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Design And Implementation Of Model Predictive Control Strategies For Improved Power Plant Cycling, Xin He

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Design and Implementation of Model Predictive Control Strategies for Improved Power Plant Cycling

Xin He

With the increasing focus on renewable energy sources, traditional power plants such as coal-fired power plants will have to cycle their load to accommodate the penetration of renewables into the power grid. Significant overshooting and oscillatory performance may occur during cycling operations if classical feedback control strategies are employed for plantwide control. To minimize the impact when power plants are operating away from their designed conditions, model-based optimal control strategies would need to be developed for improved power plant performance during cycling.

In this thesis, …

Automatic Kinship Verification In Unconstrained Faces Using Deep Learning, Naman Kohli

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Kinship verification has a number of applications such as organizing large collections of images and recognizing resemblances among humans. Identifying kinship relations has also garnered interest due to several potential applications in security and surveillance and organizing and tagging the enormous number of videos being uploaded on the Internet. This dissertation has a five-fold contribution where first, a study is conducted to gain insight into the kinship verification process used by humans. Besides this, two separate deep learning based methods are proposed to solve kinship verification in images and videos. Other contributions of this research include interlinking face verification with …

On Matching Faces With Temporal Variations Using Representation Learning, Daksha Yadav

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Developing automatic face recognition algorithms which are robust to intra-subject variations is a challenging research problem in the computer vision research community. Apart from the well-studied covariates such as pose and expression, temporal variations in the facial appearance also lead to a decline in the performance of face recognition systems. This research focuses on analyzing the temporal variations in facial features due to facial aging, facial plastic surgeries, and prolonged illicit drug abuse. The contributions of this dissertation are fivefold: (i) behavioral and neuroimaging studies are conducted to understand the human perception of faces affected by temporal variations, specifically facial …

On Generative Adversarial Network Based Synthetic Iris Presentation Attack And Its Detection, Naman Kohli

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Human iris is considered a reliable and accurate modality for biometric recognition due to its unique texture information. Reliability and accuracy of iris biometric modality have prompted its large-scale deployment for critical applications such as border control and national identification projects. The extensive growth of iris recognition systems has raised apprehensions about the susceptibility of these systems to various presentation attacks.

In this thesis, a novel iris presentation attack using deep learning based synthetically generated iris images is presented. Utilizing the generative capability of deep convolutional generative adversarial networks and iris quality metrics, a new framework, named as iDCGAN is …

Analysis Of User Preference With N95 And Powered Air-Purifying Respirators In A Healthcare Work Environment, Brittany Renee Carver

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

For those working in the healthcare field, personal protective equipment is vital. Healthcare workers are often first responders when it comes to dealing with patients who are infected or when a disease outbreak occurs. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) requires all healthcare operations to provide employee protection against blood borne pathogens. With the increase of life-threatening disease outbreaks, such as SARS in 2003 and Ebola in 2014, it is of the upmost importance to make sure respirators are best suited for users and acceptable for long term use. It has been shown through previous studies that due to …

Numerical Modeling Of Hydraulic Fracture Propagation And Comparison With Microseismic Data At A Field Site, Carter Lawrence Hulcher

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

A hydraulic fracturing site in Morgantown, West Virginia, USA was selected to be a research site for the Marcellus Shale Energy and Environment Laboratory (MSEEL) project which was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The overall objective of the MSEEL research project is to evaluate and improve technologies to enhance shale gas recovery with minimal impacts on the environment. The field site has two previously drilled wells and two newly drilled wells for extracting natural gas. A separate exploratory well (or “science well”) was also drilled and includes a geophone array to extract important seismic/microseismic event information, which …

Evaluation Of X-Ray Spectroscopic Techniques For Determining Temperature And Density In Plasmas, Theodore Scott Lane

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Temperature and density measurements of plasmas are important for understanding various phenomena. For example, equations of state, most scaling arguments for Inertial Confinement Fusion and laboratory astrophysics all rely upon accurate knowledge of temperature and density. Spectroscopy is a non-invasive technique to measure these quantities. In this work we establish a new spectroscopic technique by using it to determine temperature. We also compare and contrast the capability of two codes, PrismSPECT and ATOMIC, to infer electron density from experimentally acquired spectra via Stark broadening.

We compare and contrast the capability of isoelectronic line ratios and inter-stage line ratios in an …

Security Bug Report Classification Using Feature Selection, Clustering, And Deep Learning, Tanner D. Gantzer

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

As the numbers of software vulnerabilities and cybersecurity threats increase, it is becoming more difficult and time consuming to classify bug reports manually. This thesis is focused on exploring techniques that have potential to improve the performance of automated classification of software bug reports as security or non-security related. Using supervised learning, feature selection was used to engineer new feature vectors to be used in machine learning. Feature selection changes the vocabulary used by selecting words with the greatest impact on classification. Feature selection was able to increase the F-Score across the datasets by increasing the precision. We also explored …

Development Of Ni-Based Oxide Dispersion Strengthened (Ods) Powder Particles For Metal Additive Manufacturing (Am) Applications, Markova Dion Mcpherson

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The capabilities of Additive Manufacturing (AM) techniques has grown rapidly in recent years, however, current available metal powders for AM processes, such as Powder Bed Fusion and Directed Energy Deposition, are limited and primarily fabricated through atomization processes; the atomization process is capable of producing metal powders 15 µm to 150 µm in size, uniform size distribution, and spherical shape. Despite the advantages of atomization process, iron or nickel-based Oxide Dispersion Strengthened (ODS) powders, with nanocrystalline microstructure, cannot be produced with the atomization process because of the high temperature of yttrium (III) oxide (Y₂O₃, 2425 °C) …

Stories Of Deindustrialization: Exploring Narratives In Weirton, West Virginia, Ella Jennings

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Since the 1960s, cities throughout the world have confronted the phenomenon of deindustrialization, wherein economies advance and transition into a post-industrial environment. This evolution leads to complications on political, social, and economic scales, as localities struggle to find a path to the future that can guarantee the job security and community identity once offered by industry. Weirton, West Virginia, is one such place. The city, once home to Weirton Steel Corporation, a powerhouse steelmaker that employed 13,000 people, fell victim to the fall of the United States’ steel industry, and now is a shadow of its former self. This project …

New Method Of Manufacturing Carbon Foam, Matthew D. Artimez

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Carbon foam is a product that has some unique features. Carbon foam is a light weight material that has a high crush strength. It is electrically conductive, but because it is composed of air space between the tendrils, it is not a thermal conductor. Since it contains no volatile content, it is noncombustible. All these features allow carbon foam to have many modern applications. Currently, there are only three methods of producing carbon foam, and all three are not cost- efficient enough to meet the demand of potential new markets.

In this thesis, a new procedure of producing carbon foam …

Adult Atlantic Sturgeon Population Dynamics In The York River, Virginia, Jason E. Kahn

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Sturgeon first appear in the fossil record in the Triassic Period just over 200 million years ago and are among the most primitive of the bony fishes. Despite their large size and historic presence along the East Coast, Atlantic sturgeon were not targeted for their meat and caviar as a commercial fishery until 1880. By 1905 they had declined to less than one percent of their pre-fishing abundance but the fishery continued. Prior to 1980, there had been very little research on Atlantic sturgeon, primarily limited to documenting landing location and poundage, maximum longevity, or weight of eggs per fish. …

Development Of A Dynamic Model And Control System For Load-Following Operation Of Supercritical Pulverized Coal Power Plants, Parikshit S. Sarda

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Thermal power plants that have been designed to operate at their rated capacity are being forced to cycle their load and operate under low-load condition to meet changing load demands due to the increased penetration of renewables into the electric grid. The rapid load-following operation is leading to challenging control problems. The goal of this research is to develop dynamic model and control system for efficient load-following operation. The focus of this work is on supercritical pulverized coal (SCPC) power plants. The steady-state model is developed using Aspen Plus and Aspen Custom Modeler and then converted to a pressure-driven Aspen …

In Situ Measurement Of Fatigue Induced Crack Growth In Inconel 718 Using Direct Current Potential Drop Method, Joel C. Lindsay

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

With recent advances in air breathable engines comes more extreme temperature environments that engine components must tolerate. During the design of these engines, it is necessary to understand how material fatigue failures occur at these new, higher operating temperatures. In providing understanding, the following fundamental study focuses on the statistical nature of crack jumps (changes in crack length over time) during fatigue in a polycrystalline nickel-based superalloy, Inconel 718 (IN718). In situ measurement of the crack length at several loading conditions were conducted using a direct current potential drop (DCPD) measurement method. Experimental data was collected at six different fatigue …

Promoting Sense Of Belonging And Interest In Geosciences Among Undergraduate Women Through Mentoring, Wenyi Du

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The purpose of this study is to investigate whether students’ university sense of belonging mediates the relationship between mentor network diversity and students’ interest development among undergraduate women in STEM majors. The sample for this study was consisted of 277 undergraduate women majoring in a STEM discipline with initial interests in geosciences across nine universities within the United States. A regression-based mediation analysis was performed using the Hayes’ (2013) macro to test the indirect effect of mentor support on interest through university sense of belonging. Consistent with our hypothesis, the analysis revealed a statistically significant and positive indirect effect of …

Carbon Deposition On Ni/Ysz Anode Sofc For Direct Methane Steam Reforming, Haiyang Li

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (SOFCs) are electrochemical devices that produce electricity directly from oxidizing fuels. Compared to direct combustion of hydrogen to generate power, it has a big advantage in aspects from efficiency and safety when using hydrogen as the fuel of SOFCs. Hydrocarbon reforming is one of the conventional methods to convert natural gas into hydrogen. While considering the difficulty in storage and transportation of hydrogen, we can utilize the supporting materials on the anode side of SOFCs as catalyst to generate hydrogen via hydrocarbon reforming process and pour the hydrogen as fuel into the SOFC system. Ni/YSZ is …

Description Of Motor Control Using Inverse Models, Anton Sobinov

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Humans can perform complicated movements like writing or running without giving them much thought. The scientific understanding of principles guiding the generation of these movements is incomplete. How the nervous system ensures stability or compensates for injury and constraints – are among the unanswered questions today. Furthermore, only through movement can a human impose their will and interact with the world around them. Damage to a part of the motor control system can lower a person’s quality of life. Understanding how the central nervous system (CNS) forms control signals and executes them helps with the construction of devices and rehabilitation …

Scheduling For Cooperative Energy Harvesting Sensor Networks, Ahmed Ammar

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

In cooperative communication networks, the source node transmits its data to the destination either directly or cooperatively with a cooperating node. When using energy harvesting technology, where nodes collect their energy from the environment, the energy availability at the nodes becomes unpredictable due to the stochastic nature of energy harvesting processes. As a result, when the source has a transmission, it cannot immediately transmit its data cooperatively with the cooperating node. It first needs to determine whether the cooperating node has sufficient energy to forward its transmission or not. Otherwise, its transmitted data may get lost. Therefore, when using energy …

Time-Dependent Deformation And Associated Failure Of Roof In Underground Mines, Yuting Xue

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

In underground coal mines, roof falls are a major contributor to injuries and fatalities. Studies have related the occurrence of roof fall to weak immediate roof, high horizontal stress, entry orientation, etc. An often-neglected factor in studies on this topic has been the influence of time-dependent behavior of the roof rock on roof falls. The time-dependent roof failure activity involves both intact and failed rocks. Numerical simulation techniques are available that include time-dependent behavior; however, they lack constitutive models that consider both the intact and the failed behavior of rock. In addition, input properties for the creep models only include …

Immunity-Based Framework For Autonomous Flight In Gps-Challenged Environment, Mohanad Al Nuaimi

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

In this research, the artificial immune system (AIS) paradigm is used for the development of a conceptual framework for autonomous flight when vehicle position and velocity are not available from direct sources such as the global navigation satellite systems or external landmarks and systems. The AIS is expected to provide corrections of velocity and position estimations that are only based on the outputs of onboard inertial measurement units (IMU). The AIS comprises sets of artificial memory cells that simulate the function of memory T- and B-cells in the biological immune system of vertebrates. The innate immune system uses information about …

Optimal Compression Of Point Clouds, Benjamin Robert Smith

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Image-based localization is a crucial step in many 3D computer vision applications, e.g., self-driving cars, robotics, and augmented reality among others. Unfortunately, many image-based-localization applications require the storage of large scenes, and many camera pose estimators struggle to scale when the scene representation is large. To alleviate the aforementioned problems, many applications compress a scene representation by reducing the number of 3D points of a point cloud. The state-of-the-art compresses a scene representation by using a K-cover-based algorithm. While the state-of-the-art selects a subset of 3D points that maximizes the probability of accurately estimating the camera pose of a new …

Copper-Catalyzed Regioselective Boracarboxylation Of Vinyl Arenes: Catalytic Efficiency And Synthetic Utility, Trina M. Perrone

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Hetero(element) carboxylation is an appealing transformation that involves the installation of CO2 and another hetero(element) in one step. This transition metal-catalyzed one-pot synthesis provides a route to achieve highly functionalized carboxylic acid products with an abundant and cheap C1 feedstock. This difunctionalization also avoids the use of reactive metal hydride species, which is a prominent limitation of hydrocarboxylation chemistry. A copper-catalyzed regioselective boracarboxylation of vinyl arenes has been developed to access pharmaceutically relevant β-boryl-α-aryl propionic acid products. One drawback of this reaction is the necessity for high catalyst loading to achieve catalytic turnover. To circumvent this issue, the reduction of …

Novel Computational Methods For Catalytic Applications, Gihan Uthpala Panapitiya

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Thiolate protected nanoclusters gold nanoparticles are gaining interest of many researchers due to their promising applications in a variety of fields the development of synthesizing techniques capable of producing atomically precise nanoclusters with high purity. Au₂₅(SR)₁₈ is one of the widely studied nanoclsuters due its remarkable stability. In this first part of this study, we explore the structural, electronic and catalytic properties of bimetallic Au_25−xAg_x(SR)₁₈ (for x = 6, 7, 8). Due to the combinatorial enormity of the total number of possible alloyed isomers, we choose a randomly selected subset corresponding to …

Reconciling The Dissonance Between Historic Preservation And Virtual Reality Through A Place-Based Virtual Heritage System., Danny J. Bonenberger

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This study explores a problematic disconnect associated with virtual heritage and the immersive 3D computer modeling of cultural heritage. The products of virtual heritage often fail to adhere to long-standing principles and recent international conventions associated with historic preservation, heritage recording, designation, and interpretation. By drawing upon the geographic concepts of space, landscape, and place, along with advances in Geographic Information Systems, first-person serious games, and head-mounted Virtual Reality platforms this study envisions, designs, implements, and evaluates a virtual heritage system that seeks to reconcile the dissonance between Virtual Reality and historic preservation. Finally, the dissertation examines the contributions and …

Analysis Of The Integration Of Dfm Techniques And Effective Machining Parameter Selection In Metal Parts Manufacturing, Omar Ahmed Al-Shebeeb

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This dissertation investigates the minimization of part design with self-locating features. The research focuses primarily on self-fastening characteristics, standardization of parts, and minimal use of fasteners. Further, the present research studies the design for base parts in the construction of a moving joint system, in order to locate potential part and system design improvements. This process may then be extended to industrial applications in the manufacturing industry. Relatively little work to date has examined the significance of Design for Manufacturing Techniques (DFMT), with their inherent machine element systems and machining parameters to investigate which DFMT has the most influence on …

Using Machine Learning And Traditional Statistics To Explore Retention And Knowledge Structure In Stem With An Emphasis On Physics, Cabot Alexander Zabriskie

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Retention of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) students is a serious problem as STEM graduation rates continue to lag the growing demand for the skills taught by these degree programs. Critical to fixing this “leaky pipeline” is investment in improving retention in the first two years of college study and increasing and maintaining the interest of K-12 students in STEM. This thesis will address this in three parts. The first is through evaluation of conceptual tests used to evaluate course improvements to determine the structure student knowledge measured by them. The second part uses machine learning to construct early …

Resurgence Of Academic Responses, Catherine Louise Stephens

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Resurgence is the recurrence of a previously reinforced response after a more recently reinforced response is placed on extinction. Resurgence may explain the recurrence of socially appropriate behavior, including academic responding, but this had not yet been empirically demonstrated. The aim of this study was to determine if resurgence would occur when a participant solved quadratic equations using multiple methods. Each participant was taught two methods of solving quadratic equations across experimental phases, followed by a phase in which neither method resulted in the correct solution. In the first phase, only simple factoring was reinforced. In the second phase, only …

Structural Behavior Of Steel Plate Embedded Hybrid Gfrp Shapes, Piyush R. Soti

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The civil infrastructure industry has been dominated by traditional materials such as steel, timber, and concrete. Although these materials offer great advantages, they have major durability issues in terms of corrosion, decaying, and cracking. Traditional material-based structures deteriorate frequently and require regular-interval repairs with huge expenditures. To resolve these maintenance and durability issues associated with traditional materials, fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) composites have gained some popularity in the past few decades because of their superior mechanical properties and durability. Carbon-FRPs (CFRPs) and glass-FRP (GFRPs) are the most commonly used FRPs in the market. However, in civil engineering applications, CFRPs are …

Shear Stress Estimates In The Approach And Bridge Section By Using Various Formula, Jun Seon Lee

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Shear stress is the resistance force on top of the contact surface caused by moving flow and is one of the important variable in fluid mechanics. Thus, a lot of researches have been conducted to predict accurate value of shear stress. However, calculating shear stress with existing equations has several limitations because only gradually varied flow and/or uniform flow was considered in their studies. Therefore, direct applying those methods into complex flow type, such as around a bridge, to predict shear stress is questionable.

Thus, laboratory experiments were carried out in a laboratory flume to attack the objective of this …

Evaluating Design Criteria For High Hazard Dams In A Changing Climate, Aaron Read Sutton

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

With changes in climate, there is the potential for future flooding events to vary in frequency and magnitude. These changes may stress the 432 high hazard dames in West Virginia. The 100-year flowrate is an important design criterion for emergency spillways of high hazard dams. Emergency spillways are designed to be reached only by 100-year flow and above. This work quantified how changes in the 100-year flowrate may affect emergency spillway activation. Peakflow data from the Central Appalachian Ecoregion in WV, taken from 24 USGS gages, were used to analyze changes in the 100-year flowrate.

Flow frequency analysis revealed that …