Digital Commons Network^™

Computing Hilbert Functions Using The Syzygy And Lcm-Lattice Methods, Maria Barouti

Theses

The Hilbert function for any graded module over a field k is defined by the dimension of all of the summands M_b, where b indicates the graded component being considered. One standard approach to computing the Hilbert function is to come up with a free-resolution for the graded module M and another is via a Hilbert power series which serves as a generating function. Using combinatorics and homological algebra we develop three alternative ways to generate the values of a Hilbert function when the graded module is a quotient ring over a field. Two of these approaches (which we've called …

Design And Development Of A Sustainability Toolkit For Simulation Modeling And Analysis, Xi Zhou

Theses

A simulation-based sustainability toolkit is developed in this research, in order to efficiently provide the capability of modeling and evaluating the sustainability related performance measures in systems of interest. As sustainability related issues, such as energy consumption, emissions, and waste generation are becoming a more integrated part of operational and long-term planning decisions, simulation modeling is needed to analyze the system performance not only from the traditional system performance measures such as productivity and efficiency, but also taking into account the environmental impacts within the studied system in order to aid in decision-making. This research introduces the concept and general …

Evaluation Of Cfd Based Hemolysis Prediction Methods, Oyuna Myagmar

Theses

Accurate quantitative evaluation of shear stress-related hemolysis (destruction of red blood cells) could be used to improve blood handling devices, including left ventricular assist devices (LVAD). Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) predicts the fluid dynamics of complex pump geometry and has been used to track the shear stress history of red blood cells as they travel through these devices. Several models that predict the relationship between hemolysis, shear stress and exposure time have been used to evaluate the hemolysis in the pumps. However, the prediction accuracy has not reached the satisfactory level. The goal of my thesis is to investigate the …

Evaluation Of Water Transport In Pemfc Gas Diffusion Layers Using Image Analysis, Michael Daino

Theses

Liquid water transport through the gas diffusion layer (GDL) of a proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC) was investigated through three interrelated studies utilizing the tools of image processing. First, a new framework and model for the digital generation and characterization of the microstructure of GDL materials with localized binder and polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) distributions were developed using 3D morphological imaging processing. The new generation technique closely mimics manufacturing processes and produces realistic 3D phase-differentiated digital microstructures in a cost- and time- effective manner. The generated distributions of hydrophobic (PTFE) and hydrophilic (carbon) regions representative of commercial GDL materials provides water …

Vaccine Wastage Reduction In Immunization Sessions Through Vaccine Vial Size Optimization, Aswin Dhamodharan

Theses

Outreach sessions are immunization services in which health workers immunize children in their communities, are needed to improve vaccine coverage in rural areas of developing countries. These services face very high open vial wastage, which happens when vaccine doses stored in a vial are not used within a specified time after the vial is opened. Such open vial wastage is directly caused by the choice of vial size used and the session size (number of pariticipants attending an outreach session) for which the outreach sessions are planned. The open vial wastage decreases with increase in session size. However, controlling the …

Vegetation Structure, Light Availability, And Sediment Deposition Within Sinkhole Buffers Associated With Tracked And Wheeled Vehicle Training At Fort Knox, Kentucky, Klairoong Pattumma

Theses

Heavy wheeled and tracked vehicle training has been conducted on portions of the landscape of Fort Knox, Kentucky for approximately 60 years. Fort Knox is located on the Kentucky Karst Plain and sinkholes are dominant features of this area. Sinkholes and karst terrain present an atypical problem in combination with this unique land use, potentially impacting downstream and local terrestrial environment. A study of the training area sinkhole complex was conducted as a first step toward mitigating the impact of military activities and reduces potential problems of sedimentation and water quality degradation. A total of 20 sinkholes within Training Areas …

Optical-Pulse Generation And Compression Using A Comb-Driven Gain-Switched Laser Diode And Chromatic-Dispersion Compensator, Sumeeta Arora

Theses

Gain-switching is a technique to generate short-width optical pulses. Its main advantage is that it does not require any change in the circuitry of the laser diode used or employ an external optical modulator. The modulating signal generator used by previous studies of gain-switching is an RF sine wave source or a comb generator. Previous work on gain-switching using comb generators as input source have selected only a single value of temporal period. For the first time, we study of the dependence of the optical pulsewidth and peak power of gain-switched pulses as a function of the temporal period using …

Semantic Analysis Of Facial Gestures From Video Using A Bayesian Framework, Gati Vashi

Theses

The continuous growth of video technology has resulted in increased research into the semantic analysis of video. The multimodal property of the video has made this task very complex. The objective of this thesis was to research, implement and examine the underlying methods and concepts of semantic analysis of videos and improve upon the state of the art in automated emotion recognition by using semantic knowledge in the form of Bayesian inference. The main domain of analysis is facial emotion recognition from video, including both visual and vocal aspects of facial gestures. The goal is to determine if an expression …

Dimensionality Reduction And Sparse Representations In Computer Vision, Grigorios Tsagkatakis

Theses

The proliferation of camera equipped devices, such as netbooks, smartphones and game stations, has led to a significant increase in the production of visual content. This visual information could be used for understanding the environment and offering a natural interface between the users and their surroundings. However, the massive amounts of data and the high computational cost associated with them, encumbers the transfer of sophisticated vision algorithms to real life systems, especially ones that exhibit resource limitations such as restrictions in available memory, processing power and bandwidth. One approach for tackling these issues is to generate compact and descriptive representations …

Switching-Based State-Of-Charge Estimation Of Lithium-Ion Batteries, Yingchen Su

Theses

The objective of this thesis is to explore a switching-based approach to estimate the state of charge (SOC) of Li-ion batteries. The knowledge of SOC can be utilized to significantly enhance battery performance and longevity. The thesis first presents a brief discussion on various SOC estimation methods, such as coulomb counting, use of electrochemical model combined with Kalman Filtering and open-circuit voltage (OCV). Subsequently, emphasis is placed on the OCV-based method. The advantage of the OCV method lies in its simplicity. It obviates the need for modeling and lowers computational burden compared to model-based approaches. The method yields accurate SOC …

Investigating Low-Bitrate, Low-Complexity H.264 Region Of Interest Techniques In Error-Prone Environments, Timothy Sperr

Theses

The H.264/AVC video coding standard leverages advanced compression methods to provide a significant increase in performance over previous CODECs in terms of picture quality, bitrate, and flexibility. The specification itself provides several profiles and levels that allow customization through the use of various advanced features. In addition to these features, several new video coding techniques have been developed since the standard's inception. One such technique known as Region of Interest (RoI) coding has been in existence since before H.264's formalization, and several means of implementing RoI coding in H.264 have been proposed. Region of Interest coding operates under the assumption …

Decide Vaccine Prices And Subsidies For Developing Countries, Wenbo Zhang

Theses

Vaccination has been deemed the most cost-effective way to fight against preventable diseases and improve global health. In recent years, expensive combination vaccines which provide multiple antigens in a single shot have been developed to replace traditional monovalent vaccines and have become the preferred choice of healthcare systems in industrialized countries. High prices have not only barricaded low-income countries from accessing combination vaccines but also lure vaccine manufacturers to shift their production capacity from making traditional vaccines to combination vaccines. Such a shift could eventually lead to shortages on the vaccine supply for low-income countries. This work extends the ABP …

A Hemodynamic Investigation Of A Complete Arteriovenous Model Of The Arm, Arteriovenous Fistula, And Distal Revascularization And Interval Ligation, Nicole Varble

Theses

One of the largest problems facing vascular surgeons today is malfunctioning arteriovenous fistulas (AVF) in patients on hemodialysis. A radial- cephalic AVF is a vessel in the arm that directs blood flow from the high pressure arteries to the low pressure veins and is put in place so blood can be withdrawn from a patient at a point where high volume blood flow occurs. After a period of maturation, the fistula often expands to adapt for the increase flow and can therefore be accessed repeatedly for hemodialysis. However, in a small percentage of cases, access related steal can lead to …

The Hyper-Log-Chromaticity Space For Illuminant Invariance, Samuel Brisebois

Theses

Variation in illumination conditions through a scene is a common issue for classification, segmentation and recognition applications. Traffic monitoring and driver assistance systems have difficulty with the changing illumination conditions at night, throughout the day, with multiple sources (especially at night) and in the presence of shadows. The majority of existing algorithms for color constancy or shadow detection rely on multiple frames for comparison or to build a background model. The proposed approach uses a novel color space inspired by the Log-Chromaticity space and modifies the bilateral filter to equalize illumination across objects using a single frame. Neighboring pixels of …

Extragradient Methods For Elliptic Inverse Problems And Image Denoising, James Oleksyn

Theses

Numerous mathematical models in applied mathematics can be expressed as a partial differential equation involving certain coefficients. These coefficients are known and they describe some physical properties of the model. The direct problem in this context is to solve the partial differential equation. By contrast, an inverse problem asks for the identification of the variable coefficients when a certain measurement of a solution of the partial differential equation is available. One of the most commonly used approaches for solving this inverse problem is by posing a constrained minimization problem which can be written as a variational inequality. The main contribution …

Solving Nonrigid Registration With Sliding And Bending Boundary Conditions, Troy Winkstern

Theses

In the past 20 years, there have been significant advances in the use of medical imaging in patient care. Today, image registration is being used by doctors all over the world to compare computed tomography (CT), Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), X-rays, Ultrasound (US), Positron Emission Tomography (PET), and/or Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography (SPECT) images of their patients from different times to formulate an accurate diagnosis. Mathematically, image registration can be posed as an initial boundary value problem (IBVP). When applied to medical imaging, the current boundary conditions being used are not physically meaningful. We are proposing two new boundary …

Modeling The Capacitive Behavior Of Coplanar Striplines And Coplanar Waveguides Using Simple Functions, Jeffrey Abbott

Theses

The coplanar waveguide (CPW) structure has been popular for Monolithic Microwave Integrated Circuit (MMIC) design due to the wide versatility of its designable impedance. Since its introduction in 1969, it has been utilized in a wide range of applications and consequently has been analyzed extensively for its electrical characteristics. Other planar structures with similar geometries have also received much attention, including the conductor-backed coplanar waveguide (CBCPW) and coplanar stripline (CPS). A common approach for analyzing these planar structures, assuming quasi-TEM mode of operation, involves the use of conformal mapping techniques. The traditional conformal mappings realize special functions allowing for problems …

Effect Of Temperature On The In-Plane Permeability Of The Gas Diffusion Layer Of A Pem Fuel Cell, Rupak Banerjee

Theses

Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM) Fuel Cells convert hydrogen into water by causing electrochemical reaction with oxygen, producing an electric current which can be used to power electric motors. This is seen as a viable alternative to the Internal Combustion Engine which operates on fossil fuels and is often blamed for contribution to the global climate change. Due to the low temperature operation, compared to other forms of fuel cells, it is possible to adapt the PEM Fuel Cell for automotive application. By running on hydrogen, the PEM Fuel Cell promises to enable a clean mode of transport. Water vapor transport …

Warranty Prediction During Product Development: Developing An Event Generation Engine In An Engineer-To-Order Environment, Hee-Rak Kang

Theses

In order for manufacturing companies to stay competitive, it is necessary to drive warranty system improvements in terms of improved product reliability, improved service delivery efficiency and properly designed warranty policies. However, traditional methods for assessing warranty performance are not always sufficient to alert product development teams of the impending warranty issues. Furthermore, improved assessment methods are needed to aid product development teams make decisions related to the warranty performance of the product. The focus of this research was to develop a framework to integrate statistical inference methods and data mining techniques to create a warranty event generation framework. This …

Investigating Controller Performance In Hybrid Sofc Systems In The Presence Of Unknown Nonlinearities, William Nowak Jr

Theses

Solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) are energy conversion devices that offer many benefits over various other fuel cell types as a result of high operating temperatures (800-1000 °C). Unfortunately, SOFCs tend to possess poor load following capabilities due to delays along the fuel path and complex system dynamics. Maintaining safe operating conditions during changes in power demand is addressed using a controller designed to regulate the fuel cell current based on fuel flow measurement. In order to compensate for the resulting mismatch between demanded and delivered power, the SOFC system is hybridized with an energy storage device, such as an …

Simulation Model Of Pacinian Corpuscle For Haptic System Design, Daniel Liu

Theses

With the increasing need for tactile feedback in Human Computer Interfaces used in robotics, medical, and mobile devices, there has been an increasing interest in the design of tactile sensors, displays, and complete haptic systems to transfer tactile information to users. These systems have improved users ability to work with remote tools or virtual environments, from enhancing the accuracy of tools like robotic surgery to improving user experiences in virtual reality systems. Despite many advances, the potential of these technologies to provide augmented or realistic sensations of touch is limited in part by the lack of understanding the complex mechanisms …

Art For Healing; Art For Consciousness Change, Robert Neill

Theses

From a very early age I have been drawn to create art. I have followed this passion closely throughout my entire life. After acquiring a master's degree in art education, and subsequently, teaching high school art for 3 years I was compelled to enter the MFA program at Rochester Institute of Technology with a concentration in painting and new forms. Through this process, I discovered a great calling. After the first year of study in the MFA program I traveled to Tibet. This journey was instrumental in the formation of my thesis: Art for Healing, Art for Consciousness Change, as …

Thermochemistry And Bond Energies Of Acetohydrazide, Amides And Cyclic Alkyl Ethers, Sumit Charaya

Theses

Structure, thermochemical properties, bond energies and internal rotation potentials of Acetic Acid Hydrazide (CH₃CONHNH₂), Acetamide (CH₃CONH₂) and N-methyl Acetamide (CH3CONHCH3) and their radicals corresponding to loss of hydrogen atom have been studied. Gas phase standard enthalpies of formation and bond energies were calculated using the DFT methods B3LYP/6-31G(d,p), B3LYP/6-31G(2d,2p) and the composite CBS-QB3 methods employing a series of work reactions to further improve accuracy of the ΔH_f°(298K). Molecular structures, vibration frequencies and internal rotor potentials were calculated at DFT level. The enthalpies of the parent molecules CH₃-C=ONHNH_{2 …}

Synthesis Towards Synthetic Adenosine Receptor, Rajni Gupta

Theses

Adenosine is a biologically important molecule as it acts as local modulator with cytoprotective function in the body. Adenosine accumulates in the extracellular space in response to metabolic stress and cell damage, and elevations in extracellular adenosine level are found in conditions like myocardial ischemia, hypoxia, inflammation and trauma. Its abnormal concentration therefore could be a marker of many diseases. Therefore determining its concentration can help understand the physiological state of the body. However its selective detection by synthetic receptors is not possible till date.

Efforts have been made here to design molecular tweezer for adenosine. Multistep synthesis was done …

Digital Image Forensics, Fei Long

Theses

Digital image forensics is a relatively new research field that aims to expose the origin and composition of, and the history of processing applied to digital images. Hence, the digital image forensics is expected to be of significant importance to our modern society in which the digital media are getting more and more popular. In this thesis, image tampering detection and classification of double JPEG compression are the two major subjects studied. Since any manipulation applied to digital images changes image statistics, identifying statistical artifacts becomes critically important in image forensics. In this thesis, a few typical forensic techniques have …

Dynamic-Parinet (D-Parinet) : Indexing Present And Future Trajectories In Networks, Mou Nandi

Theses

While indexing historical trajectories is a hot topic in the field of moving objects (MO) databases for many years, only a few of them consider that the objects movements are constrained. DYNAMIC-PARINET (D-PATINET) is designed for capturing of trajectory data flow in multiple discrete small time interval efficiently and to predict a MO’s movement or the underlying network state at a future time.

The cornerstone of D-PARINET is PARINET, an efficient index for historical trajectory data. The structure of PARINET is based on a combination of graph partitioning and a set of composite B+-tree local indexes tuned for a given …

Transdermal And Transbuccal Delivery Of Lidocaine And Nicotine : Combined Effects Of Iontophoresis And Chemical Enhancers, Ran Wei

Theses

This study focused on the effects of iontophoresis and chemical enhancers on drug release. The transport of Lidocaine HCl (LHCl) and Nicotine Hydrogen Tartrate (NHT) through the skin and mucosa was evaluated for potential clinical applications. These two potential delivery routes have the advantage of avoiding first-pass effect. Samples were pretreated with enhancer solutions for one hour before the experiments. Passive or 0.3 mA iontophoresis-assisted drug diffusion was conducted for 8 hours to monitor the cumulative amount of drug released. Graphical methods and mathematical optimization techniques were implemented to analyze the data. The effects of chemical enhancers on the delivery …

G-Factors For Ternary Crystals Of Groups Iii And V, Liviu Mateescu

Theses

The objective of this thesis is to present a method of calculating the g-factors of ternary crystals of III-V group elements.

There is an increasing interest in knowing the magnetic behavior of different semiconductor materials, due to advances in the domain of spintronics. The g-factors were calculated for the conduction electrons, since they have the greatest contribution to the magnetic properties of the crystal. The thesis presented here proposes a method to calculate the magnetic g-factor of whole families of crystals made of three elements, of the form A_1-xB_xC, for eleven values, x ε {0, 0.1, …

Ranking Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms With Support Vector Regression In Continuous Phenotypes, Seif Shahidain

Theses

Support vector machines (SVM) have been used to improve the ranking of single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) over traditional chi-square tests in disease case studies [2]. In this investigation, ranking SNPs with support vector regression (SVR) was compared to the Wald test in predicting continuous phenotypes. SVR-ranked SNPs consistently outperformed the Wald test-ranked SNPs to provide a more accurate prediction of the phenotype with fewer SNPs across several methods of prediction.

Fast Program For Sequence Alignment Using Partition Function Posterior Probabilities, Meera Prasad

Theses

The key requirements of a good sequence alignment tool are high accuracy and fast execution. The existing Probalign program is a highly accurate tool for sequence alignment of both proteins and nucleotides. However, the time for execution is fairly high. The focus is therefore, to reduce the running time of the existing version of Probalign, maintaining its current accuracy level.

The thesis conducts a detail analysis of the performance of Probalign to bring down the running time of the existing code. A modified version of Probalign, Version 1.4 is released. A new program for sequence alignment with faster computation is …