A Dynamic Inspection And Replacement Policy For Systems Subject To Degradation And Periodic Shocks, Jiawen Hu, Qiuzhuang Sun

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

Inspection is widely adopted to improve the maintenance efficiency. Most works predetermine a periodic inspection scheme and focus on optimizing the replacement threshold. However, it is reasonable to inspect less frequently when the degradation level of the system is low and to perform inspections more frequently as the degradation level increases. This work investigates a dynamic inspection and replacement policy for systems subject to regular degradation and periodic shocks. The regular degradation of the system is modeled as a Wiener process. Meanwhile, a periodic arrived shock will incur a random amount increment to the degradation, which is assumed to satisfy …

Implementation Of Zero Trust Architecture On Local Server Management In Educational Institutions, Joko Purwanto, Safar Dwi Kurniawan

Journal of Strategic and Global Studies

Educational institutions are facing increasingly complex cyber threats, particularly as they continue to rely on on-premises servers with limited cybersecurity resources. Zero Trust Architecture (ZTA) offers a security model that rejects implicit trust and requires strict verification of each access request. This study aims to examine the applicability of ZTA in managing local servers within educational institutions through a qualitative literature review approach. Relevant literature from 2014 to 2025 was analyzed using thematic synthesis to identify recurring concepts, strategies, and gaps. The results show that ZTA, when integrated with Identity and Access Management (IAM), Security Information and Event Management (SIEM), …

Humanity Is Evolving Its Consciousness: The Role Of Archetypal Energies As Guides During An Unfolding Weeding Out And Alignment Process, Carroy U. Ferguson

Psychology Faculty Publication Series

Humanity is evolving its consciousness at individual and collective levels.  Given these seemingly tumultuous times, as of this writing (January 2026), to make such a statement may sound like a strange thing to say.  However, I suggest that if you are alive today and if you are reading these words, these are the very times for which you were born—to assist Humanity as it evolves its consciousness with your unique gifts, whatever they may be.  That is, this period of our individual and collective human being-ness may be characterized as an unfolding period of weeding out and alignment with the …

Assessment Of Winter Maintenance Performance Objectives Using Maintenance Decision Support System, Curtis L. Walker, Mark R. Anderson, Aemal Khattak, Thomas Kauzlarich, Abdul Farhan

Nebraska Department of Transportation: Research Reports

It is important for transportation agencies to assess their winter maintenance operations performance to identify areas for improvement and/or resource investment to maintain optimal levels of service, mobility, and safety. This study explores nine winter snowstorms in Nebraska during the 2023-2024 winter season across 20 road segments, 12 of which were along the Interstate-80 corridor. Datasets explored include meteorological information, traffic mobility insights, winter maintenance operations activities, and road conditions before, during, and after the periods of accumulating snowfall. Statistical analyses explored correlations and quantitative relationships among these datasets, while visual dashboards were developed to promote more qualitative considerations of …

Resilience By Design: A Multi-Metric Assessment Of Urban Vulnerability Across Human-Centric, Built, And Climatic Environment Dimensions, Karim Abdelhady

Theses and Dissertations

Urban resilience and sustainability have emerged as fundamental imperatives in contemporary urban planning, as cities face mounting pressures from climate change, population growth, and increasing socio-economic disparities. Resilient urban systems are not only those that withstand shocks, but also those that ensure the long-term well-being, equity, and functionality of their environments. As such, advancing the capacity to systematically evaluate resilience across spatial and temporal scales is critical to informing adaptive, forward-looking planning strategies. Despite a growing body of research on urban resilience, prevailing approaches remain limited in scope and resolution. Many studies tend to examine resilience through isolated lenses—focusing either …

Multifunctional Green Wall Systems For Greywater Treatment And Hygrothermal Regulation In Egypt, Laila Ossama Mohamed Elhusseiny Abdelsalam

Theses and Dissertations

Increasing environmental concerns regarding climate change and the intensifying challenge of water scarcity in Egypt necessitate the development of innovative, sustainable, and resource-efficient strategies for wastewater reuse. In the built environment, greywater constitutes a significant, relatively low-contaminant wastewater stream that, if treated to comply with Egyptian Codes and relevant international standards, can be safely reused for non-potable applications such as irrigation, landscaping, and building services. This research investigates the efficacy of an integrated green wall panel system, installed on building façades, for decentralized greywater treatment under Egypt’s climatic and environmental conditions, while simultaneously enhancing hygrothermal performance to reduce building energy …

A Computational Study Of The Chemomechanics Of Paracetamol Polymorphs: Towards Improving Drug Tabletability, Karim Nader Samra

Theses and Dissertations

The mechanical properties of pharmaceutical crystals are of great importance in tablet manufacturing. Also, knowing the mechanical properties of different polymorphs of the same crystal can reduce the overall production cost. In this study, computational work was done via performing density functional theory calculations on 3 paracetamol crystal polymorphs Form I, II, and III. Understanding the chemical bonding helps in predicting the key elastic properties for different crystallographic directions. In Form II, lattice vector C is dominated with the intermolecular hydrogen bond OH…O giving it the stiffest Young Modulus and the least Poisson’s ratio. Then comes the A-Axis which contains …

Design Of Novel Formwork System And Development Of Numerical Model For Comparison Between Formwork Systems, Ahmed Yehia Abdel Aziz El Sayed

Theses and Dissertations

The formwork industry has witnessed major breakthroughs in the last decades. However, they required huge amount of materials leading to negative environmental impacts. Also, the commercially available systems have big number of accessories and requires the extensive use of units to cover the areas to be poured. There was an attempt to target all these disadvantages by introducing the Funicular Arched Steel Truss (FAST) system. However, this system had its own drawbacks, and this is why the researcher introduced an extendable version named the “Extendable Funicular Arched Steel Truss (EAST) system.”

To reach the final version of the EAST design, …

A Bim-Based Flexible Flow Shop Framework For Scheduling Linear Infrastructure Projects, Mahmoud Mohamed Elbassuony

Theses and Dissertations

Repetitive, multi-stage linear projects, such as pipelines or highways, are primarily impacted by spatial and resource constraints during their execution. Cost overruns, delays, and inefficient resource allocation make construction management for such projects complex. Traditional scheduling techniques, such as Critical Path Method (CPM) and Line of Balance (LOB), are less efficient for scheduling dynamic, complex, and multi-objective projects. There are more advanced scheduling methods that can be applied as a decision-making process to determine the optimal timing of activities and achieve other objectives. One of those techniques is the Flexible Flow Shop model (FFS), which can be effectively applied to …

Mechanical Characterization And Modeling Of Rat Myocardia Under The Influence Of Epirubicin, Abdallah Mahmoud Alkhaiyat

Theses and Dissertations

Cancer remains a predominant health challenge that is responsible for a significant portion of global morbidity and mortality. Epirubicin (EPI), a chemotherapeutic anti-cancer drug, has shown remarkable efficacy in combating various malignancies. However, it is known to have undesirable side effects on the heart, collectively referred to as cardiotoxicity. This research investigates the adverse effects of chemotherapy on cardiac contractility through an in vitro examination of the mechanics of healthy and infarcted animal heart tissues. Electrically stimulated slices of rat ventricular tissue were tested using an isometric force measurement tissue bath. The tissue slices were subjected to uniaxial stretching, allowing …

Fly Ash Proppant Developed For Hydraulic Fracturing, Raz Rzgar Haydar

Theses and Dissertations

Proppants are critical components in hydraulic fracturing, used to maintain fracture conductivity and enhance reservoir stimulation. In high-pressure and harsh reservoir environments, the use of high-strength proppants is essential to ensure well performance. Conventional proppants, being sand, ceramic, and sintered bauxite can be expensive, and their use often requires costly fracture fluids. This study investigates the possibility of utalizing fly ash geopolymers as a sustainable alternative that is also cost-effective for proppants manufacturing. Fly ash, a by-product from the combustion of coal and other materials, was explored as a base material for proppants, utilizing an alkaline solution as an activator …

Digital Replica For Trustworthy Cooperative Autonomous Vehicles, Hady Farahat

Theses and Dissertations

Trust in an automated system can be defined as confidence in a vehicle's reliability, safety, and predictability, which is essential for the acceptance and widespread adoption of fully autonomous vehicles (FAVs); without it, users might disengage from using autonomous vehicles or reject the technology altogether. Most of the previous research has focused on trust from an ego vehicle perspective.

However, next-generation vehicles are becoming more autonomous and connected, relying on vehicle-to-vehicle technology and vehicle-to-infrastructure technology with no human intervention. Hence, trust becomes more complex and fragile as multiple agents interact with each other, and it might become harder to establish …

Cognivault: Enabling Privacy-Aware Cognitive Distortion Detection In Intelligent Mental Health Applications, Mariam Dawoud

Theses and Dissertations

Mental health applications are increasingly leveraging intelligent systems to sup- port psychological well-being, yet preserving user privacy remains a major concern. This thesis presents CogniVault, a secure ecosystem for cognitive distortion data. The framework includes Cognify, a mobile journaling application that detects cog- nitive distortions in user-written journal entries using a locally deployed machine learning model. Cognitive distortions are maladaptive thought patterns such as catastrophizing or personalization, which the app identifies to provide therapeu- tic insights. To ensure privacy-preserving data analytics, CogniVault includes the design and implementation of a hybrid security architecture, PRISM-HDI, that combines Paillier Homomorphic Encryption (HE), Differential …

Harnessing Ml And Iiot For Traceability In Continuous Production Systems: A Conceptual Framework, Kholoud M. Abdelaal

Theses and Dissertations

In the era of rapid technological advancement, the manufacturing sector faces increasing pressure to leverage emerging technologies to enhance operational efficiency and minimize waste. In this context, traceability plays a pivotal role, as it provides complete visibility of processes and products throughout manufacturing systems, enabling them to identify areas for improvement and take corrective actions accordingly. Additionally, traceability ensures compliance, supports product recalls, provides a clear understanding of the system’s performance, and enables fact-driven decision-making in multiple aspects of the manufacturing system. Although the broad spectrum of traceability applications in batch production-based plants, traceability remains challenging to achieve in continuous …

Irrigation Efficiency In Green Wall Systems Utilizing Iot: Developing And Testing A Method To Optimize Water Use For Green Walls, Yomna Zaghloul

Theses and Dissertations

This study investigates the application of an Internet of Things (IoT)-based automated irrigation system for green walls in Cairo, Egypt, assessing its impact on water conservation, energy consumption, and plant health across a three-month experimental period. The research compared a sensor-controlled drip irrigation system utilizing the ESP8266 microcontroller and real-time environmental monitoring against conventional timer-based irrigation methods. Water usage data revealed that the IoT system consistently achieved substantial savings—averaging nearly 60% less water consumption than the control group—without compromising overall plant vitality. Energy efficiency was also improved, with automated cycles reducing pump operating time by more than 50%. Plant growth …

A Virtual-Reality-Based Dental Simulator For Endodontics With Automated Formative Feedback, Yousef Salah Abo El Ela

Theses and Dissertations

Advancements in virtual reality (VR) and haptic technology are transforming the landscape of medical and dental education, offering new avenues for safe, immersive, and repeatable training experiences. Within dentistry, endodontics presents unique challenges for preclinical education due to anatomical complexity, limited access to extracted teeth, ethical concerns, and the shortcomings of conventional plastic models. Despite endodontics specific plastic teeth being available, they fall short of replicating the hardness of real extracted teeth, are relatively costly compared to generic plastic teeth, and are ultimately a disposable item which makes them inadequate as a sustainable long-term solution. Extracted teeth do a much …

Towards Decarbonizing Concrete Industry In Egypt: Material Alternatives, And Economic Viability, Reem Gamal

Theses and Dissertations

The construction industry remains one of the largest contributors to global greenhouse gas emissions, with cement and steel production accounting for approximately 15% of total emissions. As global infrastructure demands continue to rise, there is an increasing need for practical tools that support low-carbon construction practices in line with international climate commitments. This research presents the development and testing of a mathematical, adaptable decision support system designed to assess both the environmental and financial impacts of material selection in concrete production. Focusing on life cycle stages A1 to A3, raw material extraction, transportation, and manufacturing, the decision support system enables …

Copper Metal Organic Framework-Based Nanomaterial For Non-Enzymatic Glucose Electrochemical Sensor, Sameha Mohamed Sadek

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the development of non-enzymatic glucose sensors by engineering advanced electrode materials based on metal-organic frameworks (MOFs). Conventional enzymatic glucose sensors, although widely used, suffer from inherent limitations, including poor long-term stability, narrow operating conditions, and sensitivity to environmental factors, due to their reliance on biological enzymes. Non-enzymatic sensors offer a more robust alternative by enabling direct electrochemical oxidation of glucose on engineered electrode surfaces. MOFs represent a highly tunable class of hybrid materials with structural and chemical features that are ideal for sensor applications, including a high surface area, tailored porosity, and excellent thermal and chemical stability. …

Ai-Driven Stratified Modeling For Early Liver Disease Detection: A Comparative Study Of Ensemble And Conventional Machine Learning Classifiers, Ghadeer Murtadha Ali, Ali Aqeel Hadi, Mustafa Abdulkareem Abbas, Abdullah Alkarar Mohammad, Ahmed Fadhil Abdulhussein

AUIQ Technical Engineering Science

Background: Early prediction of liver disease remains challenging in routine clinical diagnostics due to the multifactorial nature of hepatic dysfunction and the limited discriminative capacity of conventional laboratory-only assessments.

Objective: This study aims to develop and rigorously evaluate a robust machine learning framework for binary liver disease classification, emphasizing predictive stability, diagnostic balance (sensitivity–specificity), and statistical reproducibility across repeated experiments.

Methodology: A structured dataset of 1,700 records with 11 features representing demographic, behavioral, genetic, and clinical determinants was used to train and compare five supervised models: CatBoost, AdaBoost, Random Forest, Support Vector Machine (SVM), and Decision Tree. Performance was assessed …

Human-Machine Communication: Complete Volume. Volume 12

Human-Machine Communication

This is the complete volume of HMC Volume 12.

Whole Earth Machines: Human-Machine Communication For A Green Transition, Klaus Bruhn Jensen

Human-Machine Communication

The climate crisis of the 21st century represents an existential risk to humanity and biodiversity, posing essential questions of how communication may serve to coordinate mitigation of and adaptation to climate change. One recent response has been massive investments by governments and corporations in systems providing feedback on the state of Earth— Whole Earth Machines (WEMs). For human-machine communication (HMC) studies, WEMs invite sustained engagement with communication infrastructures as a key constituent of research agendas, beyond the interface encounters at the center of many HMC studies to date. The article presents a conceptualization and operationalization of WEMs as critical infrastructures …

The Effect Of The Socioeconomic Variety In Greater Cairo On Transport Mode Choices, Rafik Yanni

Theses and Dissertations

In the last decade, Egypt has experienced a noticeable upgrade in its infrastructure investment, implementing a lot of transport projects, especially in the Greater Cairo region. In a city with over 20 million residents, variations lie in socioeconomic elements like income, age, gender, and neighborhood, which shape people’s choice of mobility modes based on their culture and lifestyle. The questions then become: whom are these new projects targeting? What are the barriers to using these services? And is there any willingness to change commuting habits if conditions changed? This thesis investigates how the socioeconomic variety in Greater Cairo metropolitan region …

A Modular Llm Approach To Argument Extraction In Philosophical Texts, Nate Miller

Masters Theses

Engaging with philosophical works is a rewarding but demanding task that challenges both human readers and computational systems designed to extract arguments from dense philosophical reasoning, and although large language models (LLMs) have made substantial progress in argument extraction, the most advanced models are often costly to run. As a result, there is growing interest in determining if multi-agent pipelines that divide a task into smaller stages can reduce cost while maintaining or improving performance.

This study investigates a modular multi-agent approach for extracting arguments from philosophical texts using LLMs, and compares its performance, cost, and runtime to both single-agent …

Conserved Chromatin Programs Orchestrate Cardiac Cell States In Health And Disease And Drive Cardiomyocyte Proliferation After Injury, Xiaoxiao Geng

ETDs from 2020-2029

Chromatin structure is a central regulator of gene expression and cellular identity, yet the chromatin structural factors driving cardiac disease and regeneration remain incompletely defined. This dissertation investigates how modulation of chromatin architecture shapes pathological and regenerative cardiac phenotypes through integrated single-cell transcriptomic, epigenomic, and functional analyses. To determine whether chromatin structural regulators distinguish healthy from diseased cardiac states, we curated a comprehensive list of chromatin structural genes and applied it to single-nuclei RNA sequencing datasets from human hearts with and without dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM). Chromatin structural gene expression effectively stratified cardiomyocyte and fibroblast populations by disease status. Diseased cardiomyocytes …

The Risc-V Fpga (Rvfpga) Teaching Package, Daniel Chaver, Sarah Harris, Luis Pinuel, Olof Kindgren, Zubair Kakakhel, Chris Owen, Roy Kravitz, Jose I. Gomez-Perez, Fernando Castro, Katzalin Olcoz, Multiple Additional Authors

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

RISC-V is a free and open-standard ISA based on RISC principles, allowing anyone to design, manufacture, and sell RISC-V chips and software. Its flexibility and growing ecosystem have made it popular in research, education, and industry, increasing the need for educational materials. This paper provides an in-depth description of the RVfpga course, which offers a solid introduction to computer architecture using the RISC-V instruction set and FPGA technology. It focuses on providing hands-on experience with real-world RISC-V cores, the VeeR EH1 and EL2 cores, developed by Western Digital and hosted by ChipsAlliance. The course targets students and educators in computing-related …

Retrofitting Higher Education Buildings In Egypt: A Pathway Towards A Zero-Energy Campus, Maged G. Nassim Mikhael, Hagar Samy Saad

HBRC Journal

Egypt’s higher education sector expanded rapidly over the last decade, resulting in increased energy consumption, negative environmental impacts, and economic challenges. Existing academic buildings present promising opportunities for energy savings through retrofitting; however, a validated pathway for achieving Zero-Energy Buildings ZEBs in Egypt remains underdeveloped. This study aims to develop a practical scenario and a replicable retrofitting pathway based on a multi-tiered approach that includes passive envelope enhancements, active system optimization, and the integration of renewable energy RE systems. Using the Canadian International College CIC campus as a case study, the research adapted the building energy simulation BES methodology to …

Enhancing Sustainable Cooling Solutions: Investigating Spot Radiant Cooling Systems Performance And Influence On Indoor Comfort In Hot Climates, Norhane Eldeeb, Ahmed Ahmed Fikry, Abbas Mohamed Elzafarany, Ehab El Shazly, Hinar Abo El-Maged

HBRC Journal

In hot climates, demand for effective sustainable cooling strategies to maintain comfort is high. Nevertheless, conventional radiant cooling systems are often hindered by condensation risks and complex control requirements in partially occupied spaces. To address these challenges, at top inlet conditions of approximately 26°C and 50% Relative Humidity) RH (, three-dimensional CFD simulations validated against the 1.405 kW reference case of Shin et al. were performed to quantify the effect of installation height and panel geometry on spot radiant cooling performance. Lowering the flat CRCP from 2.6 m to 2.2 m reduced volume averaged air temperature (T_a) …

Leveraging Blockchain Technology In Mining Supply Chain Management: Vietnam Coal Mining Case Study, Thu Hang Nguyen, Nguyen Trung Tuan, Hong Anh Le

Journal of Sustainable Mining

The global economy heavily relies on the mining industry for essential resources such as coal, oil, gas, and metal ores. However, the intricate nature of mining operations poses significant challenges in supply chain management (SCM). This research investigates how blockchain technology can address these challenges within mining supply chain management (MSCM). Through a systematic review of existing research and projects, a conceptual blockchain model is proposed to improve mining supply chains’ transparency, traceability, efficiency, and sustainability, specifically focusing on coal supply chain management in Vietnam. The model integrates distributed ledgers, smart contracts, IoT devices, identity management, and consensus mechanisms to …

An Improved United-Atom Potential For Molecular Dynamics Simulation Of Saturated Properties Of N-Alkanes, Wazih Tausif, Jordan Hartfield, Alex George, Zhi Liang

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Multiple united-atom (UA) potential models have been developed in the literature to reproduce experimental saturated properties of n-alkanes using Monte Carlo simulations. When these UA potentials are employed in molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, MD simulations often give relatively poor predictions of saturated properties of n-alkanes, particularly the saturated vapor densities, due to the challenges in accurate calculation of long-range intermolecular forces beyond the cutoff distance in an inhomogeneous system. In this work, a new set of UA Lennard-Jones (LJ) interaction parameters for n-alkanes is proposed to reproduce the saturated properties, including saturated liquid and vapor densities (ρ_f and ρ …

The Risc-V Fpga (Rvfpga) Teaching Package, Daniel Chaver, Sarah Harris, Luis Pinuel, Olof Kindgren, Zubair Kakakhel, Chris Owen, Jose I. Gomez-Perez, Fernando Castro, Katzalin Olcoz, Julio Villalba-Moreno, Alexander Grinshpun, Freddy Gabbay, Luke Seed, Rui Duarte, Manuel Lopez, Oscar Alonso, Robert Owen

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Research

RISC-V is a free and open-standard ISA based on RISC principles, allowing anyone to design, manufacture, and sell RISC-V chips and software. Its flexibility and growing ecosystem have made it popular in research, education, and industry, increasing the need for educational materials. This paper provides an in-depth description of the RVfpga course, which offers a solid introduction to computer architecture using the RISC-V instruction set and FPGA technology. It focuses on providing hands-on experience with real-world RISC-V cores, the VeeR EH1 and EL2 cores, developed by Western Digital and hosted by ChipsAlliance. The course targets students and educators in computing-related …