Digital Commons Network^™

Experimentally Linking Head Kinematics To Brain Deformation, Imouline Algharbi

Theses

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) research is used to study the effects of brain injuries and the rehabilitations for them. TBI contributes to major cause of disability and deaths quantifying up to 30% of all the head injuries. To mimic real world impact to understand the mechanism of injury head-surrogate models are used. This thesis describes a method to record head kinematics from acceleration and angular rate sensors of head-brain surrogate model for blast and blunt injury. This methodology is validated through experimental testing. To get a better insight of the head kinematics experienced by a real skull a drop tower …

Conqueror, Lei Wu

Theses

This thesis primarily focuses on the shooting of a documentary about Lun Qiu, a shy and ordinary ethnic Tibetan boy from China. His family is poor, and he is a boxer who was injured when he was defeated in a competition. These events did not cause him to lose confidence because his experience has been very helpful for him. He dreams of participating in the Ultimate Fighting Championship and earning his own gold belt.

The original idea for my thesis had nothing to do with its final conception. In fact, the original idea was not even to make a documentary, …

Evaluation Of The Impact Of A Low Dose Subcutaneous Lignocaine And Ketamine Infusion Utilising Nerve Excitability Studies In A Chronic Migraine Population., Christopher Rofe

Theses

Migraine is a common condition in which the diagnosis is based on clinical grounds. There is no clinically available biophysical marker that can evaluate migraine. Migraines are linked to functional brain changes in the absence of structural abnormalities. A clinically useful tool capable of evaluating functional changes in patients with migraine could be used to aid diagnosis and management.

Patients with chronic migraine have frequent or continuous headache which is accompanied by significant morbidity. There are limited data available regarding treatment options for curtailment of chronic migraine. In this prospective observational study, patients suffering from chronic migraine underwent a prolonged …

Mark Oliphant And The Invisible College Of The Peaceful Atom, Darren Holden

Theses

The weapon first created by atomic scientists of the 1940s was unprecedented in its power and potential to kill. Not only can it destroy infrastructure and all living things over a wide area, it leaves a haunting invisible footprint of radiation that can continue to harm long after its heat has dissipated. The atomic bomb was first conceptualised, proven and built by civilian scientists and overseen by an ambitious military and wary bureaucrats. The scientists belligerently lobbied their governments to take the potential of atomic weaponry seriously and it is hence not surprising that they are often portrayed as ghoulishly …

Effect Of Scytovirin And Testosterone On Cryptococcus Neoformans, Marjan Berenji Jalaei

Theses

Pathogenic fungi have become increasingly important due to a wide range of fungal infections worldwide and emergence of drug resistant strains. Cryptococcus neoformans is an opportunistic fungal pathogen that causes mostly pulmonary infections, meningitis and meningoencephalitis. The rate of mortality in males is higher compared to females. Testosterone, the major steroid hormone in males, has been shown to affect the C. neoformans pathogenicity. Searching for an effective antifungal drug against C. neoformans, in particular for males, is a matter of importance. Scytovirin is a lectin with newly discovered antifungal activity associated with cell wall interaction. Scytovirin was tested against two …

Structural Engineering Of The Antifungal High Mannose Binding Lectin Myxovirin, Jessica L. Osier

Theses

The pathogenic encapsulated yeast Cryptococcus neoformans causes a majority of fungal disease related deaths worldwide from pulmonary infections, meningitis, or meningoencephalitis. Loss of efficacy in current treatment options against C. neoformans and the emergence of antifungal drug resistance call for the development of new therapeutics. High mannose binding lectins such as Scytovirin have been shown to be promising anticryptococcal drug candidates. In this work, a homologous antifungal lectin, Myxovirin, was structurally engineered in an effort to improve both its carbohydrate binding affinity and its anticryptococcal activity. Carbohydrate binding was studied using both isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC) and nuclear magnetic resonance …

A Geometric Approach For Global Stability Of A Predator-Prey Model With An Ivlev-Type Functional Response, Soniykha Dhevi Murukan

Theses

In this paper, using a geometric approach, we study the global stability for a class of predator-prey model with an Ivlev-type functional response. We obtained this by sufficient conditions on the systems parameters, which guarantee that the positive equilibrium point of the presented system is globally asymptotically stable. Our results improve the previously obtained results from Xiaoqin Wang and Huihai Ma [1]. We conjecture that the local and global stability of the positive equilibrium are equivalent. Our conjecture is supported by numerical simulations. The theoretical proof will be our future research effort.

Effects Of Non-Uniform Temperature Distribution On Degradation Of Lithium-Ion Batteries, Gabriel M. Cavalheiro

Theses

The effects of non-uniform temperature distribution on degradation of Lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries are investigated in this study. A Li-ion battery stack consisting of five 3 Ampere hour (Ah) pouch cells connected in parallel was tested for 2215 cycles and compared with a single baseline cell. The behaviors of temperature distribution, degradation, and current distribution of the stack were characterized and discussed. Results supported the hypothesis that non-uniform temperature distribution causes non-uniform and accelerated degradation. All cells in the stack experienced higher temperature rise and degraded faster than the baseline cell. In particular, capacity retention of the middle cell in the …

Experimental Force And Wing Motion Measurements Of A Bioinspired Flapping Wing In A Martian Density Condition, Jesse Lee Mccain

Theses

A Mars flight vehicle could provide a third-dimension for ground-based rovers and supplement orbital observation stations, providing a much more detailed aerial view of the landscape as well as unprecedented survey of the atmosphere of Mars. However, flight on Mars is a difficult proposition . Due to very low atmospheric density, approximately 1.3% of sea level density on Earth, aircraft must fly approximately ten times faster, or be one hundred times Iighter in weight than their Earth counterparts, to lift themselves on Mars. While traditional aircraft efficiency suffers in the low Reynolds number environment, flapping wing insect inspired flyers on …

Interactions Between Polymer Nanoparticles And Blood Plasma Applied To Drug Delivery Systems, Mark Bannon

Theses

Targeted nanoparticle drug delivery has the potential to replace current forms of cancer therapy with previously unparalleled efficiency. Upon introduction into the human body, nanoparticles exhibit a substantial increase in diameter due to a biomolecular corona formation caused by interactions between blood plasma proteins and the nanoparticles. These interactions must be analyzed and understood for targeted delivery to reach its potential in both feasibility and efficiency.

To study the formation of the protein corona, polystyrene nanoparticles were incubated in vitro in goat blood plasma for 10-minute intervals, diluted to different degrees and then measured to obtain the hydrodynamic diameter of …

Icing Thickness Prediction Model For Overhead Transmission Lines, Yue Ming

Theses

Failures in a large electric power system are often inevitable. Severe weather conditions are one of the main causes of transmission line failures. Using the fault data of transmission lines of Shaanxi Power Grid from 2006 to 2016, in conjunction with meteorological information, this paper analyses the relationship between the temporal-spatial distribution characteristics of meteorological disasters and the fault of transmission lines in Shaanxi Province, China.

In order to analyze the influence of micro-meteorology on ice coating, a grey correlation analysis method is proposed. This thesis calculates the grey relational between ice thickness and micro-meteorological parameters such as ambient temperature, …

Transcriptome-Wide Analysis Of Vsv Strains With Varying Ability To Block Nf-Κb, Thomas M. Russell

Theses

Vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV) is a negative sense, single-stranded RNA (ssRNA) virus that is currently studied for its uses as a vaccine viral vector and its potential in oncolytic therapy. The M protein of VSV is the active participant in the virus’s abrogation of the host innate immune response. This activity is thought to be due to the M protein’s ability to downregulate overall host transcription by blocking nuclear transport. A VSV mutant containing a D52G mutation in the M protein (22-20) has been shown to block nuclear transport while being defective as a suppressor of NF-κB activation. It is …

Eazytrack: Exploring Next-Gen Technology And User Experience Design To Help Relieve Stress, Kaiyi Dong

Theses

In this competitive society with the pace of people’s life speeding up, stress is inevitable. Too much stress though will bring negative effects on people’s physical and emotional wellbeing. According to a survey the American Psychological Association conducted from 2007 to 2016, very few actions are being taken to prevent or relieve stress effectively even though an increasing number of people have realized that stress has an impact on health and wellbeing.¹ Untreated chronic stress can contribute to severe health problems including anxiety, insomnia, muscle pain, high blood pressure, and a weakened immune system.² Today, there are many stress trackers …

Vr Interactive Prototype: The Future Wardrobe. Explore Vr Interaction Design For The Sense Of Presence Enhancement Through An Immersive Vr Installation, Jing Lyu

Theses

Virtual Reality (VR) is a new platform that provides the public with an immersive experience in a virtual space. With the development and promotion of VR hardware devices, virtual reality technology is applied in various industries such as the advertising of products, traveling, game, art, therapy, education and many others. Unlike media such as videos and pictures, VR applications allow users to interact with content instead of only watching. Beyond the novelty of the technology, for a meaningful immersive experience, VR interaction design and visual design must work together to place the user in a natural and comfortable state. The …

Sense - Recommendation System Based On Affective Interpretations Of Social Media Posts: A Proposed User Interface Design, Zheng Zhang

Theses

It is now easier and cheaper for people to get involved in technology, and most people are obtaining or receiving tons of information nowadays, such as recommendations. Different recommendations are filled with our devices like smartphones, tablets or even wearable devices. However, most searches and recommendation systems fail to take into consideration the emotional context related to a user’s input and action, and as a consequence, people can hardly receive personalized, emotion-related, user-based recommendations. Though people are given various choices about lives based on searches and saved data, those recommendations can hardly improve the stress and difficulties of accomplishing daily …

Lone: An Interactive Mobile Application Introducing An Authentic Shopping Experience. Discover Joys Of The World, Experience Authentic Shopping., Xi He

Theses

LONE is an interactive mobile application, which introduces an authentic international shopping experience, helps customers to buy authentic products from a small store in another country. Based on the survey of usage of cross-border e-commerce in selected countries done by United Nations Conference on Trade and Development and Statista, today’s customers have higher demands on traveling and purchasing authentic products from overseas ever than before. Since the majority of them don’t have the time or budget of going around the world, people buying authentic items from other places become one of the sources for people to get to understand about …

Modeling And Extraction Of Transport Parameters To Simulate Drug Delivery In The Murine Cochlea, Kevin Wilson

Theses

The usage of 1D and 3D models to simulate drug transport through the inner ear is a prominent method in cochlear fluid pharmacokinetics. However, the data used to create these models, is often based on invasive sampling methods that limit the spatial resolution given the size of the cochlear compartments within which solute can be measured. In this work by leveraging 3-D registered micro-Computed Tomography (μCT) scans of the murine cochlea that have been taken as iodinated contrast agent is delivered to it, we extract transport parameters and simulate a forward 1D model that allows variable and pulsatile delivery profiles …

Statistical Aspects Of Music Mining: Naive Dictionary Representation, Qiuyi Wu

Theses

Extensive studies have been conducted on both musical scores and audio tracks of western classical music with the finality of learning and detecting the key in which a particular piece of music was played. Both the Bayesian Approach and modern unsupervised learning via latent Dirichlet allocation have been used for such learning tasks. In this research work, we propose and develop the novel idea of treating musical sheets as literary documents in the traditional text analytics parlance, to fully benefit from the vast amount of research already existing in statistical text mining and topic modeling.

We specifically introduce the idea …

Id: An Animation With An Environment About The Ego And The Id, Huangzhi Tang

Theses

When people discover their inner worlds, they would feel different psyches inside. According to the human psyche conception of Sigmund Freud, there are three kinds of psyches in human minds. They are the id, ego, and super-ego, representing instinct, reality, and morality.

What is worth noticing is the relationship between the ego and id. While the ego is the part people know most because it is generally conscious, the id is the most mysterious, because it is enormous and completely subconscious. Also, they talk because the ego is a

mediator between the id and the real world. However, while the …

Atmosphere Of An Explosion, Sarah Kinard

Theses

The thesis work explores the impact of an abusive environment and in what ways that abuse influences and directs an individual's state of mind. My creative exploration comes from my intimate, personal childhood memories and experiences. Working through the influences that the cycle of trauma creates, led me to the use of a variety of materials to focus in a singular voice in this body of work. I developed a symbolic and emotive visual vocabulary that speaks about how I have been shaped both spiritually and emotionally, through my exposure and my journey of self-healing. I will discuss in this …

Research & Development Of A Sensory Exploration System, Surabhi Vijay Rajandekar

Theses

Learning Disabilities affect individuals in all age groups and affect how one comprehends the information they receive. Individuals with learning disabilities are often distracted by their surroundings and face difficulties to follow paths in surroundings. Learning disabilities can be addressed with proper support, feedback, and assistive technology. Schools provide children a favorable environment to learn and can support overcoming such difficulties with the help of different activities. This paper discusses the design of a sensory exploration system for individuals with Autism Spectrum to help them learn how to follow paths and not get distracted. The sensory exploration system is called …

Amelia: An Animated Short Film About Giving And Receiving Help, Emma Yun-Chieh Hsieh

Theses

Amelia is an animated short film that expresses a personal journey of finding the importance of the balance between giving and receiving. “Giving is better than taking” is a common concept people are taught since young age in Asian culture; however, if there is no common ground in giving and receiving the positive notion of helping others can become negative for the giver.

There are several elements in the film indicate that life is an infinite journey of self-improvement. Amelia starts and ends at the same place, with different quotes, while her mental state changes along with her energy. Sunrise …

Art Museums And Early Childhood: Enhanced Interactions For Young Audiences In Art Museums, Evgenia Tranevskaya

Theses

Muse House is an engaging experience for young audiences in art museums.

This project was conceived as an appealing and creative way to attract families with little children to art museums and galleries, for the reason that these places are not parent’s first-choice of leisure time with their children. Children 3–6 years old tend to explore the environment using all their senses, but in art museums, there is hardly anything they can touch. The content in art museums is usually not meant for the young audiences, and children easily get bored and tired. If tangible objects and age-appropriate activities are …

Chinese Ornaments Of The Imperial Robe: A Modern Motif Design Interpretation, Xiaoya Shen

Theses

“Twelve Ornaments” are a group of ancient Chinese symbols and designs that are considered highly auspicious. In ancient China, because they signified authority and power, they were employed in the decoration of textile fabrics, and were embroidered on vestments of state, such as the Imperial Robe. They are the patterns that could represent the essence of Chinese traditional national dress.

This thesis project is based on the analysis, research and summarization of this design history as well as the establishment of effective visual design solutions intended to transform the twelve ornaments into modern motif designs. The design will retain the …

Glimmer, Cody Barron

Theses

Glimmer is a 3D animated graduate thesis film that is 4 minutes long. The film is a gag-based comedy that sets out to emulate the style of early Warner Brothers shorts as well as other slapstick-style comedies.

The story itself follows a bumbling treasure hunter as he explores a set of newly discovered ancient ruins in the hopes of finding untold riches. His fumbling missteps wake the inhabitant of the ruins, who turns out to be a mischievous and clever monkey. This monkey does not take kindly to the treasure hunter’s theft of his possessions and so sets about the …

Evaluation Of Alternative Valorization Options For Institutional And Industrial Food Wastes, Swati Hegde

Theses

In recent years many countries and several regions in the United States have passed legislation on banning landfilling of organic waste. It is a well-known fact that organic wastes, including food scraps, generate methane under anaerobic landfill environments and contribute significantly to global warming. As more regions are mandated to follow the landfill ban, there is an increasing demand for alternative technologies for the disposal, treatment and upcycling of food wastes. Disposal and treatment may not result in any value-added products and hence are not the most efficient ways to manage food waste. As food waste has a high energy …

Lumens, Manuel Moreno Lee

Theses

This paper is about the process and creation of my final MFA thesis assignment, a 5 minute and 30 second short animated film titled “Lumens”. This film was primarily animated in 3D and created over the course of two semesters. Lumens is about the journey of an unnamed heroine hunting a creature that swallowed the sun, bringing perpetual darkness into the world. As the heroine travels the dark landscape, she lights up old forgotten lampposts, bringing light back into the world. In the end, the heroine is unable to complete her task and dies in the end, failing to reach …

Multi‐Modal Analysis Of Deciduous Tree Stands Toward Ash Tree Inventory: Biomass Estimation And Genus‐Level Discrimination In A Mixed Deciduous Forest, Timothy D. Rupright

Theses

The invasive species Agrilus planipennis (Emerald Ash Borer or EAB) is currently impacting ash trees in a large part of the continental United States. One way of measuring the effect of this infestation on the US markets is to determine the spread of the species and the biomass destruction/loss due to this invasive pest. In order to assess such impacts, it is necessary to determine how and where ash trees are located toward accurately measuring the relevant ash species biomass and tree count.

This study utilizes data captured over the campus of Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, NY. Hyperspectral …

Using Microalgae To Remediate Food And Bio-Digester Effluents From Western New York Agro Industries And Prospecting Harvested Algae Biomass For Biofuel Feedstocks, Daniel Anini Baah

Theses

Agro-industries of Western NY contributes to the US economy in diverse ways. Among these are dairy, poultry, cheese, tofu and Greek Yogurt plants whose processes discharge effluents high in pollutants such as NH3, PO4, NO3, and Fe which adversely affect aquatic systems and the watershed if discharged untreated. Waste hauling causes an economic burden to industries as WWTPs remain restrictive to these effluents, but Algae Remediation Technology provides a sustainable alternative to treating agricultural wastewaters onsite. This study sampled, assessed and treated effluents from selected production plants within NY State with various algae. The research applied free suspended Algae technology …

Planning The Reintroduction Of The Clouded Leopard (Neofelis Nebulosa) To Taiwan: An Assessment Of Attitudes And Potential Support, Evan Greenspan

Theses

Large felid populations are in decline globally and wildlife managers have increasingly used reintroductions as a conservation tool, yet few studies have assessed public attitudes towards potential large felid reintroduction candidates prior to release. The clouded leopard was recently declared extinct in Taiwan; however, a reintroduction effort is ecologically feasible and success largely depends on resident attitudes towards clouded leopards and support for its reintroduction. In 2017, 263 semi-structured interviews with indigenous locals were conducted in southern Taiwan and an internet questionnaire was distributed to 500 urban residents for comparison. Rural and urban attitudes were 67% and 76% positive toward …