Digital Commons Network^™

Interventions Of Water Jet Technology On Skin Surgery, Kittipat Vichyavichien

Theses

The perfect and precise surgical cut, similar to today's laser one, is very important in many surgeries, especially in dissection and to recanaize arterial occlusive lessions. Causing no coagulation is one of the advantages of water jet because it generates no heat. It also provides omni-directional cutting capabilities at very high speeds, resulting edge quality that is usually superior to other existing conventional cutting processes. Debris is always carried away from incisions by jet stream and less damaged tissue, than mechanical incisions. In addition, water jet exerts minimal contact pressure on the tissue being cut due to the small diameter …

Modeling Of A Permeable Reactive Barrier, Guatam C. Ijoor

Theses

The focus of the presentstudy was centered on the modeling analysis to support the Permeable Reactive Barrier (PRB) design. The flow model formulated to simulate the Permeable Reactive Barrier System integrated the available geologic, hydro geologic and geo-chemical data from numerous recent installations to simulate a subsurface ground water scenario.

Different generic cases that a PRB system would fall into were identified based on its utility and aquifer conditions and then employed to produce different model adaptations. The different simulation codes and interfaces were evaluated, and the most expedient of them was used to simulate the Model.

The simulations were …

Comparative Molecular Field Analysis (Comfa) Of Phenyl Ring Substituted Methylphenidates, Milind Misra

Theses

Comparative Molecular Field Analysis (CoMFA) was performed on 30 methylphenidate analogues having phenyl ring substituents at the 2-, 3-, and 4-positions in an attempt to explain the structure-activity relationships of the analogues. Several CoMFA studies were carried out using different conformations of methylphenidate as the template structures for the corresponding alignment rules. The identification of the bioactive conformation was variously based on the interfeature distances in WIN 35,428, on cluster analysis, and on a comparison of active methylphenidate analogues. The sensitivity of the models to various CoMFA parameters was compared. These parameters included altering the size and spacing of the …

Protection Of The New York City Water Supply Land Development Threats And The Programs To Control Them, Werner Mueller

Theses

The Surface Water Treatment Rule under the Safe Drinking Water Act requires that all surface water sources used for drinking water must be filtered, unless the purveyor can demonstrate that the water is of such high quality that filtration is not required. The New York City Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) operates the New York City water supply system and is taking actions to ensure that the water supplied from the Catskill -- Delaware system remains of high enough quality to maintain an avoidance of filtration determination granted by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). New watershed rules and regulations have …

Smart Decisions, Beatriz Gomez

Theses

It is very often that parents and educators find themselves running out of words when it comes to explaining a sensitive topic to a child. Such topics include but are not limited to sex, abortion, adoption, pregnancy, divorce, drugs, and disease. A computer based game has been designed to help parents and educators address such sensitive topics. This software package consists of a series of two dimensional animations. All of the animations belong to the same story, which as it progress, gives the player the opportunity to make diverse decisions. Each decision leads the player through a different path, hence …

Signiture Analysis Of Fetal Blood Velocity Waveforms, Ronald Soule

Theses

Doppler blood velocity waveform analysis is conducted to affect clinical diagnosis. Current analysis codes developed at RIT posses the capability to assess gross hemodynamic parameters such as heart rate, mean pulse velocity, peak systolic velocity and also the beat to beat variability of these parameters. These computer algorithms have, however, lacked the ability to determine hemodynamic indices such as the pulsatility and resistance index as well as the AB ratio. This latter deficiency stems from an algorithmic need to accurately determine end diastolic velocity in every cardiac cycle. The current thesis specifically augments current algorithms to accurately compute end diastolic …

Parents' Predictions Of Children's Responses On The Piers-Harris Children's Self-Concept Scale, Sheila J. Murphy

Theses

The Piers-Harris Children's Self-Concept Scale was administered to 50 fifth-grade students (30 boys and 20 girls) attending a suburban, middle class public school. Their parents (45 mothers, 3 fathers, 1 mother/father combined, 1 unidentified) responded to the same self-concept measure "as they believed their child would respond." Mean scores for parents were higher than mean scores for students in six of the seven scales, suggesting a tendency for parents to overestimate the self-attitudes of their children. However, two-tailed! tests for paired observations showed significant mean differences for only two scales. Pearson product-moment correlations revealed significant positive relationships between students' scores …

Removal Of Trace Contaminants From Wastewater Effluents Using Local Adsorbents, Kasim Ghulam Haider Ghulam

Theses

Wastewater reclamation must ensure removal of residual pollutants to a high degree so as to make the water acceptable for the designated reuse. There has been a growing interest worldwide to employ cost-effective treatment methods for polishing secondary treatment wastewater effluents. Carbon adsorption has proved to be an effective method for effluent polishing but treatment costs are relatively high.

AI-Ain wastewater treatment plant at Zakher has a design capacity of 54,000 m³/day and incorporates preliminary treatment, followed by extended aeration and dual-media filtration for effluent polishing before water reuse in irrigation. The chemical quality of the treated effluent …

Effect Of Culturing Time And Hormonal Combinations On Organogenesis Of Date Palm (Phoenix Dactylifera L., Cv. Khnazi) In Vitro, Helal Homaid S. Al-Kaabi

Theses

Date palm (Phoenix dactylifera L.) monocotyledon dioecious tree is one of the most important fruit crop trees in the Arabian Gulf region in general and in the UAE in particular.

Date palm is propagated sexually by seeds or vegetative by offshoots. Seed propagation is not appropriate for commercial production because of the high genetic heterozygosity, which resulted in not true-to-type male and female seedlings. The vegetative propagation utilizing offshoots is slow and inefficient for rapidly growing demands of the date industry. Therefore, it seems essential to use plant tissue culture techniques for propagating and producing date palms.

The present …

Growth And Performance Of Some Forage And Landscape Species Directly Irrigated With Saline Water, Mohammed Abdul Muhsen Ali Salem

Theses

This work aimed to study the growth and physiological performance of SIX forage and

landscape species grown in Nahshalah farm , Zayed International Agricultural and Environmental Research Program Among these species 4 mangrove plants were first Introduced to U. A. E cli mate and soils In addition, Acacia ampliceps and Atriplex amnicola The study covered 1- 7 years plants were irrigated With 25 ppt . Saline water. The study investigated also the changes in the soil chemical characteristics and mineral composition during the 1 -9 years direct irrigation with saline water

The growth performance was measured based on the sufficient …

Ultrasound To Decontaminate Organics In Dredged Sediments, Kanya Veerawat

Theses

In this research, it was attempted to decontaminate and separate dredged sediments contaminated with organic compounds by the application of ultrasound energy coupled with sub-atmospheric pressures. The decontamination and separation of contaminated sediments was achieved by integrated two processes. For Process 1, ultrasound energy was used to decontaminate the sandy fraction in dredged sediments, and sub-atmospheric pressure was used to separate and remove fines. For Process 2, ultrasound was again used to decontaminate fines with bulk fluid, and sub-atmospheric pressure was used to remove the contaminants with water. Process 1 was evaluated and found to have four variables contributing to …

Effect Of Postural Tilt On The Autonomic Nervous System In Gulf War Veterans, Shrenik Dagli

Theses

Time-frequency signal representations characterize signals over a joint time-frequency plane. They combine time-domain and frequency-domain analysis to yield a potentially more revealing picture of the temporal localization of a signal spectrum. Time-frequency distributions (TFDS) of signals map a one-dimensional function of time, x (t), into a two-dimensional function of time and frequency, p(t, f). Most TFDs are "time-varying representations' which are similar conceptually to a musical score with time running along one axis and frequency along the other axis.

Many Gulf War Veterans complained of symptoms like unexplainable tiredness. This condition is known as the Gulf War Syndrome. The purpose …

Coagulation And Disinfection By-Products Formation Potential Of Dissolved Organic Matter Fractions, Neeraj S. Pipada

Theses

Both the proposed United States Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) Disinfectants- Disinfection By-Products and Enhanced Surface Water Treatment rules have provisions for minimizing the formation of undesirable precursors of disinfection by-products (DBPs) in drinking water Natural Organic Matter (NOM) contains many of the precursors to the DBPs formed following disinfection of drinking water. DAX-8 resin procedures were used to isolate and fractionate NOM into six dissolved organic matter (DOM) fractions; Hydrophobic acid (FA), base (FB), neutral (FN), and hydrophilic acid (PA), base (PB) and neutral (PN). Aluminum sulfate (alum) jar coagulation tests were performed to determine the optimum coagulation ranges of …

Equine Osteoarthritis: A Comparison Of Type 1 And Type 2 Conditions, Wendy Chadbourne

Theses

In what originally began as research to answer my own questions about osteoarthritis, I learned as much as I could from reading anatomy, veterinary, and physiology books. I had to look in many places to find all the answers I wanted. The books that provided the best visual information lacked text to explain the images, and the books that provided the best text definitions usually provided simplified illustrations or very confusing clinical photographs. While trying to unite the best images with the best text explaining what was going on, an idea was formed. I decided to combine clear images with …

Sex-Role In Heterosexual And Gay Males, David L. Slinkard

Theses

Sex-role traits of masculinity, femininity, and androgyny were analyzed to study the differences between heterosexual and homosexual males. The Bern Sex-Role Inventory was used to assess each group's sex-role traits. Demographic information was gathered to determine if the homogeneity of the two groups differed on age, ethnicity, education and sexual orientation. Sex-role traits were compared within the groups using independent samples two-tailed t test. The two groups were similar in distribution except for a difference on femininity. There was no significant difference between the groups on masculinity. Homosexual males were significantly different on femininity. Chi-square results for androgyny, masculinity, femininity …

Non-Rayleigh Ultrasonic Characterization Of Tissue Scattering Microstructure Via A Multibandwidth Probing Technique, Maria Helguera

Theses

Recent studies on the statistics of the envelope of the ultrasound echo signal from a random scattering medium suggest that the statistical moments of the signal may carry quantitative information about the scattering microstructure. A mathematical model for the backscattered signal is developed borrowing from linear systems theory and assuming narrow bandwidth conditions. Several microstructures, including sponges of different pore size as well as pig liver, human breast tissue, and human skeletal muscle, are probed experimentally with multiple bandwidth pulses with center frequency matched to the transducer center frequency. Variations of the second normalized intensity moment with the cell volume …

Philosophy Made Visual, Kirk Gustafson

Theses

Focuses on how graphic design can be implemented as an educational tool to help visually-oriented college-aged students learn a particular philosophical concept. Plato's Divided Line and Allegory of the Cave were chosen as the content for the thesis study

Dance As Medicine, Eileen D'Esterno

Theses

The purpose of this thesis project has been to express in a sculptural dimension the joy and healing qualities of movement. Movement is our primal language. The very first thing we do upon leaving the womb is to move, to reach for our mother. Movement allows us to express our feelings regardless of the ability to make sound. Infants and toddlers explore the three dimensional world as they reach out to touch, to feel, to experience textures and shapes. They gain confidence as physical beings through ever increasing skills and mobility of the body.

Parental Attachment And Schizophrenia: Is There A Relationship?, Madonna Marie Terbock

Theses

Although current research has studied the relationship between parental attachment and mental disorders, the results have been inconclusive. This study attempted to further previous research and focus on the relationship between parental attachment and schizophrenia in specific. The subjects consisted of two groups, adults that have been diagnosed with schizophrenia, and adults that are mentally healthy. Subjects from both groups completed Parker's Parental Bonding Instrument (1979). The two groups' scores were compared in an attempt to establish a relationship between parental attachment and schizophrenia. The schizophrenic group reported significantly less care than the normal group. There was no significant difference …

Women Experiencing Depression [Within] The Three Denominations Of Judaism: Orthodox, Conservative And Reform, Amy Kopman

Theses

The purpose of this study was to investigate women experiencing depression in the three denominations of Judaism : Orthodox, Conservative and Reform . Participants were divided into thee groups consisting of Orthodox (n=20) , Conservative (n=32) , and Reform (n=28). The volunteer participants completed a demographic sheet and the Beck Depression Inventory II (BDI-I I) , answering 21 different questions measuring the severity of depression. A chi-square determined there is no significant relationship between the different scores of the various denominations of the Jewish women. The implications of these findings are discussed.

Metrics For Estimating The Product Disassembly Effort, Pradeep Kumar Yedlarajaiah

Theses

The concepts of environmentally friendly manufacturing and ecological reuse of materials have resulted in an increase in the number of disposed products that are disassembled. Moreover, the imposition of EPA regulations is forcing companies to invest in methods for protecting the environrnent. The first strategy in this vein is material recycling. The issue of recycling became important because of the limited landfill space, diminishing natural resources, environmental pollution due to dumping of products containing hazardous materials. Likewise, it is projected that the cost of extracting materials from natural resources is going to be much more expensive when compared to reclaiming …

Preliminary Ecological Risk Assessment To Assess The Implications Of Replacing Chromium Plating With Tantalum Coating, Erik Jonathan Weiss

Theses

An ecological risk assessment process requires a modeling tool that can adapt to changing environmental conditions. Computer simulation tools are a useful means to develop an ecological risk assessment, because if properly used they can provide an organized framework to evaluate multiple data sources, complex problems and hypotheses. An evaluation was completed of the University of Tennessee CHEMS-1 model that ranks and scores contaminant toxicity and exposure potential. Tantalum posed less of a hazard than hexavalent chromium to the terrestrial and aquatic animals. Although, results indicated that the vanadium compounds, in particular vanadium pentoxide, presented the greatest hazard, with hexavalent …

A Comparative Study Of Sequence Analysis Tools In Computational Biology, Wei-Jen Chuang

Theses

A biomolecular object, such as a deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), a ribonucleic acid (RNA) or a protein molecule, is made up of a long chain of subunits. A protein is represented as a sequence made from 20 different amino acids, each represented as a letter. There are a vast number of ways in which similar structural domains can be generated in proteins by different amino acid sequences. By contrast, the structure of DNA, made up of only four different nucleotide building blocks that occur in two pairs, is relatively simple, regular, and predictable.

Biomolecular sequence alignment/string search is the most important …

A Field Study Coupling Soil Fractionation And Sonic Energy For Enhancing The In Situ Removal Of Volatile Organic Compounds In The Vadose Zone, Hassan Kaleem

Theses

Remediation of sites contaminated with hazardous wastes could be an expensive endeavor. There is, therefore, the need to explore techniques, which can reduce the remediation time and achieve regulatory specifications, thus reducing the cost involved in a site remediation exercise.

In this work, we investigated the use of sonic energy to enhance the in situ removal rate of trichloroethylene and dichloroethylene from a site in Hillsborough Township. New Jersey. The experiments were performed with and without sonic energy and each time the concentration of the trichloroethylene swept out from the site and the flowrate of the effluent gas were measured. …

Model And Clinical Device Development For Noninvasive Diagnosis Of Low Back Pain And Dysfunction, Ravi Patraju

Theses

Millions of people suffer from acute or chronic low back pain. In order for proper treatment to be administered, a patient must receive an accurate diagnosis. Therefore, it is critical to develop an objective model to measure the motion and any dysfunction of a patient's low back. Only then can a physician effectively implement the correct therapy and measure its effectiveness through follow-up to minimize or eliminate low back pain.

Numerous cadaveric, active and passive studies have been done to understand the mechanics of low back disorders. However, only living human subjects suffer from low back pain and therefore cadaveric …

Characterization Of Tantalum Coatings On Steel Substrates, Prabha Shivaramkrishnan

Theses

Sputtered tantalum can be used as an effective corrosion resistant barrier if the coating is continuous, free from defects and is adherent to the substrate it is intended to protect. For corrosion-applications 100% bcc phase tantalum is preferred. X-ray diffraction results indicate that sputtered tantalum deposits typically contain a mixture of bcc and beta phases. Depending on the deposition conditions the morphology of tantalum coatings as studied using scanning electron microscopes can vary from irregular, dendritic structure to a defined step type structure. A "cauliflower type" structure has also been observed. Extended x-ray absorption fine structure measurement was used to …

An Investigation Of The Effect Of Sonic Frequency In The Removal Of Volatile Organic Compounds From Soils Using A Siren-Pneumatic Fracturing Coupled Technique, Chin-Yu Lin

Theses

This study investigates the effect of frequency from sonic energy coupled with soil fracturing for the removal of volatile organic compounds from low permeability soils. The laboratory experiments consisted of a test cell, 12 1/2 inches by 12 1/2 inches and 23 3/4 inches high, containing a 1/2 inch geotextile made to simulate the fracture. The pneumatic sound generator used was a siren type generator designed and built at NJIT.

Laboratory experiments were performed using the NJJT siren at frequencies of 2957, 6637, 10317, 13997 Hertz and baseline tests with no sound energy were also conducted. The free moisture …

Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Microscopy, Stefanie Vangorden

Theses

Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) microscopy is magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) on a small scale. The purpose of this study was to develop an NMR microscope capable of producing tomographic images of 5 mm objects. The microscope was developed around an existing Bruker 300 MHz NMR spectrometer with a three orthogonal axis gradient coil set. Computer code for generating tomographic images was written and images were obtained of various standard test objects, referred to as phantoms. Phantoms were created to mathematically evaluate and document features such as in-plane resolution, and slice thickness. An in-plane resolution of 118 μm and a slice …

High Frequency Ultrasonic Characterization Of Carrot Cell Texture, Christopher Vick

Theses

Ultrasound offers a versatile imaging modality. It has a long history of medical use, but system and signal processing limitations have limited its full range of capabilities. By examining other uses of ultrasound, such as materials testing, the effectiveness of medical ultrasound tissue identification could likely be improved. To a limited degree, low frequency ultrasound has been used examine the texture of carrots tissue. These studies focused on the velocity and attenuation of low frequency ultrasound through a carrot sample; these results yielded a degree of ambiguity when attempting to identify a carrot texture. In our research, we attempted to …

New Polyether Toxins From Shellfish And Marine Phytoplankton: Isolation Studies And Development Of Analytical Methods, Alan G. Bishop

Theses

There are three classes of polyether toxins responsible for Diarrhetic Shellfish Poisoning (DSP) world-wide. The causative toxins are okadaic acid (OA) and derivatives (DTXs), pectenotoxins (PTXs) and yessotoxins (YTXs). The origin of these toxins are phytoplankton from Dinophysis or Prorocentrum spp. OA has been demonstrated for most outbreaks in Europe and more recently a new isomer DTX-2 has been reported in Ireland.

Marine phytoplankton biomass samples consisting predominantly of Dinophysis acuta, were acquired using a large double plankton net from waters off the South-west coast of Ireland. Analysis of unialgal samples using high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with fluorescence and …