Digital Commons Network^™

Extraction Of Hydrocarbons And Minimizing Organic Deposits From Crude Oil Using Carbon Dioxide, Adel Adib Azzam

Theses

Supercritical fluid extraction (SFE) technology is a new and powerful separation process, which has several applications in environmental and petroleum industry fields. Supercritical carbon dioxide (SC CO₂) extraction process can be applied as a remediation technique for sediments contaminated with crude oil. On the other hand, SC CO₂ can be applied as an Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) technique in the petroleum industry to increase the ultimate recovery factor of crude oil from reservoirs. Therefore, utilization of SC CO₂ for the extraction applications can result both in environmental and economic benefits.

In this study, SC CO_{2 …}

A Study Into The Use Of Business Process Reengineering In Re-Designing Procurement Processes Within The Southern Health Board, Treasa Dempsey

Theses

Prior to undertaking the implementation of an integrated finance and procurement information system, the Southern Health Board (now know as the Health Service Executive - Southern Area) undertook a Business Process Reengineering project to redesign, standardise, streamline, and document their procurement processes. This study examines how useful Business Process Reengineering can be in a public sector environment, using the project undertaken in the Southern Health Board, as a case study. The literature on BPR, in conjunction with the material from the BPR project, and interviews from relevant project team members, is examined. The case study demonstrates that it may be …

Development Of A Gis Database For Water Resources Management In Ajman Emirate, Uae., Mohammad Rehan Yusuf

Theses

The lack of freshwater resources represents a major constraint against the sustainable development in arid and semi-arid regions. Because of the scarcity and randomness nature of rainfall in arid regions, surface water resources are almost absent. Groundwater resources are always under stress and in many cases do not suffice the water demands for different sectors. Desalination plants are widely constructed to substitute for the water shortage. The UAE, including Ajman emirate, is witnessing a rapid development in the industrial, commercial, construction and agricultural fields which has led to a tremendous increase in water demands.

Proper management of the limited water …

Polymeric Nanofibrous Media For Enhanced Ground Water Filtration, Bothaina Abdulla Al Shamsi

Theses

Water is one of the bulk transportation media for transmission of particulate contaminants. These contaminants are complex mixtures of particles; most of them are usually smaller than 1000 µm in diameter. Chemical and biological aerosols (particulates) are frequently in the range of 1- 10 µm. The particulate matters may carry some adsorbed gaseous contaminants. The removal of particulate and biological contaminants is thus an important step in water purification process. Particulate contaminants if not removed tend to foul reverse osmosis membranes and severely reduce the throughput of the final purification step. The filtration industry is looking for more efficient high …

Antibiotic Resistance Of Helicobacter Pylori Strains In The United Arab Emirates And Its Relation To The Gene Associated To Gastric Cancer “Cag A Gene”, Wafa Ali Rashid Al-Tayyari

Theses

Helicobacter pylori is a flagellated corkscrew, slow growing neutrophilic gram negative ureolytic organism. It has an extraordinary ability to establish infection in human stomach that can last for years or decades. Its eradication remains an important public health challenge especially in light of broadening indications and increasing antimicrobial resistance.

AIM: i) Identification of H. pylori in UAE patients ii) Determination of the prevalence of antibiotic resistance genes (mutation in 23S rRNA gene in clarithromycin, and deletion in RdxA gene in metronidazole) among H. pylori strains isolated from U.A.E patients by using molecular methods, iii) Ascertain whether Cag A- positive H. …

Impact Of Heavy Metals On Childhood Behaviors And Development: A Uae Study, Said Yousef Ahmad Abdel Razeq

Theses

BACKGROUND: Environmental toxic metal exposure is well known to adversely affect children's development and behavior. To our knowledge, there are no studies that carefully examined this potential hazard in UAE and Gulf countries.

OBJECTIVES: The aim of this case-control study was to determine blood concentrations of 12 heavy metals in school-age children in Al Ain City. The other aim was to correlate the blood levels with developmental (e.g., learning disability) and behavioral (e.g., Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder) problems in children.

METHODS: One hundred and forty seven subjects (73 with developmental and/or behavioral disorders and 74 controls) participated in the study. The …

Website About Chinese Food: Information Design Promoting Culture Identify By Website, Xiaoqiu Shan

Theses

Information design for the web and interactive multimedia integrates content with visual indicators. Legibility and clear communication of information and direction are important to the success of graphical user interface design. This thesis is a systematic introduction about Chinese fish dishes. The information is built into a website. The objective of the thesis is to increase the efficiency of transmitting information to users, making it more easily understandable and less time-consuming to be comprehended. Users can find information on classic Chinese fish dishes conveniently from the website. The project includes five parts, they are: Home page, Introduction, Restaurant, Kitchen and …

Understanding Malware Autostart Techniques With Web Data Extraction, Matthew Gottlieb

Theses

The purpose of this study was to investigate automatic execution methods in Windows operating systems, as used and abused by malware. Using data extracted from the Web, information on over 10,000 malware specimens was collected and analyzed, and trends were discovered and presented. Correlations were found between these records and a list of known autostart locations for various versions of Windows. All programming was written in PHP, which proved very effective. A full breakdown of the popularity of each method per year was constructed. It was found that the popularity of many methods has varied greatly over the last decade, …

Analysis Of Virtual Environments Through A Web Based Visualization Tool, Ronald Valente

Theses

Virtualization is gaining popularity in corporations as well as academia. This technology provides a large return on investment by providing the ability to consolidate hardware servers into smaller, more efficient virtual machines (VM). With a seemingly negligible cost to deploy a new virtual machine when compared to deploying a physical server, more and more virtual machines get deployed. However, as the number of virtual machine increases, the task of managing and keeping track of them becomes exceedingly cumber- some. With advanced visualization techniques and real-time analysis of virtualization environments, the control over virtual machine sprawl will become more manageable and …

Tube-Based Field-Portable X-Ray Fluorescence (Fpxrf) As A Qualitative Screening Tool For Resource Conservation And Recovery Act (Rcra) Metals In Children’S Products And Comparison To Total Metals Analyses To Predict Hazardous Waste Metals Toxicity Characteristic, James Kohlbach

Theses

This research was performed to assess the efficacy of tube-based field portable x-ray fluorescence (FXPXRF) devices to evaluate RCRA heavy metal concentrations in children's products and determine potential hazardous waste toxicity characteristics by comparative analysis to inductively coupled plasma (ICP) yields per SW6010B. Sample sets consisting of wood, plastic, rubber, bulk, plated/coated, and metal matrices were purchased, size-reduced as necessary and directly analyzed three-times for 120 seconds each via FPXRF operated in the Consumer Goods/Test All mode. Subsequently, the same samples were prepared in accordance to SW3050B and analyzed via ICP at an accredited contract laboratory. Side-by-side results analysis indicates …

Designing A Cell Phone Application To Alert And Report Drinking Water Quality To South Africans, Deana Brown

Theses

Drinking water quality, especially in many parts of South Africa, is far below acceptable standards. With an annual estimate of 43, 000 deaths from diarrheal diseases, 3 million cases of illness and treatment costs of over half a billion US dollars, the impact is critical (Mackintosh & Colvin, 2003). To address this issue the Aquatest project seeks to develop a simplified low-cost water quality test kit and information management solution. This would allow Water Service Providers, especially in rural areas, to monitor water quality and distribute test data to the necessary parties - Water Service Authorities and consumers. This research …

Mobile Web Resource Tracking During A Disaster Or Crisis Situation, Phavanhna Douangboupha

Theses

This paper proposes a prototype solution for a mobile web resource tracking system using mobile devices during an emergency situation. The system provides real time data to a decision maker so that he/she can effectively and efficiently monitor resources and assess the situation accordingly. Mobile devices (i.e., smart phones) support the ease of use for any location and at anytime. The Internet technology is selected to enable multiple or cross platform technology solutions for different mobile devices. Resources in the scope of this project are human resources (e.g., a doctor, a police officer) and a chemical list in a room. …

3g Migration In Pakistan, Unzila Pervaiz

Theses

The telecommunication industry in Pakistan has come a long way since the country's independence in 1947. The initial era could be fairly termed as the PTCL (Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited) monopoly, for it was the sole provider of all telecommunication services across the country. It was not until four decades later that the region embarked into the new world of wireless communication, hence ending the decades old PTCL monopoly. By the end of the late 1990's, government support and international investment in the region opened new doors to innovation and better quality, low cost, healthy competition. Wireless licenses for the …

Spiral Of Silence And The Iraq War, Jessica Drake

Theses

Discussing controversial issues may be hard for some individuals because they fear they may become isolated. The Iraq War serves as one such controversy in which some individuals might avoid publicly expressing their opinion. Spiral of silence, a communication theory set forth by Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann can be used to explain why some individuals will publicly express their opinion of the Iraq War while others will not. A Web-based survey was distributed to Rochester Institute of Technology faculty, staff and students. This study investigated public opinion expression through interactive forms of media such as discussion forums, blogs and Web sites.

Distribution And Geochemical Speciation Of Pb, Cd, Zn, Cr, And Cu In Sediments Of Major Dams In Uae, Mona Rashed Musabah Al-Alili

Theses

Assessment of availability and mobility is required to predict the behavior of heavy metals in dam's sediments, which hold up rainwater and make use of them. Therefore, a total number of ninety-three of sediments samples collected from the major dams AI-Shuweib, AI-Bih, AI-Tawiyeen and Ham dam were analyzed by several sedimentological and geochemical analyses procedures for Cu, Cd, Cr, Pb, Zn, AI, and Fe. The samples were investigated for mineralogy using X-ray diffraction analyses for non-clay and clay fractions. ICP-OES and Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer (AAS) were used to measure the concentration of heavy metals. The statistical treatments and graphical presentations …

In Defense Of The Control Principle, Tyler Paytas

Theses

The problem of moral luck arises out of a tension between our intuitions and our everyday practices. Many of us share the intuition that morality is immune to luck. However, there are many cases in which we seem to rightly blame one person more than another even though the only relevant difference between the two is due to factors beyond their control. Most philosophers who have written about moral luck fall into one of two categories: those who affirm moral luck and those who affirm the control principle. Those who affirm the existence of moral luck generally believe that an …

Estimating Evolutionary Dynamics Of Cleavage Site Peptides Among H5ha Avian Influenza Employing Mathematical Information Theory Approaches, Sherry Dadgar

Theses

Estimating evolutionary conservation of cleavage site peptides among HA protein of all strains facilitates vaccine development against pandemic influenza. Conserved epitopes may be useful for diagnosis of animals infected with the influenza virus, and preventing their spread in other regions [ 1]. In the preliminary stage of this study, in silico analysis of hemagglutinin was applied to predict potential cleavage sites of each strain employing

SigCleave [2] and SignalP 3.0 server [3]. The second stage of the study focused on analyzing the structure of connecting peptides of hemagglutinin cleavage sites based on the availability of the existing experimental data. Our …

Breeding Bettas: An Interactive Study To The Breeding And Caring Of Siamese Fighting Fish, Ali Alquraini

Theses

Siamese fighting fish also known as “Betta fish” is one of the most well known fresh water fish around the world. Their beautiful colors and long finnage is one of the reasons in which most people are familiar with these fish. Also their unique labyrinth organ that helps this fish to get oxygen from the air made it easy for people to adopt. Over the past five years, I have been adopting Bettas from different countries around the world such as Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and United States. During this time I have met a lot of Betta lovers which made …

Victorian Organ, Christine Dunn

Theses

This paper is a companion piece to my short film, “Victorian Organ”. This film is an effort to contextualize the mechanical, or man-made, within nature. It is an assertion that there really is no "man vs. nature"- (a radically illogical and inherently self-destructive notion), but only man as nature, in which case, alienation and disharmony ultimately lies in our own self-perception. The impulse to identify a relationship between the mechanical and organic is inspired not only by my observations of our human society, but as a way to decode my own inner workings –an urge to reconcile seemingly major dichotomies …

The Visual Analysis Of Heterogeneous Sex Role Interactions: A Content Analysis Of Popular Music Videos, Deanna Niccole Kimbrel

Theses

Hip Hop cultured music videos have raised concern among our nation’s leaders, parents and communities. Since the introduction of music videos in the early 1980s the medium has crossed cultural, regional and ethnic boundaries (Rose, 1994). This medium has been well researched since the 1980s. The focus of this study is Hip Hop cultured music videos from years 1989-2006. The uniqueness of this study is that it focuses on nonverbal sex role interactions in this genre of music videos. This study found many useful trends. For example, men were portrayed as more dominant and/or vertical than women in the sampled …

Statistical Modeling Of Radiometric Error Propagation In Support Of Hyperspectral Imaging Inversion And Optimized Ground Sensor Network Design, Scott Klempner

Theses

A method is presented that attempts to isolate the relative magnitudes of various error sources present in common algorithms for inverting the effects of atmospheric scattering and absorption on solar irradiance and determine in what ways, if any, operational ground truth measurement systems can be employed to reduce the overall error in retrieved reflectance factor. Error modeling and propagation methodology is developed for each link in the imaging chain, and representative values are determined for the purpose of exercising the model and observing the system behavior in response to a wide variety of inputs. Three distinct approaches to modelbased atmospheric …

First Aid When And Where You Need It, Development Of First Aid Self-Care, Patient Education For Web And Mobile Devices, Paula Franklin

Theses

Health care is undergoing a revolution as patients have access to more and more information via Internet by the use of computers and mobile devices. In recognition of the rapidly growing need for patient first aid education, a collection of first aid self-care animations was created to improve treatment decisions and outcome safety. These animations are available for people via VisualDxHealth, a consumer focused website developed by Logical Images, Inc. The objective of the project was to produce simple and easy to understand first aid animations for a specific target audience. The production pipeline started with meeting with the client, …

An Evaluation Of Energy Consumption And Emissions From Intermodal Freight Operations On The Eastern Seaboard: A Gis Network Analysis Approach, Aaron Falzarano

Theses

As global trade continues to increase, the energy and environmental impacts of freight movement in the US have become more of a concern. As such, the freight transport system needs to consider opportunities to meet customer objectives, while also meeting social goals. In the US there has been legislation enacted to address the growing impact that freight movement has on the environment, but there are limited tools to assist in the implementation of those polices. This research sets forth a process for creating a geospatial intermodal freight transportation (GIFT) model within ArcGIS that can be used to analyze freight movement …

Classification Of Hand Held Shapes And Locations In Continuous Signing, Swetha Karri

Theses

Sign language for the deaf and hearing impaired replaces speech with manually produced signs. Each sign has been categorized as being combinations of handshape, movement, orientation, location, and facial expressions. Of the five sign parameters, this thesis focuses on classification of two of the main parameters, the hand shapes and locations, in continuous signing.

Since the nature of hand shapes is transient and not static, neural networks was used as a classifier for hand shapes. And since locations in sign language are defined by linguistic variables rather than by hard core position values, fuzzy logic was used as a classifier …

Precipitation Of Ultrafine Particles Using Liquid Antisolvent With Concentric Ultrasonic Nozzle And Subcritical Co2, Satya Chaitanya Kunchala

Theses

Nanotechnology has become more relevant in the pharmaceutical industry. Almost 40% of the drugs developed by pharmaceutical industries are poorly soluble in water which limits the bioavailability of these drugs in body fluids. Hence, it is necessary to reduce the particle size, which increases the interfacial surface area. This work focuses on micronization of class ii drug Griseofulvin which is poorly water soluble. Two processes namely, liquid antisolvent precipitation using ultrasonic nozzle and other process using subcritical CO₂ have been used to produce ultrafine particles of this drug.

In liquid antisolvent precipitation, a combination of ultrasound, polymer and surfactant …

Developing A Virtual City For Emergency Preparedness Planning And Training, Jon K. Morgan

Theses

Existing techniques for emergency preparedness planning and training fail or lack the ability to convey training on a broad scale and timely fashion. Skill sets that are required for planning, mitigation, response and recovery issues are lost through information overload or failure to identify other channels in which to convey the information. In order to resolve some of the issues with currently existing methods such as tabletop training exercises (TTX), instructional video learning and full-scale exercises we can turn to virtual environments.

In a virtual environment teams can interact with their surroundings from the comfort of the office without having …

Photoplethysmorgraph-Derived Respiration, Priyanka Pankaj Shah

Theses

Stress & Motivated Behavioral Institute (SMBI) has developed a research program to provide an objective evaluation of the physiological and neurocognitive impact of human electromuscular muscular interference (HEMI) devices in humans. The initial step is to understand their physiological impact, which is characterized by vital signs. Volunteers are recruited from HEMI training programs with the provision that data collection can not interfere with training. Thus, an ambulatory system was assembled. There are two main issues in the current ambulatory system, one of which is the reliability of the respiration signal obtained using a strain gauge respiration band, mainly due to …

Reasons For The Low Usage Of Scheduling Software And The Difference In Production Performance Between Users And Nonusers Of Scheduling Software From A Lean Manufacturing Perspective, Sandra Yveborg

Theses

It is more important than ever for printers to improve efficiency and productivity, and the means for doing so are available. Computer-assisted scheduling is one method that is claimed to increase throughput speed and reduce costs, among other benefits. Recently, scheduling applications have started to increase in popularity, and many management information systems (MISs) have built-in scheduling features. However, only 15% of the companies that own scheduling software utilize it. The first part of this research project seeks to determine the reasons for the low usage. Another way to increase efficiency is through Lean manufacturing, a strategy for eliminating non-value-added …

Effects Of Complex Vessel Geometries On Neutrophil Margination And Adhesion In Post-Capillary Venules, Josa A. Hanzlik

Theses

The inflammatory process is a regular occurrence within a healthy body. As part of the inflammatory process, leukocytes flow through blood vessels and are recruited to the region of the injury. Neutrophils play a significant role in this process; however the margination of neutrophils to particular locations in micro vessels is not fully understood. Post capillary venules, in particular, have complex geometries which may contribute to non-uniform adhesion of neutrophils. Margination is a phenomenon that occurs during the relatively early phases of inflammation; as a result of dilation of capillaries and slowing of the bloodstream, leukocytes tend to occupy the …

Differential Selective Pressures Acting On The Influenza A Genome: A Comparative Study, Melissa Wilbert

Theses

The molecular evolution of the Influenza A virus is a complex process. While it is recognized that recombination events are a driving force behind the everchanging virulence of influenza, evidence has also been presented in support of Darwinian evolution. Often, codon positions considered in analyses of selective pressures are found in epitopes and sites where mutations confer resistance to antiviral medications. Here, an attempt is made to distinguish between divergent selective pressures acting on geographically distinct datasets. The goal of this study was to use this information to identify sites within the hemagglutinin, neuraminidase, and matrix proteins of influenza A …