Digital Commons Network^™

Assessing Changes In Land Cover In Southeast Louisiana From 2001 To 2011 Using Time-Series National Land Cover Data, Ashley Tarver

Masters Theses

Each year, Louisiana loses 20 to 25 square miles of land. If land loss persists at the current rate, a forced migration of the human population with serious implications may be warranted. Although studies have measured land use/land cover change in southeast Louisiana over multiple decades, a recent analysis of landscape changes since Hurricane Katrina’s landfall in 2005 is needed to identify areas with chronic long-term wetland losses and associated economic development patterns. This study, therefore, compares land cover and land use changes including wetland loss, and subsequent increases in developed land in ten parishes from 2001 to 2006 (pre-Katrina), …

Modeling Channel Response To Dam Removal In Lansing, Michigan, Using Swat, Ryan Filbin

Masters Theses

The removal of dams has increased in recent decades in the United States, largely resulting from decaying infrastructure and greater efforts to restore rivers to a more natural, free-flowing state. Dam removal presents the opportunity for increased public safety, improved environmental prosperity, and improved economic prosperity in conjunction with riverfront revitalization projects. The City of Lansing, Michigan, contains two moderate-to high-risk dams along the Grand River that pose a significant risk to the surrounding area in the event of structural failure.

The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) is applied to model the impacts of the Moores Park Dam and …

Implementing Online Updating To Complex Hysteresis Models In Real- Time Hybrid Simulation Using Constrained Unscented Kalman Filter, Bilal Ahmed Mohammed

Masters Theses

Although conventional experimental methods, such as quasi-static testing, shake table testing, etc., perform well to evaluate structural seismic performance necessary for modern seismic design, the quasi-static loading and/or reduced scale specimen used in shake table testing may not provide true dynamic responses of structural systems. To overcome these limitations, real-time hybrid simulation (RTHS) was developed, which is a combination of physical testing of the experimental substructure and analytical simulation of the numerical substructure. With the advancement of hybrid simulation, it is now possible to economically test large to full-scale specimens in laboratories at the real earthquake rate. Online model updating …

Timelines And Trade Chat: Comparing Contextual Self-Disclosure And Perceived Social Capital On Social Networking Sites And Massively Multiplayer Online Games, Ryan P. Castillo

Masters Theses

This study examines the associations between usage intensity, user motivations, and contextual self-disclosure, and social capital on two popular online mediums, Facebook and World of Warcraft. Contributing to the efforts of previous research, which has found both online gaming communities and social networking sites to positively affect access to informational and social support, this analysis shows that intimate self-disclosure in each online medium differs not only in context, but in its impact on dimensions of social capital, and that the various effects of self-disclosure on social capital can be attributed to differences in communicative affordances and community held standards of …

Anything But Race: Content Analysis Of Racial Discourse, Christopher Smith

Masters Theses

This research adds to previous scholarship on colorblind racism which investigates the ways in which students at Western Michigan University use new language compared to the Jim Crow past to defend or challenge the modern racial order in the United States. Using data collected from 15 voluntary participants I conducted a content analysis of participant’s responses to questions regarding race and racism with the purpose of demonstrating the use of colorblind racism or the challenge to the dominant racial order.

Evaluation Of Non-Ionic Surfactants With And Without Hydrogen Peroxide For The In-Situ Remediation Of Napl Contaminants, Charles E. Holada

Masters Theses

Laboratory studies were conducted on Quillaja saponins and nine other surfactants commonly used to remove non-aqueous phase liquids (NAPLs) from soils and aquifers. The NAPL contaminant tested was diesel fuel. Static batch reactors containing an aged diesel-contaminated soil was treated with saponins and nine other commercially available surfactants to determine how much diesel fuel could be removed with the pore fluids after 1 day and 10 days of contact time. Of all the surfactants tested, saponins achieved the greatest removal of diesel fuel after 1 day and 10 days. There was large disparity in the diesel fuel removed by the …

Effect Of Design Parameters On Thermal Performance Of A Vane Type Disc Brake Rotor, Yogesh Satish Dalal

Masters Theses

The ever-increasing need of effective transportation puts automobile manufacturers in a situation of continuous improvement and innovate the safety systems. The brake system of an automobile has always been considered as one of the most critical active safety systems. Thermal characteristics of the brake are an important aspect to consider for brake disc durability and performance. The convective cooling of a brake disc is an important factor since design changes in the brake rotor can significantly improve cooling characteristics. The focus of this research is to study and optimize the disc brake rotor for a given heat dissipation rate and …

Solar Module Condition Monitoring Using Thermal Imaging, Ammar W. Hashim

Masters Theses

Solar energy industry has been exponentially increasing over the past decades with solar panels sales recording significant growth mainly due to the fact that solar energy is a renewable clean source of energy. Similar to other systems, condition monitoring is essential to maintain high efficiency specially that these systems are still not scoring more than 46% efficiency and also to ensure a safe system and prevent electric and fire risks that may occur. In this work, we introduce a system using infrared thermography along with selected image processing techniques to effectively and non-destructively test and detect these defects. Hot spots …

Resolving The Civilian-Military Divide Through An Examination Of Select Members Of The United States Army Profession, Caitlin Bankhead

Masters Theses

Since the conclusion of the Vietnam War, the American public and the Armed Forces have steadily drifted apart. This has resulted in a division between the people of the nation and the individuals that defend its values. Consequently, as this division increases, the American public is thankful of military servicemen, but believes that service is something others should do. Conversely, the military’s sole purpose is to protect and defend the nation, its people, and its values, but it has become more isolated. Additionally, military service is becoming a family tradition in which outsiders cannot easily understand the values and pride …

Does College Prepare The Worship Pastor, James Cooper

Masters Theses

This study shows the relevance that musical skills, theological knowledge and ministerial experience provide in the encompassed ministry of a worship pastor and focuses on how colleges and universities prepare these ministers for a life called to service of the King. The literature reviewed showed an overwhelming response to the worship pastor being qualified in three areas: Musical Ability - there are certain aspects of this ministry that require the worship leader to be able to handle various musical situations. While these ministers need not be piano prodigies, it does require them to be able to lead musicians effectively and …

Motivation Behind Male Undergraduate Students' Decision To Participate In A Study Abroad Program, Rachel Ann Lindhart

Masters Theses

This study sought to explore the motivating factors behind a male students' decision to study abroad during their undergraduate career at a mid-sized Midwestern university. A phenomenological qualitative approach was used understand the factors that influenced their decision to participate in a study abroad program. Five male undergraduate students in their third year or higher that had participated in a semester-long or summer independent study abroad program were interviewed one-on-one. The results demonstrated that the participants committed to study abroad during their sophomore year of college. The students' decisions were influenced by a variety of factors, including academics, people, their …

Of Music And Media: A Producer Study Of Promotional Encoding On Social Media Through The Lenses Of Paratext And Medium Theory, Connor D. Wilcox

Masters Theses

While music promotion has been important aspect for musicians, bands, and musical organizations for well over a century, the rise of social media in the digital era has profoundly changed the way these promoters perceived of and practice their commercial task of selling music. Paratexts (Gray, 2010a) offer an effective lens for focusing on these promotions while encoding/decoding (Hall, 1980) justifies producer studies to examine and uncover vital aspects of production shape the text and medium theory adds further focus by recentering the medium as being distinctly influential. Existing research on music promotion highlights the uniqueness and evocativeness of the …

"My Tattoos Make Me, Me": Constructing Personal Identities Through Tattoos, Ryan Howard

Masters Theses

The following thesis consists of a research project that seeks to understand how individuals construct personal identities through tattoos. The thesis contains background information on why the author has a personal connection and interest with the subject. The thesis also includes a review of the literature that informs the readers about the origins of tattoos, historicization of tattoos, cultural appropriation and commodification, motivations for tattooing, tattoos and the body, and identity construction. There is also a methods section that explains how the author utilized the interviewing process to gather and conduct research in the field to answer the research question: …

The Effects Of Belief, Gender, And Setting On A Psi Task, Alan Jeffrey Hinman

Masters Theses

The current study was designed to explore how the variables of belief, gender, and experimenter effects regarding setting influence participants' results on a psi task. Small groups of research assistants and participants acted as senders and attempted to telepathically transmit one of four target locations to individual receivers. Sender and receiver groups were divided by gender, and answered a question on a seven-point scale regarding their belief in the existence of mental telepathy. One run of 16 trials was completed by 53 receivers over six data collection sessions, utilizing a new website designed for the task. It was hypothesized that …

A Study Of The Potential Applications Of Am241, And Determining The Feasibility Of Using Gamma Spectroscopy For Future Physical Validation, Eric A. Feissle

Masters Theses

“Am241 is typically produced via Pu241 decay in a uranium fueled reactor. Presence of Am241 can be used as the age estimation tool for spent fuel, which is a focus of this thesis along with the interest of the measurement and the ratio of production rates of Am241’s activation products; Americium-242 and its first excited state of Americium-242m. MCNP models of the core and BEGe 3825 detector were built. These models were compared with established and physical measurements of gamma/x-ray standards that were available at the reactor. Thermal fluxes at 200 kW for potential foils centered in the source holder …

Nuclei Segmentation Of Histology Images Based On Deep Learning And Color Quantization And Analysis Of Real World Pill Images, Sudhir Sornapudi

Masters Theses

"Medical image analysis has paved a way for research in the field of medical and biological image analysis through the applications of image processing. This study has special emphasis on nuclei segmentation from digitized histology images and pill segmentation. Cervical cancer is one of the most common malignant cancers affecting women. This can be cured if detected early. Histology image feature analysis is required to classify the squamous epithelium into Normal, CIN1, CIN2 and CIN3 grades of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN). The nuclei in the epithelium region provide the majority of information regarding the severity of the cancer. Segmentation of …

Analysis Of Outsourcing Data To The Cloud Using Autonomous Key Generation, Mortada Abdulwahed Aman

Masters Theses

"Cloud computing, a technology that enables users to store and manage their data at a low cost and high availability, has been emerging for the past few decades because of the many services it provides. One of the many services cloud computing provides to its users is data storage. The majority of the users of this service are still concerned to outsource their data due to the integrity and confidentiality issues, as well as performance and cost issues, that come along with it. These issues make it necessary to encrypt data prior to outsourcing it to the cloud. However, encrypting …

Development And Implementation Of Star Tracker Based Attitude Determination, Casey Grant Smith

Masters Theses

"As interest in nanosatellites grows within the university community, the demand for inexpensive, space-grade hardware grows as well. Star trackers can be a luxury item for some spacecraft and therefore are often not considered due to their cost. Ideally, a star tracker could be built using inexpensive parts so long as the software is available. Unlike many other attitude determination instruments, star trackers are renowned for their high accuracy, yielding accurate and precise attitude estimates. However, development of this software can be overwhelming for the university settling, especially when multiple missions are on hand. If these instruments were readily available …

Bioaccessibility Of Lead From Lead-Contaminated Soil Upon Phosphate Amendment Using A Physiologically-Based Extraction Test, Samantha Jo Dicenso

Masters Theses

"Lead is known to cause health problems in humans, especially children, and an effective in‐situ remediation option has been sought for years. Adding phosphoric acid (PA) to contaminated soil causes a reaction that binds the lead to phosphate to produce pyromorphite (Pb₅(PO₄)₃Cl), a form of lead believed to be non‐bioavailable; however, field trials have given varied results (Bosso et al 2008; Munksgaard and Lottermoser 2011; Tang et al. 2009). One explanation for these results might be the impact of the agent used to raise pH after phosphoric acid addition. In order to examine this explanation soil was collected from the …

Characterizing Groundwater Flow At Fort Leonard Wood Using Universal Cokriging With Trend Removal, Rachel Mae Uetrecht

Masters Theses

"Groundwater elevation interpolation is necessary for the prediction of groundwater flow direction and contaminant transport. Kriging is a geostatistical tool commonly used to interpolate groundwater elevation. Kriging requires a relatively large number of monitoring wells at the site of interest. The variogram model is a crucial element to the kriging equations. The variogram modelling process is an iterative procedure that is often very time consuming. This study presents a literature based approach that provides a point of departure for the variogram modelling process as well as other kriging parameters. A literature database is developed in order to provide insight and …

Nuclei Segmentation Using Level Set Method And Data Fusion For The Cin Classification, Ravali Edulapuram

Masters Theses

"This paper deals with the automation of the detection of the cervical cancer through histology images. This process is divided into two parts, corresponding to segmentation and data fusion. The segmentation and classification of the cervical epithelium images is done using hybrid image processing techniques. The digitized histology images provided have a pre-cervical cancer condition called cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) by expert pathologists. Previously, image analysis studies focused on nuclei-level features to classify the epithelium into the CIN grades. The current study focuses on nuclei segmentation based on the level set segmentation and fuzzy c-means clustering methods. Morphological post-processing operations …

Preformed Particle Gel Conformance Control Performance In Partially Opened Fracture And Fully Opened Fracture Systems, Ghith Ali Ahmed Biheri

Masters Theses

"Conformance problems, such as reservoir heterogeneity can result in a significant decrease in oil recovery, and an excessive water production. Millimeter particle gels (PPG) have been used as conformance control agents to plug open fractures, however, very little research has been conducted to study their ability to plug partially open fractures. This research studies the ability of the PPG to plug partially open fracture to improve conformance and increase recovery in oil reservoirs. Rectangular Sandstone cores were used to conduct the experiments. Fracture widths used include 2, 3.5, 5 mm. For each fracture width, four gel strengths were used; gel …

Ti-Fe Intermetallics Analysis And Control In Joining Titanium Alloy And Stainless Steel By Laser Metal Deposition, Wei Li

Masters Theses

"Direct fusion joining titanium alloy and stainless steel can cause brittle Ti-Fe intermetallics which compromise the mechanical properties of diffusion bonds between titanium alloys and stainless steel. Therefore, filler metals are required as transition layers. In this research, stainless steel metallic powder was directly deposited on the titanium alloy substrate by laser beam, the Ti-Fe intermetallic phases formed in this process were investigated through analyzing fracture morphology, phase identification, and Vickers Hardness Number (VHN). After that, Laser Metal Deposition (LMD) was applied to explore a new fabricating process to join Ti6Al4V and SS316. A transition composition route was introducedTi6Al4V → …

3d Bioprinting A Pcl/13-93b3 Glass Composite And Its Potential Use As A Bio-Ink, Caroline Blair Murphy

Masters Theses

"A major limitation of using synthetic scaffolds in tissue engineering is little growth of incorporated cells in the interior of the scaffold, resulting in insufficient angiogenesis in the scaffold interior. Recently, cells have been 3D bioprinted concurrently with biomaterials to produce a cellularized, bioactive, angiogenic 3D environment. This thesis describes a novel solvent-extrusion method for printing polycaprolactone (PCL)/bioactive borate glass composite as a biomaterial for a cell-laden scaffold.

Bioactive borate glass was added to a mixture of PCL and organic solvent to make an extrudable paste, creating scaffolds measuring 10×10×1 mm³ in overall dimensions with pore sizes ranging from …

Dynamic Electromechanical Characterization Of Ferroelectrics At Cryogenic Temperatures, William Kent Hays

Masters Theses

"Electromechanical coupling in ferroelectric materials has given rise to a myriad of technological applications. Through the complex domain structure of ferroelectrics materials, which are typically stiff and have low damping, can exhibit significant structural damping. The applications for a material with a relatively large Young’s modulus and the ability to damp out vibrations would be useful for structures, more specifically, aerospace structures. The dynamic mechanical properties of ferroelectrics, particularly mechanical properties while an electric field is applied, are not well understood. This is due in part to the lack of experimental methods to measure such properties. Even with recent advancements …

Design And Modeling Of An Aluminum Smelting Process To Analyze Aluminum Smelter And Identify The Alternative Uses Of Nuclear Power Small Modular Reactor, Rajesh Ramkrushna Patharabe

Masters Theses

"This thesis focuses on design and analysis of an Aluminum Smelting process using computer simulation which performs a dynamic state computation. The objective is to develop a Dynamic Simulation Model of an Aluminum Smelter using Mimic Simulator to analyze the dynamic behavior of an Aluminum Smelter to evaluate strategies for alternative design or uses of Nuclear Power Small Modular Reactor to improve the efficiency of the process and to reduce the heat losses.

Increasing energy needs, decrease of the availability of cheap electricity and the need to reduce the greenhouse gases emissions are the biggest hurdles for running Aluminum smelters …

Recovery Of Phosphate Minerals From Plant Tailings Using Direct Froth Flotation Process, Ashraf Alsafasfeh

Masters Theses

"The wastes produced from phosphate industry presents many challenges due to the economic and environmental impacts of their disposal. In the meantime, scarcity of high-grade phosphate ores persuades researchers to find novel methods of upgrading these wastes (secondary sources) and recycling them in the production plant circuit. The goal of this study is to investigate the potential to upgrade the phosphorus content in the tailing produced from a phosphorous production plant using direct froth flotation process. Characterization studies such as X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and mineral liberation analysis (MLA) were first conducted to identify the mineralogical and …

A Comprehensive Analysis Of Lost Circulation Materials And Treatments With Applications In Basra's Oil Fields, Iraq: Guidelines And Recommendations, Husam Hasan Alkinani

Masters Theses

"Lost circulation materials (LCM's) have been widely used to avoid or stop losses. Due to a large number of current available LCM's and their different applications, classification of LCM's is very important. The most recent LCM classification was published around 50 years ago, and this paper intends to fill this gap with an updated classification including conventional and new technologies. Lost circulation materials and treatments are re-classified into various categories based on their appearance, applications, chemical and physical properties.

Wells in Basra's oil fields are highly susceptible to lost circulation problems when drilling through the Dammam, Hartha, and Shuaiba formations. …

Predicting The Impact Of Data Corruption On The Operation Of Cyber-Physical Systems, Erik David Burgdorf

Masters Theses

"Cyber-physical systems, where computing and communication are used to fortify and streamline the operation of a physical infrastructure, now comprise the foundation of much of modern critical infrastructure. These systems are typically large in scale and highly interconnected, and span application domains from power and water distribution to autonomous vehicle control and collaborative robotics. Intelligent decision support in these systems is heavily reliant on the availability of sufficient and sufficiently correct data. Failure or malfunction of these systems can have devastating consequences in terms of public safety, financial losses, or both.

The research described in this thesis aims to predict …

Comparison Of ²⁵²Cf Time Correlated Induced Fission With Amli Induced Fission On Fresh Mtr Research Reactor Fuel, Jay Prakash Joshi

Masters Theses

"The effective application of international safeguards to research reactors requires verification of spent fuel as well as fresh fuel. To accomplish this goal various nondestructive and destructive assay techniques have been developed in the US and around the world. The Advanced Experimental Fuel Counter (AEFC) is a nondestructive assay (NDA) system developed at Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) combining both neutron and gamma measurement capabilities. Since spent fuel assemblies are stored in water, the system was designed to be watertight to facilitate underwater measurements by inspectors. The AEFC is comprised of six ³He detectors as well as a shielded …