Digital Commons Network^™

Specialist Communities In China’S Aerospace Technology And Innovation System: The Cultural Dimension, Alanna Krolikowski

History and Political Science Faculty Research & Creative Works

Only two decades ago, China was a marginal player in the global aerospace industry. Today, the pace of China’s space programs is unparalleled and it has joined the sector’s leading ranks. China is the only country after the Soviet Union/Russia and the United States to independently send humans into orbit and a rover to touch down on the Moon. A Chinese station will likely soon be only the only long-term human habitat circling the Earth alongside the International Space Station. Within a decade, China could become only the second country in history to land a person on the Moon’s surface. …

Survey And Data Analysis Of Weak Gel Treatments In Injection Wells, Zhuxing Chen

Masters Theses

"Excessive water production is a major concern in mature reservoirs. Weak gels have been applied in injection wells for in-depth profile modification. However, the data range and distribution of each parameter that affects performance of weak gels have not been studied thoroughly.

China has the largest amount of chemical-based conformance control treatments. This paper presents a summary of comprehensive data ranges and distributions for weak gel treatments based on the laboratory experiments and field applications in China from 2001 to 2010. The data set includes 76 cases compiled from China Academic Journals papers. In this study, reservoir properties, gel properties …

The Use Of Ceramic Water Filters Under Pressure In An In-Line Water Pumping System, Travis Dean Gardner

Masters Theses

"Ceramic pot filters (CPFs) have proven an effective point of use (POU) filter due to their relative low cost, ease to manufacture, and effectiveness at treating contaminated water. These filters are used by individual homes, and sometimes multiple filters are needed for each home in order to produce enough water for the family's household. If these filters could be used in-line with a pumping system or elevated storage tank, water could be filtered and used on demand for a community in an economically feasible way. However, CPFs are too fragile to use under pressure due to the weak points where …

Comparing Region Level Testing Methods For Differential Dna Methylation Analysis, Arnold Albert Harder

Masters Theses

”Finding possible connections and solutions to help fight progression of diseases is a major area of research. Genomics is a primary path of research in disease research. Through the DNA sequence, possible connections to diseases have been found. However, most methods for fixing issues within a DNA sequence are still out of reach. One potential path is to investigate epigenetic modifications, such as DNA methylation. DNA methylation occurs when a methyl group attached to cytosines on the DNA sequence. Statistical methods can be used to identify sites or regions of significant differences in methylation levels between groups ( e. g. …

The Clustering Of Galaxies In The Completed Sdss-Iii Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey: Observational Systematics And Baryon Acoustic Oscillations In The Correlation Function, Ashley J. Ross, Florian Beutler, Shun Saito, For Full List Of Authors, See Publisher's Website.

Physics Faculty Research & Creative Works

We present baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) scale measurements determined from the clustering of 1.2 million massive galaxies with redshifts 0.2 < z < 0.75 distributed over 9300 deg², as quantified by their redshift-space correlation function. In order to facilitate these measurements, we define, describe, and motivate the selection function for galaxies in the final data release (DR12) of the SDSS III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS). This includes the observational footprint, masks for image quality and Galactic extinction, and weights to account for density relationships intrinsic to the imaging and spectroscopic portions of the survey. We simulate the observed systematic trends in mock galaxy samples and …

Southwinds - Spring 2017

Southwinds: The Literary and Arts Magazine of Missouri S&T

THE LITERARY AND ARTS MAGAZINE OF MISSOURI UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY SPRING 2017 Southwinds is sponsored by the Department of English & Technical Communication

Causal Knowledge Promotes Behavioral Self-Regulation: An Example Using Climate Change Dynamics, David K. Sewell, Peter J. Rayner, Daniel Burton Shank, Sophie Guy, Simon D. Lilburn, Saam Saber, Yoshihisa Kashima

Psychological Science Faculty Research & Creative Works

Adopting successful climate change mitigation policies requires the public to choose how to balance the sometimes competing goals of managing CO₂ emissions and achieving economic growth. It follows that collective action on climate change depends on members of the public to be knowledgeable of the causes and economic ramifications of climate change. The existing literature, however, shows that people often struggle to correctly reason about the fundamental accumulation dynamics that drive climate change. Previous research has focused on using analogy to improve people's reasoning about accumulation, which has been met with some success. However, these existing studies have neglected …

Linking A Dermal Permeation And An Inhalation Model To A Simple Pharmacokinetic Model To Study Airborne Exposure To Di(N-Butyl) Phthalate, Matthew Lorber, Charles J. Weschler, Glenn Morrison, Gabriel Bekö, Mengyan Gong, Holger M. Koch, Tunga Salthammer, Tobias Schripp, Jørn Toftum, Geo Clausen

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Six males clad only in shorts were exposed to high levels of airborne di(n-butyl) phthalate (DnBP) and diethyl phthalate (DEP) in chamber experiments conducted in 2014. In two 6 h sessions, the subjects were exposed only dermally while breathing clean air from a hood, and both dermally and via inhalation when exposed without a hood. Full urine samples were taken before, during, and for 48 h after leaving the chamber and measured for key DnBP and DEP metabolites. The data clearly demonstrated high levels of DnBP and DEP metabolite excretions while in the chamber and during the first 24 h …

A Study Of Scattering From Snow Embedded With Non-Spherical Shapes Of Scatterers With Relaxed Hierarchical Equivalent Source Algorithm (Rhesa), Chan Fai Lum, Fu Xin, Hong Tat Ewe, Li (Lijun) Jun Jiang

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Remote sensing has been used widely in studying the earth terrain such as snow or sea ice due to its fast, convenient and long-term monitoring capabilities. SAR images acquired could be used to analyze the condition of snow, snow water equivalent (SWE), surface roughness and others. Theoretical models have also been developed to understand how microwave interacts with the snow medium and the scatterers embedded inside the medium. Conventionally, spherical shape of scatterers is commonly used to represent the ice particles embedded inside snow where the actual shape of scatterers can vary. This paper is to present a theoretical model …

The Error Control Of Mixed-Form Fast Multipole Algorithm Based On The High-Order Multipole Rotation, Ling Ling Meng, Xiaoyan Y.Z. Xiong, Tian Xia, Li (Lijun) Jun Jiang

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In this letter, the mixed-form fast multipole algorithm (MF-FMA) with feasible error controllability is implemented through high-order multipole rotation that can make the translation matrices very sparse. The saving of both storage and CPU time makes it attainable to increase the number of harmonics in the middle frequency regime, thus shifting up the transition region of MF-FMA. Consequently, the broadband accuracy of the MF-FMA can be improved significantly.

Pareto Ranking Bisection Algorithm For Em-Driven Multi-Objective Design Of Antennas In Highly-Dimensional Parameter Spaces, Adrian Bekasiewicz, Slawomir Koziel, Leifur Leifsson, Xiaosong Du

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

A deterministic technique for fast surrogate-assisted multi-objective design optimization of antennas in highly-dimensional parameters spaces has been discussed. In this two-stage approach, the initial approximation of the Pareto set representing the best compromise between conflicting objectives is obtained using a bisection algorithm which finds new Pareto-optimal designs by dividing the line segments interconnecting previously found optimal points, and executing poll-type search that involves Pareto ranking. The initial Pareto front is generated at the level of the coarsely-discretized EM model of the antenna. In the second stage of the algorithm, the high-fidelity Pareto designs are obtained through optimization of corrected local-approximation …

Assessment Of Multimode Spacecraft Micropropulsion Systems, Steven P. Berg, Joshua L. Rovey

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Multimode spacecraft micro propulsion systems that include a high-Thrust chemical mode and high-specific impulse electric mode are assessed with specific reference to CubeSat-sized satellite applications. Both cold-gas butane propellant and ionic liquid chemical monopropellant modes are investigated alongside pulsed plasma, electrospray, and ion electric thruster modes. These systems are studied by varying electric propulsion usage percent and calculating the payload mass fraction and thruster burn time for missions requiring 250, 500, and 1000 m/s delta-V. Systems involving chemical monopropellants have the highest payload mass fractions for a reference mission of 500 m/s delta-V and 6U-sized CubeSat, where 1U is a …

Real-Time Diesel Particulate Matter Monitoring In Underground Mine Atmospheres, Association With The Standard Method And Related Challenges, Muhammad Usman Khan

Doctoral Dissertations

"Diesel-powered equipment is a significant component of underground mining operations. Miners' exposure to diesel exhaust is harmful. The standard Diesel Particulate Matter (DPM) monitoring method (NIOSH 5040 method) has limitations that preclude rapid DPM estimation and detailed understanding of DPM variations over time. However, real-time DPM monitors do not inherit these limitations. Biodiesel is often used as a substitute for regular petroleum-diesel because of its ability to emit less DPM. However, accuracy of available real-time DPM monitors has not been determined in mines using 70% to 99% (high-percent) biodiesel. The present research addresses this need by rigorous testing of a …

Geophysical Interpretation And Static Reservoir Modeling Of Structurally Complex Reservoir, Rg Oil Field Area, Sirte Basin, Libya, Abdalla A. Abdelnabi

Doctoral Dissertations

"Cambrian-Ordovician and Upper Cretaceous reservoir formations are found in the central western Sirte Basin, the main oil producing region in the Sirte Basin, Libya. As a result of changes in sedimentary environments and structural activities, a number of irregularities in reservoir continuity have developed, which negatively affected the overall performance of the reservoir. Effective simulation of such complex reservoirs can be achieved by integrating geophysical, geological, and petrophysical data to construct a reliable full-field static model, which has the potential to simulate the vertical and lateral variations in the reservoir formations. In this study, 2D and 3D seismic data acquired …

Layered Crustal And Mantle Structure And Anisotropy Beneath The Afar Depression And Malawi Rift Zone, Cory Alexander Reed

Doctoral Dissertations

"Although a wealth of geophysical data sets have been acquired within the vicinity of continental rift zones, the mechanisms responsible for the breakup of stable continental lithosphere are ambiguous. Eastern Africa is host to the largest contemporary rift zone on Earth, and is thus the most prominent site with which to investigate the processes which govern the rupture of continental lithosphere. The studies herein represent teleseismic analyses of the velocity and thermomechanical structure of the crust and mantle beneath the Afar Depression and Malawi Rift Zone (MRZ) of the East African Rift System. Within the Afar Depression, the first densely-spaced …

Gamma Spectroscopy By Artificial Neural Network Coupled With Mcnp, Huseyin Sahiner

Doctoral Dissertations

"While neutron activation analysis is widely used in many areas, sensitivity of the analysis depends on how the analysis is conducted. Even though the sensitivity of the techniques carries error, compared to chemical analysis, its range is in parts per million or sometimes billion. Due to this sensitivity, the use of neutron activation analysis becomes important when analyzing bio-samples. Artificial neural network is an attractive technique for complex systems. Although there are neural network applications on spectral analysis, training by simulated data to analyze experimental data has not been made. This study offers an improvement on spectral analysis and optimization …

Efficient Algorithms For Analyzing Large Scale Network Dynamics: Centrality, Community And Predictability, Sima Das

Doctoral Dissertations

"Large scale networks are an indispensable part of our daily life; be it biological network, smart grids, academic collaboration networks, social networks, vehicular networks, or the networks as part of various smart environments, they are fast becoming ubiquitous. The successful realization of applications and services over them depend on efficient solution to their computational challenges that are compounded with network dynamics. The core challenges underlying large scale networks, for example: determining central (influential) nodes (and edges), interactions and contacts among nodes, are the basis behind the success of applications and services. Though at first glance these challenges seem to be …

Design And Theoretical Analysis Of Advanced Power Based Positioning In Rf System, Lei Wang

Doctoral Dissertations

"Accurate locating and tracking of people and resources has become a fundamental requirement for many applications. The global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) is widely used. But its accuracy suffers from signal obstruction by buildings, multipath fading, and disruption due to jamming and spoof. Hence, it is required to supplement GPS with inertial sensors and indoor localization schemes that make use of WiFi APs or beacon nodes. In the GPS-challenging or fault scenario, radio-frequency (RF) infrastructure based localization schemes can be a fallback solution for robust navigation. For the indoor/outdoor transition scenario, we propose hypothesis test based fusion method to integrate …

Long-Period Fiber Grating Corrosion Sensors For Life-Cycle Monitoring And Assessment Of Reinforced Concrete Structures, Yizheng Chen

Doctoral Dissertations

"This study aims to: (1) explore, develop, calibrate and validate Fe-C coated, long period fiber grating (LPFG) sensors for short-term mass loss measurement of the Fe-C coating; (2) develop, calibrate, and validate steel tube-encapsulated, fiber optic probes and LPFG sensors for long-term mass loss detection of the steel tube; (3) correlate the corrosion process of packaging metal materials with that of steel bars in direct contact with the packaged probe or sensor except for a thin insulation tape; and (4) apply both types of corrosion sensors into reinforced concrete (RC) structures for reinforcing bar corrosion monitoring and structural condition assessment. …

Discrete Ordinates Ct Organ Dose Simulator (Doctors), Edward T. Norris

Doctoral Dissertations

"Computed tomography (CT) has become pervasive in medical diagnostics as improved imaging techniques and processing algorithms provide higher quality information to doctors. However, the exponentially increasing usage of CT has raised concerns regarding long term low-dose radiological risks.

Currently, the dose to patients is computed using Monte Carlo methods and experimental tests. In other areas of radiation transport, deterministic codes have been shown to be much faster than Monte Carlo codes.

Currently, no deterministic methodology exists to automatically generate a spatially distributed dose profile from a CT voxel phantom. This work proposes a new code, Discrete Ordinate CT Organ Dose …

Volumetric Error Compensation For 5-Axis Machine Tools, Jennifer Ruth Creamer

Doctoral Dissertations

"This work presents a geometric error compensation method for large 5-axis machine tools. The compensation method presented here uses tool tip measurements recorded throughout the axis space to construct a position-dependent geometric error model that can easily be used for error compensation. The measurements are taken using a laser tracker, permitting rapid error data gathering at most locations in the axis space. First two model types are compared for generating table-based error compensation and experimental results are presented. Table-based compensation is then extended to machine tool controller types with restrictions on the number or combination of compensation tables using an …

Cognition-Based Approaches For High-Precision Text Mining, George John Shannon

Doctoral Dissertations

"This research improves the precision of information extraction from free-form text via the use of cognitive-based approaches to natural language processing (NLP). Cognitive-based approaches are an important, and relatively new, area of research in NLP and search, as well as linguistics. Cognitive approaches enable significant improvements in both the breadth and depth of knowledge extracted from text. This research has made contributions in the areas of a cognitive approach to automated concept recognition in.

Cognitive approaches to search, also called concept-based search, have been shown to improve search precision. Given the tremendous amount of electronic text generated in our digital …

Dissolution-Enlarged Fractures Imaging Using Electrical Resistivity Tomography (Ert), Elnaz Siami-Irdemoosa

Doctoral Dissertations

"In recent years the electrical imaging techniques have been largely applied to geotechnical and environmental investigations. These techniques have proven to be the best geophysical methods for site investigations in karst terrain, particularly when the overburden soil is clay-dominated. Karst is terrain with a special landscape and distinctive hydrological system developed by dissolution of rocks, particularly carbonate rocks such as limestone and dolomite, made by enlarging fractures into underground conduits that can enlarge into caverns, and in some cases collapse to form sinkholes.

Bedding planes, joints, and faults are the principal structural guides for underground flow and dissolution in almost …

High-Volume Recycled Materials For Sustainable Transportation Infrastructure, Seyedhamed Sadati

Doctoral Dissertations

"The objective of this study is to investigate the feasibility of using high performance concrete made with high-volume of recycled materials in transportation infrastructure. The main focus was to develop mixtures for rigid pavement construction. A variety of fine and coarse recycled concrete aggregates (RCA) were investigated. The feasibility of replacing 50% of Portland cement with industrial by-products and supplementary cementitious materials (SCMs) was also evaluated. Experimental program was conducted to quantify the effect of concrete mixture design and RCA characteristics on mechanical properties, drying shrinkage, cracking potential, and durability of concrete. The development of a database and analysis using …

The Effect Of Testing Conditions On Lost Circulation Materials' Performance In Simulated Fractures, Montri Jeennakorn

Doctoral Dissertations

"Lost circulation (LOC) problems increase costs of drilling significantly. It is not only the cost of the drilling fluid that is lost into the formation but also the costs of subsequent problems that can be higher than the cost of the drilling fluids. LOC also possibly leads to a serious risk of blowout incident.

Lost circulation materials (LCM) are regularly added to the drilling fluids with an expectation of plugging the flow path. Due to the difficulties of testing and monitoring LCM sealing processes in the field, LCM evaluation in the laboratory is often used to prove and assure successful …

Screening Guidelines And Data Analysis For The Application Of In-Situ Polymer Gels For Injection Well Conformance Improvement, Munqith Naeem Rashak Aldhaheri

Doctoral Dissertations

"Excessive water production represents a major industry challenge because of its serious economic and environmental impacts. Polymer gels have been effectively applied to mitigate water production and extend the productive lives of mature oilfields. However, selecting a proper gel technology for a given reservoir is a challenging task for reservoir engineers because of the associated geological and technical complexities and the absence of efficient screening tools.

A comprehensive review for the worldwide gel field projects was conducted to develop an integrated systematic methodology that determines the applicability of three injection well gel technologies including bulk gels, colloidal dispersion gels, and …

Additive Manufacturing Of Glass Using A Filament Fed Process, Junjie Luo

Doctoral Dissertations

"There are many scientific and engineering applications of glass including optics, communications, electronics, and hermetic seals, there has been minimal research towards the Additive Manufacturing (AM) of transparent glass parts. The special thermal and optical properties of glasses make them hard to be printed using conventional AM techniques. In this dissertation, two different AM techniques for glass AM were developed, Selective Laser Melting (SLM) and filament fed process.

Semi-transparent parts were printed with SLM process. However, the filament fed process was found to be more robust and promising for printing optically transparent glass parts. Therefore, this dissertation is focused on …

Uface: Your Universal Password No One Can See, Nicholas Steven Hilbert

Masters Theses

"With the advantage of not having to memorize long passwords, facial authentication has become a topic of interest among researchers. However, since many users store images containing their face on social networking sites, a new challenge emerges in preventing attackers from impersonating these users by using these online photos. Another problem with most current facial authentication protocols is that they require an unencrypted image of each registered user's face to compare against. Moreover, they might require the user's device to execute computationally expensive multiparty protocols which presents a problem for mobile devices with limited processing power. Finally, these authentication protocols …

Cloth-Air Partitioning Of Oxybenzone, Jonathan T. Hill

Masters Theses

"Clothing has been proven to be a significant accumulator of chemicals from the air. Semi-volatile organic compounds (SVOCs) have a high affinity towards textiles, and measuring the equilibrium partition coefficient between cloth and air (K_cloth-air) for SVOCs is crucial in predicting human exposure to these compounds. This study aims to quantify K_cloth-air for oxybenzone to contribute to a larger human exposure experiment carried out at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU). K_cloth-air for oxybenzone was calculated using data collected from the exposure chamber at DTU and from performing extractions of oxybenzone in fabric samples from the …

Well Log Interpretation And 3d Reservoir Property Modeling Of Maui-B Field, Taranaki Basin, New Zealand, Aziz Mennan

Masters Theses

"Maui-B is one of the largest hydrocarbon-producing fields in the Taranaki Basin. Many previous works have estimated reservoir volume. This study uses 3D property modeling, which is one of the most powerful tools to characterize lithology and reservoir fluids distribution through the field. This modeling will help in understanding the reservoir properties and enhancing the production by selecting the best location for future drilling candidates. In this study, 3D seismic, core, and well log data were used to build and define a structural model, facies analysis, and petrophysical parameters. After well log interpretation and petrophysical parameter calculations, each parameter was …