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Device Development For Long-Term Systemic Oral Biologic Drug Delivery, Benjamin Wankum

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

A biologic drug is a drug that is produced by a living organism. Biologic drugs are used to treat various medical conditions such as arthritis, diabetes, or certain forms of cancers due to their high potency and high selectivity of action. Drawbacks of biologics include their poor stability in the gastrointestinal tract and their poor absorption. In effect, this gives the drugs very low bioavailability and short therapeutic half-lives. To combat these obstacles, current delivery methods include subcutaneous injections at home or intravenous or intramuscular injections in a medical facility.

The overall scientific goal of the research was to utilize …

Detecting A Heterogenous Sample Of Pigmented Melanoma Cell Lines Using Photoacoustic Flow Cytometry, Margaret Cappellano

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Metastatic melanoma is the deadliest form of skin cancer, which is in part, attributed to its rapid aggression and lack of response to typical treatment methods. There are far too often cases where a lymph node biopsy does not detect the severity of the cancer, which in turn causes a lack of diagnosis until a mass can be visually detected on a scan, such as a PET, CT, or MRI. Once visible on a scan, the cancer is too progressive for successful treatment. To avoid this, we investigated how a blood sample can be used to negate a missed diagnosis, …

Diagnosis Of Melanoma Disease State From Patient Blood Samples Using Photoacoustic Flow Cytometry, Jacob Salvatore

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Approximately 1 in 50 Americans develop melanoma in their lifetime. Early detection of melanoma is pivotal to the survival of the patient, with a 99% survival rate for 5 or more years after an early diagnosis. Metastasis, or the spread of cancer, increases the chances of cancerous growth in other parts of the body. In this study, we propose the use of photoacoustic flow cytometry as a diagnostic of patient disease state, by closely monitoring the amount of circulating melanoma cells (CMCs) in a patient’s blood before and after chemotherapy treatments. Using this patient data, we were able to make …

Characterizing The Dormancy And Repair Of A Circumneutral Passive Remediation System Receiving Iron And Sulfate-Rich Amd, Garrett Struble

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Wingfield Pines remediation system is a ~20-acre circumneutral, gravity-fed system constructed in 2009 to passively remediate Fe from an ~2000 gallon/minute effluent. In 2017, a fracture to the system’s underground cavern caused the AMD effluent to bypass the system, flowing directly into Chartiers Creek and leaving the system decommissioned between 2017-2019. Soil slurry and water samples were collected in the weeks prior to the system’s reinstalment in September 2019 through January 2020 in order to determine the effect of the repair on remediation efficiency and microbial community composition. This study acted as the first to describe the temporary decommissioning …

U-251mg Spheroid Generation Using A Scaffold Based Method Protocol, Lara Carroll, Brijesh K. Tiwari, James F. Curtin, Janith Wanigasekara

Articles

3D cell culture is a technique that is used to grow cells in vitro that will mimic an in vivo environment. 3D cell models are a helpful learning tool for researchers to better understand disease mechanisms and to explore different therapeutic properties of drugs. 3D cell cultures can be developed using patient derived cancer cells. Once they have been grown, these 3D cells can be used to screen for small molecule drugs or for genetic modification in for analysis of disease pathways or to predict drug treatments toxicity or efficacy. 3D cell cultures are a big step towards the more …

Assessment Of Cardiorespiratory Interactions During Life Threatening Events In Preterm Infants Using Point Process And Bivariate Algorithms, Mohammed T. Alenazi

Electrical Engineering Theses

Cardiorespiratory interactions considered as an important indicator of neurodevelopment of preterm infants. The strength of cardiorespiratory interactions are presumed to be weak and rapidly fluctuating. The current signal processing algorithms are insufficient to capture such time varying weak interactions. In addition, detection of these interactions becomes difficult during life threatening events due to lack of information available due to apnea (absence of output from respiratory system) and the transient temporal destabilization of cardiac system due to bradycardia. To detect the cardiorespiratory interactions, a point process algorithm of cardiac system with respiration as covariates is proposed. The bivariate model is embedded …

Translating Convolutional Neural Networks Approach To The Ventral Pathway, Victoria Zhang

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Do artificial neurons in CNNs learn to represent the same visual information as the biological neurons in primate brains? Previous studies have shown that the visual recognition pathway (ventral stream) in humans and monkeys increasingly represents animate objects [16]. We used a heatmap attribution technique borrowed from convolutional neural networks to generate biological feature maps identifying regions in scenes that elicit responses from neurons along the ventral stream (V1/V2, V4, and IT). Biological feature maps were then compared to activation maps produced by units in convolutional neural networks. We found that image regions containing animals elicited increasingly larger responses along …

Artificial Intelligence And The Ethics Behind It, Isaac Johnston

Senior Honors Theses

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been a widely used buzzword for the past couple of years. If there is a technology that works without human interaction, it is labeled as AI. But what is AI, and should individuals be concerned? The following research aims to define what artificial intelligence is, specifically machine learning (ML) and neural networks. It is important to understand how AI is used today in cars, image recognition, ad marketing, and other areas. Although AI has many benefits, there are areas of ethical concerns such as autonomous cars, military applications, social media marketing, and others. This paper helps …

Assessment And Improvement Of Performance Of Septic Systems In Cold Climates (Year 1), Stu Geza, Todd Menkhaus, Lianping Li, Galen Hoogestraat

SDWRI Publications and Reports

Onsite septic systems are used for wastewater treatment for households not connected to sewers. There is a concern about surface and groundwater pollution when effectiveness becomes limited due to soil texture, soil temperature, neighborhood density, and distance to water resources. The goal of this study was to assess treatment performance of local soils and selected treatment media. Lab-scale column experiments were conducted using wastewater from Wastewater Reclamation Facility in Rapid City. The experiments were conducted inside and outside the lab to evaluate the effect of temperature. The columns outside the lab were subject to seasonal variation in temperature. Moisture content, …

Post Covid-19 Water And Waste Water Management To Protect Public Health And Geoenvironment, Ken Cornell, Arvin Farid

Chemistry and Biochemistry Faculty Publications and Presentations

The coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic has posed severe threats to humans and the geoenvironment. The findings of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (Sars-CoV-2) traces in waste water and the practice of disinfecting outdoor spaces in several cities in the world, which can result into the entry of disinfectants and their by-products into storm drainage systems and their subsequent discharge into rivers and coastal waters, raise the issue of environmental, ecological and public health effects. The aims of the current paper are to investigate the potential of water and waste water to operate as transmission routes for Sars-CoV-2 and the …

Expanding Image Datasets For Deep Learning By Evaluating Independence Through Coefficient Correlation And Mean-Squared Error, Ayman Yousef

Biomedical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

With deep learning being leveraged more regularly in the field of image classification, particularly in medical imaging, network optimizations have become a field in and of itself. With open source, comprehensive medical image datasets few and far, computational dataset expansion has become a useful tool for researchers without the ability to further manually collect data. However, with the rich amount of data that imaging modalities like multi-photon microscopy collect at a time, there is potential to expand datasets through proper utilization of this data that often time goes unused. Previous deep learning studies have shown that improper expansion can conflate …

Guide Rnas Preparation For In-Vitro Crispr-Cas9 Complex Delivery Targeting Genes That Affect Wound Healing., Prashant Khatiwada

Biomedical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

CRISPR-Cas9 technology has widely been used as a viable genome engineering platform to make site-specific insertion, deletion, and breaks. The nuclease dead version of Cas9 or dCas9 can be used for the activation and repression of target gene sites using specific activation or repression domains. In this study, CRISPR guide RNAs were designed for a CRISPR inhibition approach to repress the transcriptional activity of the target genes. An expression plasmid vector composed of a U6 promoter sequence, BbsI restriction sites, and a chimeric gRNA sequence was digested, and the phosphorylated forward and reverse gRNAs were ligated with the plasmid vector. …

Environmental Geotechnics: Challenges And Opportunities In The Post-Covid-19 World, Arvin Farid

Civil Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

The outbreak of the coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) pandemic not only has created a health crisis across the world but is also expected to impact negatively the global economy and societies at a scale that is maybe larger than that of the 2008 financial crisis. Simultaneously, it has inevitably exerted many negative consequences on the geoenvironment on which human beings depend. The current paper articulates the role of environmental geotechnics in elucidating and mitigating the effects of the current pandemic. It is the belief of all authors that the Covid-19 pandemic presents not only significant challenges but also opportunities for …

Glial Endothelial Brain Cell Co-Cultures For Testing Signaling Response And Delivery Of Novel Materials Across Blood Brain Barrier, Neela Prajapati

Doctoral Dissertations

The brain accounts for 20% of overall energy metabolism in the body though it just comprises 2% of the total body mass but has a limited capacity of storing energy unlike other critical organs in the body such as the heart and liver. This energy along with oxygen and nutrients is supplied by cerebral blood flow (CBF), any interruption of which can cease the brain function within seconds with a potential irreversible neuronal injury, within minutes. Vascular cells along with astrocytes and neurons are a part of a recently developed concept known as the Neurovascular Unit responsible for Neurovascular coupling …

Comparison Of The Resistance Of Belitic Calcium Sulfoaluminate Cement And Portland Cement To Sulfate Attack And Sulfuric Acid, Rilye Dillard

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Microbially induced corrosion (MIC) is a fairly common concrete deterioration mechanism with many negative effects. MIC is a complex chemical and biological process that occurs in sewage systems and is nearly impossible to replicate in a laboratory setting. For this study, sulfate and sulfuric acid attack on concrete were studied to mimic two stages of the MIC process. The ASTM C1012, Standard Test Method for Length Change of Hydraulic-Cement Mortars Exposed to a Sulfate Solution and a modified ASTM C1012 accelerated method were used to compare the sulfate resistance of belitic calcium sulfoaluminate (BCSA) cement, portland cement (PC), and PC-fly …

What’S The Buzz? A Hands-On, Interdisciplinary, And Fun Way To Learn About Circuits, Energy, Engineering, Bee Communication, And Pollination, Christine L. Moskalik

Publications & Research

How can a simple toothbrush- bot be used to model honey bee communication as well as the role of such communication in pollination? Learners explore basic circuitry through the popular tooth- brush-bot activity, with a spin.

Nonlinearity In Piezotransistive Iii-Nitride Resonant Microcantilevers, Ferhat Bayram

All Dissertations

Microcantilevers are an important form of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) and have been widely used in notable applications including bio sensing, chemical detection, and imaging. Traditionally, laser based optical read-out systems have been used to measure amplitudes of the microcantilever tip oscillations (i.e. in an atomic force microscope (AFM)). However, this technique has several drawbacks including high power requirements and bulkiness that prevent commercializing of microcantilevers based miniaturized sensors. Monitoring oscillations of a cantilever array then also becomes immensely challenging. To overcome these problems, microcantilevers with integrated piezoresistive and piezotransistive deflection transducers have been developed. Because of issues related to piezoresistive …

A 3d Sers Device For Highly Sensitive Detection Of Organic Chemicals In Liquid, Sankgeeth Vennila Sigamani

Material Science and Engineering Theses - Archive

Detection of organic chemicals in liquid medium have been gaining utmost attention in recent times. Real time detection and monitoring of a variety of environmental pollutants, explosive materials, chemical agents, and pharmaceutical drugs in liquid medium are of great need in today’s technological advancements. While there are several scattering, emission and spectroscopy techniques in use, Raman spectroscopy is attractive because of its molecular specificity i.e., each molecule has a Raman fingerprint. Raman spectroscopy utilizes the inelastic portion of the scattered wave for detection. But since intensity of inelastic scattering (Raman scattering) is very low, compared to the elastic scattering, low …

Characterization Of Asphalt/Recycled Plastic Blends Modified By Exfoliated Clay Nanoplatelets, Kate A. Nguyen

Material Science and Engineering Theses - Archive

There is a renewed interest from federal and state transportation agencies as well as the asphalt industry in developing successful utilization of recycled plastics in asphalt pavements. By incorporating a third material into the asphalt/plastic blend, a stimulation of enhanced compatibility between the waste plastics and asphalt can be observed. In this thesis, the need for increased stability and improved mechanical performance of asphalt blends, at low and high temperatures, are addressed through the use of dispersed/exfoliated organic montmorillonite nanoplatelets a.k.a. nanoclay (NC). Previous studies with non-dispersed NC as a modifier in asphalt (AS) and polyethylene (PE) blends reported the …

Metal Nanodendrites And Their Applications As 3d Surface Enhanced Scattering (Sers) Substrates, Aseem Athavale

Material Science and Engineering Dissertations - Archive

Ultrasensitive detection of chemicals and biological analytes has been a focus of a lot of studies in the recent years. In this search for the versatile detection technique, Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS) has proved to be one powerful method. SERS is a powerful vibrational spectroscopy technique that allows for label free ultrasensitive detection. This method utilizes the Localized Surface Plasmon resonance (LSPR) effect of nanoparticles. LSPR effect is profound in noble metals such as silver (Ag) and gold (Au). We have developed a novel SERS substrate using Ag dendrites that can be applied as a ready-to-use device in a …

Biomechanical Studies Of Developing Zebrafish Heart In-Vivo, Nabid Salehin

Bioengineering Dissertations - Archive

The heart is an electrically controlled mechanical pump that provides the cardiac output required by the body to function properly and flexibly adapts to changing demand and working conditions. In vertebrate embryos, the heart is the first organ that starts functioning and the function is initiated well before structural organogenesis is complete, with its early mechanical function affecting its own development. During development, the heart transforms from a valveless linear peristaltic tube into a multi-chambered pulsatile pump with blood flow regulating valves while continuing to serve the metabolic needs of the embryo. The zebrafish has emerged as a popular model …

Non-Invasive Profiling Of Molecular Markers In Brain Gliomas Using Deep Learning And Magnetic Resonance Images, Chandan Ganesh Bangalore Yogananda

Bioengineering Dissertations - Archive

Gliomas account for the most common malignant primary brain tumors in both pediatric and adult populations. They arise from glial cells and are divided into low grade and high-grade gliomas with significant differences in patient survival. Patients with aggressive high-grade gliomas have life expectancies of less than 2 years. Glioblastoma (GBM) are aggressive brain tumors classified by the world health organization (WHO) as stage IV brain cancer. The overall survival for GBM patients is poor and is in the range of 12 to 15 months. These tumors are typically treated by surgery, followed by radiotherapy and chemotherapy. Gliomas often consist …

An In Vitro Model To Study The Role Of Iol: Lens Capsule Interactions In Posterior Capsule Opacification, Arjun Jaitli

Bioengineering Dissertations - Archive

Posterior capsule opacification (PCO) is the most common complication associated with intraocular lens (IOL) implantation. Unfortunately, current in vitro models cannot be used to assess the potential of PCO due to their failure to simulate posterior curvature of the lens capsule (LC), contradicting observations, different testing conditions and inherent challenges associated with use of human capsular bag models, cells and other tissue substrates. To overcome such a challenge, a new system to study IOL: LC interaction and potentially predict PCO was developed in this effort. It is believed that the interactions between an IOL and the lens capsule (LC) may …

Effect Of Sludge Content On Different Types Of Food Waste Degradation In Anaerobic Digester, Mumtahina Binte Latif

Civil Engineering Theses - Archive

Food waste (FW) is the second-largest component in landfills which impacts environments adversely by generating excessive leachate and greenhouse gas. Generally, conventional anaerobic digester and composting can be used for FW disposal. However, the former is highly expensive while the latter is energy inefficient. In contrast, household or community level underground anaerobic digester offers a cost-efficient solution as well as retrieves valuable energy from FW. The addition of nutrients such as sludge to organic waste especially FW accelerates the production of energy by limiting volatile fatty acid (VFA) accumulation. The objective of the current study is to find out the …

Thermal Testing And Characterization Of Nanoparticles Synthesized For Biological Treatment, Tonie Butler

Mechanical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

The overall goal of this research project is to synthesize iron core, silica capped nanoparticles that, when they are exposed to a particular magnetic field, will react by increasing in temperature and emitting substantial thermal output. They will be injected into the human body for biological benefit by targeted thermal radiation. Once in the human body, ideally, they will be able to target a specific area, and then a magnetic field will be applied to induce thermal output through the process of hyperthermia. As the nanoparticles emit heat, they will mimic the natural bodily behavior seen by way of hyperthermia, …

Investigation On Microstructure And Mechanical Properties Of Porous Structures Processed By Laser Powder Bed Fusion, Samarth Ramachandra

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Theses - Archive

Inconel 718 (i.e., IN718) is a prominent nickel-based, precipitation-hardening superalloy which exhibits exceptionally stable mechanical and corrosion resistant properties, even at temperature range of 650ºC to 700ºC, making it suitable for a wide range of applications such as aerospace, nuclear reactors, tooling, turbines, oil and gas applications. The high toughness and work hardening offered by this superalloy, however, greatly limits the choice of machinability. The presence of low levels of aluminum permits good weldability which further allows the use of laser-based additive manufacturing (AM) to efficiently fabricate IN718 parts without the limitations associated with conventional manufacturing methods. Thanks to AM …

Investigation Of The Microstructural And Mechanical Properties Of Selectively Laser Melted In718 Overhangs Fabricated Without Support Structures, Manjunath Hanumantha

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Theses - Archive

Additive manufacturing is a new manufacturing technology that allows for extreme design freedom as well as the simultaneous production of many parts with high complexities. IN718 is a high-strength, corrosion-resistant super alloy of nickel and chromium. It is ideal for high-end applications such as rocket nozzles and turbines because it can handle exceptionally high pressure and heat. Because of its high stiffness qualities, conventional manufacturing of complex IN718 geometries is challenging. Various fabrication techniques have been developed, and this study focuses on selective laser melting (SLM) because of its potential to produce near-perfect parts at a low cost when working …

Informed Polluters: A Comparison Between Pollutant Sources Of Two Lakes And Resulting Remediation Strategies, Jeffrey Kennedy

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Excess nutrients are a problem for many lakes and rivers across the country. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) requires states to monitor polluted waterbodies and provide plans to remediate them. These plans are commonly submitted in a Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) report where sources and polluters are identified. These reports have not been successful, however, at solving all nutrient problems.

Newman Lake in Washington and Mantua Reservoir in Utah are two lakes that continue to receive excess nutrients, notably phosphorus. High levels of these nutrients lead to increased biological activity and subsequent drops in dissolved oxygen. Many lakes …

A Review Of Harmful Algal Bloom Prediction Models For Lakes And Reservoirs, Jade Snyder Echard

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Anthropogenic activity has led to eutrophication in water bodies across the world. This eutrophication promotes blooms, cyanobacteria being among the most notorious bloom organisms. Cyanobacterial blooms (more commonly referred to as harmful algal blooms (HABs)) can devastate an ecosystem. Cyanobacteria are resilient microorganisms that have adapted to survive under a variety of conditions, often outcompeting other phytoplankton. Some species of cyanobacteria produce toxins that ward off predators. These toxins can negatively affect the health of the aquatic life, but also can impact animals and humans that drink or come in contact with these noxious waters. Although cyanotoxin’s effects on humans …

Automated Conversion Of Multicellds Digital Cell Lines And Isa-Tab Filesets., Connor Joseph Burns

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Biological simulation tools are a valuable asset to bridge the gap between biological experimentation and biological theory. As systems thinking has become more regularly applied to biological materials and processes, these materials and processes have been characterized in multi-disciplinary, computational manners. This characterization has yielded an ability to create more realistic simulation tools that can provide in silico experiments for a wider range of scenarios. One prominent simulation tool is PhysiCell, an open-source physics-based multicellular simulation program which utilizes input Digital Cell Lines or Digital Snapshots from the MultiCellular Data Standard (MCDS) project.

This project aims to allow data exchange …