses

Quantum computing has become an important research field of computer science and engineering. Among many quantum algorithms, Grover's algorithm is one of the most famous ones. Designing an effective quantum oracle poses a challenging conundrum in circuit and system-level design for practical application realization of Grover's algorithm.

In this dissertation, we present a new method to build quantum oracles for Grover's algorithm to solve graph theory problems. We explore generalized Boolean symmetric functions with lattice diagrams to develop a low quantum cost and area efficient quantum oracle. We study two graph theory problems: cycle detection of undirected graphs and generalized …

Development Of A Microfluidic Viscoelastic Hemostatic Assay For Real-Timeviscosity Measurements Of Blood, Shay Kent

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Blood coagulation disorders are malfunctions in the body’s ability to control blood clotting. It can result in either insufficient clotting causing an increased risk of bleeding or excessive clotting obstructing blood flow. The rapid and accurate diagnosis of coagulopathies is an important, unmet need in the clinical setting. Rapidly identifying the source of bleeding, either acquired or inherited, is critical to reduce the risk of major blood loss and deliver personalized hemostatic therapies. Viscoelastic hemostatic assays, or VHAs, deliver an effective solution to the diagnosis of coagulopathies by evaluating global hemostatic function using whole blood rather than plasma. VHAs are …

Tracking The Amide I And Αcoo− Terminal Ν(C=O) Raman Bands In A Family Of L-Glutamic Acid-Containing Peptide Fragments: A Raman And Dft Study, Ashley E. Williams, Nathan I. Hammer, Ryan C. Fortenberry, Dana N. Reinemann

Faculty and Student Publications

The E-hook of β-tubulin plays instrumental roles in cytoskeletal regulation and function. The last six C-terminal residues of the βII isotype, a peptide of amino acid sequence EGEDEA, extend from the microtubule surface and have eluded characterization with classic X-ray crystallographic techniques. The band position of the characteristic amide I vibration of small peptide fragments is heavily dependent on the length of the peptide chain, the extent of intramolecular hydrogen bonding, and the overall polarity of the fragment. The dependence of the E residue’s amide I ν(C=O) and the αCOO− terminal ν(C=O) bands on the neighboring side chain, the length …

Designing Cell-Free Protein Synthesis Systems For Improved Biocatalysis And On-Demand, Cost-Effective Biosensors, Mehran Soltani Najafabadi

Theses and Dissertations

The open nature of Cell-Free Protein Synthesis (CFPS) systems has enabled flexible design, easy manipulation, and novel applications of protein engineering in therapeutic production, biocatalysis, and biosensors. This dissertation reports on three advances in the application of CFPS systems for 1) improving biocatalysis performance in industrial applications by site-specific covalent enzyme immobilization, 2) expressing and optimizing a difficult to express a mammalian protein in bacterial-based CFPS systems and its application for cost-effective, on-demand biosensors compatible with human body fluids, and 3) streamlining the procedure of an E. coli extract with built-in compatibility with human body fluid biosensors. Site-specific covalent immobilization …

A Creative Differential Evolution Algorithm For Global Optimization Problems, Hsin-Chuan Kuo, Ching-Hai Lin, Jeun-Len Wu

Journal of Marine Science and Technology–Taiwan

Under the framework of the differential evolution algorithm, we develop a creative algorithm by extrapolating the thinking of the garbage can model. The developed algorithm is hence named in the study as a creative differential evolution algorithm (CDE). To verify the performance of the CDE, we selected seven well-known benchmark functions; three of them are uni-modal and four multi-modal. In conducting the numerical experiment, we adopted two different numbers of dimensions for each test function, which is 50 and 100. The results show that CDE can find the global optimum robustly, demonstrate that CDE significantly improves the DE’s performance.

Pollination Habitat And Flower Plating For City Beautification, Jim Speer

2021 Spring Reports (Sullivan)

The City of Sullivan identified needs to improve sustainable infrastructure and green space in Sullivan, IN through their Quality of Life plan. Students in ENVI460 were tasked with providing recommendations for their daily operations and site plans that could improve habitats and attractiveness for the community and tourists. Students provided recommendations for native habitat planting and community involvement/education. They also provided site recommendations for community garden and green space updates.

Power-Over-Tether Unmanned Aerial System Leveraged For Trajectory Influenced Atmospheric Sensing, Daniel Rico

School of Computing: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The use of unmanned aerial systems (UASs) in agriculture has risen in the past decade and is helping to modernize agriculture. UASs collect and elucidate data previously difficult to obtain and are used to help increase agricultural efficiency and production. Typical commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) UASs are limited by small payloads and short flight times. Such limits inhibit their ability to provide abundant data at multiple spatiotemporal scales. In this thesis, we describe the design and construction of the tethered aircraft unmanned system (TAUS), which is a novel power-over-tether UAS configured for long-term, high throughput atmospheric monitoring with an array of …

Ensemble Data Fitting For Bathymetric Models Informed By Nominal Data, Samantha Zambo

Dissertations

Due to the difficulty and expense of collecting bathymetric data, modeling is the primary tool to produce detailed maps of the ocean floor. Current modeling practices typically utilize only one interpolator; the industry standard is splines-in-tension.

In this dissertation we introduce a new nominal-informed ensemble interpolator designed to improve modeling accuracy in regions of sparse data. The method is guided by a priori domain knowledge provided by artificially intelligent classifiers. We recast such geomorphological classifications, such as ‘seamount’ or ‘ridge’, as nominal data which we utilize as foundational shapes in an expanded ordinary least squares regression-based algorithm. To our knowledge …

Amorphous Silica Based Biomaterials For Musculoskeletal Tissue Regeneration Applications, Kamal Awad

Material Science and Engineering Dissertations - Archive

Musculoskeletal (MSK) injury includes any injuries that affect the bones, muscles, ligaments, tendons, or nerves. Open bone fracture is one of the common types of MSK traumatic injuries which results in not only bone fracture but also damage/loss of associated muscles, nerve, vasculature, endothelium, periosteum, fascia, and connective tissue. Surgical procedures and biological interventions are required to fix the broken bone, and muscle transfer is performed to compensate the skeletal muscle defects. Current treatments include fixative metal implants and regenerative biopolymer scaffolds, then muscle flap procedures to cover the bone. Yet, these treatments are inadequate because the used materials do …

Stress Analysis Of Functionally Graded Materials, Nilabh Krishna

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Dissertations - Archive

A functionally graded material (FGM) is an inhomogeneous material whose material properties vary continuously. Since FGM’s material properties are continuous at the interface of the two materials, unlike conventional composites whose material properties are discontinuous at the interface, it is best suited to prevent catastrophically failure, stress concentration, and residual stresses. Literature reviews revealed that most of the research on FGMs was a 2-D analysis, especially on FGM plates and beams. This research focuses on 3-D stress analysis for an elastic medium that contains a spherical inclusion made of an FGM embedded in a matrix phase. To the best of …

Surface Modification Of Titanium By Electrolytic Plasma Processing And In-Vitro Studies, Wisanu Boonrawd

Material Science and Engineering Dissertations - Archive

Electrolytic plasma processing (EPP) can be operated in two modes, namely plasma electrolytic saturation (PES) and plasma electrolytic oxidation (PEO). In this study, the PES was used to create hydrophilic surface profiles on titanium (Ti). The wettability, surface morphology characteristics and chemical composition of the treated samples were studied as a function of PES processing parameters. The PES profiled surfaces comprised of a characteristic “hills and valleys” morphology because of continuous surface melting and freezing cycles. A bimodal surface profile was produced with 2-3 µm height hills and valleys with nano-roughness (= 200 nm). The produced profile resulted in a …

Poly(Lactic-Co-Glycolic Acid) Nanoparticle Delivery Of Notch Intracellular Domain Plasmid To Restore Notch Signaling, Victoria L. Messerschmidt

Bioengineering Dissertations - Archive

Notch signaling is a highly conserved signaling system that is required for embryonic development and regeneration of organs. When the signal is lost, maldevelopment occurs and leads to a lethal state. Delivering exogenous genetic materials encoding Notch into cells can reestablish downstream signaling and rescue cellular functions. Here, we utilized the negatively charged and FDA approved polymer poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) to encapsulate Notch Intracellular Domain-containing plasmid in nanoparticles. We show that primary human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) readily uptake the nanoparticles with and without specific antibody targets. We demonstrated in vitro that our nanoparticles are nontoxic, stable over time, and …

Localized Treatment Of Malignant Melanoma Using A Modified Cellulose-Based Hydrogel Loaded With Temozolomide With Increased Safety Of Human Dermal Fibroblasts And The Mechanisms Behind The Effect, Joseph Wolf

Bioengineering Dissertations - Archive

Melanoma pathophysiology is highly varied, and the initial cause of tumorigenesis is still unknown, but it is likely a combination of both epigenetic and genetic means. Further, melanoma tumors have one of the highest mutational burdens of all cancers and are largely composed of varied subpopulations within the same tumor. These two factors provide insight into why melanoma is so difficult to treat medicinally. Dacarbazine is the gold-standard of metastatic melanoma treatment, yet only has an overall response rate of 22% and no impact on survival. Temozolomide (TMZ), an analog of dacarbazine, is often viewed as a more ideal choice …

Porcine Neonatal Heart Extracellular Matrix As A Regeneration Platform, Karla Perez

Bioengineering Dissertations - Archive

Each year, an estimated 620,000 Americans have new heart attack and suffer from myocardial infarction (MI) that results in massive heart cell death and decrease in heart function. Various therapeutic strategies, such as pharmacological treatments and reperfusion strategies, have greatly improved short-term MI survival. However, these strategies do not restore normal cardiac function due to the permanent loss of cardiomyocytes. As a promising strategy, cardiac cell therapy delivers repairing cells to damaged areas (scar tissues) to revitalize the infracted heart. However, a key challenge in cardiac cell therapy, i.e. the extremely low survival and engraftment rate of transplanted cells, must …

Space-Charge Limited Current In Planar And Cylindrical Crossed-Field Diodes Using Variational Calculus, Adam M. Darr, Ranajoy Bhattacharya, Jim Browning, Allen L. Garner

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

No abstract provided.

Wi-Fi-Based Indoor Localization Using Model-Based And Data-Driven Approaches, Ayoub Idelhaj

Electrical Engineering Theses - Archive

This thesis investigates model-based and data-driven approaches for indoor localization using the Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) of Wi-Fi signals. We study multiple model-based indoor localization approaches, including the free space path loss model, the log-distance path loss model, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) model, and a nonlinear regression model. We examine their indoor localization accuracy using raw RSSI values, and filter RSSI values passed through a Moving Average filter and a Kalman filter. For data driven approaches, we employ a family of Extreme Learning Machine (ELM) algorithms including Basic-ELM, Online Sequential-ELM (OS-ELM), Hierarchical-ELM (H-ELM), and Kernel-ELM (K-ELM), to find …

Modeling Of Hydrogen Sulfide Generation And Rates Of Microbial Induced Concrete Corrosion In Manhole Shafts, Sunakshi Hada

Civil Engineering Dissertations - Archive

Manhole shafts can undergo infrastructure failure due to microbially induced concrete corrosion (MICC). Deterioration of the sewer systems by MICC process occurs due to the volatilization of hydrogen sulfide into the gas phase. The volatized hydrogen sulfide gas reacts with oxygen to form sulfuric acid, resulting in concrete corrosion. If optimum conditions are present, 24 mm of concrete loss can occur in 31 months, and the cost of fixing can range from $10-$30 per square foot. Also, if the manholes are not properly maintained, they can cause serious safety hazards, such as manhole lids falling through the structure, streets giving …