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Effect Of Feedrate, Depth Of Cut, Tool Material, And Toolpath On Dimensional Accuracy And Surface Roughness Of Milled Cfrp, Assem Hesham Almadani

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This thesis investigates the effect of different factors on Carbon Fiber Reinforced Polymers (CFRP) milling, like feedrate, tool material, and cutting speed. CFRP offers excellent material properties, which led to the increase of the material in today's manufacturing industry. CFRP offers up to 2.25 times steel's modulus of elasticity at about a fifth of the weight and excellent thermal properties, which allow the use of this material in applications with high heat like automobiles. Many industries have implemented the use of CFRP in their applications, like airplanes and automobiles, which lead to a decrease in weight and increase in strength. …

The Ethics Of Aerial Bombardment In International Conflicts: From Douhet To Drones, Rauan Zhaksybergen

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

In this thesis, I demonstrate how the question of ethics in aerial bombardment has been evolving and transforming since its inception at the beginning of the twentieth century to contemporary targeted killings/assassinations by drones. I interact with early airpower theories from Douhet, Trenchard, Mitchell, and contemporary air tactics in order to establish a crucial sequence between these early theories and practices of aerial violence and modern ones conducted by armed drones. I show how the evolution of aerial bombardment challenged, influenced, and transformed essentials of conventional warfare, as well as dispersed boundaries between combatants and non-combatants. Contemporary legally uncontrolled targeted …

A Parametric Study Of Lateral-Torsional Buckling In Pultruded Frp Beams Using Abaqus, Robert Nathaniel Baylor

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Fiber Reinforced Polymer (FRP) composites continue to gain popularity in civil and mechanical infrastructure due to a high strength-to-weight ratio, corrosion-resistance, and low maintenance requirements. FRP can also fulfill niche roles requiring non-conductivity and magnetic transparency. The longitudinal forming of pultruded FRP makes it a natural choice for lightweight beams. Although FRP composites have a high strength for their weight, the elastic and shear moduli for glass FRP may only be 1/7 and 1/30 that of steel, respectively. These low stiffnesses make FRP composite beams particularly susceptible to lateral-torsional buckling (LTB). In addition, the low shear to elastic stiffness amplifies …

Remediation Of Spatial Skills In First Semester Calculus Using Haptics-Based Applications, Kristen L. Murphy

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Spatial reasoning is required for many topics in undergraduate mathematics as well as other STEM fields. In calculus specifically, there are few interventions that assess students’ spatial skills and provide remediation. Haptic technology is a novel approach to spatial skills remediation due to its unfamiliarity to students and its flexibility with regard to models. The purpose of this dissertation is two-fold: first, to determine what level of spatial abilities students possess upon entering an undergraduate calculus course, and second, to determine whether haptic feedback will enhance an intervention for improving spatial skills.

The dissertation research was a mixed-methods study using …

Rania: A Framework For A Modular, Voice Enabled, Gerontechnology-Centric, Smart-Home System, Emily Francis

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

In the United States, the proportion of senior citizens is expected to rise significantly over the next few decades. This increasing number of senior citizens combined with the increasing demand for at home healthcare workers is putting a strain on the elderly healthcare system. Smart-home healthcare technology { such as smart medication dispensers, fall detection systems, smart pantry systems, etc. { has the potential to alleviate this strain on the elderly healthcare system. Smart devices can give an individual more autonomized and personalized surveillance of their health and well-being. While these devices are beneficial as standalone devices, they would be …

Comparative Analysis Of Different Classes Of On-Line State Estimators For Aerodynamics Angles And True Airspeed Sensors For Applications To The Sensor Failure Problem, Alexandra Anne Augsberger

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Throughout aviation history, there have been numerous incidents due to sensor failure that have caused a range of issues from loss of control of the aircraft to crashes resulting in loss of human life. Although there are many hardware-based solutions to this problem, the threat of control hardware failure still exists. This work investigates the efficacy of implementing neural networks (NN) and Kalman filters (KF) to solve the accommodation portion of the sensor failure detection, identification, and accommodation (SFDIA) problem through on-line real-time estimation of specific aircraft dynamic parameters. The implementation of on-line estimation architectures into the aircraft flight control …

A Selected Analytical Bibliography Of Works For Saxophone By Composers Associated With The Darmstadt International Summer Courses For New Music: 1946-2021, Christopher Mark Delouis

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Although the saxophone is one of the most recently invented concert instruments, countless pieces of music have been written for it. This document aims to contribute to the established scholarship that examines and highlights existing saxophone repertoire, by looking specifically at composers associated with the Darmstadt International Summer Courses. Bruce Ronkin’s Londeix Guide to the Saxophone Repertoire 1844-2012 is a standard resource for the 21st century saxophonist to have. It includes some, but not all, compositions for saxophone written before 2012. By looking at this specific set of composers, with many who are alive today, this document is able to …

Development Of Eccentric Black Hole Binary Searches In The Ligo And Pta Regimes, Belinda D. Cheeseboro

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

In the past several years, a plethora of gravitational wave events have been detected leading to better understanding of binary black holes, binary neutron stars, and neutron star black hole binaries. All of these transient detections have helped us better understand the dynamics of these systems as well as the populations of these objects, but each of these sources was detected with models that neglected eccentricity. Eccentricity is one of several potential markers for determining the formation of binary systems. Detecting gravitational waves from eccentric sources can better our understanding of such systems and help constrain theories about their formation. …

Localization Algorithms For Gnss-Denied And Challenging Environments, Chizhao Yang

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

In this dissertation, the problem about localization in GNSS-denied and challenging environments is addressed. Specifically, the challenging environments discussed in this dissertation include two different types, environments including only low-resolution features and environments containing moving objects. To achieve accurate pose estimates, the errors are always bounded through matching observations from sensors with surrounding environments. These challenging environments, unfortunately, would bring troubles into matching related methods, such as "fingerprint" matching, and ICP. For instance, in environments with low-resolution features, the on-board sensor measurements could match to multiple positions on a map, which creates ambiguity; in environments with moving objects included, the …

Identical Twins As A Facial Similarity Benchmark For Human Facial Recognition, John Andrew Mccauley

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The problem of distinguishing identical twins and non-twin look-alikes in automated facial recognition (FR) applications has become increasingly important with the widespread adoption of facial biometrics. Due to the high facial similarity of both identical twins and look-alikes, these face pairs represent the hardest cases presented to facial recognition tools. This work presents an application of one of the largest twin datasets compiled to date to address two FR challenges: 1) determining a baseline measure of facial similarity between identical twins and 2) applying this similarity measure to determine the impact of doppelgangers, or look-alikes, on FR performance for large …

Assessing Synthetic Aperture Radar (Sar)-Derived Temporal Patterns And Digital Terrain Data For Palustrine Wetland Mapping, Jaimee L. Pyron

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Palustrine wetland systems are important ecosystems and provide numerous ecosystems services to support society. Unfortunately, they remain under constant threat of devastation due to land use practices and global climate change, which underscores the need to identify, map, and monitor these landscape features. This study explores harmonic coefficients and seasonal median values derived from Sentinel-1 synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data, as well as digital elevation model (DEM)-derived terrain variables, to predict palustrine wetland locations in the Vermont counties of Bennington, Chittenden, and Essex. Support vector machine (SVM) and random forest (RF) machine learning models were used with various combinations of …

Discriminative Stimulus Effects Of Cannabidiol Oil In Rats, Rebecca L. Chalme

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Cannabidiol (CBD) is one of the major centrally active phytocannabinoid components of cannabis, and has been approved by the FDA only for the treatment of two rare seizure disorders. However, CBD has been touted as a potential treatment for anxiety in place of more traditional treatments like benzodiazepines. Although there is some evidence of anxiolytic effects of CBD, its suitability as a substitute for benzodiazepines is unknown. This experiment was designed to assess to what extent CBD shares interoceptive discriminative-stimulus properties with the anxiolytic chlordiazepoxide (CDP), a benzodiazepine. In the present experiment, a range of doses (0-333.3 mg/kg) of over-the-counter …

An Analysis Of Coordinated Responding, Brian Katz

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Experimental analyses of coordinated responding (i.e., cooperation) have been derived from a procedure described by Skinner (1962) in which reinforcers were delivered to a pair of subjects (a dyad) if both responded within a short interval, thus satisfying a mutual-reinforcement contingency. Although it has been suggested that this contingency enhances rates of temporally coordinated responding, limitations of past experiments have raised questions concerning this conclusion. The present experiments assessed three of those limitations by holding the schedule of reinforcement (Experiment 1: fixed-ratio 1; Experiment 2; variable-interval 20 s) constant (1) across phases and (2) between dyad members, and (3) varying …

The Road Less Traveled: Economic Analysis Of Roads And Highways, Margaret C. Bock

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Roads are an integral component of civilization, connecting people, markets, and ideas. In different settings and geographies, roads can take on many different purposes. In rural, more isolated areas, roads can serve as a cost-saving benefit and can be used as tools to increase accessibility. In urban, more congested areas, roads can be seen as an externality-producing hindrance. Naturally, given this view, the overall analysis of roads should reflect these different settings. To date, however, the study of roads in the economics literature has surprisingly large pitfalls, notably in terms of topics of study and methodologies used.

Spending on roads …

Effects Of Blended Integrity Failures On Reinforcement-Based Interventuions, Stephanie Hope Jones

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Reinforcement-based interventions reduce problematic behavior when implemented as designed. However, the effectiveness of these interventions may decrease when deviations from treatment protocols (i.e., treatment-integrity errors) occur. Treatment-integrity errors differentially impact reinforcement-based interventions based on multiple factors, including how frequently errors occur and the intervention type. Even nominally acceptable integrity values (e.g., 80%) may be detrimental depending on the intervention. To evaluate this possibility and directly compare the effectiveness of multiple reinforcement-based interventions, we conducted two within-subject evaluations using laboratory arrangements. For both experiments, we recruited four undergraduate students to participate in a computer task that involved clicking on moving circles …

Exposure Therapy: Stimulus Intensity As A Factor In Treatment Preference, Matthew C. Arias

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Currently, a host of treatments are available for treating anxiety disorders, including specific phobia. Treatment of specific phobia includes pharmacological, psychosocial, and combined approaches. Exposure therapy, however, is considered the leading psychological treatment for specific phobia, and has shown to be effective. Exposure therapy challenges held beliefs about feared stimuli/situations and attempts to integrate new learning about the feared object/situation. Despite exposure being effective to treat specific phobia, it is associated with low adherence and high dropout rates. There is a need to examine, therefore, ways to improve patient adherence for exposure. A way to examine this issue is to …

Correctional Officer Opinions About Offenders With Mental Illness: The Relationships Among Opinions, Burnout, Emotional Intelligence, And Mental Health Training, Courtney Hull

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Rates of mental illness among incarcerated individuals in the United States are high and have been well documented. Correctional officers are on the front line of identifying symptoms and alerting mental health professionals to problems as they arise. Correctional officers often lack an understating of mental illness, feel ill-equipped to manage mental health crises, and experience high levels of job-related stress. The objective of this study was to better understand the relationship between correctional officers’ emotional intelligence and opinions about mental illness, and to identify if burnout moderated the relationship between the variables. Additionally, the study sought to understand the …

Biomechanically Inspired Assistive Technology To Restore Movement Of The Upper Limbs After Stroke, Ariel Thomas

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

A stroke often damages the neural structures responsible for movement. Stroke is a heterogeneous disease, affecting each survivor differently. There are common motor features of a stroke, but even these features vary across time as an individual proceeds through different stages of recovery. The different ways in which stroke motor impairment can present itself are often overlooked, but these differences are fundamental to the understanding of the disease and its recovery. When motor assessments are capable of acquiring information necessary to parse out a detailed profile of each stroke case, this will lead to an improved neuromechanical understanding of the …

Static And Dynamic Analysis Of Composite Plates Using The Monna Finite Element, Mohamed Emadeldin Omar Abdelhadi

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Composite materials are replacing metals in many fields due to their favorable qualities such as strength-to-weight ratio, fatigue characteristics, and corrosion resistance. An efficient, versatile, and accurate composite plate element applicable to the dynamic analysis of composite plates would help the advancement of composites tremendously.

The objective of this research is to analyze composite plates using the classical laminated plate theory (CLPT), first-order deformation theory (FSDT), and higher-order deformation theory (HSDT) with the applicable finite element modeling (FEM) for each theory. This thesis investigates which theory is more efficient and accurate and evaluates the benefits of using an h-p-version …

Estimating The Azimuthal Mode Structure Of Ultra Low Frequency Waves And Its Effects On The Radial Diffusion Of Radiation Belt Electrons, Mohammad Barani

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Characterizing the azimuthal mode number �� of Ultra Low Frequency (ULF) waves is critical to quantifying the radial diffusion of radiation belt electrons. A Wavelet cross-spectral technique is applied to the compressional ULF waves observed by multiple pairs of GOES and MMS satellites to estimate the mode structure of ULF waves. A more realistic distribution of mode numbers is achieved by inclusion of the modes corresponding to different wave propagation directions as well as at �� higher than fundamental mode number. For the event study of a geomagnetic storm using GOES data, ULF wave power is found to dominate at …

Calibration Of Iri-Based Psi Equation Using Updated Quarter-Car Parameters, Shirin Bahaaeldin Hassan

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The international roughness index (IRI) was established in the 1980s and later used in generating the present serviceability index (PSI), which was developed to predict present serviceability rating (PSR). PSR is a measure of ride quality ratings made by a panel of highway users. The ratings range from 0 to 5, where “0” for very poor and “5” for very good. Various studies had formulated the relationship between IRI and PSI for different types of pavements, such as flexible, rigid, and composite pavements. The current IRI-based PSI equation being used among many state Departments of Transportation (DOTs) was proposed by …

Transference Of Emotional Intelligence And Self-Efficacy Observed Through Adventure West Virginia Student Trip Leaders, Ashley Irene Fox

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Since the creation of university sponsored outdoor recreation trips, research studies have been conducted to examine the impact of this programming on participants. These studies have typically assessed impacts through measuring common components used to quantify overall leadership abilities such as emotional intelligence, self-efficacy, and transference. In this study, researchers utilized a quasi-experimental approach to attempt to measure the impact of leading outdoor orientation trips on leader ability to transfer leadership skills to other areas of life. A sample (N = 29) of undergraduate student trip leaders of West Virginia University’s Adventure West Virginia (AWV) program was surveyed and divided …

Application Of Artificial Intelligence In Three Phase Unbalanced Smart Power Distribution Grid, Deepak Tiwari

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Electrification of the transportation sector can play an essential role in curbing fossil fuel scarcity and oil shortages in the world. Electric vehicles (EVs) can significantly reduce CO2 emissions, improve urban pollution. Apart from these advantages of EVs, they may also pose challenges to the distribution grid. Increasing penetration of EVs puts an extra burden and leads to affect the grid severely. Load congestions, voltage drops/regulation, overloading are some of the issues that might incur in the grid because of improper charging of EVs. The uncertain nature of EV owners makes it very difficult to predict the charging pattern. So …

Flow Field Measurement And Qualification Of The West Virginia University Environmental Wind Tunnel, Katherine Mary Reid

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

In 2013 West Virginia University acquired an Environmental Wind Tunnel from Cornell University. Due to the state of the tunnel, elements of the tunnel were redesigned and rebuilt at the West Virginia University Hangar in Morgantown, West Virginia. The motivation of this research was to evaluate and qualify the flow field within the test section of this redesigned and reconstructed wind tunnel. The tunnel has many uses for the university, including outside research opportunities as well as educational purposes for students in the Aerospace Engineering Department. The methods employed for this effort included developing a grid of pitot tubes to …

Accuracy Of Digital Impressions At Varying Implant Depths: An In-Vitro Study, Vivia Sequeira

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Introduction: Implants placed at variable depths may vary the amount of visible scannable surface of a scan body. Intraoral scanner technology uses advanced optical principles to record the surface of the scan body to accurately capture the implant position.

Purpose: To investigate the effect implant placement depth has on the accuracy of digital implant impressions using an intraoral scanner.

Materials & Methods: A partially edentulous gypsum master model was fabricated to allow the positioning of a single implant analog at different depths. Four groups based on the planned implant depths of 0, 3, 6 and 7mm and corresponding visibility of …

Review Of Forecasting Univariate Time-Series Data With Application To Water-Energy Nexus Studies & Proposal Of Parallel Hybrid Sarima-Ann Model, Cory Sumner Yarrington

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The necessary materials for most human activities are water and energy. Integrated analysis to accurately forecast water and energy consumption enables the implementation of efficient short and long-term resource management planning as well as expanding policy and research possibilities for the supportive infrastructure. However, the integral relationship between water and energy (water-energy nexus) poses a difficult problem for modeling. The accessibility and physical overlay of data sets related to water-energy nexus is another main issue for a reliable water-energy consumption forecast. The framework of urban metabolism (UM) uses several types of data to build a global view and highlight issues …

After The Protests: A Campus Racial Climate Case Study Of The Perception And Curricular Responses For Institutional Reforms, Following The Black Students’ Demands For Interventions At The University Of Missouri-Columbia, Bruce E. Mitchell Ii

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This qualitative method single case study explores the phenomenon of a racially tense campus climate at the University of Missouri Columbia, a Predominantly White Midwestern Institution. At the forefront of the media regarding student and athlete protests, leading to the resignation of senior level administrators, African American students put forth eight demands to their administrators. Included, was the creation and implementation of a required racial awareness and inclusion curriculum. The study explores the perceptions of the institutional response to an exceptional campus racial climate issue and the process of formulating and participating in a diversity training course and a semester …

Association Of Incident Cancer To Low-Value Care And Healthcare Cost Burden Among Elderly Medicare Beneficiaries, Chibuzo Iloabuchi

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

In the United States (US), 25% of healthcare spending is considered wasteful because it is spent reimbursing low-value care. Low-value care is the utilization of healthcare services, medical tests, and procedures that have unclear or no clinical benefit to patients but still exposes them to risk. World-wide, low-value care imposes a significant economic burden on patients, payers, governments, and society. Cancer care among older adults > 65 years is one of the biggest drivers of healthcare expenditure in the US and accounts for nearly 40% of all spending, and low-value care among cancer patients is prevalent and contributes to the financial …

Floating-Gate Design And Linearization For Reconfigurable Analog Signal Processing, Steven Michael Andryzcik Ii

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Analog and mixed-signal integrated circuits have found a place in modern electronics design as a viable alternative to digital pre-processing. With metrics that boast high accuracy and low power consumption, analog pre-processing has opened the door to low-power state-monitoring systems when it is utilized in place of a power-hungry digital signal-processing stage. However, the complicated design process required by analog and mixed-signal systems has been a barrier to broader applications. The implementation of floating-gate transistors has begun to pave the way for a more reasonable approach to analog design. Floating-gate technology has widespread use in the digital domain. Analog and …

Barriers Of Volunteerism For Coaches Of Collegiate Division I Swimming Programs, Richard Allen West

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Barriers to volunteerism are not researched often or concretely in specific volunteer populations. The aim of this project was to find agreement among a group of potential executive level volunteers in coaching to identify the most impactful and prevalent barriers preventing them from volunteer service. A Delphi study was utilized to identify and find consensus for these barriers as identified by the 30 collegiate swimming coaches who participated. A verification interview was administered to add further clarity to the results and allow participants to speculate as to methods to overcome the barriers listed. Key findings included the themes of dedicated …